January 22, 2025
Leadership Notes
What a wild week. School canceled for extreme cold. It was 6° when I was driving in to church this morning {Tuesday, January 21}, whilst it was -18° where our youngest son lives in Minneapolis. If my math is correct, that’s a 24° difference between here and there. Yikes.
A wild week, indeed. Biden’s last-minute executive actions, before leaving office, included:
> Pardoned the Grinch for stealing Christmas.
> Posthumously pardoned Rickey Henderson for stealing 1,406 bases in his career.
In related news, in one of his first Executive Orders, Trump:
> Proclaimed global warming the official weather position of the United States. So, we should break out of this Siberia Express soon.
Some people are happy that Trump is President. Some people aren’t happy that Harris isn’t President. Some people are happy that Biden is no longer President. Some people thought Biden was a great President. And the world keeps on turning. As Ecclesiastes 3:1 reminds us:
“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter
under heaven.”
Make no mistake. The United States survived Jimmy Carter. We survived Ronald Reagan. We survived George H.W. Bush. We survived Bill Clinton. We survived George W. Bush. We survived Barack Obama. We survived Donald Trump. We survived Joe Biden. And we’ll survive Donald Trump again.
Americans are resilient people. Most of us love our communities. We love our families. We work hard. We basically want to be left alone to thrive and prosper in our own way. To paraphrase the prophet Jeremiah, we want to contribute in positive ways to where we’re planted. That’s always a good thing. And that’s who we are as Americans. Our dream is to make every age a Golden Age.
Whether someone has Trump Derangement Syndrome or had Biden Derangement Syndrome, we ought to be striving to be syndrome-free. We are all in this together, doing our best for our families and communities. That’s the first thing I’m always praying for.
The times we live through draw our attention to…and trust in…the sovereignty of God. While I encourage you to do your own extensive study on this essential Biblical doctrine, for our purposes today, here’s a good summary by John Piper:
First, the sovereignty of God is governed by His wisdom. Romans
11:33 says, “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge
of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable
his ways!” Everything that is unsearchable and inscrutable to us is
governed by the deepest divine wisdom. God never does anything
or allows anything whimsically — that is, in a meaningless way or
randomly or without an infinitely wise purpose. That’s huge. That
is a big thing that we must come to terms with when we think about
God’s sovereignty.
Second, His sovereignty is governed by His justice and mercy.
Isaiah 30:18 says, “For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all
those who wait for him” Or, we read in Romans 9:14, “Is there
injustice on God’s part? By no means!” God never, never wrongs
anyone. All that He does is righteous and just, but even justice is
not the final and highest aim of God’s wisdom. The ultimate aim is
that He be glorified for His mercy and grace toward undeserving
rebels. He sovereignly planned and accomplished salvation for
sinners by the death of his Son. Because of that, we get a quote like
this, from Romans 15:9: “And in order that the Gentiles [the
nations] might glorify God for his mercy.”
Those, it seems to me, are the big things to grasp about God’s
sovereignty. First, it is unstoppable power and authority over all
things, including the human will. Second, it is all in accord with
infinite wisdom, infinite justice, infinite mercy through Jesus
Christ.
We live confidently and courageously within the knowledge of God’s sovereign purpose. That’s why we say that no matter what we experience or go through in life, all is well, because Jesus Christ is Lord. We will be with him in Paradise.
With Much Love and Affection,
Richard