We all like to think we’re in control — of our schedules, our kids, our relationships, our future. But what if control is actually an illusion, and the thing we’re gripping so tightly was never ours to hold in the first place? In this message, Pastor TJ McCormick kicks off Coastal Community Church’s new series, “Control Issues,” with a simple but convicting premise: control is a God category, not a human one, and the harder we grasp for it, the more chaos we create in our own lives.
Walking through Genesis 3, TJ traces our addiction to control back to the very first temptation in human history — Adam and Eve reaching for the one thing God asked them not to touch. From there he unpacks three reasons we keep reaching for control today: it’s rooted in doubting God’s goodness, it’s driven by our desire for autonomy, and it fuels fear and anxiety rather than the peace we’re chasing. Along the way he gets honest about his own control issues — from the TV remote at home to wanting to control how people receive his sermons — and shares a personal story about a football injury that was misdiagnosed, using it as a picture of how we often treat the symptoms of control instead of naming the real problem underneath.
The message closes with the Serenity Prayer and an invitation: you don’t have the power to control your life, but you do have the power to surrender it. Whether you’re wrestling with control in your marriage, your parenting, your singleness, or your future, this is a message about trading the illusion of control for the freedom of trust.
BIBLICAL REFERENCES
Galatians 5:22-23
Genesis 3:1
Genesis 3:2-3
Genesis 3:4-5
Genesis 3:6
Genesis 3:7-10
Jeremiah 17:9
John 3:16
Romans 10:9-10