2) The World will Never be “Post” – The Sovereignty of God
The very fact that Peter is connecting the historical events of the moment to Old Testament prophecies is his way of saying “the Lord planned this.”
If we focus on the challenges and the complexities of ministry in a post-Christian age, the opportunity for discouragement arises, and even for despondency. But our God is Lord over every age! He says,
“I declare the end from the beginning, and from long ago what is not yet done, saying: my plan will take place, and I will do all my will. (Isa 46:10)”
Even the gospel message itself includes the truths that what often looks like defeat is a foreordained means of victory. Consider the cross of Christ where our King was tortured to death.
This cross is now the means of our salvation. When they nailed him to that cross, they thought they’d ended him. But they had unknowingly exalted him. They crowned him with thorns, unaware of the very majesty to which they were submitting. In the economy of the gospel, those jeers were blessings and that spear was a scepter. They made him little and crushed, not knowing he was buying the world!
They crucified him, not knowing that his death was victory. Where they brought darkness, he brought light. His shame bought our salvation. His blood brought our beauty. His body resurrected brought the bursting of the very shackles of death.
It was all part of the plan!
Our God and his truths are providentially guiding history to its appointed and anciently-ordained conclusion. This is true in the big epochs of global history. And it’s true in the daily ins and outs of your small corner of the ministry world.
So many pastors that I talk to seem to give the impression that their ministry is happening TO them. But I do whatever I can to help them see the sovereignty of God, that God has appointed them for these very moments. He has in fact put them on this collision course with their own inadequacy and insufficiency. And he stewarded this situation to them.
Leadership is not just about the easy days. Leadership is meant for the difficult days. You can have all the confidence and humility that comes with knowing God saw all of this coming. And he wanted you to be the one in your position when it did.
The Lord has made the church for this very season, this very age.
Sorting through the difficulties of gospel ministry in a post-everything world, you believe that Christ is the Messiah. Do you believe he’s Lord?
You may be overwhelmed and short-circuited by the challenges of your missional context, but the Lord isn’t. Acts 2:24 says not even death can hold him.
Let this world wander and wrangle. It cannot outrun the sovereign plan of the Lord our God.
