Untitled Sermon

The Immutable Characteristics of God: The One Constant

· This series looks at the comfort a Christian can find in God’s unchanging attributes.

· By getting to know God’s immutability, omniscience, love, and righteousness, we can find a constant source of faithfulness, love, and justice.

Week 1

· The world is filled with change, but God is unchanging in his being and constant in his promises, nature, and will.

· We will trust God because he is the one constant and unchanging part of our lives.

Week 2

· God is unchanging in his knowledge of all things past, present, and future.

· We can find comfort in trusting an all-knowing God who is not surprised by our circumstances.

Week 3

· God’s love is self-giving and desires the best for others. This love is unchanging and isn’t based on our merit.

· We must find hope and comfort in God’s unchanging love for us.

1 John 4:7-10 (NIV2011) 7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

God IS Love

· To love is part of God’s eternal unchanging character which is always giving of Himself to others.

Characteristics of God’s love:

It is a love for all His creation

John 3:16 (NIV2011) For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

It motivates us to love Him

1 John 4:19 (NIV2011) We love because he first loved us.

It is ultimately displayed in the sending of His Son (Rom. 5:8).

Romans 5:8 (NIV2011) But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

It has been eternally shared among the members of the Trinity

John 3:35 (NIV2011) The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands.

Jesus said…

John 14:31 (NIV2011) but he comes so that the world may learn that I love the Father and do exactly what my Father has commanded me. “Come now; let us leave.

It produces rejoicing in salvation of His creation (Isa. 62:5).

Isaiah 62:5 (NIV2011) As a young man marries a young woman, so will your Builder marry you; as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you.

“What’s Love Got to Do with It?”

· This 1984 hit song of Tina Turner song stressed the frustration and sometimes uselessness of love when it comes to relationships.

· Turner goes on to describe love as just an emotion that leaves one with a broken heart.

While relationships can be frustrating at times, love has EVERYTHING to do with it

For the God of the Bible, love has everything to do with who he is and how he operates.

· Love is NOT just and emotion

· Love is NOT just an action

· Love is a BEING

Look at this again

1 John 4:7-10 (NIV2011) 7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

· You can’t truly love someone without God, because God himself is that love

· The very presences of God is displayed in love

To love like God is to love through, with, and in God

The Greek word used for the love described is agapé.

· “This refers to the deeper love—the love of God, a spiritual, self-sacrificing love that doesn’t depend on being reciprocated.

· It is God’s love towards Jesus and human beings

So we must keep “God is love” together with the changelessness of God.

God’s love does not change.

This is why the apostle Paul stresses that absolutely nothing and nobody can separate us from God’s love

Romans 8:37-39 (NIV2011) 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

If we think that God won’t love us or that we are unlovable, we are greatly mistaken about an everlasting, forever-loving God.

God IS love

PRAY

Matthew 5:21 (NIV)

21 “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’