The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
Do you realise how blessed you are to be here today?
Some years ago I led a regional seminar on worship for a congregation in Queensland. In that seminar I handed out a sheet of paper with a list of all the main parts of the Service with Holy Communion to the people who attended it. Then at one point in our discussion I asked them to consider which of these meant the most to them personally, which part was most helpful to them in their spiritual life, and why. They could tick off up to three items if they wished.
The feedback surprised me in two ways. Even though there was a wide spread of responses that covered almost every part of the whole service, only one person, a woman, mentioned the blessing at the end of the service as the best part of it for her. When I asked her why it meant so much to her, she said that she came to church each Sunday to be blessed by God. She said that she found it very hard to face the new week and all its challenges without God’s blessing. She needed his backing to encourage and sustain her, to strengthen and equip her for what she was called to do as a wife and a mother with three children and a full time job. She felt that she could not cope by herself unless she was empowered by God with his blessing.
Today is Trinity Sunday. It is the day when God’s word reminds us of the heavenly help that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit offer to us personally and congregationally, his help for our life together with him and each other here on earth. More than that, God actually blesses us all in the whole service and then in a special way by this benediction at the end of this service. In it I as God’s spokesman will speak God’s blessing to you with words that convey what they say. That benediction will give you three heavenly gifts for you to take with you as you leave this holy place today – the gift of divine grace, the gift of divine love, and the gift of divine fellowship. As I speak that benediction, the Lord Jesus will work together with God the Father and the Holy Spirit to deliver these blessings to all of you. You will receive Jesus and the grace that he provides; you will receive God the Father and the love that he lavishes on you; you will receive the Holy Spirit and the fellowship that he offers to you. By saying Amen you will accept these blessings from God and take them with you as you go home today.
So let’s consider each of these three blessings in turn.
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.
Jesus is the mediator of God’s grace to us. This is the first blessing, the foundation for God’s other gifts to us. God’s grace his undeserved favour, his merciful generosity, his approval and acceptance of us, even though we have done nothing to earn it. It has two sides to it. On the one hand, Jesus brings us God’s forgiveness, his pardon for our sin, the pardon that he gained for us by his death for us, the pardon that frees us from guilt and gives us a good conscience. We therefore are justified by grace; we are saved by grace. It’s his free gift to us. We have that only through faith in Jesus and his promises to us.
On the other hand, since Jesus has put us right with God the Father, we also have ongoing access to God’s grace through Jesus as our Lord and King. We therefore live by grace, like children who own nothing and depend on their parents for their livelihood. Since Jesus is God’s Son and heir, everything that belongs to his Father belongs to him. Through Jesus and our reliance on him all the spiritual gifts that belong to Jesus are also available as a free gift to us. So in Ephesians 1 St. Paul tells us that in Christ God the Father has blessed us with every spiritual blessing, every heavenly blessing for our life on earth. And in the first chapter of his Gospel St. John tells us this about Jesus: From his fullness we have all received grace upon grace (1:16). Through Jesus God’s grace abounds for us. God’s grace is with us always. No matter how much we have received there is still more to receive. We can come to him to receive one blessing after another with the empty hands of faith, like beggars who have nothing to give and everything to receive. So the author of Hebrews gives us this encouragement: Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need (4:16). We therefore can come to Jesus in prayer and ask him for all that we need for ourselves and others too. As Jesus reminds us the Gospel for today, he is with us always. He is with us to give us ongoing access to God’s grace. Since he is with us, God’s grace is with us too. He provides everything that we need physically and spiritually for our life on earth.
The love of God the Father be with you all.
This is the central gift that we have from God. It follows from the gift of grace. Since we have been justified and accepted by God through faith in Jesus, we now enjoy God’s love. God loves us more than any human being. He opens his heart to us and pours out his love into our hearts like an ever-flowing river. He cares closely for us and pays full attention to us. He cherishes each of us and values us much more than we could ever imagine. He lavishes his love equally on all of us as we are able to receive it.
Since God the Father has adopted us as his dear children, he is now well-pleased with us. In fact he loves us as much as he loves his beloved Son Jesus. He loves us so much that he gave his only Son to die for us, so that we would not perish but have eternal with him. He loves us so much that he shares himself and his life with us already now. He wants to be with us here on earth, so that we can to be with him for ever in heaven. That’s what Jesus prayed for on the night before he was crucified. He prayed this prayer for us and all his disciples: Father, I want those you have given me, to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory that you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. O righteous Father, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them, and that I myself may be in them (John 17:24-25). He and his love are not only with us; they are in us. Since we are with Jesus, we are in love; we are in the love of God the Father
The fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
Fellowship comes from what we have in common with other people. Thus the fellowship that I have with my four sisters and three brothers comes from our common parentage and the common relationship that we have with our parents.
Last Sunday we heard the story of Pentecost. On that day the first 120 members of the congregation in Jerusalem were all filled with the Holy Spirit. Each one of them was blessed with the same Spirit as a gift from God. This was shown by the tongues of fire that rested on head of each person. Their common, communal reception of the Spirit created supernatural fellowship in a new community of people who had little or nothing in common apart from their connection with Jesus. By their common reception of the Holy Spirit they had fellowship with the risen Lord Jesus and his heavenly Father. By their fellowship with God they also had fellowship with each other, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit who united them as members of God’s family. In the Small Catechism we acknowledge the fellowship of the Spirit in this way: I believe that I cannot by my own understanding or effort believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord or come to him. But the Holy Spirit has called me through the gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, sanctified and kept me in true faith. In the same way he calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian Church on earth, and keeps it united with Jesus Christ in the one true faith. The last blessing that you all receive from the benediction at the end of the service today is fellowship with God and each other in God’s family, the fellowship that the Holy Spirit provides for you. So no matter how you feel or where you may be you are never alone but are always a vital member of that heavenly community here on earth because the Holy Spirit is always with you.
Remember the woman I mentioned at the beginning of this sermon. She came to church to receive God’s blessing, so that she could pass it on to the people that she dealt with day by day. Well that is so for you too! As you go from here this Sunday, Jesus goes with you to convey his grace to you and to others through you. As you go from here, God the Father goes with you to show his love to you each day and to others through you. As you go from here, the Holy Spirit goes with you to keep you in his fellowship and draw other into that fellowship.
So you are truly blessed to be here today. You are blessed so that you can pass on God’s blessings to each person that you meet this next week. You are blessed to be a blessing to others.
