The Immutability of God | Lisa Harper | James River Church

[Music] one of the things we love about conferences the people we get to hang out with the people we get to hear from the friends that we the friendships that we make and one of our dear friends is Lisa Harper author of 12 books speaking around [Music] I really cannot say thank you loud enough to be here I have deep deep deep respect for pastor John pastor Brandon Pastor David pastor Savannah to get to be here at James River with my sister from another mister Debbie it's like being a donkey at the Kentucky Derby I'm just fired up to get to be here this morning so thank you for allowing me to come back and want to speak directly to the south and the West not South the West the north and the Joplin campuses and tell you congratulations because I am a spitter so we're gonna have a little bit of SeaWorld up here at South and y'all are moisture-free this morning so I just want to say congratulations you have a spit free Sunday but for us here at South we're going to dive deep into baptism because I am a sweater spitter and I am postmenopausal which means I'm also a projectile sweater so you have a double chance at getting wet if you're near the front this morning before we dive into the text we're gonna be in the New Testament this morning I'm in the Old Testament before we dive in the text I want to tell you just a little bit about me because I know that some of you are new here to James River and I haven't had the privilege of meeting a few of you some of you didn't come to dfl and so I just want to tell you I'm from Nashville Tennessee which is why I don't talk quite as pretty as you Midwesterners I am 56 years old I am single my husband is lost and won't stop to ask for directions and so if you are between 50 and death and employed and do not live with your mother we have a booth side I'm teasing mostly but by the grace the redemptive restorative grace of God who promises that he will store unto us all the years the locusts have eaten the year I turned fifty God allowed me to become a mom through the miracle of adoption and so I want to just show you my little girl she's in kids but we've got just a quick video this is my family my favorite when your big hair but I love these braids too this hair is gorgeous you know why you're here so beautiful that's true your hair is gorgeous cuz you have gorgeous brown skin but what I was gonna say is your hair is gorgeous because it's connected to your head and you have the most amazing self your head and your feet in your heart and your insides everything about you got put together just perfectly I just love who you are I love my little girl I love my little girl I'm just undone the fact that the fact that I don't deserve to be your mom that I really squandered those years that I could have been a biological mom I every morning I wake up and I don't always wake up with God's Word on my tongue sometimes I wake up with words that are not in the Bible on my tongue because I'm a sinner in need of the gospel every day but I wake up almost every day just undone with gratitude and how redemptive God has been in my life how much he has forgiven how much he has restored and he continues to teach me so much about himself and especially in these last five and a half years through the position of being her parent not too long ago Missy was taking a bubble bath in my bathtub my bath tubs a little bigger and she likes to pretend like she's swimming so she was taking a bubble bath in my bathtub but not noticed in there and I was busy folding clothes and I walked past her to go and put the towels away and she was like hey mom and I was like hey baby and it was like estrogen overload at that moment I mean it was like diabetic coma sweet it was just precious but then I walked into where the commode was to put the tower's away which is a different level and I stepped into water now Missy did not have toilet paper when she lived in Haiti she actually very rarely had indoor plumbing and so when I brought her home after two years of adoption process to the United States she fell madly in love not only with indoor plumbing but with toilet paper that was a luxury to her and so she began consuming vast quantities of it and if I wasn't watching her most of those vast quantities would go down the commode and so you know the first 12 or 15 times the plumber came over to our house it was really cute because I was like I've got you know this new doctor daughter and it's so sweet and you she's never had toilet paper before so you know she's just real infatuated toilet paper he was like oh that's wonderful what a blessing miss Lisa well by the fifteenth time and it stopped being cute and then my floor started to warp and I was like honey you know honey it's been a year now like you've got it's like ixnay on all this TP I mean it's too much toilet paper and so I made up little songs you know just five squares is where it's at any more than that is so so bad I did all kinds of things I'm one of the few people in Nashville who cannot sing that just became very apparent but I was just trying to teach her to be a little more judicious on toilet paper and I thought we had gotten there I'd already had to replace one commode because she had messed it up so much with so much toilet paper but I'd be like goodness gracious how can you be bugged about toilet paper when she didn't have any growing up I mean just let her use the toilet paper but then we moved into a new house with all-new commodes and I was like okay score she's matured to the point that she's just using like a quarter of a roll every time she goes to the restroom and so I think we're almost getting into the the good plumbing stage of life until that afternoon when I walked past her she was taking a bubble bath and I stepped into water and I realized oh god on it she's done it again brand-new toilet and it is just erupting and there's just toilet water everywhere and I'm ankle deep in it now my back is to her I'm right around the corner my back is to her and I morphed into my mother do you ever do that ladies night the bad part of your mother not the good part of your mother but like when she's yelling and using your middle name and so I'm morphed into that part of my mother and I was like Melissa price Harper why didn't you tell me I was like honey if you would tell me when you mess up the toilet I could come in quickly and I can fix it but now it's overflowing again there's three inches of water honey why didn't you tell me and I realize she hasn't answered my question it was rhetorical but she had answered my question and so I wheeled around to look at my kid this miracle of a kid who's up to her neck in bubbles sitting in my bathtub i wheeled around the corner to look at her and there's just huge tears streaming down my baby's face and in that moment I thought oh my goodness Lee said this isn't a character issue this is a plumbing issue why are you making such a big deal out of this and I scooped her up and I told her I was sorry and I put her to bed and I sang over and I called my contractor and I said Jack you know those toilets they have on cruise ships it'll like suck a coke can down and I threw them off you know is after dinner he's a WoW or you call me talking about toilets to suck coke cans and I said you know the super powerful like supersonic ones he goes yeah I know what you're talking about and I said can you get those for residential application like would it be possible for me to buy a cruise ship toilet and he said yeah actually and he told me the name of this commode and he said I said are they just like prohibitively expensive and he said no they're just like two or three hundred dollars more than a normal commode and I how soon can you install one in my house and he said actually tomorrow afternoon I was going by to pick up one for a commercial project I'm on he said if you woke me - I can just get an extra one and drop it by and put it on just take me about an hour and I was like will you please do that he comes over into my restroom they can't do them upstairs for those you have little toilet cloggers because something about the height but they can do them on the first level so I had my commodes replaced with supersonic coke cans second cruise-ship toilets and as soon as he finished installing that toilet I called Missy into my bathroom I was like hey baby do you want to go potty it's like what is mama doing likewise she forced me to go potty but once she actually had to go potty I stood next to her and I let her use all the toilet paper she wanted and when she flushed I cheered and I was like you go girl you are so awesome with the TP that is amazing because I sense God saying to me you have such a narrow view of how much I love you you think every time you do something that's just a little bit out of line you use a little bit too much toilet paper that I'm this unibrow disciplinarian just waiting to whack you over the head with a Bible and that it's not Who I am I am so for you Lisa even on your bad days I call you beautiful y'all it's mercy that leads to repentance it's not following the rules that leads to repentance it's recognizing this great holy God who breathed the universe into existence is for us we have a Heavenly Father who would gladly buy a commercial toilet rather than shame us he loves his children and nowhere is it more obvious than when they were rebellious and redemptive literature so turn to the book of Malachi it's a very last book in the Old Testament if you come from an Italian background you can call it mulashi but he's one of the minor prophets I used to think the Minor Prophets were little bitty guys but actually it's just their prophecies or short Malakai in canonical order is the very last of the minor prophecies that means there's 400 years between Malachi and John the Baptist the silent years the intertestamental period so these words are essentially the divine drumroll before John the Baptist comes in and says Jesus is coming Jesus is right around the corner we don't read this book very often because the literary format is kind of odd the literary format it is called rhetorical disputation what that means is God's people are fussing with God unlike Missy these people talk back and what they say to their creator Redeemer is audacious chapter 2 verse 27 verse 17 excuse me and this is God's people you have wearied the Lord with your words but you say how have we wearied him by saying everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord and he delights in them or by asking where is the god of justice so what God's people are saying is you aren't fair you are actually not perfect why should we worship you it is an audacious an audacious declaration what they're saying is you are not a good God you're not good enough for us anyway God responds by saying behold I send my messenger and he will prepare the way this is a prophetic word about John the Baptist and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come out to his temple and the messenger of the Covenant in whom you delight behold he is coming says the Lord of Hosts but who can endure the day of his coming and who can stand with him when he appears for he is like a refiners fire and like Fuller's soap he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver and they will bring offerings and righteousness to the Lord then the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old as in the former years then I will draw near to you for judgment I will be a swift witness to against sorcerers against adulterers against those who swear falsely against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages the widow and the fatherless I those who thrust aside the Sojourner and do not fear me says the Lord of Hosts in other words I'm going to discipline you there will be consequences for your sin the toilet might overflow but here's where I want you to hang on even when you mess up and even when they are divine consequences for your sin I the Lord do not change verse 6 therefore you children of Jacob are not consumed you're not destroyed I the Lord and perfect and my affection for you my love for you does not wax or wane remember they started with this audacious we don't think you're good we don't think you're fair I went on a date for Valentine's Day many years ago it's one of the last really good dates I had at the beginning anyway a guy I had been hanging out with for about a year we had this weird platonic romantic relationship I said we were plating that's half platonic half dating that means every blue moon he paid for dinner but it was someplace cheap like Olive Garden and we never kissed so it was a little unfulfilled and so I couldn't really tell you know whether we were really dating or not really dating it's just this kind of back and forth relationship but then that year he's at least I'd like to take you to Sperrys for dinner tomorrow night for Valentine's Day and women in the room you know that's a big deal I mean unless a man is a total he does not ask you for dinner and an expensive restaurant on Valentine's night I mean that says I am into you so I got off work and I went home and I took another shower and I fixed my hair and I double Spanx and I did the best with what I've got you know I was fired up about this date and he comes over to pick me up and he reeks of Cologne and it was so sweet when y'all do that and about kills us and gives us pleurisy but it's still really sweet there you go there's heaters rigged to Polo and we went to Sperrys which is one of the high-end restaurants and nashville used to be anyway it's kind of an expensive steakhouse we go to parrots parries and i've known this guy for a year but all the sudden it was like we were in the 8th grade you know both of us are next we're splotchy with red we're kind of nervous kind of awkward we've finished our entree and the waiter clears the plates and my date motions for the maitre d to come over to the table and the maitre d comes over the table and he's carrying this big rectangular box and it's wrapped in this beautiful glossy white paper and there's a sticker on the box from Jamie's and Jamie's is this very very elite women stress shop in Nashville and I was just taken aback that he had set this what I assumed to be a very expensive gift in front of me and I went oh I'm so sorry I didn't even bring you a card vision I didn't know if we were dating or not dating it was awkward I wasn't sure with her to buy a card or gift he goes oh no no I I didn't expect a gift from you Lisa but I really wanted to give you this on Valentine's Day and I said ok I've been begin to unwrap the box and this little voice in my head said Lisa don't be excited this isn't from Jamie's his mom has just rejected this box you know I thought there's no way he bought me something from Jamie's we're in our 20s neither one of us had that much money and Jamie's address starts at about a thousand bucks and so I pull the top off and there's the tissue tissue paper and guys you won't understand this but women it was intact with another sticker you can tree gift that I was like oh my goodness isn't really from Jamie's well I peel off the sticker and peel back the tissue and there's a st. Johns knit dress a few of you know that brand it is a very very expensive branded stretchy knit so I think it looks like old ladies on a cruise ship not to do with the former story has nothing to do with commodes but it's just not really my type of brand but it's very very exclusive and I was like I cannot believe he bought me this dress I bet this was over $1000 and so it's just so surprised I kind of pulled it up by the tissue paper when I did the tag fell out of the sleeve and so I saw not only the ridiculous price of this dress I saw the size and I was like oh goodness gracious I haven't been that size since I was in utero you know it's like wow siruni you know I'm not sure what to do with this dress and then I thought I know what I'll do I'll just tomorrow I'll go back to Jamie's I'll exchange it for a smaller size and he'll never know the difference but he started saying will you please try this on for me and I was like oh no and I decided real demure because I thought if I go try this dress on right now it's gonna be like I mean it could be dangerous somebody's gonna lose an eye of the waistband burst because I can't squeeze myself into this dress it was about three sizes too small now women if I weighed today this morning what I weighed when I couldn't fit into that dress I would have walked up in here this morning with my bathing suit I would have been like pastor John I'm sorry I thought it was pantsless Sunday I mean I would love to be that size now you know the grass is always greener and the fence keeps moving but on that Valentine's night I just remember being so flustered that he would insist that I try on the dress and finally I had to tell him the truth and I said I can't try this dress on because this dress is a four and I'm an eight I can't pour myself into this told you I'd love to be that size now I can't pour myself into this and he said I know he's at least I know exactly what size you are we're playing tennis on Wednesday I looked at the back of your jacket I know exactly what size you are here's the deal he said I feel like there's a line between cute and beautiful and I feel like you're about 15 pounds from that line and he said I feel like if you would lose enough weight to fit into this dress then I'm just sure I would fall in love with you I brought my old date here as a parent I'm kid I hope you have never had someone treaty like that I hope you've never had a date or a mom or an ex-wife or a co-worker or a boss treat you like you're this close to good enough although I do think that's the human condition the huge majority of us have been treated like we're less than for some reason or another have been marginalized for some reason or another usually it's not our own fault the shocking thing in Malachi is God's people are saying that to God God's people are saying to the creator of the universe you are not good enough for us you're not fair enough you're not merciful enough you're not kind enough we're not so sure we're gonna keep worshipping you you know what would make sense is if the next verse we read is I have decided to eviscerate all of you and fry you and agree spots of oblivion you know that would make sense it would make sense if they incited God's wrath to a point that he said I cannot believe you little worms have the audacity to say I need to lose the equivalent of 15 pounds I cannot believe you are challenging me all-mighty God and saying I'm not good enough for you to worship me but yo that's not how he responds instead he says I the Lord do not change I don't change my love for you my mercy for you my compassion for you it doesn't wax and wane I love you with an ever lasting love nothing overflowing toilets or death nothing can separate you from my love you will never see my receding back my father left us when I was five walked away from our family for another woman and her son and I was devastated I thought like most children that it must be at least partly my fault if only I'd used my inside voice or been prettier sweeter maybe dad wouldn't have walked away from our family my father's abandonment was part of what drove me to the Lord a few weeks after my dad left us I was in church small Baptist Church in Central Florida and brother Jimmy started talking about how our Heavenly Father is a dad who won't leave his children and I remember I was about halfway back a little bitty church John and Debbie you remember the pews how many of y'all are under 40 pews our long wooden benches we used to have in church and it was just just a single section church maybe 200 people pews all the way back I was about midway back we were standing out they were singing just as I am I had my hands on the back of the Pew in front of me five years old that was before we had children's church and when brother Ginny Jimmy said our God as a dad who doesn't leave his children I remember just being so overwhelmed like that because their memory of my daddy's back was so fresh and my little girl mind and I just couldn't help myself and I walked the aisle and I went up front and I said I want a daddy who won't leave and I gave my heart to Jesus as a little girl younger than missing [Applause] brother Jimmy told me that God gives us the desires of our hearts and so I started praying for a new daddy I started praying that my mom would find a man who would love her and would love us and a year and a half later she married a man named John angel and I just adored John from the get-go he used to come over to pick up my mom for dates and she was never ready on time and so I would sit with him in the living room on the avocado green shag carpeting and he would bring me a bag of bazooka bubblegum which I thought was so cool and then he would tell me to stand up straight put my elbows at my side and he would put his hands under my elbows and lift me all the way up over my head that's on my harmony profile now I won't date a guy unless he can lift me up not over set just like an inch or two it's good now but I loved John from the beginning but John was not a very demonstrative man especially after he wooed my mom and married my mom he moved in and and was not the loving daddy I was desperate for and so I was never sure if he loved me or not never sure if he was gonna walk away - and one day the two of us were walking down the concourse at the mall we were going from JCPenney to Ivies we were walking down the mall my dad was the stepfather was a superintendent in the school system so a lot of teachers and educators knew him we were walking down the corridor of the mall and two teachers were walking toward us who knew my dad from years and years and years before and so they stopped and they're like John it's so good to see you and they exchanged pleasantries and then one of them looked down at me and she went John your little girl looks just like you and I can remember freezing because I thought my stepdad was gonna go oh this was hitting my kid this is Patty's kid is visiting my kid I'm I'm her stepdad it's my stepdaughter and he looked down at me and I remember just being froze and he looked down at me I was six and a half years old and he put his hand under my chin and tilted my face up toward him and he went she does look like me doesn't she and then he went yep she's mine and he just grabbed my hand they said goodbye we walked toward Ivy's and I remember being like he said I just couldn't believe John claimed me right there in public and yell that's what I feel like God is teaching me over and over and over again he claims us on our worst day he claims us one of the most rampant spirits I see and culture today as a spirit of orphaned an orphan spirit a spirit of abandonment I mean so many men and women who say there's no way a god like that could actually claim a man like me because God knows my heart he knows what I've done he knows I gave her two hundred dollars for the abortion he knows I left my first wife there's no way God could claim a girl like me he knows I had the abortion he knows I had the affair he knows I'm a gossip he knows about the bulimia there's just no way a perfect God like that could actually accept a tad or a damaged kid like me yeah that's the gospel that's what Pastor John and pastor Brandon and David and Savannah and Debbie say we after week after week that's the gospel that's why it's great news it's not about us it's not about our behavior our good behavior as a PS it's a thank you for loving me Jesus thank you that on my worst day you see me as valuable you see me as worthwhile so I'm just gonna run towards you and I'm gonna give you my whole life because I'm so undone but a father like you would claim a kid like me he loves you more than you can possibly ask or imagine wherever you are right now in your story he sees you nothing in your life is hidden from him scripture says and even if you're in the posture that these people were in the book of Malachi and you're raising your fist at God and you're saying ungodly things the god of the heavens reaches down his hand and just wraps it around your fist and says son you don't understand I'm right here I've got you God is not shocked by your disappointment he's not afraid of your anger he will never ever turn his back on you you sons and daughters right here in Ozark you will not be destroyed you will not be abandoned no one will walk away from you called God because his love for you is immutable let me ask you to bow your heads and close your eyes

Channel: James River Church

Views: 148,906

Keywords: immutability of god, god's nature, god's character, sermons on the immutability of god, lisa harper sermons, sermons by lisa harper, james river church, james river worship, lisa harper, god's love, god's grace, immutability, james river, pastor john lindell, john lindell, book of malachi, malachi, malachi 2, malachi 3, james river church sermons, lisa, harper, sermons, sermon, best sermons, best sermon, god, jesus, love, grace, church, online, church online, jrc, god loves you, live

Id: S8PnzBqCKyE

Length: 28min 41sec (1721 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 15 2019