Status Report: March

Sitting … in my favorite spot on one of the couches in the living room. 

Drinking … my after supper cup of Earl Grey tea.

Feeling … excited and nervous about a project I’m working on. The possible opportunity I’ve mentioned in the last few status reports is now a go. I can’t tell you more than this right now. 

Planning … to neglect the blog for a while while I work on the aforementioned secret project.

Also feeling … sorry for my daughter-in-law, who has been stuck home with sick children for two weeks. Yes, two of my grandchildren have had hand, foot, and mouth disease, and not at the same time, but in succession. 

Wondering … if the average age for a child to begin walking has risen in the past few years. There are several 14 months or older non-walkers in the church nursery, and that seems to be the norm among the little ones I know. Twenty or so years ago I had two 14 month walkers, but they were outliers—slow to walk compared to all the other babies around.  

Reading …  The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything by Fred Sanders. It’s the best book I’ve read in a year or so — a book on the Trinity that’s fun to read.

Loving … the sunny warm winter weather we’re having, and that it’s light when I get up in the morning and light when I eat my supper.

Not loving … the ice that’s everywhere. Thankfully, I have cleats on my old hiking boots to help keep me safe on icy walks.

Wishing … you a March full of sunshine — and no more snow.

What Is the Trinity For?

[T]he first and clearest answer has to be that the Trinity isn’t ultimately for anything, any more than God is for the purpose of anything. Just as you wouldn’t ask what purpose God serves or what function he fulfills, it makes no sense to ask what the point of the Trinity is or what purpose the Trinity serves. The Trinity isn’t for anything beyond itself, because the Trinity is God. God is God in this way: God’s way of being God is to be Father, Son, and Holy Spirit simultaneously from all eternity, perfectly complete in a triune fellowhip of love. If we don’t take this as our starting point, everything we say about the practical relevance of the Trinity could lead us to one colossal misunderstanding: thinking of God the Trinity as as a means to some other end, as if God were the Trinity in order to make himself useful. But God the Trinity is the end, the goal, the telos, the omega. In himself and without any reference to a created world or the plan of salvation, God is that being who exists as the triune love of the Father for the Son in the unity of the Spirit. The boundless life that God lives in himself, at home, within the happy land of the Trinity above all worlds, is perfect. It is complete, inexhaustibly full, and infinitely blessed. 

—Fred Sanders in The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything.

When it comes to the study the Trinity, or the study of God in general, we’re too quick, I think, to run straight to the practical implications and ask ourselves, “What does this doctrine mean for me? How does it affect my life? And what should I do in light of this truth about God?”

Of course, learning about God does have practical implications. But first, because God as he is in himself is “the end, the goal, the telos, the omega,” we should desire to know God for his sake. To get at what God is in himself, we can ask, “What is he like ‘without any reference to a created world or the plan of salvation’?” Priority #1 is simply gazing for a while on the answer to this question and marveling at what we see.

Sunday's Hymn: There Is A Fountain Filled With Blood

There is a fountain fill’d with blood
Drawn from Emmanuel’s veins;
And sinners, plung’d beneath that flood,
Loose all their guilty stains.

The dying thief rejoic’d to see
That fountain in his day;
And there have I, as vile as he,
Wash’d all my sins away.

Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood
Shall never lose its pow’r;
Till all the ransom’d church of God
Be sav’d, to sin no more.

E’er since, by faith, I saw the stream
Thy flowing wounds supply:
Redeeming love has been my theme,
And shall be till I die.

Then in a nobler sweeter song
I’ll sing thy pow’r to save;
When this poor lisping, stamm’ring tongue
Lies silent in the grave.

Lord, I believe thou hast prepar’d
(Unworthy tho’ I be)
For me a blood-bought free reward,
A golden harp for me!

’Tis strung, and tun’d, for endless years,
And form’d by pow’r divine;
To sound, in GOD the Father’s ears,
No other name but Thine.

—William Cowper

Sovereign Grace Music

Red Mountain Music (new tune)

Aretha Franklin

Other hymns, worship songs, prayers, sermons excerpts, or quotes posted today:

• I Could Not Do Without Thee at The Happy Wonderer
• Jehovah our righteousness at The Upward Call
• Glory to the Holy One at Theology for Girls
• Sing of Jesus, Sing Forever at Conjubilant With Song
• Come, My Way, My Truth, My Life from Trevin Wax
• Your weekly dose of Spurgeon: Who? at Pyromaniacs
• He is precious at Tried With Fire
• The secret to spiritual health at Blogging Theologically

Have you posted a hymn (or sermon, sermon notes, prayer, etc.) today and I missed it? Let me know by leaving a link in the comments or by contacting me using the contact form linked above, and I’ll add your post to the list.