In His Immutability We Have A Firm Foundation.

If we are faithless, he remains faithful because he cannot deny himself  – 2 Timothy 2:13

This topic is highly sensitive because you could highly abuse it, or you could greatly be blessed by it. It could become the anchor of your life. We're talking about the immutability of God. It's an attribute that God does not share with humans. There's many attributes he shares, but some attributes he does not share with us in when he created us, and that one of them is immutability. 

Immutability means that God is unchangeable. God is unchangeable and thus unchanging.This does not mean that he is immobile and inactive. It doesn't mean that he cannot do stuff. But it does mean that he is never inconsistent, or growing, or developing. Now the concept of God according to Hollywood and Bollywood stars, saints and gurus and godmen, and ideologies and religions is an evolving concept. It's a changing concept. It's a reactive concept. Their gods are reactive. You do something, they do something back. Either they're dead or alive. Either they're a power or a force. In all of their understanding, some have taken the doctrine of Christianity to heresy (wrong teaching), where they believe that Jesus was in formation. And some of your heroes of the television sort believe this and teach this that Jesus was becoming God. Jesus realized and actualized to the point where he became God. And because he became God, we can also become gods. For we were all meant to be gods, etc, etc, etc. So you can go horribly wrong when you do not understand the immutability of God. It does not mean he is immobile or inactive, but it does mean he's never inconsistent or growing or developing. God is and always has been and always will be. 

Malachi 3:6 – For I the Lord do not change; therefore, O children of Jacob, are you not consumed. So in Malachi, immutability guarantees the preservation of Israel. So God is telling the nation of Israel, I don't change, you're safe.

James 1:16-17 – Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation, no shadow due to change.Because God doesn't change, his character doesn't change.

Hebrews 13:8 – Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

One of my favourite authors, A.W. Tozer, writes as so—The immutability of God is among those attributes less difficult to understand, but to grasp it we must discipline ourselves to sort out the usual thoughts with which we think of created things from the rarer ones that arise when we try to lay hold of whatever we may comprehend or can be comprehended of God. To say that God is immutable is to say that he never differs from himself. The concept of a growing, developing God is not found in scriptures. It seems to me impossible to think of God as varying from himself in any way, a new version of himself, perhaps. So here is why. For a moral being to change, it would be necessary that the change be in one of three directions. Either he must go from better to worse, or from worse to better, or, granted that moral quality remains stable, he must change within himself as from immature to mature, from one order of being to another. It should be clear that God can move in none of these directions. His perfections, his attributes, forever rule out any such possibility, probability. God cannot change for the better. Since he is perfectly holy, he has never been less holy than he is now, and can never be more holy than he is and has always been. Neither can God change for the worse. Any deterioration within the unspeakably holy nature of God is impossible. Indeed, I believe it is impossible even to think of such a thing. For the moment we attempt to do so, the object about which we are thinking is no longer God but something else, someone else than God. The one of whom we are thinking may be great, he may be an awesome creature, may be an amazing person, because he is a creature, he cannot be the self-existent creator. So we're shifted from thinking about God to someone else the moment we think he can change. As there can be no mutation in the moral character of God, so there can be none within the divine essence of God. The being of God is unique in the only proper meaning of the word, that is, his being is other than and different from all other beings. We have seen how God differs from his creatures in being self-existent, in being self-sufficient, in being eternal. But by virtue of these attributes, God is God and not some other being. One who can suffer any slightest degree of change is neither self-existent, nor self-sufficient, nor eternal, and so is not God. All that God is, he has always been, and all that he has been and is, he will ever be. Nothing that God has ever said about himself will be modified. Nothing the inspired prophets and apostles have said about him will be rescinded. His immutability guarantees this. The immutability of God appears in its most perfect beauty when viewed against the mutability of men. The immutability of God versus the mutability of men. In God, no change is possible. In men, change is impossible to escape. Neither the man is fixed, nor his world, but he and it are in constant flux. Each man appears for a little while to laugh, to weep, to work, to play, and then to go and make room for those who shall follow him in this never-ending cycle of life.

If all this is true, then God's character is beyond influence. Look at the blessing that this reality is to you, and to your family, and to your life, and to your future, and to your heart, to your belief, and to your faith. Because God is like that, what we just read, God's character is beyond influence. No one from within or out can change God, the way he thinks, the way he believes, what he sees, what he understands. When he says something, no one can change it, no one can get him to take his words back.

God's character is beyond influence, and he cannot be bought. He cannot be manipulated. 

1 John 1:5 – This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you that God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all.

The second thing you want to remember is God's word. When an immutable God speaks, his words are solid. God's word, once it leaves his mouth, it comes back fruitful and fulfilled.Isaiah 55:10 – For just as the rain and snow fall from heaven and do not return without watering the earth, making it bud and sprout, providing seed to sow and food to eat, so My word that proceeds from My mouth will not return to me empty, but it will accomplish what I please and it will prosper where I send. You will indeed go out with joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. 

So the first: God cannot be bought. He cannot be influenced. No one can go up to God and tell him something he doesn’t already know. When you stand before God on the judgment day, nobody's going to come and point a finger and say, wait, I object! Let me tell you what nobody else knows, because nobody else knows anything that God doesn't already know. And having known everything, before anything that could be known was even existent to be known, before anything, God spoke the word and said, you are mine. I have forgiven you. I have called you by name. I've written your name in my palm. You are the apple of my eye and you are mine, and no one can pluck you out of my hand. God has loved you with an everlasting love from everlasting before. You are more surer, you are more purer, you are more loved, you are more valued than anything else to ever come into creation, even in the future. No one can match how valuable you are to God. No one can match how beautiful you are to God. And God made up his mind about that, and nobody can change his mind about you.Second one. God's word, when it leaves his mouth, doesn't come back void. It always bears fruit. That’s the confidence with which I come go the stage every Sunday morning and my congregation gives me 30 minutes of their precious life, in those minutes I expect to give them something that would counter the wisdom, the impact, the influence, the color, and the pizzazz of seven days of Instagram, Facebook, friends, people, loved ones, news, feelings, circumstances, experiences. One message to come back and counter everything they’ll go through in seven days, and I fully put my trust in it. I bank my life on it. Why? Because it is the word of the Living God. Not my opinion, not my experience, but the word of God. And that is why even one sermon a week is able to carry people through an entire week.

The third thing you remember is that God's judgments are final, His choosing is permanent, His gifts are without recall. God doesn't go, ‘I made a mistake, I never saw that coming’. Never. You and I do that on a daily basis. That's why we even have phrases. We have ways of making a joke about it. I didn't see that coming. You know, who would have thought? Because our whole life is constantly changing, one day you hate that person because of what you heard. Then you bump into a friend of his, and he tells you something, so now you’re okay with that person… I'm changing back to front, back to front. In your workplace, in your family, in your colony, in all of your connections, you are changing your opinion about people, perspectives constantly. One day you don't trust a person, and the next day you trust that same person whom you didn't trust or vice versa. You get what I'm saying? You and I change. We must change, but God doesn't change and if He does not change, three things are certain. His judgments, His choosing and His gifts. 

God is not going to get to a point in your mid-40s and say, I don't need you anymore. I don't want this anymore. I can't deal with this anymore. I've had enough. Never. That is never going to happen. Your mother and your father may abandon you, but I will never leave you. When you're going through a hard time, you feel left alone. When you're going through a valley experience, when you're going through a darkest hour experience in your life, the number one thing you feel is left alone. You feel forgotten. You feel that you have been left alone, and the number one assurance from the character attribute of God that He does not change is that if He said He's there, He is there. He doesn't change. His judgments don't change, His choosing doesn't change, and His gifts don't change.

Ecclesiastes 12:14 – For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil. Don't ever think that some things have escaped God's attention. I'm not talking about sins. I'm talking about good things too. Good things, good intentions, good work, good things that you do, things that you work hard at, changes you make for the good, the effort you put in to love God, love His people. Nothing escapes His attention. 

Romans chapter 8: 31-34- If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's chosen ones? It is God who justifies.Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God,who is interceding for us.

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Same yesterday, today, and forever.

Romans chapter 11:28-29 – But as regards election, (that is, who does God choose to be saved) they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers. For the gifts and callings of God are irrevocable. 

When God gives you a gift, when God gives you a calling, that calling is for sure. He gives you a calling based on His foreknowledge and He never ever takes it back. No matter how far you fail, how bad you fall, no matter how far you go, no matter how hard you get against Him, God does not pull back. You can always reboot, turn around and say, sorry Lord, start again. Can we start again please? As long as I'm breathing, we can start again. Start again. Let's go. Tomorrow, I'm going to start reading my Bible again. Monday morning, I'm going to find myself in your presence again. Monday morning, I'm going to stop complaining. I'm going to start worshipping. Monday morning, I'm going to... there are new beginnings for that reason. And God is never done with you because He has chosen you. His gifts and callings are irrevocable.

Now you can become useless. Like if God can give you a gift, an amazing gift, a blessing to His people, but you can become useless because your focus is on yourself, on your pleasures, on your indulgences. That means your gift can be left unused. That's up to you. But God's never going to take it back. In English, we have a fun phrase that says, if you don't use it, you lose it. But not so with the gifts of God. God never takes it back. I just find that fascinating. I think that's why we take God for granted. Because He doesn't change, we take Him for granted. Because He's always faithful, even when we are faithless, we take Him for granted. And I think we need to take that seriously. And we need to take a good look at ourselves.

So where does that put us, brothers and sisters? It puts us on a firm foundation. We, the created, who are the constantly changing, must build on a foundation that is unshakable, unchanging, and unchallenging. God never changes, but you always do. So it behoves you and me to build my life, my relationships, my plans, my purposes on something that does not change. The wise man built his house upon the rock. So Jesus is a rock. Jesus is the rock I build my life on. It's the concept of a rock. It's stone versus rock. Jesus changed Simon's name from Simon to Peter. From sandstone to rock, Peter. That's what God is doing. He's moving our life from being built on the sand to being built on the rock. On Christ the solid rock I stand. All other ground is sinking sand. We, the created, who are constantly changing, must build on a foundation that is unshakable, that is unchanging, that is unchallenged. 

I hope to God that this is your life, that this is your way, that this is your thinking. I hope to God that you're not building your life on money, on property, on people's opinions, people's likes. I hope to God that you're not building your life on your accomplishments, on your academic or professional accolades and accomplishments. I hope to God that those certificates hanging on your wall are not giving you a false sense of pride about who you are, because that's not where your identity should come from as a child of God. I hope to God that your life is being built not on concrete but on conviction. If I were to put a gun to your head and say what convictions are you willing to die for, you should be able to rattle it off, three in the morning in your sleep, this is what I'm willing to die for. That's what a believer should be doing and that is where and from where our peace and joy and sense of anchorage comes from, that's where we pray from, that's the place from which we pray and we are assured that He answers and everything, every promise in Him is yes and amen, that is where it comes from. 

So we must hang our hopes on the person of God, He is the rock, He doesn't provide the rock, He doesn't point to the rock, He is the rock, His presence, His power, His immutability, build your house on the rock, He hears my word and does it. We can build our future, the upcoming year, the next decade, the rest of your life, the few weeks ahead, you can build that on the promises of God. 

Hebrews 6:19 – We have this certain hope like a strong, unbreakable anchor holding our souls to God Himself. Our anchor of hope is fastened to the mercy seat in the heavenly realm beyond the sacred threshold, and where Jesus, our forerunner, has gone in before us. 

We should live out our lives, we should live out everyday working, everyday doing, everyday living, loving on the purposes of God. Why does God want me to marry this person? Why does God want me to live here in this country or that country? Why does God want me to have this job? Not God give me a job, give me a reason for this job, not God give me this wife or give me this husband, give me a reason why this person should be my wife or my husband. God will give you a purpose, and you can build on a purpose, if you're going to build on a person, let it be Him, if you're going to build on a thing, let it be God's purposes. 

Psalm 25:4 – Show me the right path, O Lord; point out the road for me to follow.

When you're building your life on this firm foundation, not on concrete but on conviction, we access His wisdom, so if God's unchanging word comes from His amazing mind, then I want to access His mind so that He speaks to me, I want to hear Him, so I access His mind, His wisdom, the wisdom that founded the worlds, that spoke the worlds into existence, that holds the atom in place, that speaks life into a newborn baby, I want to access that mind, I do it by the word of God, we access His wisdom by the word of God. Psalm 19 is a beautiful psalm if you ever want to memorise a Psalm.Psalm 19:7 – The law of the Lord is perfect (it's complete, without flaw, like God Himself), restoring the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.

So when I open the text, when I spend time, when I say shut up to everybody else, keep quiet, I'm listening to God now, and when I give full attention, I switch off my phone and put it aside, and I read His word, I'm not just reading an old document, I'm not just reading an archaic collection of words, I'm reading the very wisdom of God. 

Now let me tell you, it is the language words, coupled with the Holy Spirit, the author of those words, that gives the written word, which comes from the living word, access to my mind and spirit, so that the living word comes to give me living wisdom. So the word in me, going into me, going through my mind, but getting to my heart, eventually works its work on its own, because it is a spiritual living word, and not necessarily only intellectual. Not to read this text and say, okay good thought for the day. When you open the text, understand that you have just entered the chambers, the secret chambers of the Spirit of God. You've entered the presence of God as soon as He starts speaking. And when He starts speaking, you stop speaking. And when He starts speaking, you listen. And when you're listening, you listen to understand, and you listen to obey. And as He begins to speak through His word, from Genesis to the last chapter of Revelation, there is power in every word. And you're not going to do it consistently every day until you believe it to be true, that it is the living, inerrant revelation of the Most High God. You can't go to a college, or you can't take a master's and a bachelor's in this. It's not some place you can go research. It's not some place you can dig up and find out artifacts about, oh yeah, this is true. God has given to us in our language, in our printed language, His wisdom. So we have to come to terms. And nobody else agrees with us.They can't get past the first 11 chapters of Genesis, leave alone get to Nehemiah or anything else. The world is mocking this. The comedians are mocking this. Scientists are mocking it. It would take your conviction and not your understanding or your comprehension to embrace the word of God and say, they can say what they have to say. Lord, you prove to me that this is the living word. And when the living word stands up and stands before you and begins to speak to you and transforms and changes your life, you know, it is the word of God. You don't need anybody else to facilitate… This is a conviction. 

The Word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword. The Word of God is true. The Word of God bears back to the character of God. So if God is unchangeable, the Word is unchangeable. No new revisions or new additions, thousands of years, intact! We have a foundation that is unshakable by time, testing or trials. Our rock isn’t a philosophy or religion or way of living. It is the sovereign almighty omniscient person of God himself. Our rock is a person, so because it is a person the rock chose us, we didn’t choose our rock. You don’t chose to follow Christ, Christ calls you. And the smartest thing you can do is—follow. We are secure and planted. And it’s all his doing.

2 Tim 2:11-13 – The saying is trustworthy, for: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself.

Don’t abuse the wonderful, unchanging character of God, but build your life on it and tell others about it.