Trinity Sunday May 31, 2026
Colossians 1:3-14
Scripture Readings
Isaiah 6:1-7
John 3:1-17
Hymns
226, 252, 243, 800 WS
Hymns from The Lutheran Hymnal (1941) (TLH) unless otherwise noted
WS - Hymns from the Worship Supplement 2000
“Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” Romans 10:17
Prayer of the Day O Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we praise You for the great things You have done for us. You have delivered us from darkness, redeemed us by the blood of Christ, and filled us with wisdom and knowledge through Your Word. Keep us steadfast in faith, joyful in hope, and fruitful in every good work, that in all we say and do we may declare Your goodness; through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
We give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of your love for all the saints; because of the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, of which you heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel, which has come to you, as it has also in all the world, and is bringing forth fruit, as it is also among you since the day you heard and knew the grace of God in truth; as you also learned from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf, who also declared to us your love in the Spirit. For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.
Dearly Beloved Fellow Believers,
The hymns in the Trinity section of The Lutheran Hymnal are hymns of instruction about the biblical doctrine of the Holy Trinity. They express in song what God has made known of His nature as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But these hymns are also songs of praise. With them we lift up our voices together to thank our God, to sing of His goodness to us. We sing, “Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty! Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee.” (TLH 246) We sing, “Oh, that I had a thousand voices To praise my God with thousand tongues! My heart, which in the Lord rejoices, Would then proclaim in grateful songs To all, wherever I might be, What great things God has done for me.” (TLH 243)
The last line of that hymn makes a good theme for Trinity Sunday. It is the conclusion of the first half of the church year, that part of the church year in which we remember, and give thanks for, the great things God has done for us. With the festival of Christmas we remember the Father’s love, how He sent His only Son into the world to save us. With the festival of Easter we remember the love of the Son, Jesus Christ, how He arose from the dead after giving His life for us. With the festival of Pentecost we remember the love of God in the Holy Spirit, how the Father and the Son sent Him into the world to bring us to faith in Christ, so that by trusting in Him we have forgiveness and life. On Trinity Sunday we pause to praise God for all of these things. We thank Him for what He has done for us as our Father, our Redeemer Jesus Christ, and our Comforter, the Holy Spirit.
In our text for Trinity Sunday, the apostle Paul opens his epistle to the Colossians with a hymn of praise to the Holy Trinity. He sings it on behalf of his readers, a congregation of believers who had received the blessings of God’s grace through the Gospel word that had come to them. We, too, have received the blessings of God’s grace through the Gospel. It is right that we should take time today to remember them and to praise God for what He has done for us. And it is good also for us to speak of these divine blessings in a way that is personal. It is good for each of us to say of what God has done for us, “God did this for me.”
What great things has God the Father done for us? Paul says that He has delivered us from darkness. We understand, of course, that he is speaking of darkness in a spiritual sense. In the Bible, darkness is used as a term for evil, for deception, for the working of Satan. Just as physical darkness is the absence of light, spiritual darkness is the absence of truth, goodness, and divine blessings. To be in spiritual darkness is to be caught up in Satan’s lies; it is to be in bondage to sin and under God’s judgment. Imagine it for a moment, using some of the examples in the Bible of people who were in darkness. Think of Judas under the leading of Satan, making his bargain with the chief priests for thirty pieces of silver. Think of Caiaphas, scheming to have Jesus put to death. Think of Herod, pretending to want to worship the child Jesus while sending out his soldiers to kill Him. But darkness is not always displayed so openly. Darkness reigns wherever anyone rejects Christ and His Gospel, wherever anyone embraces the practice of sin and will not repent, wherever anyone treats Christ with indifference and turns to something else. And we should remember that Jesus speaks of hell as “outer darkness,” where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 8:12; Luke 13:28).
It is a horrifying thought to be held captive by darkness and unable to escape it. That’s why it is so good to read here that God the Father has delivered us from “the power of darkness.” Jesus used the exact same words to those who arrested Him in Gethsemane; He said, “This is your hour, and the power of darkness” (Luke 22:53). God has freed us from the grip of Satan’s power by the work of Jesus Christ.
He has not only freed us from that evil power; He has “conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love.” Instead of being under the tyranny of Satan, we are under the good and gracious rule of Christ. He rules in our hearts by the Gospel, and He rules for our good, for our blessing. Paul also puts this another way when he says that the Father has “qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light.” We have an inheritance together with the saints, God’s children. That inheritance is to live in the light, to be with God in heaven in perfect joy forever. When we think of all this, we can say, “It is a great thing that God the Father has done for me!”
This deliverance from the power of darkness, this inheritance in the light, did not come easily or cheaply. We had to be redeemed, and the cost of our redemption was the shed blood of the Son of God. “We have redemption through His blood,” Paul says. Behind these words, “through His blood,” lie the passion and death of Christ. To deliver us from the darkness of Satan, sin, and hell, Jesus endured the darkness of Good Friday, of being forsaken by His own heavenly Father as He bore our sins.
Because He has redeemed us by His blood, we have the forgiveness of sins. All our sins are taken away; everything wrong we have ever done has been wiped away. The sins that we commit daily in thought, word, and deed are forgiven us for Jesus’ sake. We will not be held accountable for them. They will not be brought up on Judgment Day. We will not be made to pay some price for them, for Jesus paid that price. Truly we can say, “It is a great thing that God the Son has done for me.”
In our text Paul also teaches the work of the Holy Spirit. He speaks of the Colossians’ “love in the Spirit.” The Holy Spirit had been at work in the hearts of these people as they heard the good news of Jesus Christ, of deliverance from the power of darkness, of the forgiveness of sins. It was the Spirit who had led them to accept that word, to believe it, and to trust in Jesus Christ for their salvation. Paul states this here when he says that the Gospel had brought forth fruit among them since the day that they had heard and known “the grace of God in truth” (v.6).
We see a reference to the Holy Spirit’s work here also when Paul says that he and his coworkers were praying that the Colossians would be filled with the knowledge of God’s will “in all wisdom and spiritual understanding.” To have spiritual understanding is to know the true God, to believe and trust in Him. As the Spirit gives wisdom and spiritual knowledge, He also works in us the desire to live and act in ways that are pleasing to God. Paul says that this is the Spirit’s purpose: “that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work.”
This work of the Holy Spirit is an ongoing work in us believers. As we hear and receive the word, the Spirit keeps on doing His work in us. He gives us growth in knowledge, so that we have an increasingly better understanding of God. He makes us stronger in faith, so that we are not so easily discouraged by trials and troubles, but continue to trust in the Lord in good times and in difficult times. He gives us “patience and longsuffering with joy,” so that we not only bear up under trials but do so with joy.
All this is why we continue in the word. The Holy Spirit wants to fill us with wisdom and knowledge. He wants to make us strong and confident Christians. He wants to make us joyful Christians who are able to give glory to God and speak freely of what the Lord has done for us. May He help us to say—both in what we profess and in how we live—“What great things God has done for me.” Amen.
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All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.