We Believe | God's Character Part 2 (March 18th, 2018) - Mike Armstrong

If you've got a copy of God's word with you, you can grab it now and you can turn to Psalm 135 as we kind of wrap up this section of our series called We Believe.

It's a topical series.

We've been talking about God's character, part one and part two.

And we're going to be jumping around at a few different scriptures as we look at this and this concept of God being awesome.

Now, you might remember from a couple of weeks ago, the last time I was with you, we kind of took a lightheartened lighthearted look at Taco Bell's Taco Supreme.

You remember this?

We threw this picture up there, and how giving it the title of Supreme is likely a bit of an exaggeration, right?

You know, we can probably all think of and have experienced tacos that we would say are uh better, just straight up way better than that.

All right.

Now, that word supreme is applied elsewhere in our world, in culture, in all kinds of uh similar ways.

There's uh there's a hockey company, okay?

There's a hockey equipment brand uh that calls one of their equipment lines Supreme.

Okay, there's the the Supreme kind of shop in New York City that's become this you know, clothing and apparel uh phenomenon, style phenomenon in pop culture these days.

There's you know the ski and wakeboard boat company, uh they call themselves uh supreme.

Now listen, with every single one of these examples, and we probably could have given you know a ton more, all right, we could easily make the argument that um we think another brand, another product, another another company is is actually better, right?

We prefer another another product.

Like, you know, I like you know, I like CCM's hockey equipment better than I like Bowers.

You know, I I or I'm I'm not into spending, you know, two, three, four hundred dollars on a Supreme hoodie just because a bunch of kids think it's cool.

You know, give me old navy, you know, give me the give me the cheaper product for sure.

It's just as good, you know, or you know, or I I would prefer Mastercraft or Nautique, you know, wakeboard boats, and I'd rather have one of those tied to my dock up at the cottage, you know, for sure.

Okay, all of the point here is what's actually supreme, what's actually superior and best can be very much up for debate.

Right?

It really can.

But when it comes to the Lord, when it comes to God, his character, his, his attributes, you know, as we begin to explore his very nature and who he is, his assess his essence, it becomes apparent that he truly is supreme.

He truly is supreme in every sense of the word.

There's nothing that equals him.

There's certainly nothing that surpasses him.

There are no comparables.

There aren't at all.

And so today, you know, we're gonna once again, as we look into God's word and a bunch of different areas of it, we're gonna seek to kind of stir up our wonder and our awe and our our affections for our great God as we look into who he is, his his astounding and incomparable character.

And so before we jump into Psalm 135 here, allow me to pray, join me in this as we seek the Lord and ask his blessing on our time together, Lord.

We come before you now as your people.

And we've said it before, and we will say it again, Lord, we are so needy.

Lord, we uh do not have uh what it takes uh to live our lives apart from you.

And so, God, would you today show us your majesty?

Would you show us your your awesomeness?

Would you show us how grand and how great you are, how your ways are best?

Lord, I pray that we would be humbled today as we come before your word.

I pray that we would be fired up and excited about who you are, the the salvation that you have secured for us, Father.

Lord, would you give us greater confidence in you, Lord?

Would you give us a deeper trust?

Lord, I pray that our worship would get more intense, Lord, more more passionate as we surrender our lives to you.

Because, Lord, there is nothing as supreme as you.

And so, God, help us in all of these things.

Help our weary hearts, help our hearts that are you know so easily distracted and so easily get caught up in other things that are far less than you.

Lord, we pray all these things to the glory of Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Amen.

All right, so God's character, part two.

And so just two weeks ago when I was with you guys here last, we looked at his omnipresence, his omniscience, and his omnipotence.

And so today it's gonna be his sovereignty, his independence, and his immutability.

Now, don't worry, we're gonna define all of these things uh as we go here.

Um, but before we get into them, it it's it's probably pretty good that we understand, you know, when when discussing the attributes of God and discussing his character, just how you know these things all kind of fit and how we kind of you know separate them into different categories.

Uh Christians for a long time have have sought to understand his character.

And so we've kind of got these two lists.

First of all, you've got his incommunicable attributes, okay, his incommunicable attributes.

These are uh the aspects of his character that that he alone possesses.

Okay, he alone possesses these things.

He doesn't he doesn't share them with us.

We don't have these abilities.

All right, so the three omni words that we looked at last time, the three words that we're looking at today, listen, none of those, none of those words are part of our makeup.

We're not all-knowing, we're not all-powerful, we're finite, we are created beings with limitations where God does not have limitations.

Okay, so those are those are the incommunicable attributes.

The other category are his communicable attributes.

And we're gonna get to those uh at a later time.

We'll cover those in a few messages probably next time we come back to this series.

All right, but these are the aspects of God's character that he does in some way share with us.

Okay, so for example, that God is love, God is patient, God is kind, and and things like this.

We have, you and I as Christ followers, have some capacity through the Holy Spirit to also be loving and patient and kind.

Does that make sense?

Okay, not perfectly, not ultimately as as God, of course, but there are some attributes that that we share with the Lord, at least to some degree.

All right, so with all of that being said, here's the first thing if you're following along in your notes.

My God is vastly supreme, and I'm astounded by his sovereignty.

I'm astounded by his sovereignty.

Now, God's sovereignty can be defined as his ability to do anything that he desires to do.

His ability to do anything that he desires to do.

It's his supreme authority, it's his supreme power and rule over all creation.

All right, now uh, if you like to simplify things as I do, oftentimes when I'm thinking about the sovereignty of God, I'm just thinking about how God is in control.

Right?

God is in control, if you want to even jot that down.

Okay, if you're at Psalm 135, hopefully you're there at this point.

Uh, take a look at verse 6 here.

Verse 6 says this Whatever the Lord pleases, he does.

Okay, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps.

So we see here that the Lord is in control.

He does what he wants.

That there's a there's a supremacy there in his power and his rule and his authority.

He doesn't just rule in heaven, but earth is another game all together.

Right?

He rules everything everywhere, and he is constantly doing that.

Okay, and Job, we know this, after going through just mind-boggling, you know, trials and difficulties and suffering and being humbled and being overwhelmed with the greatness of God and the reality of God's sovereignty and his control and his power and all of it.

He says this in Job 42, verse 2.

Job 42:2

Job says, I know, right?

I know that you can do all things.

You can do all things and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.

No purpose can be thwarted.

Okay, bottom line, God is in control.

Okay, God is in control.

His will is always accomplished.

It's always accomplished, and and it cannot be prevented.

Okay, with that being said, okay, within God's sovereignty, let's let's kind of understand uh the difference here between God's decreed will, his directive will, and his permissive will.

Okay, there are all kinds of ways that Christians over the years and over the centuries, and theologians and pastors and and thinking minds and all of that have tried to kind of understand and and and categorize categorize how God's will and his sovereignty kind of plays itself out and operates.

All right, so I think these three are probably three of the main ones.

Okay, his decreed will.

Okay, his decreed will is all that God promises to do or decrees will happen.

All right?

This includes things like you know his grand plan to save us from our sin and send his son, Jesus Christ.

It would include his plan to build my church.

The gates of hell are not going to shut that plan down.

Okay, so every every plan that God has, nothing's getting in the way of these things, of these decrees.

Okay, Satan's not stopping him.

Okay, governments aren't stopping him, rulers, kings, authorities, all of that.

You and I, listen, cannot stop him.

Okay, it is going to happen.

You can take that to the bank.

All right, it's happening.

That's his decreed will.

Okay, his directive will is where God gives direction, where God gives guidance, if you will, to us through this life.

There have been so many moments in my life, and I'm sure you could say this about yours as well.

And isn't it kind of interesting?

It's always like kind of looking back on your life, how you can totally see how the Lord is directing you in very, you know, very specific and very certain ways.

You know, I think of you know, meeting my wife, Ange, and I look back on that and like, wow, the Lord just put us together so perfectly.

He brought this woman into my life who compliments me so well, and we're on the same page about all the important things, and she's got a heart for ministry, because I can tell you right now, if she didn't, I wouldn't be standing here before you.

Right?

So I see the Lord bring me a ministry partner and a loving wife, and and he just steered me so so clearly in this.

I think about how our how our church got started, and and I think about how the Lord directed me over many years, but there was a you know a two or three-year process where I was really kind of thinking about, you know, what's next after being a youth pastor, and you know, where should I go?

What should I do?

And I explored a lot of different options.

I had to think through things and wrestle things down and talk to people and prayed a lot and sought the scriptures and just wanted to be really wise about that.

And I look back on that now, I'm like, oh yeah, the Lord totally directed through all of that, through the ups and downs of all of it.

That's his that's his directive will.

Of course, if we had time, we would be able to talk for hours and hours and days and days about all the different ways that the Lord has has directed you as well.

Okay, so we've got his decreed will, his directive will.

How about his permissive will?

Okay, God's permissive will is where He where He allows things to happen, okay, even though they might be sinful or appear to go against His plans.

Okay, so the classic example, or one of the classic examples that people often point to in the scriptures, is uh the story of Joseph, right?

And how how God allowed Joseph's brothers to commit all kinds of evil against him.

Right?

And they threw him into the pit and they wanted him dead, and they tricked their father into the whole thing and sold him into slavery.

And and then before it got better, it continued to get worse.

And Joseph, as things were kind of looking up for him, he gets, you know, kind of you know, the raw end of the deal there with Potiphar's wife, and he's you know cast in prison, and he rots in there for a long time, and he's, I'm sure, wrestling through all of that and the difficulty of it.

Looks like he's gonna get out when you know the chief baker and all of that come and you know, interpret the dream, and then it takes a long time, and you know, everything just seems to get worse and worse and worse, and then all of a sudden, at the right time, he you know comes and he interprets Pharaoh's dream, and he's given this amazing position within Egypt.

And, you know, listen, all of it, looking back on it, is to accomplish God's greater purposes, namely, namely, using Joseph as the means to save Israel and bring his family into Egypt where they would where they would then grow and flourish into a mighty nation.

Okay, God allows and permits bad things to happen that will ultimately achieve the purpose of fulfilling his plans.

All that he promises to do, his decreed will.

And so it's so important for us to remember that as the church, as we're going through sometimes just immense pressure in life, immense difficulty and suffering, and all of that.

Listen, the Lord will do what it takes to get your heart.

The Lord will do whatever it takes, and he will do use those things to humble us and to root out pride.

I'm so thankful that he's done that, and yes, I'm even thankful that he continues to do that in my life as well.

Okay, God is sovereign, and we see his will kind of play itself out in these ways, and there are some other ways as well.

Now, in all of this, somewhere, mankind has a will too.

Right?

You and I have a will.

We can make, you know, we can make decisions, we can make choices, some of them better than others for sure.

You know, we're not, I don't think, merely robots or you know, puppets in a, you know, some kind of game that God is playing or something like that.

Right?

The scriptures make it very clear in multiple places that we're responsible for our sin, right, and the choices that we make in this life.

Okay, but we do have to understand that as much as you and I have you know have uh have a will and and and volition, and you know, we're able to make choices and all of that, listen, we have to understand that that it all still somehow operates under the umbrella of God's sovereignty.

You've probably heard me say that before.

Right?

Within the boundaries, if you will, of his will and his sovereignty and his control.

Right?

Our will, as far as that goes, is certainly not supreme.

It's certainly not absolute and limitless like God's is.

And so a big time question that comes up when we talk about God's will and man's will is, you know, how do we explain this?

Right?

How do I possibly help me to understand how my will and the choices that I can make somehow work with God's will and his sovereignty and things like predestination and election and all of that, and man's responsibility and sin.

Like, how do we how do we put all of this together?

Now, while I can you know absolutely certainly appreciate the the thought and the effort that the Christians and and theologians have have invested into understanding and and explaining these things as best as possible.

How you know how man's will and choice fits in with God's sovereignty, his control.

You know, listen, I think that there's something to be said for how the Bible doesn't even unpack that for us.

Okay, not completely, anyways.

And again, I listen, I'm I'm I'm all for careful study and and doing the hard work to understand as best we can, and we've talked about those things multiple times here at our church.

But maybe we also kind of just need to learn how to embrace the fact that there's there is some mystery and there is some wonder when it comes to his sovereignty.

Right?

There is.

We're never we're never gonna totally grasp it, we're never gonna totally understand it and be able to answer it perfectly.

Christians have been talking about this, listen, in sometimes very unhelpful and ungodly ways for for centuries.

Listen, we need to embrace the the awesomeness of God's sovereignty.

And listen, when we do, when we embrace all of this, three things happen.

Okay, there's probably more than three things, but here are three things.

Okay, the first one is I become deeply grateful for my salvation.

I become deeply grateful because I start to realize, wow, God accomplished this.

God did it.

It's less about me and what I do.

It's not about that.

You read the scriptures, you even start to see as looking back in your own life, you're like, wow, the Lord orchestrated all of this.

The Lord was working behind the scenes to bring me to this.

He he decided to do something about my sin.

He was the one who did it.

We were we were helpless.

We were helpless, dead in our transgressions, Ephesians 2 tells us.

He overcomes, he overcame our our sinfulness, our our pride, our rebellion.

He secured our salvation through Jesus Christ.

We are not sovereign, we are not able to do so.

And so as you start to absorb this and embrace the sovereignty of God, I think what begins to happen in our hearts is the Spirit is moving is just gratitude.

It's gratitude.

Thank you, Lord.

Who am I?

I don't deserve this.

Why me, not somebody else?

I have done nothing.

You ever looked at your life and realized, man, I was totally headed in the wrong direction?

I think about that all the time about myself.

Sure, I grew up in the church, and sure I went to Bible college, and sure I did a bunch of stuff that, you know, on the outside looked good, but my heart was like going in the wrong place in the wrong way.

And the Lord just like reached in and did something about it out of his sovereignty and his goodness and his grace.

We become deeply grateful for our salvation.

Here's another thing that happens as I embrace God's sovereignty.

I trust him with everything.

I trust him with everything.

You ever kind of sat and reflected and thought about kind of some of the you know, the anger that we that we experience that we have in our hearts, the some for some of us it's like a it's like anxiety, we're anxious about everything, or there's fear.

You know, maybe it it's it's just kind of we're melancholy and we're just easily disheartened and we're glass half-empty kind of people.

It's you know, sort of sadness and despair.

You realize that at the core of this, oftentimes it's just that it's just that we don't really trust God.

We don't trust Him.

I'm I'm angry and I and I snap and I get set off real easy about the dumbest little things in my life because deep down in my heart I believe God's dealt me a bad hand.

God, how dare you not allow life to go exactly how I want it?

And so I'm gonna be upset about that.

I'm gonna be really anxious about all of these things, about things in my life, about every little thing that doesn't go my way.

Why?

Because I don't trust that the Lord is sovereign.

I don't trust that he's in control.

I don't trust that he is good.

Listen, when we embrace the sovereignty of God, guess what begins to happen in your heart, in your mind, in your soul?

Comfort.

Comfort.

We can take great comfort in believing and realizing and seeing and knowing that God is sovereign.

We begin to let go of some of that anger and and and the anxiety, and more and more so as the spirit begins to work in us.

Our response is that there, you know, a deep trust begins to take the place of these things.

Here's the third one.

I grow bold for Christ.

I grow bold for Christ as I embrace the sovereignty of God, boldness in things like our witness.

Right?

In our witness.

And sometimes we're you know so you know cautious, and that's a really nice way to say that we're wimps, right?

We're we're we're we're soft when it comes to this, and we're not bold, and and we don't want to just you know say the hard thing to somebody, even though they desperately need to hear it, even though their eternity is at stake.

And as we embrace the sovereignty of God and realize that he's in control uh of everything in my life and the person's response, I'm just gonna go for it.

I'm gonna do it in love.

I'm not gonna be harsh, I'm not gonna smash them with a sledgehammer, I'm gonna be gentle with the gospel, using a crowbar to gently pry open their hearts and get the gospel in there, but I'm gonna do it with boldness.

Right, I grow bold for Christ in my in my witness, but how about in our purpose too?

Our general purpose in life.

You find that the more bold you get, the more that you sense God is sovereign, the less that you want to live for things of this world.

Right?

I don't want to spend my money on all the stuff that's just gonna burn up.

I don't wanna I don't wanna spend all of my time on things that at the end of the day do not matter.

I want to spend my life going all in for the things of Jesus Christ.

I want my mission to reflect his mission.

I want to be about discipleship.

I want to be about healthy community.

I want to be about the gospel.

I want to be about transformation.

I want to be about him.

As we grow bold for Christ, the amazing thing that begins to happen in our hearts and in our lives is reflected by that is confidence.

It's confidence.

I love him.

I'm not strong in myself.

I don't think I'm awesome.

In fact, it's the opposite.

I'm dust.

He is awesome.

And there's this amazing confidence that begins to grow, grow.

And it's reflected in boldness.

Embracing the sovereignty of God.

We gotta get there.

We gotta do that.

It's a big thing for the church.

Okay, let's get into the second thing here.

My God is vastly supreme, and I'm astounded by his independence.

Astounded by his independence.

If you'd actually grab your Bibles, you would turn to two different places.

Can you believe that?

I'm asking you to go to two places.

Acts chapter 17 and John 17.

Acts 17 · chapter mention

So Acts 17, John 17, we're gonna get to those in a second.

Okay, now that God is supremely independent, let me define that for you.

It just means that He is He's entirely self-sufficient.

He's entirely self-sufficient.

He does not need anything in all creation, including you and I, in order to exist or have purpose in this life or find satisfaction.

He doesn't need anything.

In Acts 17, are you there?

Take a look at verse 24.

Paul says this to the men of Athens as he's interacting with them about the one true God.

He says, the God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything.

As though he needed anything, since he himself gives life to all mankind, or gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.

Okay?

So understand, God isn't like a, I kind of picture like the needy boyfriend, you know, who craves the attention and the affirmation of his girlfriend in sort of like a pathetic way.

Right?

He's not like that.

He's not he's not like that puppy dog who, you know, needs to scratch behind the ears uh uh from his owner.

Okay, God doesn't feel empty, you know, Monday to Saturday and then comes here with us on a Sunday to be filled up by our worship.

Okay, that that's not our that's not our God.

He's entirely independent.

He is He is self-sufficient on his own, apart from what we or or anything else in creation might offer him.

He always has been and always will be satisfied 100% within himself.

Jesus gives us some really good insight uh into this, into John 17.

Hopefully you got a finger there.

Okay, take a look at verse 5.

Now, this comes from the high priestly prayer.

This amazing, amazing section uh in John about how Jesus is praying for the church.

He's praying for you and I.

And this is what he says in verse 5.

Take a look there.

John 17, he says, And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.

Okay, you catch that there before the world existed.

Now jump down to verse 24.

Okay, verse 24 says, Father, I desire that they also, speaking of you, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am to see my glory that you have given me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

It's an amazing couple of verses there.

And what we see there is this snapshot into the kind of perfect, loving, self-sustaining relationship that the Trinity has always shared, always enjoyed before the beginning of time.

Okay, pretty awesome.

You know, kind of two things to consider when it comes to God's independence.

Okay, first off, as much as he exists autonomously from creation and doesn't need anything from you and I, it doesn't mean that he's some kind of like aloof and sort of distant, disengaged God from his creation.

His imminence, all right, which is also one of his attributes, his immanence is that God is also at the same time very present with us and present with his creation.

Right?

The scriptures tell us that he holds the universe together with the word of his power.

That's an intimate involvement.

Right?

You've you've heard of like the like the stopwatch God or you know the the watch god who just like he kind of sets the timer and and and and that's that's how the earth works, and he kind of steps away from it and lets it kind of run however it wants to run.

That's not all what the scriptures teach.

Okay, his imminence teaches the opposite of all of that.

He's present, he is with us always.

I mean, we looked at his omnipresence already.

I love that.

He's accessible to us in in all kinds of different ways.

All right, so his immanence is really important.

But secondly, his independence doesn't mean that we as creation, we as humanity, and as the church are in any way insignificant or meaningless to him.

Right?

Just because he's independent and doesn't need us, it doesn't mean that we don't matter to him.

Doesn't mean that.

In Isaiah 43, verse 7, God says this.

Isaiah 43:7

He says, Everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.

God simply decided that you and I are very important to him.

We are, and and we're able to bring him immense joy.

Keeping in or sticking with Isaiah, in Isaiah 62, it says multiple times in there how much the Lord delights in us.

And it says that he rejoices in us a bunch of times too.

It's astounding when you really stop and you think about that, right?

As independent and self-sustaining and self-sufficient as God is, wholly separate from us in essence and needs absolutely nothing.

He's chosen to draw near to us.

Isn't that incredible?

He's chosen to receive glory and even find pleasure from you and I as we surrender to him and as we we worship him.

Now, here's how God's independence kind of impacts me, how it makes a difference in my life, in your life as well.

First of all, first thing here is it emphasizes his love.

God's independence, first of all, you might be thinking, okay, God's kind of out there, he's independent for me.

How does that actually impact my life?

Well, the first thing is it actually emphasizes his love.

Right?

We started to kind of stir that up a little bit.

And I think it's it's kind of mind-boggling how many of us have such a hard time kind of truly believing how much God actually really, truly, passionately loves us.

I have a really hard time with this sometimes, just being honest.

I've grown up with that and always felt like God was distant, even though he's not.

His independence shows us again that he doesn't need anything or anyone, but he loves us anyways.

And again, he loves us because he wants to.

I think there's just so much incredible joy that we can find there when we see and as we consider the gospel and we consider Christ and the cross, and we're gonna be celebrating and reflecting on that over the next three weeks as well, of course.

And just the extent, the length that God went to to show his love for us and to take care of our sin problem and reunite uh a sinful humanity with a holy God.

I mean, the independence of God just could to me just emphasizes how awesome his love is.

Here's how else it makes a difference in my life.

It intensifies my worship.

We've absolutely touched on this throughout this We Believe series as we talk about doctrine, as we get a clearer picture of who God is, our worship should intensify for sure.

Why?

Why should my worship intensify?

Well, for a lot of reasons, but for one, you know, when I think about his independence and how he doesn't need anything, it shows me what?

It shows me that God is strong, right?

God is stable, God is secure.

I mean, he's no way he's in no way desperate and and and needy, and again, kind of this sad figure that's kind of mopey over here in the corner and until we can come and and and and and pay him some attention.

That's he's not feeble, he's not lacking in any way.

I mean, don't you think that this makes him worthy of being worshipped?

He's a strong God.

You think about other religions, you think about other cults, you think about other traditions and all of that.

There are often gods who are who are who are volatile and emotionally so up and down and all over the place.

And listen, our God is strong, our God is stable, he is secure.

I want to worship a God like that.

I want to worship a God who is who is worthy and who deserves it.

All right, let's keep going here.

Final thing.

My God is vastly supreme.

And I am astounded by his immutability.

By his immutability.

Now, if you want to get flipped over in your Bible to the final um, the final book in the Old Testament, Malachi chapter 3.

Malachi 3 · chapter mention

I'll get there in just a second.

Now, immutability, that's just an everyday word, right?

No?

Okay, maybe not.

Right?

It's not a word we're gonna use all the time.

It's not really in the in the vernacular, uh, but it simply means this.

It simply means unchanging, right?

Unchanging.

Uh, Lewis uh Burkhoff, we've got this quote up here, he defines it this way.

Uh he defines immutability as that perfection of God by which he does not change in his being perfections, purposes, or promises.

Okay, that's the Lord.

He is entirely, completely, and awesomely uh unchanging.

All right, Malachi chapter 3, verse 6.

Malachi 3:6

Take a look at that now.

We're gonna look at a few different passages as well, but this is what it says.

It says, For I the Lord do not change.

I the Lord do not change.

That's pretty clear.

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

Okay, I do not change.

Numbers 23, verse 19 says, It says, God is not man that he should lie, or a son of man that he should change his mind.

Numbers 23:19

Has he said, and will he not do it, or as he spoken and will he not fulfill it?

Right, I love that.

Psalm 102, verse 26 and 27 says this they will perish, but you will remain.

Psalms 102:26

They will all wear out like a garment, you will change them like a robe, and they will pass away, but you are the same, and your years have no end.

I love Hebrews 13, verse 8, and you're familiar with this.

Hebrews 13:8

Jesus Christ is the same, right?

Yesterday, today, and forever.

Right?

The scriptures show us consistently through the Old Testament and through the New Testament as well that we can count on the Lord to remain the same.

He's the same, right?

He's immutable, he is unchanging.

Okay, now with that kind of being said, I know that some of you might be kind of thinking, you know, a little bit here behind these words, and and you're kind of thinking, well, what about those, you know, what about those times in the scriptures, Pastor, where it kind of appears that the Lord actually does change his mind?

And you know, I can think of maybe a few examples of all of that.

Like, what do you have to say about what do you have to say about that?

Right?

How do we answer these things?

Is is the word of God in conflict here?

Are we able to trust it?

Or is the word of God contradicting itself?

Listen, a lot of people would tell you this, and I have been so grieved.

I watched something from a very well-known pastor uh just this week of a guy who uh literally teaches the that the scriptures are errant.

There are errors in the scriptures.

The scriptures are fallible.

And and and and pastors like this one and and many others as well would point to situations like this, and they would say, see, it contradicts each other.

The scriptures are are it's got holes in it, but that's okay, we can still trust parts of it.

How does that work?

Right?

If you can't trust part of it, the whole thing's the house of cards.

Right?

It is, and our whole faith falls apart.

So listen, is that what's happening here?

Does God change his mind?

I mean, the classic example that people often give, again, there's lots of them, but but Nineveh.

Okay, where's the story of Nineveh found?

It's in Jonah, right?

That really great book there.

Okay, through through Jonah in Jonah chapter 3, verse 4, there, God promises to overthrow Nineveh.

Jonah 3:4

You remember this?

In 40 days.

I'm gonna overthrow them.

Destruction, judgment, all of that's coming.

But then, hey, guess what happens?

They repent.

Right?

And they turn from their sin, and what happens as a result of that?

God relents, doesn't he?

And he he forgives them.

Okay, so did God change his mind?

Did God alter his purposes here?

Listen, a good way to kind of understand all of this and to think through the purposes and the whole does God change his mind thing, and you know, a lot of that is to really understand that there are that God makes unconditional promises and conditional promises.

Okay, jot that down.

That's really helpful.

Okay?

This was a conditional promise.

Okay, conditional promise.

Okay, God, God would destroy Nineveh if they wouldn't repent.

Right?

If they refused to repent, if they hardened their hearts, if they stiffened their neck, then God would judge them.

Okay, so you see the condition there being their repentance.

Okay, they ultimately, of course, did repent, and so He He had mercy on them.

Okay, so listen, God will respond, okay?

God will respond differently in different situations based on what's happening in the moment.

And that's actually consistent with his holiness.

Okay, if he didn't show the Nineveh's mercy, even though they repented, what would that do?

That would have been a violation of his holiness.

That would have been a change in his character.

Okay, but his intention was always to save the Nineveh and that they would turn from their sin and embrace him.

Okay, so in this, his purpose did not change.

Okay, but man, can you just stop and imagine and kind of picture for a moment with me what would what would life would be like if God could change?

If God was not immutable, if God was not unchanging?

Just think about it.

Try and picture that nightmare for all of us.

Right?

If he changed his character, if his if his promises changed and we couldn't actually trust them, you know, if his if his purposes just one day he's like, you know what, I I once had that plan, but now I'm gonna go in a completely different direction.

Right?

We would just be like being jerked around constantly, you know, on this leaf.

We will leave.

We have no reason, no ability to trust him.

How could we?

How could we possibly?

In fact, life would be terrifying.

It would be chaotic.

Life would have imploded uh by this time.

Right?

We would never be sure, we would never be certain of what of what's going on in God's mind and what his overall scheme and game plan is.

We we would never understand his heart, his you know, where what is he thinking at this point?

What does he want from me?

You think you're anxious now?

Imagine the anxiety then.

Imagine the fear, imagine the worry, imagine the the depression, imagine the pain.

Right?

If his character and and attributes could change, we would never believe that he could be totally good.

Right?

For example, because maybe he could become maybe he could become more good, which means that he's not entirely good right now.

Uh oh.

Or if it's not become more good, it's become evil.

And again, it's this awful situation that we'd be in, and we'd be just considering constantly thinking about the horrors that he can inflict on us as creation.

Right?

When you think about all this, praise the Lord for his immutability.

Praise him for his unchangeableness.

And so, hey, as we as we consider all of these things, as we consider his character, as we consider some of these incommunicable attributes that we've been looking at over the last two weeks, his astounding character, allow the, you know, allow these things to influence you.

Allow these to transform your life.

Again, we talked about this when it comes to doctrine.

Doctrine isn't just head knowledge.

It's not about becoming a bunch of brainiacs and thinks that we think so that we think that we're better than a bunch of other Christians, or so that we think that we're better than the world, who hasn't figured it out and they haven't arrived, and they're not as smart as we are, because we know how the Bible kind of operates.

No, the doctrine is supposed to transform our hearts, it's supposed to transform every single thing.

So allow them to influence you in.

I kind of pulled out three ways here, three things in your life.

Okay, understanding God's character influences, first of all, my view of Him.

Okay, my view of Him.

I think we have this up on the screen for you.

Okay, understanding God's character is awesome because it gives me a correct view of the Lord.

And I start to realize He is astonishingly amazing.

Remember how I told you I grew up personally just not believing that the Lord really loved me.

And I've shared this before.

I sensed that God was always disappointed.

I I sensed literally, I had this picture of God shaking his head, rolling his eyes.

Mike, this mic guy, can't figure it out.

Right?

And I and I struggled with that for a long time.

Why?

Because I didn't have an accurate view of the Lord.

Right?

I didn't see him as he really is.

And as I started to see this, I started to realize, wow, he is amazing and and he does love me.

And I this is incomprehensible because I also see how clearly my sin uh you know impacts my life as well.

And I and I see him as wonderful.

Allow your understanding of God's character to influence your view of him, have an accurate view of God.

Here's the second thing.

I kind of touched on it already, but also it influences my view of self.

Right?

As we begin to see how awesome the Lord is, as we begin to see him in his grandeur and his majesty and all these characteristics that we've talked about here, we start to see ourselves as small.

Less does it become about me, less does it become about me, you know, getting my way and me and all about the building of my kingdom and however we define that for ourselves.

Less does it become about life being fair.

It becomes about him only.

It becomes about him supremely.

And as I have this this clear view of God's character, I just I'm okay with my limits.

I recognize that I've that's okay, that's the way I was created.

Only God is limitless, and that's awesome.

Understanding God's character also influences my view of scripture, influences my view of scripture, and vice versa, of course.

Right?

Scripture just becomes invaluable.

Why?

How do we know that God is who he is?

This book, right?

This book tells us.

It's not just me trying to figure out, like, okay, let me try and figure out who the Lord is, so I have something to say to these people on Sunday.

No, we we go to the scriptures, right?

We talk about this, we see it so clearly in the Bible.

As we start to see it, it gives us a hunger for this book.

It gives us a hunger for the word.

It becomes less of something I have to do because that's what you know, Christians who behave well do.

They gotta read it once a day or a few times a week or whatever.

No, I need to be in it, I want to be in it.

My heart is stirred by it.

I I see God's character on every single page, in every single verse.

It tells me.

Something of the Lord.

It tells me something of his attributes, and I see it displayed.

It's coming at me, it's jumping out of the page.

Right?

It gives me this awesome high view of the Word of God.

I don't just see it as another book among many.

I don't see other books as higher than it.

Nothing compares to this book.

My view of scripture grows.

It intensifies.

I love it as I begin to understand and see God's character.

It gives me a firmer conviction.

It gives me a firmer passion for it.

Do you sense yourself growing in that?

The longer that you grow in your faith?

If it's the opposite, let me tell you that that is a major problem.

Don't be okay with that.

A lot of Christians grow and their heart becomes dull to all of these things.

They become dull to who the Lord is.

They become dull to the scriptures.

They stop seeing him as awesome.

A sense of self becomes inflated in all of these things.

And they think that that's normal, and they look at new believers who have that fire and that excitement and that passion.

They're like, oh, that's cute.

I remember those days.

But you'll mature, you'll kind of level out and become a little bit more stable.

And all of it is just an excuse for lukewarmness.

All of it is just a facade.

They call it maturity, and it's the opposite.

Right?

As we understand God's character, everything in life should change.

And it all it all just comes flowing out of our hearts as we see Him clearly.

Listen, I know I understand this.

I'm right with you.

We all have ways to grow in this.

And our entire lives is you know, this process of growing in these things.

Seeing the Lord for who he is.

And so again, I you know been praying for you this week that your affections would be stirred for the Lord through this.

As we as we get into God's word, they'd be pumped up.

All right, let's do this.

Let's have another commitment.

Let's give, you know, let's give my life to the Lord again in this area that I've been holding back.

In the overall trajectory of my life, He is worthy.

He's worthy of my worship.

He is worthy of my trust.

He is worthy of my surrender.