Our Relationship with The Holy TrinityYouth Conference October 2014

Story: I am on journey

One of the best known of the Desert Fathers of fourth-century Egypt, St Sarapion the Sindonite,

travelled once on pilgrimage to Rome. Here he was told of a celebrated recluse, a woman who lived

always in one small room, never going out. Skeptical about her way of life—for he was himself

a great wanderer—Sarapion called on her and asked: “Why are you sitting here?” To this she

replied:

“I am not sitting, I am on a journey”.

Points covered in this talk

1) Introduction

2) Revelation VS Limited mind

3) The Holy Trinity

4) The Grace of The Lord Jesus Christ

5) The Love of God the Father

6) The communion and the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit

I believe in …pp16

I say to a much-loved friend, “ I believe in you”, I am doing far more than expressing a belief that this person exists. 'I believe in

you” means: I turn to you, I rely upon you, I put my full trust in you and I hope in you. And that is what we are saying to

God in the Creed.

The Orthodox Way God is a Mystery pp12

St John Chrysostom says: “A god who is comprehensible is not a God”. A god, that is

to say , whom we claim to understand exhaustively through the resources of our

reasoning brain turns out to be no more than an idol, fashioned in our own image. Such a

god is most emphatically not the true and living God of the Bible and the Church. Man is made in God's image, but the reverse is not true.

St Gregory of Nyssa

Anyone who tried to describe the ineffable Light in language is truly a liar –

not because he hates the truth, but because of the

inadequacy of his description.

Revelation VS Limitation of Mind

30 Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31 And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name Jesus. ….

34 Then Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I do not know a man?”

35 And the angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God. ….

38 Then Mary said, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her. Luke 1

The Prophetic Word

And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do

well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts; 2 Pet 1:19

The Holy Trinity

The Apostolic Benediction

The Grace of The Lord Jesus Christ

The Mediator

Nor is there any mediator between us, Who may lay his

hand on us both. Job 9:33

Liturgy of St Gregory The Theologian

O You who are, Master, Lord, true God of true God:

Who revealed to us the light of the Father;

Who bestowed upon us the true knowledge of the Holy Spirit.

Who has revealed to us this great mystery of life

The Restoration

of the Additional

Grace According

to St Athanasius

On the Incarnation

He made all things out of nothing through His own Word, our Lord Jesus Christ and of all these His earthly creatures He reserved especial mercy for the race of men. Upon

them, therefore, upon men who, as animals, were essentially impermanent, He bestowed a grace which other creatures lacked—namely the impress of His own Image, a share in the reasonable being of the very Word Himself,

Ch. 3.3

On the Incarnation

God secured this grace that He had given by making it conditional from the first upon two

things - namely, a law and a place. He set them in His own paradise, and laid upon

them a single prohibition. If they guarded the grace and retained the loveliness of their

original innocence, then the life of paradise should be theirs, without sorrow, pain or

care, and after it the assurance of immortality in heaven. Ch 3.4

The Grace = the Life of Christ

10 always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be

manifested in our body. 11 For we who live are always delivered to

death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in

our mortal flesh. 2 Cor 4:10,11

Liturgy of St Basil

He instituted for us this great mystery of

Godliness. For being determined to give himself up to death for the Life of

the world

Deacon Daniel GannonThemes of the Church Fathers on Grace and Theological Anthropology

The Fathers’ themes on grace and theological anthropology are thus summed up in one person, Jesus Christ, who

reunites all of humanity with the Holy Trinity.

ApplicationsKey : For us in Himself

1) Temptation

2) Vain glory

3) Swearing

4) Holiness

5) Love

6) forgiveness

The Love of God the Father

9 “As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. 10 If you keep My

commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments

and abide in His love. Jn 15:9,10

for the Father Himself loves you, because you

have loved Me, and have believed that I came

forth from God.

Jn 16:27

I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made

perfect in one, and that the world may know that You

have sent Me, and have loved them as You have

loved Me. Jn 17:23

ApplicationsKey: His Natuer is Love

1) How to get it : Rom 5:5

2) How to keep and enjoy it : keep the commandments

3) Spread it in actions

4) Preach it

The Fellowship with the Holy Spirit

The Declarer

14 He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. 15 All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to

you. Jn 16:14,15

St Basil the Great

“Through the Holy Spirit comes our restoration to paradise, our ascension into the kingdom of heaven, our return to the adoption of sons, our liberty to call God our Father, our being made partakers of the grace of Christ, our being called children of light, our sharing in eternal glory, and, in a word, our being brought into a state of all “fullness of blessing,” both in this world and in the world to come, of all the good gifts that are in store for us, by promise hereof, through faith, beholding the reflection of their grace as though they were already present, we await the full enjoyment.”

St Cyril of AlexandriaCommentary on the Gospel of St John

After Christ had completed his mission on earth, it still remained necessary for

us to become sharers in the divine nature of the Word. We had to give up

our own life and be so transformed that we would begin to live an entirely new kind of life that would be pleasing to God. This was something we could do

only by sharing in the Holy Spirit.

ApplicationsKey : He is my Partner

1) Talk to Him

2) Do not grief Him

3) Do not Quench Him

4) Do not resist him

5) Obey Him

6) Accept His leadership