For the rest of you who are remaining here, please turn in your copy of God's Word to James chapter 1, James chapter 1 verse 17. And we've provided an outline in your bulletin of the sermon. Fill in some blanks, take some notes so that you can remember what the Lord has taught you today in His Word. Well, first I'd like to speak for just a few moments as to how we as believers should respond to this event that took place, this horrible event back Wednesday night in Charleston. I think one of the most powerful things that we can do is just continue to pray, pray for Emanuel Church, pray for its people and the friends and victims of, or the friends and family of these victims, and pray for the city of Charleston. I don't know if you're online very much looking at different news sources, but You know, some of the news that we receive in the media, you know, it's not the whole story. There's an incredible outpouring of the Holy Spirit taking place on the town of Charleston. And it's brought churches together, believers together in an unusual way, praying for God's mercy, praying for God's strength. I think we need to prepare ourselves for greater testing and trials in the days to come. You know, this was a bigoted, a racist man, a man who also was evil, and I think he did what Satan wanted him to do, and I think this is also representing spiritual warfare. And I don't think it's going to get better. I think it's going to get worse in the days to come. And so I think we need to prepare ourselves in prayer. We need to strengthen ourselves in the Word of God and the promises of God. And I think we need to strengthen the union that we already have as believers with each other and show the difference that the gospel and God's grace makes, how God has broken down those walls of hostility between races and cultures and economic classes through the gospel. And as Tim mentioned in his prayer, what an amazing, stunning evidence of the grace of God in the people of Emmanuel, especially these family members who at this court appearing or hearing offered forgiveness to this murderer. Well, I think we need to repent of our own sins of racial prejudices. We need to humbly repent of the subtle ways that we have ignored it when we've been around it. We need to humbly seek to understand what our African American brethren have had to deal with over the years. And I think we need to actively pursue loving our brethren of all races, seeking the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. You know, it's not a coincidence that about 10 days ago or so, we had our General Assembly, and there was a resolution that came to the floor of the assembly seeking repentance and reconciliation with our African-American brethren and with other minorities and there was great repentance and confession of sins and an hour and a half of prayer and we decided to to perfect this resolution by sending it back down to the churches and the presbyteries to interact with it so that it can be refined and passed at our General Assembly in 2016 in Mobile, Alabama. So the Lord is at work in spite of the evil that seems to be victorious at times. I'm sure you're going to agree with me, though, that true reconciliation cannot be accomplished by governments It cannot be accomplished by man-made institutions. It's only accomplished as the gospel is proclaimed and the love of Christ takes root in the hearts of people. And so we need to pray for the power of the gospel to go forth and to bear fruit. Well, today we are continuing our summer study of the attributes of God called the glory of God because the glory of God is the sum total of all of God's attributes. And we've been seeing how these attributes are reflected in the person and work of Christ and in the gospel. observing and knowing and believing and worshiping God for these attributes, I believe is going to bring about transformation and change as our hearts are conformed to the image of Christ. I think it's going to facilitate greater reconciliation in all kinds of relationships. And one of the reasons we are studying the attributes of God is because our hearts have a tendency to worship idols, to worship something other than God. We are glory seekers. We are hardwired with a desire to worship, but because of sin, we worship created things rather than the Creator. And so God wants us to know him so that we might worship him. And the more we know him, the more we're going to know ourselves and our own need and how we find fulfillment in Christ. Well, we've been using the shorter catechism of the Westminster Confession of Faith, question four, as a guide for studying the attributes of God. And it seeks to answer the question, what is God? And the answer, God is spirit. infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. And we're going through each one of these phrases, and in this creed, each one of these phrases is footnoted with Scripture references, and we're looking at those Scripture references and other key Bible verses to examine these marvelous attributes. So far, we've looked at how God is Spirit, and how God is infinite in His perfection and His omnipresence, and how He is also eternal, how He exists outside of time and sovereign over all time. And today, we're going to be looking at the attribute of God's immutability, how He is unchangeable, This is the third of the incommunicable attributes that we have looked at so far. Now, remember, incommunicable means these are attributes that we don't share with God. These are attributes that are only given and ascribed to God and none other. And so I'd like to direct you to James 1, verse 17. Now, we'll be looking at a number of passages, but we will launch from this one. James is writing to the persecuted church. the church that has been dispersed. They had to leave in mass from Jerusalem, and they settled in different cities and towns of Asia Minor, and so James is sending this letter as a circular letter to all of these churches. And the general theme of this letter is that true faith results in a transformed lifestyle. resulting in good works, good works of our thoughts, of our words, and of our deeds. Now, we're not saved by good works, but by faith alone, in the finished work of Christ alone. But works are the necessary demonstration of true faith. And James calls upon them to recognize how they are tempted with sin, and that God does not tempt them with sin. God is, in fact, the giver of good things. And so look at verse 17 with me. The Word of God. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. James is saying here that Everything that is truly good comes from the Lord. God is the Father. He has created the heavenly lights, the stars, the universe. And He reassures us here that unlike creation, God doesn't change. He doesn't vary like the difference between night and darkness or night and day. And He doesn't vary like the shadows vary during the day. that move according to the sun and the stars and the moon. This theology of the immutability or the unchangeableness of God is to be a great encouragement to believers. And so I'd like to answer the question, how is God unchangeable? And we're going to see four ways that He is unchangeable, and then we're also going to see why it matters. So first, let's look at how God is unchangeable in His person. A few years ago, there was a video on the internet that was very popular, and there are a number of them like them, where a parent was posting time-lapse pictures of their child from age 0 to 14, and it was called, A Portrait of Lottie, 0 to 14 in 4 Minutes. And it went viral. 34 million people have watched this video. And why? Because it's fascinating to see the changes from an infant all the way to a teenager. The changes in the face and how the face morphs. It's just beautiful how we change as human beings. We grow and develop as human beings. All of creation is in flux. It all changes, but there is one life that cannot change, that will not change, and that is the life of God. In Psalm 102, verse 25 and following, it says, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you will remain. 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." The life of God never ends. We learned about that last week, how He is eternal. He has no beginning, no end, but He is also one who never changes. He is always the same. He doesn't learn anymore because He knows everything. He doesn't develop because He's already perfect. He doesn't gain more power. He is already infinite in His power. He doesn't mature. He's already infinite in all His ways. Well, an extension of this idea, secondly, is that God is unchangeable in His properties. And another way of saying that would be in His attributes. He doesn't change in His character. Life changes us, doesn't it? You know, what we go through, the stress, the struggle of life, we mature, we go through all kinds of changes. Physiologically, we have health issues. Getting older is quite a challenge. And all of that can alter our character, but time doesn't alter God's character. His attributes are all perfect. You know, I have this concern, and I think I've shared it with you before, that I'm afraid of becoming a grumpy old man. You know, I have this tendency of being a complainer. When I'm not around you, you know, Cindy sees it and all my ugliness at times. I can be a complainer. I can be grouchy. And I'm so thankful that my wife is patient with me and guides me and directs me and encourages me to be positive and be full of faith. I'm hopeful that by the grace of God and through the power of the Holy Spirit using His Word and prayer and the sacraments and God's people that I will grow to be more and more a man of joy and faith and love and hope as I grow older. But this growth never has to happen with God. He is perfect. And this is the meaning behind God being our rock. You know, God being a rock is referred to many times in Scripture. Moses says in Deuteronomy 32.3, for I will proclaim the name of the Lord, ascribe greatness to our God, the rock. His work is perfect, for all His ways are justice. A God of faithfulness, without iniquity, just and upright is He. And 2 Samuel 22.31 says, for who is God but the Lord? And who is a rock except our God? You can count on God. He is a rock. You're familiar with the Marines motto, Semper Fi, always faithful, always loyal. Well, John Calvin came up with a slogan for God, a Latin slogan, the term Semper idim, which means always the same. It refers to the immutability of God, the unchangeableness of God. God says in Malachi 3.6, for I, the Lord, do not change. Therefore, you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed. He's speaking about the mercy of God, and because He doesn't change, we can count on God being merciful. Thirdly, God's immutability also pertains to His plans. He is immutable in His plans. Yesterday we went to the lake to do some kayaking. We borrowed some kayaks and it looked like a perfect day. You know, we went to the weather channel, only 20% chance for rain. We thought that's a pretty good chance. So the skies were blue and we got down to the lake and this huge thunderstorm comes up. And my wife, who always has a contingency plan, She had a plan B. She brought a picnic with us and so we sat under the pavilion for about an hour and waited for the storm to go by and then we went kayaking. But God does not have a contingency plan. Do you know that? There is no plan B with God. It's not necessary because God's plan A always works. It's always infallible because he plans it all out. You know, when I was a young Christian, I was told by a teacher that the crucifixion of Christ was God's plan B. Because his plan A did not work. His plan A was to send his son, hoping that the Jews would accept him as the Messiah, and then there wouldn't be a need for plan B. But because they didn't accept him as Messiah, well, then Jesus came and he died on the cross for our sins. And for some reason, that made sense to me for a long time. And then, you know, I got more into the Word. I said, wait a second. That's not God's plan B. That was His plan all along. And it was His plan all along because this is the kind of Messiah that we really needed. We needed a Messiah who would do everything for us, who would be our substitute. And you know what the Bible says about our need. We are born with a sinful nature. We are born separated from God. We are born under his condemnation and wrath because we inherited a sinful nature from Adam and Eve. And there is nothing that we can do to satisfy the requirements of God to be restored or to be forgiven or to receive our salvation. Excuse me a minute. You know, God is a just God. He requires that all of our sins be paid for in hell. And God is a righteous God. He requires that we live a perfect life, fulfilling all His commandments. So, no degree of penance, no degree of good works can pay off our debt to God. God's plan was to send His Son, the second person of the Trinity, to fulfill these impossible requirements for us. He came as our substitute. He came to fulfill the law so that we could receive His righteousness. He came to pay our debts by taking upon the shame and guilt of our sins and receiving the wrath of God that we deserved in our place on the cross. And so our sins were transferred to Christ's ledger and he assumed our debts and paid them all. And so when a person turns to Jesus Christ and turns away from their sins and believes in Christ alone for their salvation, that person is given the righteousness of Christ. That person is declared forgiven. And this is what Isaiah proclaimed all along that the Messiah would come to do. Isaiah 53 says, to his own way and the Lord laid upon him the iniquity of us all and hear this in verse 10 yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him He has put him to grief when his soul makes an offering for guilt. He shall see his offspring. He shall prolong his days. The will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand." This was God's plan to send his son. And this is what Peter says in Acts 2, 23, this Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. Praise the Lord for his plan, his amazing plan. And Numbers 23, 19 says, God is not a man that he should lie or the son of man that he should change his mind. He has said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it? His plans are made on the basis of his complete knowledge and control, which extends to all things in the past, present, and future. Fourthly, I want us to look at how God is immutable in His promises. You know, when you go to a movie or you pick up a good novel, you're expecting to read twists and turns in this story to make it interesting. And the main character, what makes a really good movie is the main character acts as she or he is not expected to act at the end. In other words, you know, a villain sometimes becomes a hero, or a hero sometimes becomes a villain. We like the twists and the turns. but they're acting out of character because that's what makes a good movie or story. But God never acts out of character. Yes, we see that God's ways are not our ways, and so he does things that we don't expect. We know that God does exceedingly abundantly beyond what we can ask or imagine, but he never acts out of character. He is always faithful to his word and to his plans. Here we are on Father's Day. And I'm so grateful for the fathers that are here in this congregation, for my own father and his example, and for the examples of many of you that I've come in contact over the years. I don't know what I would have done without your modeling what it means to be good fathers. But we also have to admit here, don't we, that we fail at times to be men of our word. We want to be faithful to our word, to our wives, to our children, to our employers, to our neighbors. But dads are flawed, just like moms are flawed. We blow it. We have made some promises that we could not keep. And maybe you had a difficult childhood. You had a father who abandoned you when you were young. Or maybe you had a father who was an alcoholic, or a father who abused you, or a father who just wasn't around very much. And so you have a more difficult time trusting in God being faithful to his word and his promises. But God gives us faith to believe that even though that has not been the experience in our upbringing. God's word says in Isaiah 40 verse 8, the grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. And you know one of those beautiful words in the Old Testament is the word chesed. Chesed is used 191 times and it refers to the steadfast love of God. Half of those times are found in the Psalms. Psalm 5710 says, for your steadfast love is great to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds. We can trust in the steadfast love of our Lord. And so we've seen these incommunicable attributes or qualities of God, one of them being the the immutability of God. And these are ascribed to our Lord Jesus Christ. As we read in our worship service in Hebrews chapter 1, verse 12, it says, but you are the same and your years will have no end. In Hebrews 13, 8, it says, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. So why does it matter? What difference does it make that God is unchangeable? Well, Make sure God's immutability is a source of comfort to you. Now why do I say that? Because if you're not a believer here this morning, God's unchangeable nature is scary. It's frightening. Because that means that you will pay for your sins. Everyone will pay for their sins. Either in Christ they will be paid or they'll be paid in hell. And the Bible is clear. In Exodus chapter 34 it says that he will by no means clear the guilty. Ezekiel 18.20 says the soul who sins shall surely die. We're told that by the works of the law, no human being will be justified. And so, we can't be good enough for God, but Jesus came to be good for us and to pay for our sins. And so, we're told in Acts 4, 12, and there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. Secondly, God's immutable character matters because it should cause us to worship God for His immutability. You know, the doctrine ought to lead to doxology, in other words, to greater worship. In Lamentations, Jeremiah is distraught because of the condition that he sees his people in, how they're rebellious, and how God's judgments are coming upon his people. And he says in Lamentations 3, 9, remember my affliction and my wonderings, the wormwood and the gall. My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. But, verse 21, But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, says my soul, therefore I will hope." You see, as we meditate on God's attributes, as we meditate and reflect upon His immutability, And as we worship God for it, the Lord makes them new to us. The Lord restores our hope. So that's the value of knowing these attributes and worshiping God for them. Christ is unchangeable in his person, his properties, plans, and promises. You know, I want to ask you this morning, What is your hope resting upon? Is it resting upon the rock or is it resting upon the sand? The sand would be those things of this world, even the good things of this world that we are commonly prone to rest our hope upon. our marriages, our retirement fund, a vacation that's coming, our children, our families, our careers, our education, a boyfriend or girlfriend, you name it. We tend to rest upon these things, but what God says, if we rest upon these things, our hope will sink in that sand. But if we rest upon Christ and his promises, he is the rock. As the hymn goes, my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus Christ, my righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name. On Christ, the rock, I stand. All other ground is sinking sand. All other ground is sinking sand. Well finally we have an opportunity to be refreshed from God's immutable love displayed in the Lord's Supper. The Lord's Supper is something that was instituted by Christ when He was in the upper room with His disciples during that Last Supper celebrating the Passover meal. And of course, the Passover meal signified that God delivered His people out of Egypt, out of slavery. And He did that through the Passover lamb, the blood of the lamb on the doorposts of God's people and the angel of death passed over their houses, and then God delivered them into the wilderness. Well, the Passover meal was to look forward also to how the Messiah would come and be the ultimate Passover lamb, who would be sacrificed for us, who would take away our sin. And so Jesus changed this Passover meal to a new sacramental supper and the bread representing his body and the wine or the fruit of the vine representing his blood. Jesus wants us to observe this sacrament often. And when we do it, we declare the Lord's death, the meaning of his death, the meaning of the cross until he comes. We remember that He was sacrificed for us. We remember that someday we are going to sup with Him in heaven. We are also to be reminded that He is not physically present with us. These elements do not turn into the actual blood and body of Christ, but He is spiritually present with us in a very unique way. And so as we partake of these elements in faith and humility, We're actually being fed spiritually. There's a mystical supper and nourishment that's taking place here where our faith is being refreshed and where we are being sealed in our hearts to all the benefits that we have because of our union with Christ. Before we go to this supper, though, we must examine our own hearts. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 11 that we are to examine ourselves, and he exhorts us and warns us that we should partake of these elements in a worthy manner, and we should properly discern the body and blood of Christ. What does that mean? Does that mean we have to be good enough to come to this table? No. It means we have to examine whether we have had a heart change, whether we have been born again, whether we have true faith and repentance in Christ, whether we have surrendered our hearts to Him. And so this is a time of reflection for all of us to make sure that we are believers in Christ. And if you doubt whether you're a true Christian and whether you've truly been born again, then you ought to refrain from taking these elements. Instead, ask the Lord to reveal Himself to you. to show you your sin and to give you faith. If you have a child with you here and this child has not made a public profession of faith in Christ before the elders of this church or the elders of any evangelical church, then they also ought to refrain from taking these elements. And if you're a Christian here this morning, but you come harboring a known sin in your life and you're refusing to repent of that sin, to turn from it, then you also ought to refrain from taking these elements. Instead, ask the Lord for his grace and mercy to give you a heart of repentance and to turn from your sin and trust in the cross and the forgiveness that Christ has provided. This is not a table for perfect people. It's a table for all of us as believers to admit that we're sinners and we come constantly in need of the grace of God in Jesus Christ. So I invite all of you who are members in good standing of any evangelical church to come and partake now and be fed. Let's pray.