No Need For Improvement Series

INTRODUCTION

 Have you ever been offended when a company comes out with a new and improved version of a product?

 You have this product that you have been buying because the company advertised it as the best you can buy only to have the company come back (without apology) and tell you that their product was not as good as they thought it was.

 Now they are trying to sell you the “new and improved” version of what you thought was a reliable product.

 It make me not want to trust them when they tell me that their product is now the best.

 Maybe I am the only one who thinks this way.

 Why do they improve products? Products change because they are not perfect. No matter how good a product is there will always be room for improvement.

 No matter how good an organization (or a church) is, there will be room for improvement.

 Products, people and organizations can be improved because they are not perfect.

 Did you know that one of the attributes of our awesome God is that He is unchanging or put another way, He is immutable. Because of this the title for the message today is “No Need for Improvement”.

 When you look at all the attempts to start new religions, they are a result of man trying to improve God. IT is man looking at God and saying that something needs to be changed.

 Today we will see that God’s person is unchanging, His purpose is unchanging and His promises are unchanging.

SERMON

I. GOD’S PERSON IS UNCHANGING PSALM 102:25-27

 Read Psalm 102:25-27

 The Psalmist says that God created everything that and that creation is wearing down and that one-day it will perish.

 The Psalmist says that things are changing, but that God is still the same. Not only that, but he further states that God’s days will never end.

 In the New Testament, in Hebrews 1:12-13, the Hebrew writer quotes this passage and says that it applies to Jesus, the Son also.

 JAMES 1:17 says, Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.

 MALACHI 3:6 "For I, the Lord, do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed.

 James and Malachi point out that God does not change.

 Notice that James says that every good and perfect gift comes from God. God is perfect in His person, so there is no need to change.

 Plato stated that God is eternally perfect; any change in a perfect being is a change for the worse; therefore God does not change.

 Malachi says that since God is not capricious (impulsive, unpredictable, fickle) He will not change His mind and destroy us as soon as we are disobedient. God has kept His end of the covenants that He made with Israel; He was not provoked to change His mind.

 Humans are constantly growing and changing, learning and maturing (hopefully), but God does not need to do any of these things since He is already perfect.

 How many of you are the same person today that you were 10 years ago, or 5 years ago, or even a year ago? We are always changing, our tastes change, our desires change, our body changes our styles change. God never changes and He never goes out of style.

 HEBREWS 13:8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

 It should be comforting to us to know that from one day to the next, God is still the same God. We know from one day to the next what God wants and what pleases Him.

II. GOD’S PURPOSE IS UNCHANGING (V 17)

 The context of Hebrews 6 deals with an encouragement to grow spiritually (verses 1-3), then a warning about the consequences of spiritual defect from God (verses 4-8) and in verses 9-20 an encouragement to persevere through the tough times based on t he certainty of God’s purpose and promises.

 The audience that the Hebrew writer was addressing was going through difficult times and he was trying to tell them not to leave the faith because God’s purpose and promises were certain and that they would not change.

 How many people do think would turn down Jesus if they were 100% with out a doubt sure that without Jesus they would die and go to hell?

 How many people would turn away from Jesus if they knew 100% for sure that after they die there is a heaven and a hell and that our relationship with Jesus will determine which place we would end up for eternity? Those of us who believe that have not turned away from Jesus.