J. Albrecht…Trinity Sun…May 31^st, 2026…Matt. 28:16-20…God’s Triune Action for Salvation

¹⁶ Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. ¹⁷ And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. ¹⁸ And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹ Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all, Amen.

INJ Who is God incarnate, through whom God has revealed Himself in grace and truth, DFR:

I was reading through the newest edition of The Lutheran Spokesman, when in the very first article, the author had a quote from Edward Koehler on the Trinity of God. It read, “Ours is an incomprehensible God…There is no analogy, no simile, no illustration in the wide realm of human thought which could clarify for us this profound mystery…The finite mind of man simply cannot comprehend the infinite God.” I found this interesting as I usually open every sermon with some sort of illustration that relates or describes the theme for the day. But what can you really do for Trinity Sunday? What illustration can even begin to put into thought the glorious majesty of our God, who as we confessed earlier, is the Unity in Trinity and the Trinity in Unity, neither person being greater than the other, nor lacking any part of the whole being of God?

The doctrine of the Trinity will simultaneously make your jaw drop to the floor and leave you scratching your head. The finite mind of man simply cannot comprehend the infinite God. But this Sunday is not about achieving a complete understanding of the Trinity. It is about recognizing who God has revealed Himself to be in the pages of Holy Scripture and receiving this God in faith.

Matthew 28:16-20 is one of many texts in the Bible that explicitly mentions each person of the Trinity as one God. This was chosen as the sermon text because it joins both the Old Testament Lesson and the Epistle Lesson together under one head. But today we will really be considering all three texts to illustrate, that as God is three persons, yet one essence, so also are each of the Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, united in one purpose: your salvation. Our theme for this morning is: God’s Triune Action for Your Salvation. Being your Father – who foreordained your salvation; Being your Redeemer – the facilitator of your salvation; Being your Comforter – the sealing of your salvation.

May the Holy Spirit bless our study of the Word this morning and grant us faith to receive these truths from God, Amen.

¹⁸ And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹ Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

What makes these words special is the different perspective they give us of the Holy Trinity. Our readings this morning were not chosen simply because they mention the three persons of God or talk about His majesty. Each one serves to reveal something about God as pertaining to your salvation. We will now consider each Scripture Lesson and see how they lead us to Jesus’ command to Baptize all nations in the name of the Triune God.

Isaiah 6:1-7 reveals the nature of God. Isaiah said, “Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, The LORD of hosts!”

Isaiah’s words ring true for every human being walking this earth. His throne room vision reminds us of the true nature of the Eternal God and how He is high and above our standard of righteousness. Think for a moment about the vast number of “gods” people have worshipped since the world began. Every single one of them is fashioned by man after man, except for one. Each of those creations that people call “god” have faults. They are moody and demand vain sacrifices. They are powerless in certain areas and demand mankind figure out how to achieve perfection. These gods always embody the ideas and morals of mankind because they are not truly gods, but limited imaginations of mankind.

The God of the Bible is not so. He alone is Holy and righteous and worthy of all praise, glory and honor. He alone created the universe with all its laws and functions. He alone established the standard of perfection and holiness and does not waver nor bend because of the whims of mankind. He is not made in the image of sinful humans, rather it is us who have lost the image of His righteousness by our sin.

What right do we have, by nature, to come into His presence? What ground do we have to stand on to ask for His blessing and favor? God is just, and so long as we are a people of unclean lips, we have no right to receive His favor, no claim to be joined with God. This is the proper understanding of who the true God is. His holiness sets Him apart from everything else in creation. And without His intervention, we would be doomed to an eternity apart from Him.

Ephesians 1:3-14 reveals how God did intervene so that He could purify us and we can stand in His presence as did Isaiah. Paul writes, He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, ⁵ having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.

It was the Father’s will, from before the foundation of the world was laid, that you should be His own. He chose you because you could not choose Him. He loved you because, by your sinful nature, you could only hate Him. God broke the cycle that you and I were in, being at enmity with Him, to becoming our Father through adoption in the waters of Baptism.

Paul writes in Galatians 3, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. ²⁷ For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. The Father accepts us as His children because through baptism, you have been clothed with Christ’s righteousness. As Isaiah was purified to stand before the Almighty, so have you been clothed with perfection to stand before your Lord and your God. When He looks upon you, it is not in anger over sin, but with love as a father looks upon his children.

John writes in his first epistle, See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know Him. God calls you and me, of all people, His children. There is no greater love to be found in this world than what He did for you and me. He could have left us to our own sinfulness and certain path to death. But instead, our Father foreordained that God would become our Redeemer.

Again, in Ephesians 1 Paul says, ⁷ In Him [Christ] we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace. To our viewpoint, Jesus effected our salvation in the most intimate way by shedding His own blood on the cross for the sake of our forgiveness. His blood purchased your soul from hell, saving it for eternal life. He is the coal that touched Isaiah’s lips. The purifier of the heart and soul before God making us acceptable in His sight.

This too God would connect to your Baptism. In the context of a husband loving his wife as Christ loved the Church, Paul writes in Ephesians 5:26 the purpose of Christ’s love, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word. Whether you are 8 hours old or 80 years old, the washing of water and the word holds the same power of Christ’s blood washing away your sin once and for all your life.

Isaiah 61:10 says, I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, My soul shall be joyful in my God; For He has clothed me with the garments of salvation, He has covered me with the robe of righteousness, As a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments, And as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. There are two moments in your life that you probably looked your best. Your baptism and your wedding day. Many infants are baptized in a baptismal gown. It is white and used to signify the white robes of righteousness that now becomes yours through faith in Christ. And what is more beautiful than a bride and groom on their wedding day? The tattered rags of our sinfulness being replaced with the precious ornaments and jewels that you are crowned with through Christ Jesus.

On a wedding day, it is not good taste for anyone to dress exactly the same as the bride and groom. But that is exactly what Baptism does for us and it is a wonderful thing! Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12, For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. ¹³ For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body. What a miracle! God has united us all together as one. For we have one Redeemer, our Lord Jesus Christ, who shed His blood equally for us all that we all might be righteous before God. We have gone from being one in sin and death, undone before the glory of the Almighty, to now being all, together, dressed in the same glorious white robes of the groom, Jesus, through Baptism. Hard to believe, isn’t it? Remember, it is God’s Triune action for your salvation. The Father adopted you; the Son redeemed you; now the Holy Spirit comforts you.

Once more to Ephesians 1, in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, ¹⁴ who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory. The title “Comforter” encompasses a lot of work. He serves as our comfort because He is the one who called us to faith so that it is not up to us to believe in God. For who among us would come to know or believe what God has revealed through faith? It is foolishness without the Holy Spirit. He serves as our comforter by being the sealing promise of our faith – that He will preserve us unto the end.

We summarize this in our confessions on the Holy Spirit when we say, “I believe that I cannot, by my own reasoning or strength, believe in Jesus Christ my Lord, nor come to Him. But the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith.”

So then the Holy Spirit has an equally intimate role in your salvation, for He makes it possible to believe. He makes it possible to endure. From creating faith in the hearts of infants, to sustaining faith when on the threshold of death; the Holy Spirit is your day-to-day warrior and protector.

Each person of the Trinity has played a role in your salvation. From calling you into adoption before the world began; to living a perfect life and giving up His life into death for the forgiveness of all your sins; to calling you to faith through the Gospel and sealing you in that faith for eternal life. All of this work was done in the waters of Baptism by those who followed Jesus’ command. But the work of the Triune God has not ended. The Father continues to be your Father; the Son continues to be your Redeemer and King; the Holy Spirit continues to be your comforter and director. Not one departing you; not one failing you.

The teaching of the Trinity can be difficult to digest. Even some of the disciples who saw Jesus in our text doubted because of the limitation of our carnal minds. But Jesus did not leave them in whatever doubts they had, nor does He leave you in doubt about the True God. ²⁰ teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age. His desire, the desire of the Triune God is that we continue to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. That we continue in our lives here as disciples of God growing all the more grateful for His grace and love towards us. Let us do so with joy, knowing that the presence of our God never leaves us. May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all, Amen.