Introduction
Are you discipling your heart to run toward God when life feels chaotic, or do you find yourself daydreaming about escaping it all, or believing that “one more thing” will finally make life click? The central truth I want to press into you is this: your deepest longings for life, love, and belonging are answered in the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and as you behold who God truly is, your life together with others will begin to change.
Many of us live with one of two impulses. Sometimes we want to detach, move to the mountains, simplify, withdraw from the madness. Other times we feel like life is good, but if we could just optimize a little more, more money, more tech, more time management, then we’d be complete. Both impulses reveal a hunger that can’t be satisfied by escape or by upgrade. That hunger is ultimately for God Himself, and not just for “a god,” but for the God who is three Persons in one Being. The word Trinity isn’t found in the Bible, but the reality is everywhere in Scripture. And Jesus thought it was important enough to put front and center in His final words before the cross (John 13–17). So I want to disciple you into something foundational: what comes into your mind when you think about God will shape who you become and how you live.
Main Points
Are you discipling your heart to run toward God when life feels chaotic, or do you find yourself daydreaming about escaping it all, or believing that “one more thing” will finally make life click? The central truth I want to press into you is this: your deepest longings for life, love, and belonging are answered in the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and as you behold who God truly is, your life together with others will begin to change.
Many of us live with one of two impulses. Sometimes we want to detach, move to the mountains, simplify, withdraw from the madness. Other times we feel like life is good, but if we could just optimize a little more, more money, more tech, more time management, then we’d be complete. Both impulses reveal a hunger that can’t be satisfied by escape or by upgrade. That hunger is ultimately for God Himself, and not just for “a god,” but for the God who is three Persons in one Being.
The word Trinity isn’t found in the Bible, but the reality is everywhere in Scripture. And Jesus thought it was important enough to put front and center in His final words before the cross (John 13–17). So I want to disciple you into something foundational: what comes into your mind when you think about God will shape who you become and how you live.
Your View of God Shapes You
Let me start with a discipleship diagnostic: What is your “mental image” of God? A.W. Tozer said, “We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God.” In other words, you will drift toward the god you believe in, whether that “god” is real, imaginary, or simply your highest pursuit.
Psalm 115:2–9 makes the same point with even more edge: idols are lifeless, and those who make them become like them, so do all who trust in them. You become like what you worship.
So if you imagine God as distant and uninvolved, you’ll learn to live distant and self-reliant. If you imagine God as a demanding taskmaster, you’ll live anxious and performance-driven. If you imagine God as an impersonal force, your spirituality will become cold and mechanical. But if you come to know the Triune God as He truly is, you’ll be drawn into a life that is relational, loving, holy, and shared.
This is why I’m not mainly trying to give you a few practical hacks. Discipleship begins with beholding God. As you learn who He is, your life changes.
Jesus Opens a Window Into God’s Life
John 17:1–5 is one of the clearest “peek behind the curtain” moments in the whole Bible:
- Jesus lifts His eyes to heaven and says, “Father…” (John 17:1).
- He speaks of glory shared between Father and Son.
- He speaks of eternal life as knowing “the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3).
- He speaks of a glory He had “with you before the world existed” (John 17:5).
Do you see what this means? Before creation, before your life got busy, before your family got complicated, before your disappointments and fears, God was already God: Father loving the Son, the Son honoring the Father, and (as John 14–16 also unfolds) the Spirit proceeding in that divine fellowship. God wasn’t lonely. He didn’t create because He was bored. He didn’t need you to complete Him.
And this matters deeply for your discipleship, because it means God doesn’t love like a needy boyfriend or girlfriend begging for validation. God is fullness. God is life. God is love.
One God, Not Three Gods
To follow Jesus faithfully, you need to be clear: Christians do not worship three gods. God is one.
The great confession of Israel, the Shema, declares: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one” (Deut. 6:4). The Bible never lets us drift into polytheism.
And yet, even the Old Testament gives hints that God’s oneness is not a lonely singularity. The Hebrew word often used for “one” (echad) can describe a compound unity, a oneness that includes relationship and unity, not mere isolation. You see this pattern when Genesis speaks with surprising plurality: “Let us make man in our image” (Gen. 1:26). You also see it when husband and wife become “one flesh” (Gen. 2:24), still two persons, truly one in covenant union.
So I want you to hold this carefully: God is one in essence. The Trinity is not three separate beings cooperating. It is one God.
Three Persons In Eternal Love
Now don’t stop at “God is one.” Jesus won’t let you. John 17 is saturated with relationship, real communion between real Persons.
Historically, the church has used a word to describe this mutual indwelling life of Father, Son, and Spirit: perichoresis, the reality that the Persons of the Trinity are “totally encircled” in one another, sharing life, glory, and love. Some have called it “the great dance”, not because God is silly, but because God’s life is joyful, dynamic, relational fellowship.
And here’s why this is so important for your everyday life:
- If God were only one Person, love could not be eternal within God (there would be no one to love).
- If God were two Persons, love could become closed in on itself, exclusive, locked away.
- But because God is Father, Son, and Spirit, love is eternally shared and able to overflow outward.
This is why, when Jesus defines eternal life, He doesn’t say, “Eternal life is endless time.” He says, “This is eternal life, that they know you…and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3). Eternal life is relational participation in the life of the Triune God.
Don’t Reduce God To Easy Analogies
I want to disciple you away from shallow substitutes. We often try to explain the Trinity with simple analogies, an egg (shell, white, yolk) or water (liquid, solid, steam). But those examples can mislead more than they help. They turn God into “parts,” or into one thing changing forms, rather than three distinct Persons eternally one.
Some truths can’t be flattened into a tidy diagram. They must be received in worship, Scripture, prayer, and lived experience.
In fact, it’s like trying to learn a game only through explanation rather than through actually playing it. You can memorize rules and still not grasp the life of the game. In the same way, you can repeat “three in one” and still not live as though God is relational love.
So yes, learn good doctrine. But don’t stop there. Let the Triune God re-train your instincts about relationship, community, and love.
The Triune God Reveals His Name
Here’s where God’s beauty becomes more than mystical, it becomes personal and trustworthy.
When God reveals His name and character, He says:
“The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness…forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty…” (Ex. 34:6–7)
This is not an abstract theology lecture. This is God telling you who He is: compassionate, gracious, patient, overflowing in covenant love, dependable, forgiving, and just.
And this is exactly what we see in Jesus, who is “the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature” (Heb. 1:3). To know the Son is to know the Father. To be drawn to Jesus is to be drawn into the life God has always been.
So let me speak to your two impulses again, the escape impulse and the “just one more upgrade” impulse. The answer isn’t isolation. The answer isn’t optimization. The answer is communion, first with God, and then (overflowing from that) with His people.
Conclusion
Life together is not a trendy idea or merely a church strategy. Life together is the very life of God. Father, Son, and Spirit have forever existed in perfect love, shared glory, and joyful communion, and the gospel brings us into that reality.
So I want you to respond in a discipled way this week:
- Examine your “mental image” of God and bring it under Scripture.
- Read John 17:1–5 slowly and personally, listen to Jesus speak to the Father.
- Ask God to reshape how you think about community, friendship, church, and love, not as add-ons to life, but as reflections of who He is.
As you behold God, you will be changed. And as you’re changed, you’ll stop chasing counterfeit solutions to your longings and start living from the fullness of the Triune God.
Father, thank You for revealing Yourself, not as distant, not as needy, but as the merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. Lord Jesus, thank You for opening a window into Your eternal fellowship with the Father, and for making a way for us to know the only true God. Holy Spirit, open our eyes to behold who God truly is, and reshape our hearts so we become like what we worship. Draw us out of isolation and out of endless striving, and into true life, knowing You and living together in love. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Conclusion
Life together is not a trendy idea or merely a church strategy. Life together is the very life of God. Father, Son, and Spirit have forever existed in perfect love, shared glory, and joyful communion, and the gospel brings us into that reality.
So I want you to respond in a discipled way this week:
- Examine your “mental image” of God and bring it under Scripture.
- Read John 17:1–5 slowly and personally, listen to Jesus speak to the Father.
- Ask God to reshape how you think about community, friendship, church, and love, not as add-ons to life, but as reflections of who He is.
As you behold God, you will be changed. And as you’re changed, you’ll stop chasing counterfeit solutions to your longings and start living from the fullness of the Triune God.
Closing Prayer
Father, thank You for revealing Yourself, not as distant, not as needy, but as the merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. Lord Jesus, thank You for opening a window into Your eternal fellowship with the Father, and for making a way for us to know the only true God. Holy Spirit, open our eyes to behold who God truly is, and reshape our hearts so we become like what we worship. Draw us out of isolation and out of endless striving, and into true life, knowing You and living together in love. In Jesus’ name, amen.