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<div style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Sermons for Trinity Sunday</span></div>
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<div style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Matthew 28:16-20 – “The Trinity”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Matthew 28:16-20– “The Nano-Punch of Pentecost”</span></div>
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<div style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Matthew 28, the sermon title “The Trinity” </span></div>
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<div style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">A preacher proudly boasted that he does not preach doctrinal sermons. They are boring he asserts and people do not understand or relate to them. Further, he claimed, I am a preacher and not a theologian. I get down do the practical issues and simply preach Christ crucified.</span></div>
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<div style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">His thinking is faulty at several points. First, he is wrong when he says that he is not a theologian. The fact is that everyone to a certain extent is a theologian. Theology is nothing more than what you think about God. Well, shouts one person, I don’t believe In God. That then is your theology. I would also take issue with him when he claims that he does not preach theology but gets down to practical issues. In my thinking there is no difference in good theology and good practice. Good, solid theology gets down to the very core of our existence.</span></div>
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<div style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Finally, I would disagree with him when he says that we should only preach Christ crucified. I know that is what the Apostle Paul said but this preacher doesn’t mean what Paul meant. He is saying that he only preaches about the cross and saving the sinner. I submit to you that the cross is not central in Paul's theology; rather, it is Christ. It has always puzzled me why some ministers preach the message of salvation to people who have been sitting in the pews all their life when they need so much more of Christ's teaching on life's other issues. There are many strings on a guitar. To make beautiful music all of them must be played and not just one. That is why in the United Methodist Church we honor the lectionary and the seasons of the church year. That insures a witness to the whole Gospel of Jesus Christ. How can one go through the season of Advent and not touch upon the doctrine of the incarnation. How can one go through Lent without touching upon the doctrine of the resurrection? Likewise, how can we embark upon the season of Pentecost, as we did last week, without mentioning the doctrine of the Trinity?</span></div>
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<div style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Today is Trinity Sunday…</span></div>
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<div style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">The rest of this sermon can be obtained by joining Sermons.com at<a target="_blank" href="http://mail.churchmail.com/lists/lt.php?id=Kk8GAQgHDAJUDg1JAQcHD05QW1YECA%3D%3D" style="color: blue; cursor: pointer;">http://www.sermons.com/signup</a> </span></div>
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<div style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Matthew 28. the sermon titled “The Nano-Punch of Pentecost” </span></div>
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<div style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">The soul has its seasons. “There is a time to be born, a time to die.”</span></div>
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<div style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">The Bible has its seasons. The biblical New Year begins at the appearance of the first "new moon" of spring, when nature comes to life. </span></div>
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<div style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">The West has its seasons. The New Year begins in the depths of the winter, which is often when the new comes, in the midst of winter, the soul most often coming to life in the wintry seasons of life.</span></div>
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<div style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">The church has its seasons.</span></div>
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<div style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">In the church our “seasons” are not determined by climate changes or a vernal equinox. Instead of fall, winter, spring, and summer, the church calendar recognizes seven “seasons:”</span></div>
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<div style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Advent</span></div>
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<div style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Lent</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Holy Week</span></div>
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<div style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Pentecost</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Kingdomtide (unique to Wesleyans and Presbyterians)</span></div>
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<div style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Unlike those other “four seasons” that neatly divvy up the year into four equal parts, the church seasons are all of different lengths. Advent is only four Sundays long. Lent is observed for six Sundays. Epiphany and Eastertide both extend over seven Sundays. The week of Holy Week gets its own “season.” But by far the majority of the church calendar year is designated as the “Sundays after Pentecost” — depending on what church calendar you are using, up to twenty-seven Sundays in all, with this week being the first of those many “Pentecost Sundays.”</span></div>
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<div style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">The reason for such a lop-sided division of the “seasons” in the church is explained in part by this week’s gospel text. Matthew 28:16-20 is identified as the “Commissioning of the Disciples” text. It is a hotly contested text, to say the least. The phrase “The Great Commission” doesn’t appear in the Bible, and wasn’t widely used until the early 20th century, when the phrase and the text became wed-locked forever.</span></div>
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<div style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">In these few verses Matthew manages to encapsulate the whole of his gospel story…</span></div>
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<div style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">The rest of this sermon can be obtained by joining Sermons.com at <a target="_blank" href="http://mail.churchmail.com/lists/lt.php?id=Kk8GAQgHDAJUDg1JAQcHD05QW1YECA%3D%3D" style="color: blue; cursor: pointer;">http://www.sermons.com/signup</a> </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">___________________________</span></div>
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<div style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Understanding the Trinity</span></div>
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<div style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">This is Trinity Sunday. God in three persons--Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Do we fully understand this wonderful doctrine? No, but some of us will fight for it.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">You may remember that ancient story about St. Augustine. One day he took a break from writing about the Trinity to take a walk along the seashore. There he came across a child with a little pail, intently scooping up a pail full of water out of the ocean, then walking up the beach and dumping it out into the sand, then going back down to scoop out another pail of water to pour into the sand, etc.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Augustine asked the child what he was doing, and the child explained that he was “emptying the sea out into the sand.”</span></div>
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<div style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">When the Bishop tried to gently point out the absurd impossibility of this task, the child replied, “Ah, but I’ll drain the sea before you understand the Trinity.”</span></div>
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<div style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">There’s truth to that child’s comment. We don’t understand the Trinity, but we’re ready to go to war to defend it. Well, maybe not anymore. But there was a time when battles were fought over church doctrine, and even today churches are being split over whose interpretation of the Word is correct. And it’s tragic.</span></div>
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<div style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">King Duncan, Collected Sermons. <a target="_blank" href="http://mail.churchmail.com/lists/lt.php?id=Kk8GAQgHDAJUDgxJAQcHD05QW1YECA%3D%3D" style="color: blue; cursor: pointer;">www.Sermons.com</a></span></div>
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<div style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Faith and knowledge are two different things. Faith makes us into obedient servants, but knowledge only makes us trivia experts. It’s as if Jesus is saying, “Hold your questions to the end. Right now your primary task is loyalty and obedience.”<br>
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Kenneth W. Collins, The Great Commission<br>
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