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Sermon Illustrations for Trinity Sunday (2022)

Illustration
Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31
Early African theologian Caius Marius Victorinus offers an intriguing image for understanding the relation between the Father and wisdom (the logos). Victorinus claims that the logos is the exterior knowing of God (what divine knowledge is revealed to us). The Father is then understood as the interior knowledge of God, what God himself only knows. Thus, Father and Son are identical in substance. As we distinguish between what a person is and what he does (yet know they are the same thing), so it is with Father and Son. The logos is just the activating of God’s creative power (The Fathers of the Church, Vol.69, pp. 266-267, 315). Or as Victorinus puts it in a hymn, the Father is the giver, the logos is the minister, and the Son is the d istributor (The Fathers of the Church, Vol. 69, p. 324). Another helpful image for understanding the Trinity is offered in a paraphrase of St. Augustine:

In eternity, the Son loves the Father and the Father loves Son. The Holy Ghost is the love who makes them one. (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 3, p.100)

As two become one in a Christian marriage, so God loves himself into one.
Mark E.               

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Psalm 8
We can never know God in full. John Calvin made that clear one time when commenting on this psalm. He wrote:

David implies that when all the faculties of the human mind are exerted to the utmost in meditation on this subject, they yet come far short of it. (Calvin’s Commentaries, Vol. IV/2, p. 94)

Though God is great, he is still mindful of human beings. Indeed, he fills us and saturates us with his goodness. Augustine speaks of our being drunk on his glory, so inebriated that we have forgotten our sinful ways:

Through the multiplication of mercy then he is mindful of man, as of beasts; for that multiplied mercy reacheth even to them that are afar off... He extendeth mercy, and in his light giveth light, and maketh him drink of his pleasures, and inebraiteth him with the richness of his house, to forget the sorrows and the wanderings of his former conversation. (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 8, p. 30)
Mark E.

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Romans 5:1-5
We sometimes think of character as something we’re born with, that’s ingrained. You either have it or you don’t. One of the distinguishing characteristics of the New Testament is that there is an assumption we can change, in contrast to many ancient philosophies (and modern misinterpretations of genetics) that we cannot. We don’t have to go out looking for trouble in order to suffer in this world, but suffering happens. And here the apostle Paul makes this astounding assertion that suffering leads to character and hope! Suffering creates character. Now there is an intermediate stage – endurance. Anyone who sets out to lose weight, or to exercise, or to read through the Bible in a year, or to go back to school, knows that these are hard things. They involve suffering at some level – but once we discover that we can make it walking ten minutes on the treadmill, it becomes easier to do it again because we develop our powers of endurance. And once we know we can endure, we will endure. And that in turn creates a different person, one with character, and how at last we hope is not some vain wish, but a way of living not only in the present, but with the future in mind, because we know from past experience we’ll make it through the next time of trial. It is in this condition of hope that we are changed, especially because now we are better able to recognize and receive the gift of God’s love which the Holy Spirit has given to us.

Step by step. Step by step.
Frank R.

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Romans 5:1-5
Vernon Grounds, in a Christianity Today article “Radical Commitment,” wrote of the Trinity, “Explain the Trinity? We can’t even begin. We can only accept it—a mystery, disclosed in scripture. It should be no surprise that the Triune Being of God baffles our finite minds. We should be surprised, rather, if we could understand the nature of our Creator. He would be a two-bit deity, not the fathomless source of all reality.”

It is hard to capture the essence of the three persons of God. Many of our best illustrations fall short and lapse into modalism (the example of water), or venture into Arianism (the example of the egg). The fact is, as I see it, that it is simply hard to explain, but infinitely true. We see the Trinity in this passage. We have peace with God through Jesus Christ and note that God’s love is poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. Each of the distinct persons of God, fully God themselves, work in our hearts and lives to make us what we need to be. The line from Reginald Heber’s hymn, “Holy, Holy, Holy” resonates today. “God in three persons, blessed Trinity.”
Bill T.

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John 16:12-15
Commenting on this text, Martin Luther spoke of the Trinity in terms of an internal conversation in God with the Father as speaking, the Son as the word, and the Spirit as the listener (Luther’s Works, Vol. 24, pp. 364-365). This talkative God is wonderfully compassionate. Father and Son are said to be bound so closely together in Luther’s view that “we should learn to think of God only as Christ.” In fact, the Triune God is said to be so loving that we can cuddle like children in his lap, as if we were in our mother’s arms (Luther’s Works, Vol. 24, p. 64). The meaning of the Trinity is a comforting word, as Luther puts it:

This teaching produces hearts that are stout, courageous in affliction and the temptation to sin, confident and fearless hearts. (Complete Sermons, Vol. 6, pp.101-102)
Mark E.
UPCOMING WEEKS
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John Jamison
Object: This is a role play activity.

Note: You will need to select six children to play roles in this activity. If you have a smaller group, you might ask some older youth or even adults to play the parts of the two attackers and the man being attacked. I will give suggestions for how they can play their roles, but feel free to help your children make the story as fun and memorable as you can. I have used boys and girls in the various roles, but you can change those however you want to change them.

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The Immediate Word

Dean Feldmeyer
Katy Stenta
Thomas Willadsen
Christopher Keating
George Reed
Mary Austin
Nazish Naseem
For July 13, 2025:
  • Samaritans Among Us by Dean Feldmeyer based on Acts 2:1-21. Samaritans were despised and dismissed by the original audience who first heard Jesus tell this parable. Who are the Samaritans in our lives and how does this parable apply today?

StoryShare

Frank Ramirez
I say, “You are gods,
    children of the Most High, all of you;
nevertheless, you shall die like mortals
    and fall like any prince….”
(vv. 6-7)

There have been any number of brother-sister acts that achieved a measure of fame. Take the Carpenters, famed for their singing, musicianship, and songwriting skills. Also worthy of mention are John and Joan Cusack who have acted together in over sixteen films.

Emphasis Preaching Journal

Wayne Brouwer
An ancient legend tells of a remote mountain village where people used to send their senior citizens out into the woods to die. The villagers had an eye to the future; they felt that those beyond a certain age would only slow down progress or use up valuable resources to no economically profitable end. Those who reached a certain age weren’t “put out to pasture” or “put out of their misery”; they were simply put out of other people’s way.
Mark Ellingsen
Bill Thomas
Frank Ramirez
Amos 7:7-17 and Psalm 82
The tallest building in the world is the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. It is more than 2,700 feet high—over half a mile tall. It has 160 floors and is twice as tall as the Empire State Building in New York City. It is home to the world’s fastest elevator which reaches speeds of forty miles an hour. The Burj Khalifa also hosts the world’s highest outdoor observation deck (on the 124th floor) and the world’s highest swimming pool (on the 76th floor).

The Village Shepherd

Janice B. Scott
Mabel hummed a familiar hymn tune as she made her way to church. She always enjoyed her Sunday morning walk. It was one of the few times she felt safe to walk alone through the inner city, for she knew nobody would be up at 7.45 in the morning. Today was a particularly beautiful morning, with blue sky, warm sunshine, and the song of a few intrepid blackbirds who still inhabited the city.

SermonStudio

James Evans
Often, a distinction is made between the pastoral or priestly work of the church and the prophetic work. Pastoral care has to do with the care of souls, the offering of comfort in times of loss. The priestly character of pastoral work seeks to mediate the presence of God to those who are hurting.

Schuyler Rhodes
Trusting is never easy. Even in the best of relationships, people step into trust slowly. There is wariness -- questioning -- worry. What happens if trust is betrayed? What if this doesn't work? Sometimes it's like a dance. We step in and out of trust, moving to the rhythms of fear. For many, the routine is achingly familiar. Indeed, it's not easy to trust.
John Jamison
It was back in the days when the railroad was the most common mode of transportation. There were automobiles, and some airplanes, but the steam locomotive was the way most folks traveled and the way that most of the goods were distributed around the country. After dinner, people sat in the drawing room and listened to the radio programs, fading in and out from some faraway location, over the magical broadcasting signal.
Robert Leslie Holmes
Not many tourists to Washington, D.C., look for the Federal Bureau of Standards offices. It's the Capitol and the White House, the Supreme Court Building or the Smithsonian most of us want to see when we go there. Yet, at the Bureau of Standards offices something very important is stored, something that impacts your life and mine every single day. Have you ever bought the materials for a new project? When you did, most likely you purchased so many inches or feet or yards. Or, you stopped to buy gasoline for your car and purchased it at a certain price per gallon.
David O. Bales
I have the two best jobs in the world. I teach social studies at Leon Griffith Junior High School (a fairly small junior high) and I am Sunday School Superintendent at Calvary Presbyterian Church (an enormous church school). Each job is my vocation. I tell people that at school they'll find my room where the halls cross. At church they can look but probably won't find me. I'll be in someone's classroom. At each job I practice what I most deeply believe: it's how you see the world that determines how you respond to it. I'll give you an example, actually, two examples.
Erskine White
O Lord my God! When I in awesome wonder,
Consider all the worlds Thy hands have made,
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,
Thy power throughout the universe displayed,
Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art!
(Stuart K. Hine)

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