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Sermon Illustrations for Trinity Sunday (2022)

Illustration
Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31
Early African theologian Caius Marius Victorinus offers an intriguing image for understanding the relation between the Father and wisdom (the logos). Victorinus claims that the logos is the exterior knowing of God (what divine knowledge is revealed to us). The Father is then understood as the interior knowledge of God, what God himself only knows. Thus, Father and Son are identical in substance. As we distinguish between what a person is and what he does (yet know they are the same thing), so it is with Father and Son. The logos is just the activating of God’s creative power (The Fathers of the Church, Vol.69, pp. 266-267, 315). Or as Victorinus puts it in a hymn, the Father is the giver, the logos is the minister, and the Son is the d istributor (The Fathers of the Church, Vol. 69, p. 324). Another helpful image for understanding the Trinity is offered in a paraphrase of St. Augustine:

In eternity, the Son loves the Father and the Father loves Son. The Holy Ghost is the love who makes them one. (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 3, p.100)

As two become one in a Christian marriage, so God loves himself into one.
Mark E.               

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Psalm 8
We can never know God in full. John Calvin made that clear one time when commenting on this psalm. He wrote:

David implies that when all the faculties of the human mind are exerted to the utmost in meditation on this subject, they yet come far short of it. (Calvin’s Commentaries, Vol. IV/2, p. 94)

Though God is great, he is still mindful of human beings. Indeed, he fills us and saturates us with his goodness. Augustine speaks of our being drunk on his glory, so inebriated that we have forgotten our sinful ways:

Through the multiplication of mercy then he is mindful of man, as of beasts; for that multiplied mercy reacheth even to them that are afar off... He extendeth mercy, and in his light giveth light, and maketh him drink of his pleasures, and inebraiteth him with the richness of his house, to forget the sorrows and the wanderings of his former conversation. (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 8, p. 30)
Mark E.

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Romans 5:1-5
We sometimes think of character as something we’re born with, that’s ingrained. You either have it or you don’t. One of the distinguishing characteristics of the New Testament is that there is an assumption we can change, in contrast to many ancient philosophies (and modern misinterpretations of genetics) that we cannot. We don’t have to go out looking for trouble in order to suffer in this world, but suffering happens. And here the apostle Paul makes this astounding assertion that suffering leads to character and hope! Suffering creates character. Now there is an intermediate stage – endurance. Anyone who sets out to lose weight, or to exercise, or to read through the Bible in a year, or to go back to school, knows that these are hard things. They involve suffering at some level – but once we discover that we can make it walking ten minutes on the treadmill, it becomes easier to do it again because we develop our powers of endurance. And once we know we can endure, we will endure. And that in turn creates a different person, one with character, and how at last we hope is not some vain wish, but a way of living not only in the present, but with the future in mind, because we know from past experience we’ll make it through the next time of trial. It is in this condition of hope that we are changed, especially because now we are better able to recognize and receive the gift of God’s love which the Holy Spirit has given to us.

Step by step. Step by step.
Frank R.

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Romans 5:1-5
Vernon Grounds, in a Christianity Today article “Radical Commitment,” wrote of the Trinity, “Explain the Trinity? We can’t even begin. We can only accept it—a mystery, disclosed in scripture. It should be no surprise that the Triune Being of God baffles our finite minds. We should be surprised, rather, if we could understand the nature of our Creator. He would be a two-bit deity, not the fathomless source of all reality.”

It is hard to capture the essence of the three persons of God. Many of our best illustrations fall short and lapse into modalism (the example of water), or venture into Arianism (the example of the egg). The fact is, as I see it, that it is simply hard to explain, but infinitely true. We see the Trinity in this passage. We have peace with God through Jesus Christ and note that God’s love is poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. Each of the distinct persons of God, fully God themselves, work in our hearts and lives to make us what we need to be. The line from Reginald Heber’s hymn, “Holy, Holy, Holy” resonates today. “God in three persons, blessed Trinity.”
Bill T.

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John 16:12-15
Commenting on this text, Martin Luther spoke of the Trinity in terms of an internal conversation in God with the Father as speaking, the Son as the word, and the Spirit as the listener (Luther’s Works, Vol. 24, pp. 364-365). This talkative God is wonderfully compassionate. Father and Son are said to be bound so closely together in Luther’s view that “we should learn to think of God only as Christ.” In fact, the Triune God is said to be so loving that we can cuddle like children in his lap, as if we were in our mother’s arms (Luther’s Works, Vol. 24, p. 64). The meaning of the Trinity is a comforting word, as Luther puts it:

This teaching produces hearts that are stout, courageous in affliction and the temptation to sin, confident and fearless hearts. (Complete Sermons, Vol. 6, pp.101-102)
Mark E.
UPCOMING WEEKS
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John Jamison
Object: This message is a role play. You can do this with only two children playing the parts of the two women, but if you have more children, you could have two more playing the parts of the children, another playing the part of the synagogue leader, and another playing the part of the country’s leader. You can also add any other roles you might want to add to make it interesting. Also, I have created places for your characters to speak, but you can add more of those to make it all more fun and memorable.

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The Immediate Word

Mary Austin
Dean Feldmeyer
Christopher Keating
Nazish Naseem
Thomas Willadsen
George Reed
Katy Stenta
For August 24, 2025:

Emphasis Preaching Journal

Wayne Brouwer
C. Knight Aldrich, a medical doctor and the first chairperson of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Chicago (1955-1964), was a keen analyst of the motivations for our behaviors. He worked with the social services agencies of Chicago for a time, particularly spending hours with teenagers who had been arrested for shoplifting or other theft. Aldrich interviewed them to find out how they had come to this. He also talked with the parents, attempting to discover how they had handled the problem from the first time they knew about it.
Mark Ellingsen
Bill Thomas
Frank Ramirez
Jeremiah 1:4-10 and Psalm 77:1-6

StoryShare

Peter Andrew Smith
“We have questions about your conduct as our pastor,” Carl announced as soon as Pastor John sat down at the hastily called board meeting. “We have received complaints about you from the congregation.”

“Complaints?” Pastor John frowned. “From whom and about what?”

“Mrs. Finnigan saw you coming out of what she politely described as ‘A Gentleman’s Club’ last Thursday night when she was driving downtown.” Bruce scowled. “Do you deny this?”

“Not at all,” Pastor John said. “I did have to go to that place on Thursday evening.”

The Village Shepherd

Janice B. Scott
Call to Worship:
Jesus was aware of people's deepest needs and what prompted their actions. In our worship today let us consider how we can discover people's deepest needs and the motives for their actions.

Invitation to Confession:
Jesus, sometimes we see only the surface and condemn without real understanding.
Lord, have mercy.
Jesus, sometimes we are afraid to get sufficiently close to other people to see their inner needs.
Christ, have mercy.

SermonStudio

James Evans
(See Epiphany 4/Ordinary Time 4, Cycle C, for an alternative approach.)

The old saying, "experience is the best teacher," could serve as a subtitle for this psalm. Written as a prayer for help in a time of distress or oppression, the psalm subtly hints at a recognition and awareness that only comes with time. There is a track record, so to speak, that the psalmist is aware of: God's record of dependability. Based on God's proven record of saving power and grace, the psalmist is able to pray for salvation, but at the same time celebrate the certainty of its arrival.
Lee Ann Dunlap
Carrie's1 high school guidance counselor noticed she had been acting out a bit in school recently. She had appeared depressed and had been having some authority issues over rules and such. The guidance counselor set Carrie up with a local pastor who had been volunteering a few hours each Friday after a teen suicide a few months before. Most of the other students who came to see the pastor just needed someone to listen to their usual teen issues and heartaches. But, shortly into their time together, Carrie began to open up about some real grown-up problems.
Kirk R. Webster
It's a typical Sunday morning at St. Stephen Presbyterian Church in Orlando, Florida. The people file in and sit down in plush pews. Their attention is drawn to the chancel where they see choir members calmly seated, robed in dark blue and white. The mahogany altar table is draped with a silk parament. Two bronze candleholders stand guard at the table edges.
R. Robert Cueni
As was his custom, Jesus went that Sabbath morning to the synagogue for worship. As he was preaching and teaching, he happened to glance toward the fringe of the crowd where he saw a very crippled woman. She was bent over and was unable to stand up straight. When he inquired, Jesus was told the woman had been that way for eighteen years.
John H. Will
Call to Worship
Indeed, this is a day of rest and gladness.
This is God's Sabbath, created for our reflection and renewal.
Let us then not profane it, but keep it holy.
We do this as we honor God and commit ourselves to the well--being of God's creation.
Each of us individually needs a personal rejuvenation of spirit.
Together we seek a strengthening of community, a community that continues to build itself in love.
So do we come as one people to worship God, our Maker and our Sustainer.

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