The Stability of God
one
Stability is an indispensable prerequisite for human happiness
a. We all need things we can count on – a secure foundation on which we can build our lives.
i. If everything is constantly shifting, then how can we set goals for ourselves? How can we make plans for the future, when absolutely nothing in the future is predictable?
b. How can we even be free unless there’s something firm and stable undergirding that freedom?
i. You can’t drive a car where you want to go unless there’s a firm road beneath you and firm ground beneath that.
ii. You can’t have freedom of speech unless you can depend on your vocal cords to work, and unless you can count on some level of understanding between you and your audience.
iii. Every freedom we have presupposes some underlying stability.
1. So what happens to our freedom, and what happens to our life as a whole, when the things we rely on are growing less and less secure before our very eyes?
two
Institutional Instability
a. When we look around, we don’t necessarily see a lot of stability in our social institutions
i. We see marriages and families splitting up,
ii. We see schools attacking parents and parents attacking schools
iii. We see countries – even countries which both claim to be western democracies – going to war
iv. We see major political antagonism in our own country
v. We see money being printed by the government and manipulated by financial institutions in ways that we don’t understand, and that probably not even the finance gurus really understand.
vi. We see constant warnings about various health crises – experts saying that this disease will kill you and other experts saying that the cures to the same diseases will kill you.
vii. You see bishops and priests making accusations about other bishops and priests.
b. So what’s really secure out there? What can you really count on?
i. Politics?
ii. Healthcare?
iii. The economy?
iv. Our social institutions?
v. The decisions of Church leadership?
c. None of these seem like things you can really bank on. Looking around, there’s not a lot to give you confidence.
i. So what about you? Can you count on yourself?
three
Internal Instability
a. It’s not any better in your own soul. You’re anxious, you’re depressed.
i. You make resolutions you can’t keep.
ii. You have mood swings – feel on top of the world and lousy the next.
b. The contemporary self is so unstable that we’ve reached a point where we talk about identity fluidity
i. People promise to love each other forever and then break up in a few years
ii. People constantly change their social groups, their career paths, the places where they live, the family members they live with, and even the churches they attend or the beliefs they hold
iii. They psychosis of transgenderism is simply the latest expression of the constant “transitioning” that people have being doing for decades.
1. Our entire selves, our lives, our communities, have turned into pure shifting sand.
c. We are an unstable people.
i. We are not strong enough to be our own support.
four
Divine Immutability
a. This disorienting instability is all around us and all inside us
i. Where do we look for something secure, something we can rely on?
b. We look to God – to the Immutable, Unchangeable God
i. He is reliable. He is the same, yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
c. And He has entered our world of change as Jesus Christ – to save us from this whirlpool, the vortex of fluidity.
i. So that He can be our rock. So that we can build our lives on Him.
d. And He has given us the timeless, unchanging teaching of the Church
i. Yes, the policies and the politics of the Church are subject to the same fluctuations as the rest of the world.
ii. But the great miracle of the Church is that her teaching has never changed, never contradicted itself – and it never will.
1. It is the unchanging link to our perfectly reliable Savior, who is Himself the link to the Immutable God.
a. And we can rely on Him.
five
The World needs us to be stable
a. The world without God is lost, is in free fall through a bottomless emptiness.
i. It has no freedom, no purpose, no stability – because it has nothing it can count on.
b. But if we would build our lives on the unchanging foundation of the Catholic faith, Jesus Christ, God Himself – those realities which remain the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow
i. Well, then we can become places of safety, places of security for others.
1. We can become bridges stretched out over the abyss of meaninglessness
a. And we can support those who are struggling, who are lost.
c. Our job in this life, in this culture, is clear: we are not to enter the rat-race, or the frenzy of “self-exploration.”
i. We are to be an example of peace, of steady reliability, of continual and consistent focus on the eternity of Heaven.
1. If we do that, then by God’s grace we will not only save our own souls – we can provide other people an opportunity to find salvation as well.