God is Unchanging
We have spent ten weeks talking about God’s character, because who we believe God is, impacts our character. We started with His Glory. We talked about His Justice, His Goodness, His Wisdom, His Love, His Mercy. We talked about a God who is All-Powerful, All-Knowing, and Everywhere at the same time.
And today we land on the attribute that threads all these together…We are speaking about his immutability…in other words. God never changes. If God could change, then everything we have talked about in this series falls apart.
A God who loves today but might not love tomorrow is terrifying.
A God who is merciful now but could run out of mercy next week - that is not a God you can build your life on.
If God decided we could only be forgiven and enter into a relationship with him today, and decides that you can only have a relationship with God through doing good works…we have no sense of direction for our lives.
But the Bible does not describe a God who changes. The word of God describes a God who cannot change. And his unchanging character changes everything.
God does not change
When it comes down to understanding God’s character, the Prophet Malachi provides us with one of the most important sentences in scripture.
Malachi 3:6 (NLT2)
“I am the LORD, and I do not change…
The word used for LORD in this passage is Yahweh - the personal name of God. It means I AM. It is the name God gave Moses at the burning bush when Moses asked who he should say sent him.
God said, "Tell them I AM sent you.” Not I WAS. Not I WILL BE. I AM.
God exists outside of time. He has no beginning and no end. God does not grow, learn, improve, or decline. He is not in the process of becoming something. He simply IS.
God is unchanging in His character, purposes, and promises. His character - His love, mercy, justice, goodness, and wisdom do not vacillate. He never hesitates or wrestles with what is right. His purposes will be accomplished. And we can depend on His Promises.
Numbers 23:19 (NKJV)
"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? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?
God has never hidden himself from human beings. He has told the truth about himself because he wants us to find him, know him, and have a relationship with him. If he changed, it would be impossible to develop us as people. We would become wishy-washy people with no convictions, no direction, and no purpose.
Hebrews 13:8 makes the same point about Jesus.
Hebrews 13:8 (NLT2)
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
The Jesus who healed the blind man in the Gospels is the same Jesus alive right now. The Jesus who forgave the woman caught in adultery is the same Jesus who sees you today. The Jesus who wept at the tomb of Lazarus - He still weeps over your pain.
He has not changed his mind about you. He has not grown tired of you. He has not become less patient, less loving or less able to save.
Read the rest of Malachi 3:6 carefully.
Malachi 3:6 (NLT)
"I am the LORD, and I do not change. That is why you descendants of Jacob are not already destroyed."
God is telling the Israelites that the reason you still exist, the reason I have not wiped you out, is because He does not change.
Because God does not change, we are not destroyed
A little bit of context is helpful for this verse, Malachi. The people of Israel had a history of failure that is almost hard to believe. God delivered them from slavery in Egypt. He parted the Red Sea. He fed them in the desert. He gave them land. He gave them kings. He sent them prophets. And they kept walking away from Him. Over and over and over again.
By the time Malachi is writing these words, the people of Israel have been through exile, they have returned to the land, and they have already started drifting from God again. And God says through Malachi - you are still here because of my unchanging character. His commitment to His people was never based on their performance. It was always based on His character.
But Malachi 3:6 tells us something different. The same God who did not destroy Israel after generations of rebellion is the same God who has not given up on you. His mercy – is still active.
His love is still flowing. His goodness is still present. None of those things have diminished. None of them are seasonal. None of them depend on you getting it right.
Because He does not change.
You and I are not destroyed. Not because we have been faithful enough. But Because God has. And as we grow to become more like God’s character…
We become stable people for an unstable world
We live in one of the most unstable moments in recent memory. The news changes by the hour. Relationships are fragile. The economy shifts. People are anxious. Aliens are coming. Aliens are already here. The Epstein files. Presidents wearing masks. There are enough conspiracy theories swimming on the internet, a person could jump into one of them and never come back out. And many of us are carrying more uncertainty than we want to admit. So it is a relief that God says, - I do not change.
That is not just a character trait…That is an anchor. When you are anchored to something unchanging, you stop being tossed around by everything that changes. The people closest to you experience either stability or instability from you. And which one they get is largely determined by what you are anchored to.
I did not grow up around stability. My dad changed all the time. Little things would set him off. In his anger, he would shatter a plate of food against the wall if it didn’t taste right. At two in the morning… he would randomly be outside the trailer shooting his rifle. In his drunkenness, he would chase me down for a “spanking” using a switch from a tree…
And then there was the abuse that happened behind closed doors, that was supposed to remain a family secret…
So I learned how to read the room early on. I learned how to stay quiet. I learned how to adjust fast. Because I never knew which version of my dad I was about to get. Sometimes he was kind. Sometimes he was warm. And sometimes… he was someone I was afraid of. And when you grow up like that… it impacts you.
You stop trusting stability. You start expecting people to change. You start bracing for it. You get good at anticipating the shift… because the shift always came.
So when I read…“I am the LORD, and I do not change…” I am telling you—that hits different for me. Because I know what it felt like to live with someone who changed dramatically back and forth all the time. But God is not like that.
He does not snap. He does not explode. He does not wake up in a different mood. He does not change His mind about me based on my worst moment. He is Steady. Always steady.
And some of you have never experienced steadiness from anyone. Some of you did not grow up with stability either. So trusting a God who never changes, that does not come easy for you.
Because everything you have experienced tells you people do.
And, even as a follower of Jesus and a parent of four teenage daughters…I have learned - sometimes the hard way - that when I am not anchored to the unchanging character of God, I too can become unpredictable. (In no way like my dad) When I am not anchored in God’s character, I become unpredictable…I become moody. My patience runs out. My grace runs thin.
The truth is, when we are anchored to a God who does not change - His love, His patience, His mercy, His goodness - those things start to flow through us.
One of our guiding values at Beach Church is Transparent Living. We believe God desires us to be real, open, and honest about who we are and allow others to do the same. Transparent Living only works when you are anchored to a God whose opinion of you does not shift with your performance. You can be honest about your failure because His mercy does not expire. You can be real about your struggle because His love is not conditional.
And when you live that way - anchored, honest, stable - the people around you begin to experience something they cannot find anywhere else in this world. They experience someone who reflects the steady, unchanging character of Jesus.
That is the mission. Leading people to a life-changing relationship with Jesus. And the most powerful way we do that is by becoming stable people in an unstable world - because the whole world is looking for something that does not move.
Ten weeks ago, we started this series with a simple question.
Do you know who God is? Not who you wish He was. Not a version of God you constructed from your experiences or your pain or your disappointments. Who He actually is.
He is glorious. He is just. He is good. He is wise. He is loving. He is merciful. He is all-powerful. He is all-knowing. He is everywhere. And He does not change.
Every attribute we have studied - from week one to week ten - is permanent. It will not shift tomorrow based on how your week went. That is the most stabilizing truth in the universe.
And if you have never surrendered your life to this God - the God who does not change, the God who is still merciful toward you, the God who has not given up on you - today is the day.
Romans 10:9 (NLT2)
If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
The Jesus who rose from the dead two thousand years ago is the same Jesus today. He has not changed His offer to forgive your sins and give you a new life. He is not waiting for a better version of you to show up. He is the same. Yesterday, today, and forever.
If you are ready to surrender your life to Him, pray this with me:
PRAYER OF SURRENDER:
"God, I believe you do not change. I believe Jesus died for my sin and rose from the dead. I surrender my life to you. Forgive me. Change me. I am yours. In Jesus name, Amen."
If you prayed that today, open the Beach Church app, click on Connect, and let us know. We want to walk with you.
What a ten weeks it has been.