Hebrews chapter 13. Once again, we will read from the beginning of the chapter. Let brotherly love continue. Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some have unwittingly entertained angels. Remember the prisoners as if chained with them and those who are mistreated, since you yourselves are also in the body. Marriage is honorable among all in the bed undefiled, but fornicators and adulterers God will judge. Let your conduct be without covetousness and be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. So we may boldly say, the Lord is my helper. I will not fear. What can man do to me? Remember those who rule over you. who have spoken the word of God to you, whose faith follow, considering the outcome of their conduct. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Let's pray. Father, your son is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Help us to look up out of this realm of mutability, and to see the unchanging one seated at your right hand. Father, we thank you that it is being that is ultimate, not becoming. Eternity, not time. Permanence, not change. We pray that you would help us to see the eternity of the Son of God and to worship Him for it. We pray this in His name. And Christian publishing has a dirty little secret The dirty little secret of Christian publishing is that books about Jesus don't sell Christians love to buy books about marriage Parenting theological controversy Maybe you simply write a book that says, here's the beauty and glory of the Lord Jesus. It'll sit on the shelves at the bookshop and then it will be remaindered. We profess as Christians to believe that Jesus Christ is the perfect one, the only one who can save us, the only one with the ability to conquer death and overcome sin, the only authentically good and beautiful human person who has ever lived, And we frankly just don't have time to dig into him further. In my bathroom sits a little booklet called 31 Meditations on Christ by Robert Hawker and I've opened it in the last five years one time. We're going to try to change that or at least push back against that a little bit for the next 30 minutes as we consider the majesty and beauty our Savior Jesus Christ is the same yesterday today and forever He is the same yesterday Scripture testifies to this abundantly God does not change the Jesus as the Son of God does not change in 1st Samuel The prophet Samuel tells King Saul, the strength of Israel will not lie or repent, for he is not a man that he should repent. Moses had already said the same thing, or rather, Balaam had said the same thing in Numbers 23. God is not a man that he should lie, nor a son of man that he should repent. Has he said and will he not do it? Or has he spoken and will he not make it good? New Testament witnesses to the same thing. James 1, every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. Motion is the most basic form of change. Change location to be one of the turning celestial bodies in the sky. We know that the sky is not timeless. The planets and stars are moving, they're turning. not so with our God. He is the same, and his years have no end. Malachi 3.6 puts it as bluntly as possible, I am the Lord, I do not change. Therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed. It is so important for us to remember that God does not change, that Jesus does not change. We are surrounded by change. We change all the time, as I've mentioned. All of us have changed. You look in the mirror and you say, what happened? Change is the only constant. You can never step in the same river twice. You can recite these Proverbs about change, The cows come home right they won't stay out in the pasture forever their location will change. That's the way the world is Not so with our Lord Jesus His character is stable It's not just granite iron diamond adamant It's completely and totally fixed and Not just his character, also his ideas, his decisions are as immutable as he is. That's what Samuel and Balaam both testified to. He will not repent. That is, he will not change his mind. If God has made a decision, he will stick to that decision till the end of time. Of course he will. Why do we change our minds? We gain some new information. Either that new information is about the situation, or it's about our own preferences and desires. Right, you know, I thought I wanted the ribeye, but actually I want the ribs. I changed, okay? God's ideas don't change. He does not repent or change his mind. Some would say, well, how did he become man? Isn't that a change? The only answer is who he is did not change, even as he assumed a human body. If Abraham could have walked the streets of Nazareth with the son of Mary, he would have recognized the one he knew as Jehovah God, the one who sat with him under the oaks at Mamre and ate the fatted calf and the flatbread. Jesus is the same yesterday. He was begotten of his Father before all worlds, as we confess in the Creed. That comes from Psalm 2. You are my Son, today I have begotten you. That today means the day of eternity, an unchanging day, that Jesus is continually and always begotten by the Father. Theologians call this the eternal generation of the Son. Jesus does not change. The Father does not change. The Father is always begetting the Son. That today on which the Son is begotten is right now, is all times, is all of eternity. There was never a time when He was not. There was never a Father without a Son. On Mother's Day, all of you, I think, who are mothers, can just barely remember a time when you were not a mother. God the Father has no time when he was not a father. Jesus is the same yesterday. He was in the bosom of the Father, John 1 tells us. He's leaning back on the Father's lap. John describes himself as the beloved disciple sitting at the Last Supper, leaning on Jesus' bosom. This was in a different culture different time even today as I understand it Arab men sometimes greet each other with a kiss on the cheek We don't do that in our culture. We've been ruined by perverts not so John reclines on Jesus bosom Just enjoys a good solid male friendship at the Last Supper and then he takes that experience and uses it to say my relationship with Jesus is is like Jesus' relationship with the Father. The only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has made Him known. Look at John leaning on Jesus at the Last Supper and say that is a picture of how Jesus Christ relates to His Father. They are blissfully, lovingly connected, united to all eternity. As I was preparing this sermon, I got a marriage book by some Christian guru in the mail. The guru told the story that some reader had written into her, saying, our adult son drove for 10 hours to see me and his dad. And he got here, and he spent the evening with us, and his dad spent the entire evening sitting on the couch, staring into his phone. What do I do? I confronted him afterwards. Help me, oh guru. I confronted my husband and he said, oh, I was buying a sofa bed so that we would have something for our son to sleep on next time he visits. And the mom is like, for five hours? Marriage guru writes back and says, your husband is afraid to be known. He's trying to avoid connection. I'm sorry lady. There's not a lot of things I can recommend beyond that you pray for him, but This is not who God the father is He does not try to avoid connection with his son Jesus doesn't say hi dad And the father says quiet I'm watching the game It's not how this works There are many sad perversions of fatherhood and sonship in this world, but there are none in heaven. He is in the bosom of the father. The father shows the son everything that he is doing. That's how Jesus describes his relationship with his father. Dads, might be a really good idea to model your own fatherhood on that. The father shows the son everything that he is doing. Jesus is the one through whom all things were made. Nothing was made without Him. And the Father set out to create the world. The Son was right beside Him. The Father created the world through the Son. The Word of the Father. God said, let there be light. God creates the world out of words. Another way of showing us the world is made through the Son of God. Jesus is not a creature. It's impossible for him to be a creature because all things were made through him. And therefore, if he were a creature, he would have had to have made himself before he existed. Something logically impossible. Jesus did not make himself. He is begotten of the Father before all worlds. He is in the bosom of the Father. He and the Father work together on the creation of the world and the salvation of the world. That's who he is today. He is the Savior. He does not change. The Hebrew writer is going back to Psalm 102, which he quoted in the first chapter. Hebrews you Lord in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth and the heavens are the work of your hands They will perish, but you remain they will grow old like a garment like a cloak you will fold them up And they will be changed, but you are the same and your years will have no end God does not change the sky will wear out the hills will erode away But God will never change Jesus Christ is the same today. The Hebrew writer quotes that from Psalm 102 and says, this is written about the Son of God. He is the same and his years have no end. We can't wrap our minds around eternity. We try to think forward, what would that mean to never change? And yet at the same time, we can't wrap our minds around death and dissolution. You may feel old today. You may look at your body and say, I'm not made to be old. I don't feel old in my heart. I feel young. It's my body that feels old. We can't reconcile ourselves to death and aging. They're not normal. They're not natural. We were made. with that echo of eternity in us to be like our Creator. You are the same, and your years have no end. Everything in us cries out for the life and strength of youth that we will enjoy in heaven. That is right and fitting, because that is who we are in Christ. He is the Word of the Father. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. What does it mean to say that Jesus is the word of the Father? The theologians tell us that just as you can form a word in your mind, think of a word, you have not yet spoken that word, but the word is in your mind. It is part of you. It is an expression of who you are. There's no separation or distance between you and that word, while it remains in your mind. It's an analogy of sorts to help us understand that is who Jesus is to the Father. But never can we say in a single word everything we need to say. One word is hopelessly inadequate. The Father forms one word, one perfect final word, the word who expresses Everything in the father's mind and that word is the son The father has nothing more to say when he has spoken this word Jesus shows says Everything the father has to say whoever has seen me has seen the father I've been with you so long and still you don't know me, Jesus asks. And Philip says, Lord, show us the father. You are looking at the father. He is the perfect word of the father. And yet he is also a man born from Mary. His physical frame, his genetic material are from his mother. And that will never change either. He will never get tired of being a human being. and shed his body like a bug shedding its carapace. It's not how this works. Jesus is the same today. Furthermore, he is the only believably perfect character in all human literature. If you read those great writers who have set themselves the challenge of crafting the perfect character, there's some fly in the ointment, there's some flaw. Either they're too perfect and you're like, that's not a human being. Or they have to have some problem, right? Dostoevsky sets out to write a full length novel centered on a perfectly good character in his book, The Idiot. But Dostoevsky can't do it. He has to give this character epilepsy. He has to have some kind of physical mental condition that makes him just a little different. from an ordinary human being. The greatest novelist cannot show us a perfect man. But God has shown us a perfect man. Listen to this. Why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothed the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? You know those words. Matthew 6, the Sermon on the Mount. Here's how G.K. Chesterton comments on them. There is perhaps nothing so perfect in all language or literature as the use of these three degrees in the parable of the lilies of the field. In which he seems first to take one small flower in his hand and note its simplicity and even its impotence. Then suddenly expands it in flamboyant colors into all the palaces and pavilions full of a great name and national legend and national glory. And then, by yet a third overturn, shrivels it to nothing once more with a gesture as if flinging it away. If God so clothes the grass that today is and tomorrow is cast into the oven, how much more It is like the building of a good Babel tower by white magic in a moment, and in the movement of a hand, a tower heaves suddenly up to heaven, on the top of which can be seen afar off, higher than we had fancied possible, the figure of man, lifted by three infinities above all other things, on a starry ladder of light, logic, and swift imagination. Merely in a literary sense, it would be more of a masterpiece than most of the masterpieces in the libraries. Yet it seems to have been uttered almost at random, while a man might pull a flower. But merely in a literary sense also, this use of the comparative in several degrees has about it a quality which seems to me to hint of much higher things. There is nothing that really indicates a subtle and superior mind so much as this power of comparing a lower thing with a higher, and yet that higher with a higher still, of thinking on three planes at once. These far-flung comparisons are nowhere so common as in the Gospels, and to me they suggest something very vast. So are things solitary and solid, but the added dimension of depth or height might tower over the flat creatures living only on a plane. Consider the lilies of the field. And yet Jesus Christ is the same. He is the greatest of men, and he never changes. He will always be this good. We know that's not the case with human artists, our favorite bands. They release a new album, you buy it. You listen to the first couple tracks and then what do you say mournfully? They used to be good. As you pitch the CD into the trash can. You will never say that. about the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no, he used to be good. He is the same. The one who said, God so clothes the grass or the field, the one who gave that incredible three-tiered comparison, he's the same. He can still do that. He does still do that. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. That's how John the Baptist recognized him. Behold the Lamb of God. He is the fulfillment of the ram caught in the bushes who saved Isaac's life in Genesis 22. He is the fulfillment of the Passover lamb in Exodus 12, and the lamb for the day of atonement in Leviticus 16. He is the sin bearer and he will remain the sin bearer forever. That will never change. If you have sins today, Take those sins to the Lord Jesus Christ. There's someone you need to forgive. If you know you've drawn someone, you've done something that lies on your conscience this morning, Jesus is the one who can deal with it. He is the Lamb of God who picks that sin up and carries it away. If you have sins, He is the one for you. In fact, He is the friend of sinners. And that too will never change. Only the Lord Jesus could take a pharisaical slur and turn it into a badge of honor. Luke 7, John the Baptist came eating no bread and drinking no wine and you say, he has a demon. The Son of Man has come eating and drinking and you say, behold a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of tax gatherers and sinners. Yet wisdom is vindicated by all her children. Jesus is the friend of sinners. If you need a friend today, Jesus will be that friend. If you are a tax gatherer or a sinner, an IRS agent that everyone hates, Jesus is a friend to those kinds of people. The outcast, the unloved, the unwanted, the lonely. He is a friend to sinners. Be as specific as possible in your prayers of confession. Ask Him to forgive your particular sins particularly. Bring your sins to Him. He is the Lamb of God. He will take them away. That will never change. That's who He is today. Jesus Christ is the same forever. Alexa and I say to each other, people are going to be who you've known them to be. Someone does something, Well, that was predictable. That's just how they do that. People are going to be who you've known them to be. There's no point in getting upset or saying, I've lived with this for 20 years, why don't they change? Well, they don't change because that's who they are. That's how they do it. Sometimes with fallen creatures, that can be a bad thing. But this too is an image on a smaller scale of Jesus who is the same forever. He will be who you've known Him to be, the friend of sinners, the Lamb of God, the man born from Mary, the Word of the Father. That will never change. If you've known Him to forgive your sins, to give you peace and joy and His Holy Spirit, that won't change. He will not someday wake up and say, I'm done with that sinner. I'm done with that Christian. He does not change. He's not just a friend of sinners, though. Psalm 102 reminds us he is an enemy of sinners. He will tear open the sky, as Peter changes the image just a little bit from rolling up the sky like a cloak. He'll tear open the sky and expose the sinners on the surface of the earth, catch them red-handed, and deal with them appropriately. He is the righteous judge who will give sinners what they deserve. This is Jesus. This is also why we don't have to freak out about the behavior of sinners. Sinners do evil things. They do evil things with the backing of state power. They harm the righteous. It happens. It is happening. It will keep happening until the day when Jesus puts a stop to it as the great judge of all the earth. He will judge the world. God is now declaring to men that all men everywhere should repent because he has fixed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed. And of this he has given proof to everyone by raising him from the dead. That's what Paul preached in Athens. And it's still true. Jesus is the judge. The whole human race, good and evil, will stand before him. and be judged on the basis of what they have done. Psalm 9, he will judge the world in righteousness. He will execute judgment for the peoples with equity. Jesus is the same forever. If you've known him as the righteous judge, you will continue to know him as the righteous judge. That too will not change. Abraham said long ago, God said long ago to Abraham, shall not the judge of all the earth do right? No, Abraham said that to God. And it's still true. The judge of all the earth will do what is right. He will present the cosmos to the father when he's finished judging. Then comes the end when he delivers up the kingdom to God, his father, when he has abolished all rule and all authority and power. He'll stop the wicked. He'll draw their fangs. He will weaken them to the point of powerlessness forever and ever. That day is coming. We don't know exactly when it is, but we know that it is soon. And we know that he never changes. He will never change his mind about doing that, about setting the world to rights and giving the kingdom back to the Father. He is the God-man now and forever. We sometimes think we're tired of being human. I'm ready to shuffle off this mortal coil. Jesus never feels that way. Inasmuch as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release all those who through fear of death all their lifetime subject to bondage. For indeed, he does not give aid to angels, but he does give aid to the seed of Abraham. Therefore, in all things he had to be made like his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God to make propitiation for the sins of the people. In all things like his brothers, including permanent humanity. He shares in our flesh and blood. He is not ashamed to call us brothers. He has freed us from the fear of death, our worst nightmare, vanquished at a stroke by the death of the Son of God. Remember Jesus Christ. This is who He is now. This is who He always has been. This is who He always will be, because He is the same yesterday, today, Forever, let's pray Father we thank you that though we change Jesus does not change Though we are different we forget We fall away Jesus never forgets he never falls away He is the same and his years have no end and Continue your favor to your servants and your righteousness to those who know you. We dare to ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, for he is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Amen.