OUR UNCHANGING GOD
Getting to Know God - Part 4 of 8
James 1:17 05-29-11 Sermon
Have you notice how rapidly things change in our world today? I was thinking of the number of things people use today that they didn't even have five or ten years ago. Technology has brought us DVR's, DVD’s, ipads, home computers, microwaves, CD’s MP3s, cellular phones -- things that ten years were just speculation for most of us. We're rapidly changing in our world. It increases the pace of our world. In 1920 to drive through Los Angeles with a horse, it took about an hour to go10 miles. Today, with high speed cars and freeways, at rush hour you can go five miles in an hour! That’s progress!
Too much change creates stress in our lives. Dr. Thomas Holmes has said there are 43 different things in life that create stress when the changes come, and when that stress builds up in your life you're going to be in trouble and unhealthy. Alvin Toffler in his book talks about people who are looking for points of constancy and stability where they can find some security; when everything else is changing. So the question then becomes: Is there anything in the world that is permanent? Is there anything that is reliable, that never changes?
The answer is in James 1:17 "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows." Phillips: "...with God there is never the slightest variation or shadow of inconsistency." We're in a series on God, what is He like, the attributes of God. Today I want us to look at what theologians call God's immutability. That simply means God never changes. In Malachi 3:6 "I the Lord do not change!" He is always the same. He always has been; He always will be. Because He is perfect, He can't get any better and He can't get worse, therefore, He'll never change. Because we're imperfect we do change. Everything else in creation changes. But God doesn’t change. Have you noticed the fact that you are constantly changing? Look in the mirror. "The Times, They Are A-Changin'" I'd say the "Lines, they are a Changin'" -- the hairline, the waistline, the credit line. We always change in the way we act, think, look, talk. But God never changes.
Change creates stress in our lives. This morning I want us to talk about how to stabilize your life in the midst of continual change. We'll focus in on three things about God that never change. They will add stability. They are things you can always count on.
I. GOD'S LOVE FOR ME NEVER CHANGES
I need to remind myself of that. Jeremiah 31:3, God says, "I have loved you with an everlasting love." Circle "everlasting love". You were created to be loved by God. You are an object of God's love. God's love is consistent and it is continual. One of the reasons we get frustrated with relationships is because people change. They're fickle. They change from one day to the next. One day they are your most loyal supporter and the next they are against you. "You're not the man I married!" or "My sweet child has become this rebellious teenager. I don't even recognize him anymore." Unpredictablility, inconsistency. These cause stress in our lives.
The Bible says God always acts like Himself. He never changes. He never acts out of character. Psalm 119:15 "Your love never changes, so save me!" Nobody ever says, "What's got into God today? What’s HIS problem? Where did he get that attitude today?" God never changes. God is always Himself.
The point is: You never need to doubt God's love for you. No matter what happens, no matter what I do, no matter what I feel, God's love for me never changes. Romans 8:38 "Nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God." You can go to bed tonight, get up tomorrow morning and God has not changed His mind about you while you were sleeping.
Do you ever have those bad days when you don't think you love anybody?-- your wife, you kids, yourself. You’re grumpy, cranky, frustrated about things that haven't gone as planned. You just don't love anybody. But God never has bad days. He's never moody, or fickle. He is always constant love. We always get into trouble when we doubt God's love. So when tragedy strikes, or when we pray and don't get an immediate answer, or when things don't go your way, just remember God's love for you hasn't changed one bit. That is a stabilizer in life.
II. GOD'S WORD NEVER CHANGES
The laws, the principles, the commands are timeless. Isaiah 40:8 (Living Bible) "The grass withers and flowers fade, but the Word of our God shall stand forever." The Bible is always fresh. It is always relevant, up to date, never obsolete. Anything that man writes eventually becomes obsolete, dated. At the rate of scientific discovery today, by the time a science textbook is printed it's already obsolete. Look at the computer manuals that are now irrelevant -- just a couple of years and they are outdated. Whatever man writes eventually changes.
Man's ideas don't last. You need to build your life on something more stable and permanent and unchangeable than the current fad or current therapy or the current thing that is in vogue.
Matthew 24:35 Jesus said, "Heaven and earth will pass away but My words will never pass away." There has never been any book that has been more attacked, criticized, ridiculed, burned and outlawed than the Bible. Yet today all of those Caesars, dictators and fanatics that opposed the Bible in the past are all dead. The Bible is still around. It has stood the test of time because His word never changes. Psalm 119:152 "Long ago I learned from your statutes that you established them to last forever." The principles, the laws that He lays down, are made to last forever.
Alan Shepherd, the very first American astronaut in space, was asked by a reporter just before he got into the capsule: "What is the one thing you're depending on most in this space venture?" His answer was classic, "I'm depending on the fact that God's laws never change." What if the rotation of the earth was inconsistent? What if gravity reversed every other day? When He made the whole universe, He established some universal laws. They never change. They never have and they never will. The reason we can study science is because it is predictable. We can study some verifiable facts of life and of physics that do not change.
Just as God has established the universe to operate on physical laws, there are moral laws and spiritual laws that God has set up that we cannot ignore. Because they do not change. If we ignore them we have chaos. Do you remember when you were a kid and playing a game with a kid who keeps changing the rules? How can you win? How can you even play? The only way you can win in life is to play by the rules. God has established some laws, principles, commands in His word that do not change! There are some absolutes. There are some things that will always be right and some things that will always be wrong. It's not a matter of opinion. Contrary to popular opinion God does not invent new rules for every generation. He has established them to last forever.
Satan's temptation is always to get you to question God's word. The first temptation: Satan asks Eve, "Did God really say you couldn't eat of that?" He's getting Eve to question did God really say you shouldn't do such and such... Today we don't say that much. Satan doesn't tempt us that way because it's black and white, we have God’s written word -- we don't question our hearing, we can just go look it up in the Bible.
Nowadays, Satan has put a little twist on the temptation. The phrase I sometimes hear today is: "That's your interpretation." When you go up to a stop sign, how do you interpret that? How many ways can you interpret S-T-O-P? On Mount Sinai God gave Moses the 10 commandments but the world wants them to be the 10 suggestions! There's no interpretation needed there. It's real black and white. The fact is God's word has not changed.
Matt. 5:24 "Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock." Jesus said there are two ways to build a house. You can build it on sand or you can build it on a rock. If you don't build it on a solid foundation the whole building will eventually tilt and fall over. You've got to have a solid foundation for your life. God is saying that if you build your life on the current fad, the current therapy, the current growth group, whatever is being read in the magazines -- you name it -- then you're building on shifting sands and you're going to have an unstable life when the changes of life come. Those changes are inevitable. If you want to have stability when the stresses of life come on your life you've got to build it on something that never changes.
God's love for me never changes and God's word never changes. It will always be the right thing to do. It may seem hard, unreasonable, unpopular. But it is always the right thing to do. Doesn't that simplify life? Instead of asking, "Who should I believe?" How many of you believe everything you read in the paper? see on TV? read in the Bible? Why do we spend more time watching the TV or reading the newspaper -- something we don't believe -- than reading the Bible -- something we do believe. It just doesn't make sense.
The point is, if I want to have stability in my life, stability comes from building my life on God's unchangeable word. I don't just listen to the advice of my friends. They may be just as wrong as I am. But I build my life on something that will never, never change. It is consistent. It will be consistent five years from now and it will be consistent fifty years from now.
Here’s a secret stress stabilizer: If you want to have more stability in your life when you're under stress memorize scripture – memorize verses from the Bible. Start filling your mind with things that never change and then when you need them God can bring them to mind. If you're wondering what you should do in a situation, God will pop that verse into your mind. You won't always have a Bible with you. When Jesus was out in the desert being tempted by the devil, "Jesus, why don't you turn these stones to bread," Jesus didn't pull out His pocket Old Testament or call it up on the Bible AP on his cell phone for a verse that said, "Don't tempt the Lord your God." He didn't have to pull out a Bible. He just simply said, "Satan, the Bible says `You shall not tempt the Lord your God.'" He had it memorized and it helped Him. The fact is if you want stability in your life you've got to base it on these things that don't change.
III. GOD'S PURPOSE FOR MY LIFE NEVER CHANGES
No matter what happens to you, in you, through you God’s purpose for your life will never, never change. Isaiah 14:24 "The Lord Almighty has sworn, `Surely as I have planned it, so it will be, and as I have purposed, so it will stand.'" God is at work in human history. History is really His-story. God's story. What is the world coming to? It's coming to the very climax that God has planned from the very beginning. I'm not sure what all that involves. I don't know all what the future holds but I do know who holds the future. It is coming to the planned climax. The Bible says nobody knows when that climax of history will come. Even Jesus didn’t know when he was here on earth. Only the Father which is in heaven knows. Even Howard Camping doesn’t know. Another one of his dates for Christ’s return has passed. The Bible says, "No man knows the day or hour." Fortunately, I'm on the winning side. That's good news. It is inevitable that we're going to end up on the winning side.
Psalm 33:11 "His plans endure forever; His purposes last eternally." Do your plans ever change? How often do they change? Why do your plans change so much? Two reasons: 1. You are not all-knowing. You are not omniscient like God is. Because you don't have the perspective or foresight to know everything that's going to happen your plans will change. Maybe now you know what you didn't used to know. Now that you know something different your plans have changed. That's one reason.
The other reason your plans change is 2. you are not all powerful. Maybe you don't have the power to implement the changes you had intended to do. You ran out of time, money, energy, effort -- whatever. So your plans change. Since God is omniscient -- God knows everything -- and since He's omnipotent -- God has all power -- His plans never have to change. He is never confronted with a new situation that demands a change in plans because nothing is new to him. He has seen it all before!
I Samuel 15:29 "God is not a man. He does not change His mind." Are there some times in the Bible that say God changed His mind? Yes. Because it wasn't God who changed, it was the people who changed. God told Ninevah, "If you don't repent, I'm going to destroy the city." He didn't destroy the city. God changed His mind. God never changes His will, but He does will a change.
The point: God's purpose for my life is bigger than my problems. God does not have a Plan B for my life. Habakkuk 3:6 says, "His ways are eternal." Think of the biggest mistake you've ever made. Then think of the biggest sin you've ever committed, that thing you regret the most. Then think of the biggest disappointment you've ever had. Do you think God knew about those in advance before you ever did them? Yes, He did. He wasn’t surprised. He wasn’t shocked. Since He knew those were going to come up anyway He has woven that into His plan for your life. He included them. Romans 8:28 "God works All things together for good." ALL things together for good! Good or bad God can somehow turn them around and bring good out of them. They all fit into a plan. That means no matter what has happened in your life you're still on Plan A. God has not changed His mind and God's purpose for your life has not changed.
Sometimes I hear people say, "I made this big mistake... So for now on I've just got to settle for second best." There's only one problem with that. The words Second Best are not found in the Bible. You are still on Plan A. God knows everything that's going to happen in your life and He's fit it all in to work for good in your life. Even the mistakes and sins you commit that are wrong and bad, God can teach you from those things. You can learn many, many good lessons.
What is God's plan for my life? John 10:10 says that God's plan for your life is that you might have life. "I have come that you might have life and have it more abundantly" Jesus said. He wants you to enjoy an abundant life. Live it and not just exist.
And God’s plan for your life is a good plan. He says in Jeremiah 29:11 for I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
Then in Romans 8:29 it says “for those ….he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son”. God's plan for your life is for you to become like Jesus Christ. You learn to think like He thinks and feel like He felt and act like He acts. To Become like Jesus Christ. That’s his plan for you.
It all begins with a relationship. Romans 10:9 "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved." Something else that has never changed is God's plan of salvation. God’s plan of salvation has not changed! For two thousand years there is only one way to get to know God and that's through Jesus Christ, His son. Jesus said "I am the Way" -- "I'm not a good way, the best way, one way among many, -- but the way". And His plan has never changed. God's invitation to you has never changed. He wants you to come to Him and establish a relationship with His Son Jesus Christ.
In your life, between now and when you die, however long that is, you will experience many stressful changes in your life. My question becomes: How are you going to respond to those changes? You can't prepare for them because they aren't predictable. You don't know what they're going to be. You don’t know when they are going to happen. How are you going to handle them? What's going to be the source of stability in your life?
Three things to remember when you're under stress and they're based on the three things we've just looked at. They are absolute facts. They become spiritual anchors for your soul in a changing world.
1) God will never stop loving me. Never. No matter what I do he won’t love me any more or any less because he already loves me completely and he always will. I won't understand all that is going on but no matter what He's doing, He's acting toward me in love. That's a stabilizer. No matter what happens, He loves me.
2) God's word is always right. The advice here in the Bible is the right thing to do, even if it's unpopular or unpleasant it is always the right thing to do. I used to have a saying on the wall of my office that said What is popular is not always right; what is right is not always popular. God’s word is always right. Even if it is not popular. That's a stabilizer.
3) God’s purpose for me will not change. God's purpose for my life is bigger than my problems. Problems can't change God's purpose. It has not changed God's purpose for your life and it will not change what He wants to do in your life. He still has a great plan for your life!
Psalm 125:1 "Those who trust in the Lord are as steady as Mount Zion, unmoved by any circumstance." That's what I call stability. Unmoved by any circumstance. Security, stability, confidence, peace, tranquility, all come from being anchored in an unchanging God. When everything around us is changing in this throw away society where nothing remains the same, there is one thing that never changes and that's God and these aspects of His character.
Prayer:
Question: Are you stressed out because of all the changes you've been going through? Has it been a little hectic lately? Are you feeling a little uptight about the uncertainty of your future? Would you like a rock solid foundation on which you can build a stable life? Then I invite you to pray three things: "God, I believe that You love me. I accept Your love gift of Your son, Jesus Christ. Father, I commit myself to learning and obeying Your unchanging word. I want to follow it's advice even when it seems hard or unpopular because I know it's the right thing to do. And, God, I want to commit myself to cooperating with Your plan for my life. Help me to learn from the mistakes that I've made. Please forgive my sins. I want to do what's right. In Jesus' name. Amen."
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