Let’s look briefly at the church’s current areas of outrage. We’re upset about abortion, gay marriage, Hollywood, books that question the authenticity of our beliefs. We’ve been known to picket porn shops, adult video stores and strip clubs and we have a very special place in our sinful hearts for politics and political action.

Most Christians will begin weeping on the issue of abortion and will start screaming about a depraved nation when the topic of homosexuality is broached. We’re viewed by outsiders as being on the fringe or way over the cuckoos nest because of our passionate dislike of these issues.

It isn’t that we’re necessarily wrong. In fact, I think the concerns of the church on these issues are legitimate, but our expressions of those concerns are often off-the-wall and do not show the world the nature of our God.

The nature of our God is that He is all knowing and He is in control of the universe. God did not rest on the seventh day and like it so much that he left everything well enough alone until the present time. He is an active and powerful being who is the ruler over all we know, all we don’t know and all we can’t fathom.

God knows people have abortions, and God controls the world in which they have them. God is well-aware that homosexuals are getting married, and He is not shocked. The fact that Hollywood glorifies things that don’t glorify God does not knock God off His throne for even one millisecond. Attempts by authors to write books that question Christ’s existence do not change the reality of His existence and do not cause God to disappear. Porn shops, adult video stores and strip clubs don’t strip God of His power or His influence on the world He created, and the outcome of American elections never have and never will unseat the God of the universe.

Yet, the followers of this all-knowing and sovereign God, act as though the world is suddenly spinning out of control. We, who hold the hope that can save the entire world, act as though all is lost and the outcome is hopeless. We who call on the name of the One who is in control, who are told in His word to “be still, and know that I am God,” are shocked, outraged and thrown into despair by what we see around us—and we don’t need to be.

God is in control. God is not shocked. God is never surprised. God has sent us into a fallen world—a world He still controls—to spread His love and His truth with all who will listen, but He has not asked us to take the wheel or change the seas. He has never told us to take the reins. He has given us a gospel and said “Love one another and spread this love throughout all the world.” He specifically said, “Do not worry,” and “fear not.” And yet, His children live in fear and worry because they think this fallen world is absolutely falling apart and they have to be the ones to stop it.

Friends, if you could stop the course this world is on, there would have been absolutely no need for God to send His son to rescue the world. If God could send One He loved that much—with the love a father has for a son— to the cross without being shocked or outraged, you can go into the world and spread love without being shocked and outraged as well.