The Triune God Cares

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The Triune God Cares

Who am I? It’s strange sometimes how we are put on the spot and forced to answer that question. I recently got onto Twitter on the internet. And there’s this part when you set up your account where they want you to summarize who you are in a few short words? But my dear friends, it’s not just on the internet that we are forced to answer this question. If you go to the bar and sit down next to someone you don’t know and talk to them, you have to answer the question, “who am I?” And how you answer that question will tell you so much about yourself and about the person you are talking to. This morning God’s word asks that question about us. But our Triune God doesn’t just answer the question. He answers the question with care and compassion. In Genesis 1, we read these words: “²⁶ Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” ²⁷ So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1:26–27 NIV11-GKE)

Notice how sneaky the Holy Spirit is here. We are reading these words here in Genesis. And out of nowhere we hear the words, “let us.” Who is the “us” in these words? It is the persons of our Triune God not just speaking to each other, but also rejoicing at the prospect of creating humanity. But notice what they speak. They rejoice at the prospect of making humans in their image. What does that mean? What is the image of God? The image of God is not something visible and physical. It’s not being strong and healthy here in our hands and muscles. It’s an image on the inside. The image of God is knowing what is good, right, wise, and holy and following it. The image of God is being on the same page as God. And in the garden of Eden we see that that looks like. What our Triune God wants, Adam and Eve want. That’s what the image of God is.

But the bible moves on from Genesis 1 to Genesis 3. And in Genesis three Adam and Eve lose the image of God. Now, let me be specific and clear. They have the image of God and yet they really don’t. Picture yourself on a long country drive. You travel west, across ND into MT. And there, if you go across highway 200 you’ll find nothing but dust and desert. And you will find one abandoned car after another. The car will be rusted out. It won’t have tires or an engine. And that makes you ask a question: Is that a car or not? The outer shell is there. But what really makes a car a car is not there. That’s the same sort of picture we have when it comes to the image of God. Adam and Eve rebel against God and take us with them. And so, every person who comes into this world has a brain, but it is twisted in on itself. Every person has a conscience. But that conscience is warped. Every person is given some sort of vague notion that there has to be some sort of God out there.¹ But the very little they know about that God they reject. So, after the fall, humans have an image of God. But in every real way, it isn’t of any use.

That’s the problem. The solution then is found in the Trinity. Our Triune God comes to one human after another. And to these humans who do not know him, he gives faith in him. As we read in our gospel, in baptism our Triune God puts his very own name on him. And the result, is that, when we ask the question, “who am I?”, that is our answer. Each of us is able to say, “I am a baptized child of God.” There in those waters of baptism again God’s image is given back to us.

But even as we ponder this we see our sin. For our innate and natural reaction is to find our identity outside the Trinity. We find it in football teams, in cars, trucks, and tractors. We find it in hobbies and habits and family. But our identity can only be found within the Trinity.

How thankful we are then to have a Savior who found his identity in his Father’s will.² There in his Father’s eyes he found his own identity and worth. And he does this for us. For every time we found our worth and identity outside the Trinity, Jesus gives us our identity within the Trinity. But there’s more to these words. Our Triune God also says: “male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1:27 NIV11-GKE)³(Genesis 1:27 BHS-T)}}

Our Triune God shows he cares by giving us his image. But he also shows he cares by giving us our bodies. But even as we say this we recognize that the appreciation of this was lost in the fall into sin. Look at the sinful world around us. God made people male and female out of kindness and love for them. But what do they do? They play God and pretend that they can choose whether they are male of female. We live in a world where young men in high school are able to say that they are young women. Then after that they can compete in track and field against young women and claim their medals.⁴ But my dear friends, you do not have to look past yourself to see this same inclination to sin. Because our Triune God cares for us, he gave bodies to us. But what do we do? We misuse them. We eat too much or too little. We we exercise too much or too little. We work too much or too little. And our bodies pay the price. We spend our younger years yearning for a different body, thinking that life would be better if only we were faster, stronger, or prettier. And then, in complete contradiction, when we get older and our Triune God begins to take away our bodies as our health changes, we get angry at God, wanting to keep the bodies we have the way they are.

But my friends, our Triune God cares. He cares enough to redeem your bodies. Think of what Jesus did for you. Jesus took on a human body for you. In our creed for this morning we say that Jesus took on human flesh.⁵ Jesus became fully human in every way for you. And so, when your Father in heaven looks at you he does not see the times you misused your body. He sees the times his Son perfectly appreciated his body for you, in your place. But even more than that, by rising from the dead he proved that he will give you your body back again on the Last Day. And it will be a new, glorious body like Jesus has.

My dear friends, the world tells every person that, if they ask that question, “who am I”, trying to find hope and meaning in this world, there is no answer to that question. But here in these words we see that our Triune God cares. He shows it by giving us his image in baptism. He shows us by giving us our bodies here and perfect bodies hereafter.

¹ Rom. 1

² Heb. 10:7

³ ”זָכָ֥ר וּנְקֵבָ֖ה בָּרָ֥א אֹתָֽם“

⁴ https://apnews.com/5c1d9682fb92ed9c277c7e139bdab9ed

⁵ necessarium est ad æternam salutem: ut incarnationem quoque Domini nostri Jesu Christi fideliter credat.