By The Rev. Dr. Paul A. Leggett
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Sermon Text: James 1:17
Sermon Theme
We are told many times in Scripture that God does not change. What does this mean? Some have interpreted this to say that God has so determined the outcome of history that everything follows a preordained course. God then has no “variation” or “change” since in God’s plan, everything has been ordered according to His set pattern. God then cannot have any “bad days” since God has planned everything that happens ahead of time according to his will, including those events that involve suffering and tragedy. Everything has been made to fit God’s all-encompassing plan. Yet such a view does not take into account the many passages in Scripture which refer symbolically to God’s responses of joy and sorrow, grief and pleasure. God’s unchanging character then is not about a lack of change in God’s dealing with his creation. It is rather a description of God’s basic nature. The God revealed in Jesus Christ is a lover (because God is love). God experiences all the realities of a lover.
Sermon Outline
- Special Lover. God is a special lover. We see love in the very nature of God and this is demonstrated in the love of the Father for the Son and the love of the Son for the Father. Yet God does not remain self-contained in His love. God’s love is revealed in Jesus Christ to the whole world. God is present in the world through His Word. That Word ultimately is Jesus Christ. God’s unchanging nature is his character as a lover. Love requires both spontaneity and freedom. God has final control over all things. Yet he chooses to limit this control so that He can express His love. Through His love, God becomes vulnerable.
- Sorrowing Lover. Time and again, God is described as a sorrowing lover. God is grieved in His heart by the sin and rebellion of the world, of Israel and of the church. Yet God never ceases to love us. Nonetheless, God suffers on account of His love. God is continually let down by those whom he befriends and favors. Jesus is abandoned and betrayed by all of His disciples. The Holy Spirit grieves. Jesus is “deeply grieved, even to death” (Matthew 26:38). God has bad days. He has many of them.
- Saving Lover. What then does it mean to say that God never changes? It means that God never ceases to be a lover. From all eternity, God chose Jesus to be the ultimate lover of the human race. We are chosen in Him, not in some deterministic sense of a preordained fate, but rather in the sense that our destiny is tied up with His. As one of our oldest confession says, we have been elected (or chosen) “not directly, but in Christ and on account of Christ.” We know we have been chosen by the simple fact that we believe in Christ and want to belong to Him. God in Christ loves us so much that He will never let us go (Romans 8:37-39). He is with us on good days and bad. John Calvin, whose five hundredth birthday will be celebrated next week (July10) insisted (as opposed to some of his followers) that Scripture teaches that we find our assurance only in Christ and not in anything in ourselves. In Christ we know that God loves us completely. This means that even the bad days are good.
Questions for Us
- What does it mean to say that God's love never changes? How is this love shown in the Gospel? What hope and comfort does this provide for us?
- Do we take seriously the fact that we can grieve God by our actions? How does the idea of God as a lover affect he way we understand our relationship to Him?
- God chose us in Christ to be in a loving relationship with Him. Nothing can separate us from that love in Christ (Romans 8:38-39). How then should that assurance and confidence affect the way we deal with everyone we meet? Do we live our lives as those who know that God's love has been "poured into our hearts" (Romans 5:5)?
