God is in Control

(This was originally a sermon preached at the Church of Christ Northwest on 9/6/2020)

God is in control. I think this just might be our favorite thing to say, no matter the circumstance. When good things happen, we laud the fact that God is in control. When bad things happen, we quietly remind ourselves that God is in control and therefore the bad things cannot last forever. It’s a cliché that we pass around in order to lift our spirits.

So, what does it mean? When you say “God is in control” what exactly do you mean? I think back to five years ago when my mother was lying in the ICU, breathing tube down her throat, IV hooked up, and a well-meaning person, doubtless in an attempt to comfort me, said “God is in control.” Though I remained silent in an effort to be polite and respond to the intention, inside I was anything but quiet.

            

God did not do this! That was the burning thought that scorched itself into my mind. How interesting it was, and I think I am not alone in this, that at the mention of control my mind immediately jumped to a picture of God literally causing everything to happen like an architect designing a blueprint; every single line, widget, and variable precisely laid out in perfect measurement and design.

            

I think that this analogy captures what so many of us think about when we picture God’s sovereignty over all things. It’s even been professed by many great theologians and scholars throughout history. It’s a view that, on the surface, seems to be a neat and tidy picture of God’s control and rule. God has designed our entire lives perfectly and is in complete control of every aspect. God decides every circumstance, thought, and decision.

            

Now it doesn’t take much thinking to immediately arrive at the severe problems with this view, the utter lack of human freedom. If this is true then God is solely responsible for the pandemic, riots, bitter partisanship, pain, and misery we face today. That doesn’t even begin to mention the atrocities of the past and present. It means that those who reject Christ literally can’t do anything else, and are therefore condemned.

            

So, let us dismiss this view that I venture to think most of us don’t hold anyway. What, then, do we mean when we say, “God is in control?” Perhaps we mean that no matter the bad situation God can always bring out some sort of good? If you lose your job God can bring you to a better one, for example. While definitely not wrong, this is essentially “everything will be OK” wrapped in Christian lingo.

            

It also reduces God to a sort of cosmic first responder. He isn’t the cause of the bad things, but he is the first to jump in and start working on the situation. This is well and good when things work out well, but what about when things don’t? My mother died almost five years ago. Was God in control then?

            

To stress a point, I do believe with all of my heart that God does bring good out of the bad in our lives. I cannot begin to fathom how different a person I would be had my mother not died, had I not been forced to grow amidst the fertile soil of pain and grief. Solely by God’s grace now when I think of my mother there is still sorrow, but it is a sorrow mingled amongst great joy and fond remembrance. While God does bring good out of the bad, that alone is far too small a picture of God “being in control.”

            

God is in control means that there is nothing that can stop him from keeping his promises. God is in control means that no matter how hard the enemy fights and the world resists, God will be faithful. While God most assuredly can, by his infinite divine power, do anything the Bible shows us that he tends to work in conjunction with and through people. God is in control means that even though he has chosen to work through us, the church, his promises will prevail.

            

God has promised that “neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor the powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation” (Rom. 8:38-39) will be able to separate us from his love. God has promised the saints that “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” (Rev. 21:4)

            

God has promised you that he “will be with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matt. 28:20) God has promised that one day “every knee will bow… and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Phil. 2:10-11) God has promised that all things will be subjected to Christ, who will subject himself to the Father so that God may be all in all! (1 Cor. 15:20-28)

            

Church, “God is in control” is a promise! It is a promise that we experience now and will see fully realized in that coming day of glory. We, the church, are the living symbol of the promise. We are the people who live that future promise in the messed up now, fully surrendered to God’s control.  When the world cries out for a sign that God is in control, we should confidently point at the church living obediently to God’s rule.

            

Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. All things were created by him and through him and for him. Whatever may happen, be it a pandemic, an election, or even the sinful actions of a human being, nothing can stop his promise of cosmic renewal and reconciliation. God will be all in all and it  has started right here with us, the people who have given their lives to Jesus Christ.

            

When we say God is in control we are saying that our hope is bigger than our circumstances. Whatever this chaotic world throws at us (and we must never forget that the world is broken, sinful, and in full rebellion against God) we stand firm on the hope of Christ. We may fall ill, lose our jobs, fall into poverty, watch loved ones die, and even be killed. Still, God’s promises will prevail because God is in control.