Astounded | Immutable (May 30th, 20201) - Mike Armstrong

Alright, well, good morning.

Redemption.

Again, we're thrilled to worship the Lord today, to uh look at more of who he is uh in the scriptures and unpack his amazing attributes.

And uh today, as uh we will get to that in here in just a moment.

I want to share with you a few things.

And first of all, we're so glad to have you with us for all of this.

Glad to have you at the office, uh, in your homes, of course, the crew that is here uh today as well in the building.

We are uh again, we're just so excited to be together uh as God's church.

A couple of things uh going forward here is Church Center.

We've been talking about this app that we've been having, we we you can download and have on your phone.

We've had this for a long time.

It's been completely uh redesigned, and everything that you should really need or want to know, you can find right through that app, whether it's uh uh sermon video, uh it's uh redemption kids online, it's a connection card, it's our prayer requests, it's all of that.

You can find it right there.

Giving is an important way that we worship the Lord, and you can find that uh through our Church Center app as well.

And one of the things that we have going beyond, above and beyond our regular giving is our special offering.

And so you know about this.

$14,000 is our goal and is our uh is our total that we're looking to raise.

Uh, we're just over halfway of that goal, and this will be running till the end of June, just so you know.

But this is going to a new church plant in Romania, Ploiesh, Romania, uh, the Life Center, uh, an important ministry here in Newmarket that uh seeks to bless uh young and new moms, and then of course some capital purchases here.

And so uh you see it right there special offerings at redemptionnewmarket.ca.

You can do e-transfers, uh, you can do PayPal if you like to give in person.

You can do that over at our office uh there.

We have a box that you can slide that into.

All right, membership.

We've been talking about this for a few weeks.

We're really excited to welcome Shadi uh into membership in our church and uh really thankful for uh Shadi and this process.

We're excited to welcome her.

So uh as you can, it would be really uh good for you to welcome her and congratulate her into that.

We love our members.

We love to have uh her as a part of that uh team.

Now, uh step one is something that's coming up very shortly, June 6th.

Uh we will be having our next step one class.

And so this is for anybody who's new to our church, maybe you have questions and you're looking to learn a little bit more, or you are looking to sign on the dotted line, so to speak, and get uh more involved and invested through small groups and serving and all of that.

Step one is again appropriately named the the next step for you, the first step for you in becoming a part of a deeper part of life in uh Redemption Church.

And so we want to uh share with you uh what God is doing in our church, what we believe we have been called to.

And so you can come to that.

It's about a 40-minute thing, and uh, it's gonna be happening online at uh 9 50.

So that'll be right after the very first service, right when our live stream goes up at the end of that first service.

You can register now and you'll get that link sent to you so you can join us on June 6th.

Okay, online prayer meetings uh are something that we are thrilled and privileged to be able to do during these days, and you'll see two of them up there.

The first one uh that we've been doing for a while now is on Tuesday mornings, 6 until 7 uh a.m.

in the mornings on Zoom, and then on Sunday mornings, it's actually 9.50 a.m.

So right after the service today, we'll have a time where if you're at home, especially if you are on your own and you want somebody to be able to pray with, we have a time of prayer uh after all of our services to gather at the office and with your families to do that.

But if you're on your own or anybody at all, you're welcome to join us at 9 50.

We would love to pray with you.

All right, we'll get your Bibles open if you have a copy of God's word to Malachi 3.

Malachi 3, gonna be in a couple of places today, but that is the spot that you can you can camp out uh in, and so turn in your Bibles to that now.

Uh we've all heard uh these phrases before.

Phrases like the only constant is change.

Okay, or maybe you grew up, you're a a Bob Dylan fan, um, and uh what comes to mind for you is that song, The Times There Are Change In, right?

Or or or for or perhaps for you, you look in the mirror and you notice it's it's the wrinkles, it's the the soggy midsection, it's the receding hairline, or none at all if you're like me.

And uh you look at that and you think, man, like I've changed, right?

We are our bodies are changing.

The point here is that change is all around us.

It really is.

There's change everywhere from you know from weather fluctuations and food that goes bad in your fridge to you know shifting political agendas and the soaring uh real estate market, right?

Change is everywhere.

Okay, God, however, uh He does not change.

Okay, he does not change.

The theological word for that uh is immutable.

Okay, God is immutable, it just means he's unchanging.

Okay, or as uh A.

W.

Tozer put it, I really like this.

He says he never differs from himself.

Okay, God never differs from himself.

And and why is that?

Well, it's because he is already perfect.

Right?

There's nothing to change at all.

He can't improve any way, because that would suggest that he has or had room to grow.

Okay, neither can he can he worsen, okay, because by nature he is already perfection in every single way possible.

Okay, so his his nature, his character, his very essence, okay, all of it is unchanging.

Okay, I love this quote too, and I don't even know who authored it, but here it is.

It's all that God is, he has always been, and all that he has been and is, he will ever be.

Okay, God's immutability is an extremely key attribute for us that can be of immense help to you and I as we really look, as we talked about last week, we look to have our minds blown here.

To be blown away by how great God is.

Because everything else that we tend to be blown away with, whether it's disgust over the leaf's loss or money or whatever it might be, all of that stuff starts to shrink as our minds are blown for how awesome God is.

All right, so here is our here's our big idea today, uh, our main idea that we want to just kind of keep ramming home here.

It's this I am astounded as I consider that God is immutable.

Okay, astounded by this.

And again, I said Malachi 3, uh, verse 6 is what we're gonna look at right now.

Very simply, here's what it says it says, for I the Lord do not change.

I think there that's that's clear.

That's that's that's it, just laid out for us.

I the Lord do not change.

Therefore, you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.

All right, so right there we see that God Himself, he states that he is immutable.

He's immutable.

And the context here for this specific verse is that Israel has rebelled against him, and even though they have, and he would be perfectly righteous and just to consume them in his holy wrath, he says that he will not.

Okay, I will not do that.

Okay, because his steadfast commitment is to secure mankind's redemption by way of a Messiah that would come through the line of David as promised to Abraham, their forefather.

Okay, so so God's purposes here are unchanging.

And this is tied directly to the fact that his nature itself is unchanging.

Okay, or how about this?

Job 23, verse 13.

Job 23:13

You can turn there if you want, or I can just read it and you can listen.

Here's what Job 23, 13 says.

It says, but he is unchangeable.

And who can turn him back?

What he desires that he does.

You know, now maybe you hear this and the gears are turning for you a little bit, and you're thinking, now hang on a second.

God does in some ways change his mind, does he not?

Like, don't we kind of get that vibe a little bit through what we see in the scriptures?

Even though Numbers 23 verse 19 tells us straight up that he does not change our mind, how how do we how do we understand this and put all this together properly when we see in the scriptures even that he seems to at times?

Numbers 23:19

Like, for example, he does tell Jonah, right?

This is a a common example that people go to.

He tells Jonah that he's going to destroy Nineveh in 40 days.

But then what does he do?

He relents.

He relents because they repent.

Okay, so what's what's this all about?

Okay, well, we need to understand that that this is a conditional statement when he tells them that he's gonna destroy them in 40 days, a conditional statement.

Okay, it's not that he has changed his his nature, his his character hasn't changed here, his his very essence hasn't changed in that moment.

It's that this statement that he's going to destroy Nineveh in 40 days was a warning.

Right?

So it's a warning intended to bring about Nineveh's repentance.

Okay, so so recognize here that sometimes you know his responses, God's actions will kind of change in a sense in response to human responses and actions.

Okay, we know that that sometimes God rebukes.

Sometimes God punishes, sometimes God answers prayers immediately.

And sometimes he withholds those things and he moves in a you know slightly different direction.

Okay, but listen, all of it, all of it, regardless of our ability to understand in those moments all of the whys, or or see the entire big picture of what God sees and what God knows and what he is doing, okay, regardless, all of it is in perfect alignment and it is in perfect consistency with his immutable nature, right?

With his character, again, with his essence.

Okay, all of that works together to achieve the same end and the same goals.

And and that being carrying forward his mission, right?

Carrying forward his purpose and his promises that God has stated in the promotion of his glory.

Now, as we kind of think about all of that and allow that to kind of settle in and absorb that, and you think about his immutability, let's let's now consider how God's immutability, his, his, his unchangingness impacts you and I.

Like, what's the takeaway?

How do we apply this?

How do we understand this to come to bear in my life or in your life?

Well, here's the first way that it impacts me.

It means that I can trust him.

Okay, because God is unchanging, it's actually an amazing thing that has an impact on your everyday real world life issues and problems.

Okay, referring to God's immutability, this is what Sam Storms says.

He says, what all this means, very simply, is that God is dependable.

Our trust in him is therefore a confident trust.

For we know that he will not, indeed cannot, change.

His purposes are unfailing, his promise is unassailable.

It is because God who promised us eternal life is immutable, that we may rest assured that nothing, not trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword shall separate us from the love of Christ.

It is because Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever, that neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, not even powers, height, depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

That's awesome, right?

His promises are sure.

His purposes are absolutely unwavering.

Right?

His attitude towards you never falters, ever.

It doesn't change because of good behavior or bad behavior on your part.

Right?

He is unchanging in these ways, and therefore you can trust him.

He's worthy of your trust.

Place it in him.

All right, as we consider how God's immutability impacts us, here's the second thing.

I can change.

I can change.

How interesting is it, how awesome is it to know that that because God never changes, you and I can.

That's wild.

Okay, because of God's unwavering promise and and and commitment to restore fallen sinners to himself, you and I, and the entire world has hope for real change.

Okay, think about it.

If God changed, you and I would be toast.

If Jesus, you know, he came to this earth, if he in the in the process of of going to the cross, if he decided, you know what, I'm out.

Like this isn't worth it.

This is this is too much pain, it's it's it's too much difficulty.

If he changed his plan, guess what?

You and I would have no hope of change.

The cross wouldn't have happened, the resurrection wouldn't have wouldn't have happened, you guys, you and I we would still be in our sin, and and hell would be our our only our only future.

But because Jesus Christ does not change, you and I have hope.

The world has hope.

That's the message of the gospel.

Because Christ died, because he rose again, our sins can be forgiven, we can be redeemed, we can be restored.

You know, and as believers, as Christians, once we trust in Jesus Christ by faith, we have the hope and the promise of sanctification.

Right?

1 Thessalonians 4 verse 3 says it's God's will that you and I be sanctified, that we change, that we grow in holiness.

1 Thessalonians 4:3

And so as you consider yourself and as you know look within and you see that that darkness and that that ugly side of you that maybe no one else even knows about and and and sees, you can face that stuff, you can see that stuff knowing knowing that God can and will change you.

Because God is unchanging, you and I can change.

We always have that hope.

We always have that reality.

That's an awesome thing.

That's absolutely an impact of God's immutability on our life.

I can trust him, I can change.

Here's the last one.

I can worship.

I can worship.

Okay, which is obviously the natural response to being astounded by God's glorious attribute of immutability.

And that's the very thing that we need to do, want to do, must do now in response to all of these things.

And so what we're gonna do is as we've been doing, we're gonna have a time of prayer.

So if you're at the office and you can gather with the folks uh that are there, we're gonna have some prayer points on the screen, and there are gonna be ways for you to just express your joy, your worship, your praise, your gratitude, to express how astounded you are at who your God is.

And so as uh we go to this here in just a moment, um, I want to uh pray for us and pray that the Lord would continue to give us this uh these hearts that are astounded by who He is.

And so let's pray right now and uh seek to have the Lord get our hearts there.

God, we thank you.

God, we thank you for how amazing you are.

Lord, we thank you that you are unchanging.

God, Hebrews 13 verse 8 says, Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Hebrews 13:8

Lord, I pray that as we hear these words today and read these scriptures and come across them in the days, weeks, months, and years to come, Lord, I pray that they would they would have an impact on us.

They would, they would, they would punch down deep and and change how we live our lives.

Lord, that we would be at rest knowing that you are immutable.

Lord, that we would recognize that that's what it means when the scriptures say that you are our rock, you are solid, you are dependable, you are trustworthy.

When the world is falling apart all around us, when we are falling apart within, Lord, you never will.

And so, God, I pray that we would understand this and that your Holy Spirit would connect these powerful truths to how we live our lives.

And so, God, as we go to prayer now, Lord, I pray that this would be a sweet time.

I pray that it would be a sweet time of expressing our thanks and our gratitude, Lord.

I pray that you continue to blow our minds by all these things, that you would be glorified, you would be worshipped.

So, Lord, hear our prayer as we cry out to you.

We pray this in Christ's name.

Amen.