I invite you to turn with me in God's Word now to Job chapter 11. It's on page 499 in your pew Bible. Job is right before Psalms. Job, Psalm, Proverbs. Job chapter 11. The context here in Job 11 is Job, who was faithful and righteous before the Lord, lost nearly everything. His life and his wife were spared, but he lost children and crops and herds, and all of his possessions were taken. Job had three friends that came to counsel him, but they didn't give much wise counsel. Nevertheless, in Job chapter 11, we see quite a statement of an acknowledgment of who Almighty God is. We're going to continue our series this evening looking at God's presence, focusing on His incomprehensible, invisible, and unchangeable God. So we'll read here from Job chapter 11. Then Zophar the Namethite answered and said, Should a multitude of words go unanswered, And a man full of talk be judged right. Should your babble silence bend, and when you mock, shall no one shame you? For you say, my doctrine is pure, and I'm clean in God's eyes. But oh, that God would speak, and open his lips to you. That he would tell you the secrets of wisdom. For he is manifold in understanding. Know then that God exacts of you less than your guilt deserves. Can you find out the deep things of God? Can you find out the limit of the Almighty? It is higher than heaven, what can you do? Deeper than Sheol, what can you know? Its measure is longer than the earth and broader than the sea. If he passes through and imprisons and summons the court, who can turn him back? For he knows worthless men. When he sees iniquity, will he not consider it? but a stupid man will get understanding when a wild donkey's colt is born a man. If you prepare your heart, you will stretch out your hands toward him. If iniquity is in your hand, put it far away and let not injustice dwell in your tents. Surely then you will lift up your face without blemish. You will be secure and will not fear. You will forget your misery and you will remember it as waters that have passed away. And your life will be brighter than the noonday. Its darkness will be like the morning. And you will feel secure because there is hope. You will look around and take your rest in security. You will lie down and none will make you afraid. Many will court your favor. But the eyes of the wicked will fail. all way of escape will be lost to them, and their hope is to breathe their last." There ends our reading from Job chapter 11. Let's turn over also to Romans chapter 11, page 1,126. In some sense, I feel like every sermon on the Nature of God, we should read this passage. It's about doxology. That's where theology leads us to. Right thinking leads to right worship. From Romans chapter 11, here at verse 33. Once again, this is God's word. Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways. For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. That ends our reading from God's holy word. I invite you to turn to me in the Belgian Confession of Faith. You'll find this in the Forms and Prayers book. It's the thin maroon book. under the chair in front of you on page 153. So probably one more sermon after this one on Article I. I've been looking at a couple of these attributes of God each Lord's Day. We don't plan to do this type of series to the whole Belgium, but just on Article I. Page 153, Article I. We will read this together, Article 1, The Only God. We all believe in our hearts and confess with our mouths that there is a single and simple spiritual being whom we call God, eternal, incomprehensible, invisible, unchangeable, infinite, almighty, completely wise, just, and good, and the overflowing source of all good. the 11th congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ. The study of God, theology, is a humbling endeavor. Theology ought to lead to doxology, and part of the praise and worship of God is rooted in this very simple, yet profound truth. He is the creator, and we are the creature. Even the ability to worship him, a knowledge of how we are to worship the creator God, has to be revealed to us from God himself. If we would invent ways to worship God as we know from the scriptures, it would not go well for us. God himself tells us how to worship. On the one hand, it might seem like a fool's errand to seek to understand the incomprehensible God. How are you going to preach a sermon on the fact that God is incomprehensible? to try to make you understand it more, you might comprehend. But on the other hand, this is the most basic and foundational truth to human experience. These are the most important questions we can ask and answers we can pursue. God has revealed himself to us for a purpose, for a reason. Shortly after R.C. Sproul was ordained to the ministry, he passed away a couple of years ago, in 1969, he gave a speech at a youth conference, and he was gonna give five lectures, and he thought of what the most practical lecture series could be to give to young people at a youth conference. And he decided to speak on the topic of the holiness of God. The holiness of God, and he would do so. because he viewed it as so foundational to all of life. Not just worship, you enter into the holy place of God, but all of life, the holiness of God. A very appropriate topic then and now. And we see something of that in the Belgian Confession, Article 1 as well. Our theme this evening is, Our God's Uniqueness Humbles Us. Are God's uniqueness or otherness, but his uniqueness humbles us, for he is first, incomprehensible, second, invisible, and then third, unchangeable. So first, incomprehensible. The term incomprehensible means that we are not fully able to understand the divinity of God. We cannot comprehend his essence. And this is the only attribute of God which is actually a description of us. We cannot comprehend Him. It doesn't say much about God except our limitation to understand and comprehend the nature of God. We cannot comprehend God, but that does not mean that we cannot know God. We can know God entirely, maybe not fulsomely. We can know him in his full revelation of himself to us. And this is why we read from Job chapter 11. We have this interesting situation. Job's friends here, giving him bad advice. But he says here in chapter 11 verse 7, Can you find out the deep things of God? Can you find out the limit of the Almighty? And maybe you've asked those types of questions yourself. Why is God doing this? Why is God orchestrating this? Verse 8, it is higher than heaven, what can you do? Deeper than Sheol, what can you know? Its measure is longer than the earth and broader than the sea. This is a figurative, poetic way of saying it's further, longer, deeper, higher than we can even comprehend. It's greater than the greatness of the reaches that our mind can possibly get to. The most intelligent person in the world. Can you find out the deep things of God? Nope. What if you have a bunch of degrees? What if you go to Harvard? Nope. So we need to ask ourselves, in what way can we actually know God? Hermann Bavink puts this well, he says, quote, the distance between God and us is the gulf between the infinite and the finite, between eternity and time, between being and becoming, between the all or the nothing. How can we know God? All of our knowledge of God is analogical, which means there has to be an analogy of it in ourselves in order to understand. There has to be a reference in us or through us. Think about even in Article 1 of the Belgian Confession of Faith. Even our descriptions of God are oftentimes negative. Let me tell you what he's not. You know what God is not? He's not changing. He's not finite. He's not visible. We put invisible, we put the in there, which means not before the word. God is so completely different and so wholly great and outside of this world. And yet even though he's so great and mighty, the pictures that the scripture gives us is a picture of this great mighty God who is personal. He's a personal being. It also pictures of a God who reveals himself to us in love so that we can understand him and to some degree that we can might serve him and fill our lives with joyful service and gratitude. He reveals himself so that we might worship him. Not simply going through the actions, this is what you should do because he's the creator and you're not, but because he loves us. He's revealed himself to us. He renews our hearts so that we have a desire, a motivation, a heart softened by the gospel of Jesus Christ. The Bible describes God in many different ways using human attributes. And we've seen some of these already in our series. But in Genesis 3, it says that God walked in the garden. In Genesis 11, it says that God came down to see Babel's construction of a tower. Genesis 28, God appeared to Jacob at Bethel. Exodus 19, God gave the law at Mount Sinai, writing the law with his finger. Psalm 99 describes God as dwelling between the cherubim. So brothers and sisters, we can know God, we just cannot fully know him. We cannot know God according to his essence, but rather our knowledge of God is according to his revelation to us. He's taught us these things. Now, regarding God's nature, we only know that which he reveals to us. So then the question should follow in our minds, well, why does he reveal himself to us? Why does he tell us these things? If your Bible's open, turn over to the Gospel of John. Because the Gospel of John tells us why God has revealed himself. He's not under obligation to reveal himself to us. He was under no obligation to save us, to show his mercy to us. Certainly under no obligation to send Jesus Christ, except for the fact that he ordained it. Here in the high priestly prayer of our Lord Jesus Christ, listen to these first three verses, John 17. When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, and here we see an intimate conversation between the Son and the Father. Jesus is praying. Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that the Son may glorify you. Since you have given him authority over all flesh, give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent, that they might know you. And I think that word of know isn't simply just up here in the brain. It's down also in the heart, that they might truly, not falsely, not historically, not superficially, but that they might truly know you. And in knowing you, they might have life. This connection between the knowledge of God and eternal life as Jesus begins his high priestly prayer. This is the theme of J.I. Packer's excellent book. If you've never read this book, I really encourage you to read it. It might be the best. Besides the Bible, it might be the best book you ever read in your entire life. J.I. Packer's Knowing God. If you've never read it, it's going to open your eyes to the beauty and majesty of our gracious God. So John 17, that they might truly know you. Turn over now to John chapter 20. It's the theme of John, but it's also the theme of salvation. John 20, verse 31. So why is God revealing himself to us? John 20 verse 31 says, but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in his name. A knowledge, a true believing leads to life. So what we need in relation to our understanding of God is a vision to see. So first, God is incomprehensible. Second, God is invisible. What we mean by the fact that God is invisible is connected to the truth that He is a simple and spiritual being. He does not have a body. He's not limited by time and space. We saw this last week or the week before. He cannot be seen. And the scriptures simply state that no one has ever seen God. 1 John 4, verse 12, Exodus 33, verse 20. No one has ever seen God. And then, boys and girls, you might be thinking, but, Pastor, didn't Moses see God in the burning bush? God does appear to people in some ways. Usually, they're called a theophany, which is an appearing of God, or maybe a vision, or a dream. We can think of God in the burning bush with Moses. We can think of God leading the people with a pillar of cloud and a fire through the wilderness. In Exodus 33, verse 23, Moses saw God's back. Well, what does that mean? If God has no body, he's a spirit. How can an invisible being have a back? Isaiah 6, verse 5 says that he saw the King of glory Paul, in 2 Corinthians 12, saw a vision of heaven. Congregation, when God reveals himself in physical ways, he's coming down, he's condescending himself in love to his creatures to make himself known, that we might, in a fuller way, grasp the majesty of God. When these saints saw God, They were not seeing his essence, but rather God mediated through something, through some natural means, whether clouds, fire, an angelic form, et cetera. It's also interesting, maybe you've never thought about this, but the Old Testament theophanies were all different. It's not like there's one way that God always shows himself. God always shows himself as a pillar of cloud and fire. No, we only see that one situation. The theophanies of God are different. Possibly the only exception is the angel of the Lord, which is probably the pre-incarnate Lord Jesus Christ. In one, God shows himself as a human wrestling with Jacob, and the other is a cloud of fire. Another exception to the invisibility of God is found in Colossians 1, verse 15. You know what it's going to be. It's the great miracle of Christmas. We read there that he is the image of the invisible God, the Lord Jesus Christ. Ponder that truth for a moment. He is the image of the invisible God. God, who is uncreated, invisible, and outside of space and time, took upon himself our humanity in the Lord Jesus Christ. And though Belgian Confession 1 is dealing with God in general, later we'll get to the Trinitarian part and the Christology part, it's a good question to ask at this point, how is that possible that Jesus became the image of the invisible God? And though Jesus the entire time remained true and fully God, He willingly became limited, finite, and mortal. It's pretty amazing to think that God took upon our flesh to meet the demands of His own righteousness. God took upon our flesh to meet the demands of His own righteousness. In Romans chapter 3, It's laying out the reality of sin, and it's not a pretty picture. No one seeks for God. No one is righteous. No, not one. Every mouth is stopped. Shut up. In the court of law, you have no defense. You're guilty. And the necessity is the righteousness of God. You don't have it. You can't make it up. You can't keep God's law for the righteousness of God. And then Romans 3, 21 is this great transitional part. What does it say? But the righteousness of God has been revealed apart from the law. God himself would provide the righteousness. God would provide the Lord Jesus Christ. God in the flesh. God our savior. And we see in Jesus Christ the fulfillment of every necessary requirement of the law. What a God we serve. The God who was timeless, showed forth his love and his care for his creatures. He came in the fullness of time into Lord Jesus Christ. And as we saw this morning, our Lord came born, babe, born in Bethlehem. He came to suffer and to die. He came to bring salvation. so gloriously, so freely, that dear friend, if you repent of your sins, and you trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, you're granted freely eternal life. Your sins are wiped away, washed away, as far as the east is from the west, so he remembers them no more. And you're granted the perfect righteousness of the righteousness of God and Jesus Christ. Not only are you justified, forgiveness and righteousness, the whole rest of your life, God will walk in covenant fellowship with you. You will never be alone. You will never be deserted. You will never fall out of his love. These are God's glorious promises to us. That sounds great. Where do I sign up? The scriptures teach us the way. You believe. You believe in your heart, you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, you will be saved. How could this great, mighty, eternal, incomprehensible, invisible, unchangeable, infinite God do this? Because our God is a God of love and mercy. And he showed this to us in Jesus Christ. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Thirdly, we see that God is unchanging. The final attribute of God is his unchanging nature. Usually the term used is immutability. To be immutable means to be not changing. It means that God does not change. He's the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. And I'm not sure which of the attributes of God are most difficult to understand, but this certainly has to be pretty top of the list. Because everything we know is changing. There is no shadow of turning with thee. There is no shadow or variation with him. Lamentations chapter 3. As creatures, we are always changing. We are always becoming. Every day you are older. Every day you are one day closer to death. Every single breath you take is one less breath you will have. You probably don't think every breath that way. Probably not a great way to live, but this is the reality of we are continually changing and becoming. We're always growing older, hopefully growing wiser, making decisions, responding to decisions and circumstances, but God is not like that. The immutability of God is connected to his incomprehensibility. To us, it seems like God is always changing, but he is not. everyone that he has made is changing. And in relation to God, it seems like things change. But God does not. God is a standard. And it's difficult to illustrate this, but the scriptures do illustrate it, thankfully. It illustrates it using a term, oftentimes the same term we see all throughout the Psalter, And the term is that God is a rock. God is our rock. Listen to Psalm 62, verses 6 and 7. Have you ever wondered why the Scriptures call God a rock? It's not talking about a pebble, a stone. It's talking about something that does not move. A hurricane, a tornado can go past. That rock is still going to be there. It's solidified into the ground. Everything around it can be torn down, washed away, fire comes through, everything's gone. But the rock, it's still there. It's a picture, in the mind of the Israelite, of that which is most stable. It's not going to change. Any seeming change with God is because of the perspective we're viewing Him. But God does not change. External circumstances change. The direction we're looking might change. Let me give you an earthly example. A number of years ago, when I lived on the West Coast, we were going to fly to Chicago. And so we rented a minivan. We're going to park it in a parking garage. underneath the hotel. And it was a hectic day. It's a longer story, but I'm going to make it to the point here. But nevertheless, I had to run out later in the evening. Annoyed. We forgot something. Had to run to the store. So I pull out of this parking garage. As I pull around this corner, there's a big concrete barrier. And I scraped the whole entire side of that van. The whole entire passenger side. Front fender, door, sliding door, back fender. It's all. If you're a mechanic, there's a lot of work for you there. And I said, OK, well, I bought the insurance. I'm like, OK, this should pan out. And so the next day, I go to bring the van back. And the lady's standing there with a clipboard. She's like, oh, well, everything looks good. I'm like, well, it doesn't look good on the other side. She walked around to the other side. She's like, you're right. Good thing you bought the insurance. I was like, yep. She's like, OK, you can go. I'm like, wow. That is such great news. But from her side, on the driver's side, everything looked good. Ship shape, van is fine. You look on the passenger side, the van is definitely not fine. She's like, just wondering, what did you do? I'm like, I scraped the whole side of the van right on this concrete post. Didn't even see the thing coming. It depends on the perspective that you looked at. God never changes. Yet this does not seem It's not true that he's distant or uncaring. Something in God doesn't change, and yet he reveals himself in time. He's directing all things. Augustine has this beautiful treatment of the Confessions, that he's the unmoving God, but he moves all things. He's not supported, but he supports all things. And J.I. Packer, in his helpful treatment of this, describes six ways that God does not change. So I'm going to borrow here from J.I. Packard. The first way, God's life does not change. Scriptures testify that God is from everlasting. No one created God. There was never a time where God was not. He does not grow older. He does not gain new powers. He doesn't lose things that he once had. He's altogether perfect. We cannot conceive of a greater or better God, or a worse. We would fail to be perfect. Everything about us is always changing, developing, growing, but not God. God's wholly different. Second, God's character does not change. People can change, thankfully. That's good news. People can change. Believe that truth. Even though many claim, I'm too old, I cannot change. That's not true. You can change. You can teach an old dog new tricks. And things change us. Shock, trauma, tragedy, mental health, all change someone's character. But nothing can change God. We're always changing. Maybe you've had the experience that there was a food when you were a kid. You're like, I hate broccoli. You're not going to stay on the smell of broccoli. Then you get older, you're like, I love broccoli. I don't know what happened. My experience was not broccoli. Asparagus, that's delicious now. It wasn't when I was a kid. Sometimes we grow older. We change. We develop. Somebody who was a nice, friendly young man, when he becomes old, he can get grumpy, crotchety, cantankerous. All these terms to describe old, cranky people. People change. God does not. In the scriptures, that all-important name of God is Yahweh. is I am. I am. That's a definition of not changing. I am the I am. That name is not a description of God. It's more of a declaration of His self-existence and His eternal changelessness. I am Yahweh. Third, God's truth does not change. God's truth does not change. That's an important message in 2024, but it's been an important message for the last millennia. God's truth does not change. Everyone, at some point, has said something, and they wanted to take back the words that they said. Even godly people are like, I shouldn't have said that. I'm sorry I said that. Spoke too quickly, spoke rashly, judged too quickly, whatever. Men are unstable. but not with God. God's word stands forever. It's true, and it's right. In Isaiah 40, the prophet says, the word of our God shall stand forever. God's will never changes, and therefore God's truth never changes. There's a phrase that we sometimes use. When a promise is made, we might say, it's written in stone. It's written in stone. If it's written with a pencil, you can erase it. If it's written with a pen, you can put some white out over it. But if it's chiseled in stone, it's not going to change. It can't be erased. God's truth is permanent. The promises, demands, statements of purpose or rebuke, etc., that we read in the New Testament still apply to today. God's truth is not limited. It does not change. As believers, we can plead now the same promises David pled in the Psalter. They're ours. God's truth does not change. Fourth, God's ways do not change. God still deals with his people by way of covenant. Already back in the garden. When Adam and Eve fell into sin, plunged all their posterity in sin, they were guilty. They were ashamed of their nakedness. Their eyes were opened. What did God do? Destroyed them to start it over? No. God came with a word of promise. God established a unique covenant relationship with them. And so they'll uniquely relate to those who are seeds of the woman. to be fulfilled in the seed, singular, as Galatians tells us, of the woman. God deals with his people by way of covenant. He still ordains that which he ordained from eternity past. He ordains the forward nation of all people. He is yet God of grace. He's the God who saves those unable to save themselves. He helps those who are helpless. God's view of sin has not changed. God's view of sin is not lessened, and God might even use trials in the same way He always had, to turn His people to Him. God's truth does not change. Fifth, God's purposes do not change. He never changes His mind. Even if the pictures give the idea or the terminology of God relenting, or even in the old translation, repenting of something, There is no shadow of turning with God. This is God's ordination from all time past. J.I. Packer says, quote, his plans are made on the basis of a complete knowledge and control which extend to all things past, present, and future so that there can be no sudden emergencies or unlooked for development to take him by surprise. What God has decreed, He decreed an eternity, so that what happens from that eternal decree plays out in real time and space. Psalm 33, verse 11 says, the counsel of the Lord stands sure. But let's take a second here and think about this question a bit deeper, because you might be faced with the question, doesn't it say that God regretted that He made the world? Doesn't God repent of this? Doesn't God change His mind about this? He's going to destroy Nineveh, but He didn't. Did God change his mind? No. He didn't change his mind. But doesn't the Scriptures seem to imply that? Well, open your Bible, if you will, to Genesis chapter 6. There's many of these passages, but I think just looking at a couple briefly, the truth will become clear. We've already seen that God reveals himself using our language, theophanies that we might even see. Genesis 6, verse 6. We'll go back to verse 5, 6 verse 5. The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. There's a lot of negatives there. Only evil continually. And the Lord God regretted that he had made man on the earth and aggrieved him to his heart. How could God regret something? That means an action took place, and then later, he thought that action should not have taken place to start with. Isn't that what regret means? Well, it does for us. And it grieves his heart. How could God have a heart? We see here clearly the scriptures are using human terminology to describe God. And Jonah 3, verse 10, Joel 2.13, 1 Samuel 15.11, 2 Samuel 24.16. You can look those up later. They're all saying the same thing. What's happening here? In each of these cases, the reference is to a reversal of God's previous treatment of particular men, consequent upon his treatment of them. None of this took surprise by God. God saw the wickedness in the earth, He had made man good. They rebelled against him. It grieved him in his heart to see that wickedness, and he's going to punish them. Genesis 6, the beginning of the flood narrative over the next couple of chapters. None of it took God by surprise. It wasn't in Genesis 6 that God decided to destroy the world with a flood. He ordained that to take place, but that it might flow logically in redemptive history. We see God see the sin, see the actions of men, and his response to it. I will destroy the world with the flood. I will not destroy Nineveh. I will destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, because you couldn't find enough righteous people there, et cetera. God's purposes do not change. And then finally, God's son does not change. Hebrews 13 says he's the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. God's love and care through Jesus Christ never wanes. It's always true and sure. That's a truly comforting bit of news because our love wanes and changes, but his love doesn't. No matter what happens, congregation, when you cast your anchor into the sea of God's love, you'll be held secure by God himself. Nothing will move you. God will never stop loving you and caring for you. Now, this truth will never make us apathetic, as if you don't care. It will never make us rebellious. On the contrary, this truth will fill us with such a gratitude and thanksgiving for God's amazing grace that God would save even you and even me. God would save you. Does he even know me well? Does he know how I think, what I've done? How could he save me? It's the mystery of God's grace. Amazing grace, the hymn writer said. Brothers and sisters, the truths of God's incomprehensibility, invisibility, and immutability move us to worship. When God set his love on you, ordained before the foundation of the world, He knew full well that he would have to guide each one of us through a veil of tears. Everything is changing. Everything around us is changing. Everything seems to be in flux. Bob Dylan sang a long time ago, the times they are changing, but God is not. Amen. Let us pray. Almighty God, we thank you that you've revealed yourself to us. We're comforted, we're humbled before your majesty. We thank you that your truth is sure and steadfast and it does not change. And that you've set your love upon us. And you will not waver from your commitment to us. So strengthen us, Father in heaven. that we might walk in true covenant fellowship with you, guide us by your Holy Spirit, help us to turn neither to the right nor to the left, but to find true joy and fulfillment and satisfaction in a way which words cannot even describe, a peace which surpasses understanding and belonging to you. Apply your word to our hearts and our lives. In all the changing seasons of life, may we find that indeed you are our rock and salvation. We ask Father in heaven for your blessing upon our offering this evening. Give to us generous hearts and lead us and guide us this week. That whatever it is you call us to, whether it's the seminary students finalizing their exams along with our university students preparing to return home in a few weeks, Kids with a couple more weeks of school, parents, whatever you call them to, retirees, Father, help us to fill our life in true, joyful service to you. Keep us now in your care. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.