Sermon Central
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God Is In Control
Contributed by Mark Ripper on Apr 23, 2001 (message contributor)
Summary: God always answers our prayers. God allows no evil to occur that some good will not come from.
God is in Control – You and I need to believe and have complete faith in this fact. We need to make it an important part of our own personal understanding in order to get the greatest insight into the meaning of our lives and the world around us.
In today’s Gospel we hear that the Pharisees and Sadducees are plotting against Jesus. They have become very frustrated with His actions and their fear and anger are beginning to escalate because they do not understand. Three things have happened that have caused this. Jesus has larger and larger crowds following him; he has gone and turned over the tables of the merchants in the temple and released their animals; Jesus and his followers are now claiming more directly and forcefully that he is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.
However, when the Pharisees try to capture him, Jesus slips away. This is because it is not the right time according to God’s plan. The Pharisees think that they must kill one man for the sake of an entire nation. However, God’s plan is that one man, His only Son, will die for the sake of the entire world – God is in Control.
It can be hard for us in today’s world to see this when you hear of another shooting in a school, you wonder how a 14 year old can kill two people and injure a dozen others. When abortion is so rampant that 4 million lives have been lost since 1973. When there appears to be at no time in human history all nations living in peace without wars and terrorism.
Yes, it can be difficult to see how God is in Control. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: "Faith gives us the certainty that God would not permit an evil if he did not cause a good to come from that very evil, by ways that we shall fully know only in eternal life." (CCC 324)
We will probably never see or understand, during our time here on earth, the good that comes from those items which I just mention. However, we have to believe with complete faith and hope that God is in Control.
Let our prayer today, that during Holy Week as we hear the passion of Jesus Christ, that it will deepen our faith that God is in control knowing that God was using the evil that existed to carry out the single greatest good – Eternal Salvation for all makind.
