Sam Caldwell teaches that true Christian life is marked by deep intimacy with the triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—embracing grace as the foundation of relationship and spiritual growth.
In this heartfelt devotional sermon, Sam Caldwell explores the profound beauty of intimacy with the Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He challenges believers to move beyond religious routines and embrace a living relationship marked by grace and fellowship. Drawing from scripture and personal reflection, Sam calls the church to unite around the fullness of God’s triune nature and to experience the transforming power of grace in everyday life.
Full Transcript
Okay, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen. Let's pray.
Let's pray. Let's pray. Oh Father, you are worthy of all the glory.
Oh Father, you are so good to us. Father, your heart is so full of love for your people and for the lost. And you do not want that any would perish, but you want that everyone would come to salvation.
And Father, we want to lean into heaven today. And we want to hear the heart of our Father today. And Lord Jesus, we want to honor you today.
Your blood, your sacrifice, your redeeming power, your faith, your kindness, Lord, your crown of thorns, your great busting power. Lord Jesus, we want to honor you today. And Holy Spirit, we love you and you're so near and you're in us and you're drawing close to us today.
And we love and praise you, our Lord. And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. And you are here today, Holy Spirit, to set free captive souls.
So our beautiful Jehovah, we worship you. We honor you today. We ask you, Lord, that nobody would hear Sam preaching today, but that we would hear Jesus preaching.
And that we would hear the word of God from the Bible. We cannot live by bread alone. We need your word, Lord.
So teach us out of your word. In Jesus' mighty name, we pray. We love you.
Amen. Amen. Amen.
In our new series, we're drilling down to this beautiful idea of intimacy with God. And I've said for the last few Sundays that it's my desire that intimacy with God would start to mark our church. That we would be known as a place where people can learn to draw closer to their God.
Amen? That we would have resources here where people can really figure out, not just how do I be a religious person, but how do I get in a relationship with the King of Kings? How do I live in a burning relationship with God? And today I want to talk about intimacy with the Trinity. Intimacy with the Trinity. And what I mean by that is intimacy with our Father, and with our Jesus, and with the Holy Spirit.
And this is a very moving topic for me. And I was convicted this week that I don't preach enough on the Trinity. So please forgive me, brothers and sisters.
And I've been convicted recently that, you know, I go throughout my days thinking of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit all the time. And communing with and contemplating the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit all the time. And yet, I don't talk about it enough.
And we don't talk about it enough as a church. And if there is a new desire, a new vision that I want to cast for us all today, it's that we would become a Trinitarian church. Amen? I'll explain more as we go along.
But that's the vision. We're going to dive into this. I just pray, Lord, that you give me your words.
First, I want everyone to know that this is the last verse in the two letters to the Corinthians, right? And what's Paul doing in the two letters to the Corinthians? The two letters. He's cleaning house. Okay? Anybody remember some of the junk that's going on in the Corinthian church? The word Corinth had actually become a slang term in the ancient world.
And if you were to say, we're going to Corinth, or we're Corinthianizing, that basically means you're engaging in debauchery. It's like if you say, I'm going to Vegas or something. Corinth was not a good place.
And this church had a lot of junk to deal with. Anybody remember some of the things Paul was dealing with? There was a man who had slept with his father's new wife, right? And they're trying to clean up this situation. They're trying to do church discipline.
And some of the people in the church are being too severe and too legalistic. And then other people are being too casual and just studying the same book. And so there's this big confusion in the church.
What else? It's a very gifted church. There's all these amazing gifts of the Spirit coming out. But Paul has to write to them and bring order, right? What else does Paul write about? He writes about the resurrection.
Teaches them about that vital doctrine. He writes about head coverings and the relationship between men and women in the church. And did you know that 2 Corinthians is actually 3 Corinthians? This is just a side note.
He actually wrote three letters to them. 1 Corinthians and then another. But we lost that letter.
And then he wrote 2 Corinthians, which we'll call 3 Corinthians. Look at verse 1 of the chapter right in front of you. He says, this will be the third time I'm coming to you.
By the mouth of two or three witnesses, every word shall be established. So he said, I've written three substantial letters to try to clean up all the church squabbles going on about you. And he ends all of those letters with this one powerful verse.
What does he say? The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen. Isn't that incredible? What's Paul's answer to everything? To all those problems in the Corinthian church? Intimacy with the Trinity.
Paul says, here's the capstone. Here's the final bit of advice I'm going to give to all of you. The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
That's the answer to everything. And it absolutely breaks my heart. Follow me for a minute, brothers and sisters.
That the church in America right now is actually divided between the three persons of the Trinity. It's one of the most tragic things that we could ever think of. That there are some churches that sort of act like they've got a corner on the Father, right? Maybe the Anglican churches and the Presbyterian churches.
And they're very reverent and they have good worship of the Father. Good sacramental worship. And that's wonderful.
But then there's the evangelical churches. And they'll act like they've got the corner on Jesus. So we talk about the cross and we talk about the resurrection.
And then there's the Pentecostal churches. My favorite ones. And they've got the corner on the Holy Spirit over here.
But is that biblical at all? No, it's not. And Paul goes right to Corinth and says, you know, you guys should be more Pentecostal. You guys should, you know, be more cross and resurrection centered.
More around Jesus. He writes to them and says, you need the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen? You all see that? It's one of the greatest tragedies in our language.
And I just, let me give you one more thought here. Our Lord Jesus Christ walked in this perfect trinitarian intimacy. Amen? Think for one second, and then we're going to dive into this one verse right here.
Think of when the Lord was baptized. Do you all remember that? Matthew chapter 3 and it's verses 16 and 17. The Lord goes to John the Baptist and he says, you baptize me, I want to fulfill all righteousness.
So there is the Lord Jesus, the grace of the Lord Jesus walking through this life. Giving us a perfect example. Amen? He goes down into the baptismal waters.
He comes up again. And what's the next thing we see? The Holy Spirit, like a dove, comes down and settles upon him. Amen? And then what's the next thing? Right the next verse, verse 17.
The heavens open and we hear the voice of the Father saying, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Isn't that beautiful? So what do we see right there? The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ walking through this earth. And the love of God the Father who's saying, that's my Son, I love him.
I'm pleased with him. And the perfect fellowship of the Holy Spirit who comes like a dove and rests upon Jesus. Jesus Christ walked in perfect intimacy with the Trinity.
Isn't that beautiful? And what I want to try to drive home today is that if you have 30 minutes in your life and you wonder, what should I do for the next 30 minutes? I ask you to contemplate the Trinity. If you're driving in your car for 15 minutes and say, what should I do? Speak to the Trinity. Amen? If you want to pray for this church, what's the one thing you can pray? Pray that we would become Trinitarian.
Amen? If you have 20 minutes to pray for your family, pray that your family becomes Trinitarian. Saturated in the grace of Jesus and the love of the Father and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Amen? Okay.
So now we're going to dive into this one verse. Verse 14. Everybody can look at it.
And this is all I did to prepare for today's sermon. I just went through my journal. And I tried to write down the most intimate things I've learned about commuting with the Trinity.
And I'm just going to try to be as real with you as possible. Because I can only preach what I know, right? And I could give you a bunch of information today about the Trinity. I could give you a bunch of cross-reference scripture verses today.
But I really just want to give you what I know. Where I can honestly say, if I'm walking in it, would you please walk in it too? Is that okay? Because this is just the most meaningful and personal subject for me. So I'm taking some notes from my journal.
And I'm going to look at them here. And I'm going to try to give them to you. I hope that's all right.
As we dive in, the first thing I wrote here is this. You can't do intimacy with the Trinity on your cell phone. Okay? So you can write that down if you like.
You can't have intimacy with the Trinity through a layman. You can't figure out the Trinity by asking John GPT. No.
But also, you can't walk in intimacy with the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit if your life is consumed with sleep time. Okay? And look, I'm right here with you. I've got temptations to sleep time all the time in my life.
Right? To just consume every minute with that little phone and that little computer screen. But we can't talk about what I'm about to talk about unless you put your phone to the side for a few minutes. And you go outside and smell the flowers and commune with God.
Okay? I just want to be real with you. There are some parts of the Christian life that are not cheap. There are some parts of the Christian life that are costly.
And if you're not willing to take an hour out and go be alone with God, you're just not going to get there. Okay? So, right? Can I be real with you in that way? And I honestly think you all can fight with me about this in the parking lot later if you want. I honestly think the greatest sin in the Christian church right now is cell phone usage.
I don't think the greatest sin is politics. I don't think the greatest sin is pornography. I don't think the greatest sin is all of our little minor disagreements and heresies among us.
I think the greatest sin is that most of us don't spend time alone with God at all. I think the greatest sin is most of us can't turn off our phones for 15 minutes. Am I touching the nerve or what? Okay.
Well, that was just my little intro point. Hope that's helpful. But it's really true.
And you know, summer is coming. It's a great time to just go take a drive in your car and leave your phone at home. And if you get a flat tire, you'll figure it out.
Okay? But take some time and be alone with the Lord. Amen? Let's dive in. This isn't going to be that long, but it's going to be very personal.
Verse 14. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. The primary work of Jesus Christ is to minister grace.
When Christ died on the cross, He died by grace. When Christ rose from the grave for you, He did by grace. To give you His grace.
To start pouring out His grace into this life of ours. And it says in Psalm 45 that Christ's lips are full of grace. And it says in Luke chapter 4 verse 22 that they marveled at Him because of the gracious words that flowed from His mouth.
Have you ever thought of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ? He's just so full of grace. What does grace mean, brothers and sisters? Love. What's that? Love.
Amen. It means love. Even more, it means free love.
It means a favor that we don't deserve. Amen? Grace is that favor that we don't deserve. And the minute you start to get under grace, it changes your whole life.
Amen? There's only two types of people in this world. I'm just following the notes from my journal, okay? There's only two types of people in this world. There are the grace people and the works people.
The works people are trying to earn their way into heaven. And the works people think that they deserve something. The works people are litigious, meaning they want to sue people.
And they think, why did you do that to me? I'm going to do something against you. The works people are always trying to work their way up into heaven and show God how amazing they are. And the works people are always trying to perform for others.
But the grace people say, I'm just going to receive. The grace people say what Paul said. What do I have that I have not received? And if I have received it, why do I boast? You see, the grace people are just full of, I'm receiving now, Lord.
I don't deserve anything, but I'm receiving. Amen? The works people say, I deserve heaven. The works people say, I can be a little bit better.
The works people say, I need a system of works like the Catholic Church, or the Orthodox Church, or Buddhism, or Hinduism, or Islam. All of those are workspaces. And I need someone to tell me how to be a better person.
But the grace people say, Jesus died for me. He won my ticket to heaven. And all I can do from here on out is receive.
Amen? I know you all know that, but I need to drive it home to you. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Works people want to impress.
Grace people want to be impressed by God. Amen? Think about that. You know the people in your life who aren't saved, who are still trying to earn out their salvation by works.
And what do they want to do? They want to perform. They want to impress others all the time. Constantly.
But if you've been saved by grace, then what do you want to do? You want to be impressed by God. You just say, Lord, show me more. Show me more.
Show me more. Pour out your grace on me, Lord. The grace people know that we deserve hell.
The works people think they deserve everything. The grace people know I honestly deserve hell. And you might say, isn't that a little bit extreme? You deserve hell.
But here's what you can do. Just think of that one time in your life where you sinned and it really stung. Do you all remember that? I remember when I just really hurt my friends.
I've been through it all. And it just stung. And I knew I was a piece of junk.
I was a bad guy. No? And it's right there that you think, yeah, I do deserve hell. I was really bad.
And the minute you admit that, God starts to pour out his grace upon you. But if you're constantly saying, no, I wasn't that bad. I didn't hurt them that much.
You know? Sin's not that big. We've minimized our sin. And we're always in that realm of grace and thinking, I'm actually pretty impressive.
I'm actually pretty cool. Is this good? Is this okay? We need to think about this. Look at the verse.
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. A few other notes from Sam's journal. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ distinguishes us from every other religion.
Amen? Do you know that? Do you know that other religions claim to talk about love? They claim to talk about grace. But they are all a system of works. Roman Catholicism is works and works and works.
Buddhism, it's works. Hinduism, it's works. Islam, it's the five pillars of Islam.
And works and works and works. So if you look to all the religions of the world, all you're going to find is works. That would please God.
But the one thing that sets us apart as Christians is what? Learn this word. G-R-A-Z-E. Amen.
Grace. That's the cornerstone of Christianity. That we deserve hell, we deserve nothing, and God gives us everything.
Amen? Amen. Here's another question. How do you view grace? Do you view grace as a safety net? Or as a trampoline? Think through this with me for a second.
You can write this down. If you merely view grace as a safety net, that's not good enough. It is right to say, when I sin, I fall on the grace of God.
Amen? It is a safety net in some sense. I sin, but I know He's gracious and He's going to catch me. But I want to tell you today that grace is more than that.
Grace is actually a trampoline. Okay? I sin, and I fall on God's grace, and then it makes me spring back up. Amen? Amen.
That's really important. So it's not just I fall on God's grace, and I'm just going to keep sinning, and I'm just going to stay there. No.
I fall on God's grace, and He goes, boop, like Tigger. Right, Shiloh? Like Tigger. Boop, boop, boop, boop.
Grace makes us bounce back up. Amen? Amen. That's very, very important.
Because for many years of my Christian life, I thought grace is just going to catch me. But I want to tell you today, yes, grace will catch you, and then it will propel you back up. Read through the book of Hebrews, and look at every instance of grace in the book of Hebrews, and you'll find that grace for that author, Paul, probably means something more than power.
When the writer of Hebrews uses grace, it's like, yes, the grace catches you, but then it gives you power. It propels you forward. Amen? Amen.
One more note here. If you grow in grace in your Christian life, you're going to start by needing grace, but you're going to grow into having grace. Let me see if I can explain that to you.
We all start by coming to God in this James 4 way and saying, I've sinned, but you give me more grace. I've sinned, and Lord, I need your grace. I've sinned, and I need more grace.
But as we grow as Christians, you know what we also say? I've sinned, and I have grace. And I have grace, Lord. Yes, I need more grace today, but now, Lord, I feel your grace.
I have your grace. I'm being strengthened by grace. Amen? Anybody ever felt that? So that we're not always dropped into our sin and then just reaching out for grace again, but we can then say, I have it.
I wake up in the morning confident. I have grace on my side. Hebrews chapter 13 verse 9 says, For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace.
Okay? So that's not just talking about falling on grace and getting the other sin. But the writer of Hebrews chapter 13 verse 9 has said, I want my heart strengthened, established by grace. Let me say it one more time.
As Christians, as we grow as Christians, you don't only need grace. You also have grace. You get that? Yes, we need grace, but also we need to get to the place where we can say, I've got grace.
Grace is working for me every day, and I want to be established, settled, strengthened, made firm by grace. Amen? Look at our verse. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God.
Here's the second point. The love of God. The love of God.
Who's God right there? Of course, Jesus Christ is God, right? And the Holy Spirit is God, right? But here, this is God the Father. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God. Katherine Kuhlman is one of my greatest heroes, just because she actually loves God.
And she said, when she would return home from school, when she was 8, 9, 10, she had really long limbs. And she was sort of like Spiderman. And she'd see her Papa on the couch.
And she'd run at her Papa and say, Papa, Papa, Papa! And she wanted to share everything with her Papa. And then her Mom would come and say, no, no, Katherine, get out of there. Don't bug your Dad.
Get out of the living room. And her Dad would always say, Mom, let her go. Let her go.
And she would run to her Papa. And she'd share everything about the day with him. And she would just jump on the side.
And her Father would always embrace her. Just open up his heart and even say, Mom, get out of the way for a second. Just let her know.
Let her know. That's the love of God. Amen? It's the love of our Father.
And we need to start to feel the love of our Father. And let me go to my journal again here. If you know the love of God, you will feel the love of God.
I'm tired of hearing theologians say that God loves me in a positional way. Like, He loves me and I just know it. But I don't feel it.
Those people are lying when they say that. If you know the love of God, you feel it. Amen? And you're not always going to feel it perfectly.
And we're going to have some mornings where we wake up on the wrong side of the bed and feel like scum again. But the love of God is there for me. And what I wrote down here in my journal entry is this.
What I feel day by day is warmth. If I'm honest with you, I just feel a little touch of warmth. Even on my worst day, I just feel the love of the Father.
There's a little warm light shining down on me. Anybody else ever felt that? And you know what that warmth is? It's the Father saying, You have free access to me, Sam. Come on.
Jump up on my lap. I'm in an ever-present healthy time with me. I need it for you.
You're my boy. You're my girl. You're my daughter.
You're my son. That's the love of the Father. Amen? The love of the Father.
My dear friend in Toronto would always say she could hear the prayer pause. She could hear when someone was serious about God. Because after they said, Father, they would pause.
I love that. When you just go, Father? And sometimes when someone pauses after they say the name of God, you know they actually can, right? Lord. What does it feel like for that word to roll off of your lips? Father.
That's where you feel the love of God. You feel His closeness. And then one verse from a Rich Bullen song has taught me the love of God more than anything else.
Rich Bullen says, the reckless, raging fury that they call the love of God. Have you all heard that song? Think about it with me for a second. He says, it's the reckless, raging fury that they call the love of God.
And when I first heard that, I wondered, why in the world would Rich Bullens call God's love the reckless, raging fury? Anybody know? Because we're expecting God's love to be like, you know, like icing on the dough, right? Just like, love me, God. And when I ask for something, like you can come and give it to me next week, right? But how does God love us? With a reckless, raging fury. Where He's actually after our hearts.
And you say, Lord, I want this next year. And God says, I'm gonna give that to you in 15 years. And in that time, I'm gonna teach you a sort of patience that will take you all the way to heaven.
I'm gonna teach you a patience deep down in your heart that is absolutely indestructible and supernatural. Do you see that? That's just an example. But we're looking for God's love just to be like, here's a pillow.
And in fact, God is like, no, I'm gonna take you on a journey. There's gonna be a little struggle there. There's gonna be a mountaintop over there.
He's gonna learn to be with me over there, right? And I'm going to sculpt His heart so that it's ready for heaven. Amen? That's the reckless, raging fury that would come on the love of God. You see, we can tame the love of God so much.
But it's not tame. God's love wants us. He wants us holy.
He wants us consumed for Him. He wants to shake away everything that's shakable so that what is unshakable would stand. Amen? And then, one last thing on the love of God.
He wants to identify all those little hindrances in our life. Do you still have condemnation in your life? God's love wants to come in and burn it up. Do you still have demons in your life? God wants you to get deliverance.
Do you still have that unforgiveness, that bitterness in your heart? The love of God wants to pursue you to the point where it's gone. Where He's making you holy and fit for heaven. Amen? That's the love of God.
So look at our verse here. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
Here's our last point. You all still with me? The communion of the Holy Spirit. That's literally, in the Greek, the foundation of the Holy Spirit.
Or you could say, the friendship of the Holy Spirit. Or you could say, having everything in common with the Holy Spirit. And did you notice that the first two things are a little bit distant? You could say, the grace of Jesus is coming to me.
And that the love of God is upon me. But right here it says, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. That's the closest one, isn't it? Because the Holy Spirit is in you.
And the Holy Spirit is right here. And the Holy Spirit is upon you. And in the book of Acts chapter 2, the Holy Spirit wants to baptize you and immerse you even more.
The Holy Spirit is all around you. Amen? And in Matthew chapter 10, He's called the Spirit of our Father. So the Father is victory through the Holy Spirit.
And in Romans chapter 8, He's called the Spirit of Christ. So Christ is victory through the Holy Spirit. Glory to God.
Hallelujah. Now send this journal entry for one brief minute here. If we have the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, then we can talk to Him.
Amen? Did you all hear that? I went for almost six years of my Christian life not talking to the Holy Spirit. Lord, forgive me. Forgive me.
If there's anyone here who's never talked to the Holy Spirit, I want to give you from Scripture today full permission to wake up tomorrow morning and say, Good morning, Melissa. And to talk to Him. And it's really amazing, because when you start talking to the Holy Spirit, your life will change.
There's a different anointing upon when you talk to the Holy Spirit. When you start to get intimate with the Holy Spirit. And some still in this room might be saying, No, the Bible doesn't say I can talk to the Holy Spirit.
Well, how can you have fellowship with someone who you don't talk to? Amen? It says right here, you can have fellowship with the Holy Spirit. So talk to Him. Don't grieve Him.
Don't quench Him. Treat Him as a friend. Talk to Him.
If you have fellowship with the Holy Spirit, you will start to feel. Now again, I'm talking about feelings, right? Is that okay? This is from my journal. In my journal, I talk about feelings.
Right? If you have fellowship with the Holy Spirit, you will start to feel that your life is supernatural. You will start to actually feel that your life is supernatural. What do I mean? You'll start to say, this life isn't normal.
Why am I all of a sudden casting out demons? Why? Why do I all of a sudden have faith for someone's healing? Why? Because you have fellowship with the Holy Spirit and your life starts to feel supernatural. Why can I now hear the voice of God? Why? Because I have fellowship with the Holy Spirit. Amen? And I want to stress that your life actually starts to feel supernatural.
You start to bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit and you say, where did this joy come from? It is completely supernatural. Amen? A lot of us, I don't want to call out our whole church, but a lot in our church are introverts. No? We've got a lot of introverts in this church.
It's sort of cool. I like it. But at some point we've got to say, if we're all introverts, then where did the joy come from? Right? If a lot of us are prone to depression and anxiety, why are we being surrounded all of a sudden? Seriously.
Because there's a supernatural force going on in our lives. We have fellowship with the Holy Spirit. Amen? And here's two more things.
If you have fellowship with the Holy Spirit, you become very sensitive. I know a certain person that she doesn't even go anywhere every day without seeking the will of the Holy Spirit. Very sensitive.
What am I doing this afternoon? Ask the Holy Spirit. Very sensitive. I was really struggling in the morning two minutes ago, seeking the will of the Lord, hearing from Him, and then it sort of stopped for a while.
And then I heard the Holy Spirit nudge me, go have lunch. Seriously. And I was like, okay.
I think the next best step for me is eating. Amen? If you have fellowship with the Holy Spirit, you're sensitive. Amen, Jim? Yes.
And here's one final thing. If you have fellowship with the Holy Spirit, you are creative. Amen? You are creative.
I don't mean to always talk about myself, but for some reason I've been painting. I'm a horrible painter. Really, I'm really not good.
I can show you all these paintings, they're bad. But I've been painting. And it's like, what's going on? I think the Holy Spirit's making me want to paint things.
Isn't that funny? Have you all experienced that? It's just like, all of a sudden, there's some men in our church writing psalms. What? And where did that come from? Well, when the Holy Spirit starts to move, you get creative. Amen? It's incredible.
When Jesus was baptized, the Holy Spirit came down in the form of what? A dove. A dove, yes. To show this beautiful, creative, fluttering power coming down upon him.
The old Scottish saints would say, yes, he's a dove, and they'd say, and he's also a wild goose. That's just the Scottish tradition. They'd call the Holy Spirit, I don't think it's here, brethren, I don't think it's blasphemy, but they'd say, he's the wild goose.
Why? Because all those Scottish heralds, when you see a wild goose, you can't predict them at all, right? It's going like this. And then it lands. And I'm saying, the Holy Spirit's like that.
You don't know where he comes from, or where he's going, but you hear the sound, right? And so is everyone who's born of the Spirit of God. I just invited you all today, if you've got fellowship with the Holy Spirit, get creative. Enjoy those parts of life where God tells you, try it out.
Go learn how to make it open. Let's read our verse again. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
Amen. Do you think we could resolve to be a more Trinitarian church? Amen. Would that be good for us? I don't want to be a Holy Spirit church.
I don't want to be just a Jesus church. I don't want to be just a Father church. Could we be a Father, Son, and Spirit church? Amen.
Could every believer in this room become a Father, Son, and Spirit believer? Amen? Amen. Let's pray and sing. We love you, Lord, that we lift our voice to worship you, O my soul, rejoice.
We love you, our Father in heaven. We love you for the great love we're with you, and love just, Lord. And we love you, Father, for sending our Lord Jesus Christ, and for the grace that has been poured out of his lips.
And we love you, Father, and Lord Jesus, for sending the Holy Spirit to us. We love you, Lord Jesus, that you are the baptizer of the Holy Spirit, and that you give more and more of your Holy Spirit to us. We love you, Holy Spirit, that you shine the spotlight on Jesus.
And we love you, Father, that you, you're in us by the Holy Spirit. And Lord Jesus, you're in us by the Holy Spirit. And we love you, Lord.
Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one. Amen.
Sermon Outline
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I
- Introduction to intimacy with the Trinity
- Paul’s final exhortation to the Corinthian church
- The tragedy of division among churches over the persons of the Trinity
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II
- The example of Jesus’ baptism showing perfect Trinitarian fellowship
- The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ as the foundation of Christian life
- Distinction between grace people and works people
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III
- Grace as free, unearned love and favor
- Grace as a trampoline, not just a safety net
- Growing from needing grace to having grace
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IV
- Practical call to spend time alone with God, free from distractions
- Prayer for the church and families to become Trinitarian
- Invitation to deepen personal communion with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
Key Quotes
“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.” — Sam Caldwell
“The grace people say, Jesus died for me. He won my ticket to heaven. And all I can do from here on out is receive.” — Sam Caldwell
“Grace is actually a trampoline. I sin, and I fall on God's grace, and then it makes me spring back up.” — Sam Caldwell
Application Points
- Set aside distractions like phones to spend focused time alone with God daily.
- Pray for your church and family to grow in understanding and experience of the Trinity.
- Embrace grace not just as a safety net but as a power that propels spiritual growth and renewal.
