Sermon: Trinity Sunday 2026 - Rev. Laura Johnson

Devotional

Day 1: Doubt as Hesitation on the Mountaintop of Resurrection

The disciples stood face-to-face with the resurrected Jesus, knees buckling under the weight of a reality that defied logic. Their doubt wasn’t disbelief but a holy hesitation, a brain struggling to process resurrection’s offensive rewrite of death’s rules. Like fans stunned by an impossible victory, they wavered between shock and worship. This kind of doubt isn’t faithlessness—it’s the soul’s recalibration to God’s disruptive grace. When divine reality crashes into our expectations, doubt becomes the space where wonder grows. [03:35]

“When they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.’” (Matthew 28:17–18, ESV)

Reflection: When has God’s work in your life left you hesitating between disbelief and awe? How might that tension invite deeper trust rather than shame?

Day 2: Gobsmacked by Grace: When Reality Outruns Expectation

Kevin’s stunned silence at the Cubs’ victory mirrors how we respond when God shatters our small stories. Resurrection isn’t a theological concept but a reality that leaves us speechless, rewriting our expectations of what’s possible. Divine interruptions—healing, provision, forgiveness—often feel “too good to be true” at first. Yet these moments train us to live expectantly, not limiting God to our mental frameworks. [05:55]

“Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” (1 Peter 1:8–9, ESV)

Reflection: What “Cubs win” moment has God given you that still feels surreal? How does that memory strengthen you when current struggles feel fixed?

Day 3: One Essence, Three Persons: The Dance of Divine Mystery

The Nicene Creed’s “homoousios” (one essence) anchors Trinity’s paradox: three distinct persons sharing one divine substance. Like light simultaneously wave and particle, God transcends either/or categories. The Father’s creating love, the Son’s redeeming presence, and the Spirit’s sustaining breath aren’t roles but eternal movements within God’s being. This isn’t math to solve but a dance to join. [11:28]

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” (Deuteronomy 6:4–5, ESV)

Reflection: How does Trinity’s “both/and” nature challenge your tendency to box God into human logic? What might shift if you saw God as relationship itself?

Day 4: Hesitation as Holy: Wrestling with Unanswerable Questions

Matthew’s inclusion of the disciples’ doubt rebukes toxic certainty. Biblical faith isn’t a checklist of answers but a willingness to stand trembling before mystery. Just as Jacob wrestled God for a blessing, our holy hesitation—distazo—becomes the grip that keeps us engaged. Questions about suffering, predestination, or Trinity aren’t threats but invitations to know God deeper. [19:38]

“It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out.” (Proverbs 25:2, ESV)

Reflection: What faith question have you avoided wrestling with? How might bringing it into the light deepen your dependence on God’s infinite mind?

Day 5: Comfort in the Unknowing: Standing Gobsmacked Before Glory

Mature faith rests in awe, not answers. Like Job covering his mouth before God’s whirlwind, we grow most when we stop demanding explanations and start marveling at divine otherness. Trinity Sunday reminds us that God’s fullness will always exceed our grasp—and that’s good news. Our doubt becomes worship when we let mystery enlarge our capacity for wonder. [23:07]

“Then Job answered the Lord: ‘I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. “Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?” Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.’” (Job 42:1–3, ESV)

Reflection: Where do you need to exchange the pressure to “figure God out” for the peace of being fully known by Him? How might awe quiet your need for control?

Sermon Summary

Trinity Sunday names the puzzling reality of God as three and one, and the claim begins by confessing the limits of human language. God outstrips sentences the way humanity outstrips a gnat’s comprehension. So Matthew 28 steps forward and shows the risen Jesus standing on a mountain, alive and touchable, while the disciples both worship and doubt. Doubt here does not mean contempt or atheism. Doubt means hesitation, a wavering of opinion, the mind lagging behind a new reality that feels too good to be true, the way a lifelong Cubs fan sits gobsmacked when the final out finally happens and the world must be mentally rewired.

The command of Jesus to baptize in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit plants the seed that will take centuries to flower. Monotheism remains non-negotiable, yet Father, Son, and Spirit must be taken with equal seriousness. The Nicene Creed gathers the church’s slow, careful yes and begins with one God. Athanasius insists that God is homoousia, one essence, uncreated, and that Father, Son, and Spirit all share that one divine substance. Creation is made. God is not made. The Son, therefore, is not a creature but eternally begotten of the Father. Hence the familiar cadence about Jesus as God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten.

Gregory, Gregory, and Basil add that the one essence subsists as three persons. Persons here do not compete or diverge in will. They are distinct without separation, united without confusion, sharing a single mind and a single want. The Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son like a warming ray from the sun, fully divine and eternally active as the life-giver in the world. If Scripture says God is love, then the Trinity shows what that love looks like, a circle-dance of mutual indwelling where the Father’s love moves through the Son and is completed by the Spirit.

Matthew’s small verb distazo brings the arc back to the mountain. Doubt is the honest wobble that happens when glory collides with prior assumptions. In an age hungry for black and white answers, certainty often feels safer, but retreating into tidy boxes can stall living faith. Growth comes as disciples lean into questions and learn to be at ease with not knowing. The most mature saint in the room is often the one who can say, It is a mystery, and then stand in awe. Trinity faith invites that kind of holy hesitation before a God who is always bigger and better than imagined.

Key Takeaways

1. Doubt is holy hesitation Doubt in Matthew is not disbelief but a pause while reality reorients around resurrection. Holy hesitation protects the mind from pretending it understands what it does not, and it keeps the heart humble before God’s surprises. The wobble can be worship when it opens space for awe rather than control. [19:28]
2. The Trinity is one essence Athanasius’ homoousia guards monotheism while honoring Father, Son, and Spirit as fully divine. One uncreated substance means no rivalry, no hierarchy of being, no demotion of the Son or the Spirit. Divine unity is not a committee but a single life of God shared by three. [12:20]
3. The Son is eternally begotten Against the instinct to make Jesus a sublime creature, the creed names Him eternally from the Father. Eternal begetting secures both His full divinity and the wonder of His incarnation for the world’s salvation. The manger astonishes because the timeless Son chose time. [15:46]
4. The Spirit proceeds and gives life Procession pictures the Spirit as God’s living activity, like a ray of light warming what it touches. The Spirit is worshiped with the Father and the Son because the same essence and glory are shared. Life in Christ stays alive because the Spirit keeps breathing it. [17:12]
5. Certainty can stall real growth Chasing tidy answers can inoculate the soul against wonder, and the result is a small, stalled faith. God often meets seekers not with data but with presence, teaching them how to live inside questions. Mature disciples can say I do not know and still stay near the fire. [22:49]

Youtube Chapters

[00:00] - Welcome
[00:14] - Limits of language about God
[03:20] - Resurrection on the mountain
[03:35] - They worshiped and hesitated
[04:57] - What doubt originally meant
[05:55] - Gobsmacked like a Cubs fan
[08:27] - Baptize into Father, Son, Spirit
[10:38] - Nicene Creed and divine oneness
[12:44] - One essence, three persons
[14:11] - Naming Father and Son
[15:11] - Athanasius against Arius
[16:38] - The Spirit proceeds and gives life
[18:06] - Trinity as love, the dance
[18:44] - Distazo redefines doubt
[20:00] - Resisting certainty, embracing mystery
[22:27] - Learning to say I do not know
[23:07] - Invitation to embrace holy doubt

Bible Study Guide

Bible Reading
Matthew 28:16-20 (ESV)
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.”

Observation Questions

In verse 17, the disciples both worshiped and doubted. What does the sermon suggest is the original meaning of “doubt” in this context, and how does it differ from modern definitions? [04:57]
What analogy does the sermon use to illustrate the disciples’ experience of doubt (e.g., a lifelong Cubs fan’s reaction to an unexpected victory)? [05:55]
How does Jesus’ command in verse 19 (“baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit”) challenge the disciples’ understanding of monotheism?

Interpretation Questions

Why might Matthew have included the detail about the disciples’ doubt in a moment of worship and commissioning? How does this detail humanize their response to encountering the resurrected Jesus?
The sermon describes the Trinity as “one essence, three persons” with no rivalry or hierarchy. How does this understanding of God’s nature reshape traditional ideas of power or authority?
The term distazo (doubt) in Matthew 28:17 is linked to “holy hesitation.” How does this kind of doubt differ from outright disbelief, and why might it be necessary for spiritual growth? [19:28]

Application Questions

Doubt can be a form of “holy hesitation” as we process God’s mysteries. When have you experienced doubt that felt more like awe or rewiring your assumptions rather than rejection of faith? How did you navigate that season?
The Trinity is described as a “circle-dance of mutual indwelling” where love flows between Father, Son, and Spirit. How could embracing this relational view of God shape the way you love others in your daily life?
The sermon warns that chasing “tidy answers” can stall faith. Where do you feel pressure to have certainty in your spiritual life? What would it look like to lean into mystery instead? [22:49]
The disciples’ doubt occurred in the presence of the resurrected Jesus himself. How can we practice worship and trust even when we feel uncertain or “gobsmacked” by God’s actions? [05:55]
The Nicene Creed’s language about Jesus being “eternally begotten” emphasizes His divinity. How might believing Jesus is fully God (not just a “sublime creature”) change the way you approach prayer or suffering?

Sermon Clips

44s

“That's very different from lacking confidence or belief in something, to hesitate, to waver in opinion. Perhaps as the disciples stood gobsmacked before the risen lord, they hesitated. Perhaps they wavered in their opinions of what is real and what isn't, and can we blame them? After all, Jesus had died, and now he was alive. Reality was offended. That's not how life and death generally work. And so they doubted, meaning they hesitated and fully accepting this new reality of resurrection because it was unthinkably good, too good to be real.”

36s

“So when you feel that doubt, that that hesitation, that wavering of what's real and what's not real, don't don't retreat into the safety of certainty because you're uncomfortable with the questions. When we do that, that's how our faith becomes stagnant. When we refuse to doubt, to wrestle with our questions, we get stuck in a rut and our relationship with God stalls. Matthew wanted us to know that the disciples doubted in the biblical sense of the word because we will too.”

38s

“One of the things I've noticed throughout my years of ministry is that whenever somebody poses an impossibly complex question about God, it's often the most mature Christian in the room who's comfortable saying, you know, I just don't know. That's a mystery of faith. Because God is bigger than we understand, and we're all better Christians when we can stand gobsmacked before God's immense glory and be comfortable with the questions because it means that we are standing in awe.”

41s

“So when the disciples doubted before it resurrected Jesus, it wasn't that they had a lack of faith. That's how we often define doubt. Right? It's not believing in God, but that's not what doubt means in the Bible. Doubt is used to describe the natural process we humans go through when we encounter the disorienting mysteries of faith. Hesitancy, doubt, being gobsmacked like Kevin at the Cubs victory, this is all a part of discipleship when we encounter the mysteries of God because they confound us.”

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