WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:12.080 Music. 00:00:12.072 --> 00:00:22.562 Lasting life change for your good and for God's glory this week we're gonna be diving into not so much of a topic as much as a. 00:00:23.282 --> 00:00:34.722 Specific prayer There are you know a number of prayers that people might be familiar with probably the most familiar prayer in the entire world is 00:00:34.722 --> 00:00:44.162 Lord's prayer, you know our Father who art in heaven heaven, hallowed be thy name." That's probably like the most well-known prayer 00:00:44.162 --> 00:00:50.402 in existence. It's the prayer that ends up in movies and everybody seems to have 00:00:50.402 --> 00:00:55.039 at least heard once or twice in their life. There's a couple other prayers that, 00:00:55.602 --> 00:01:05.882 rank near that one in as far as popularity and being known by heart. One of those maybe is the Jesus prayer. It's a little bit less known, but that prayer 00:01:05.882 --> 00:01:11.202 simply, you know, Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me, a sinner, very short prayer. 00:01:11.667 --> 00:01:16.202 And then I would probably put somewhere up in the top three, maybe number two 00:01:16.564 --> 00:01:22.962 would be the serenity prayer, prayer that many people know, uh, and has been made 00:01:22.962 --> 00:01:30.162 popular through the programs like AA, um, Alcoholics Anonymous and other recovery 00:01:30.162 --> 00:01:32.762 circles often use this prayer. 00:01:33.137 --> 00:01:40.102 Not always, sometimes it's kind of generalized a little bit to speak about God generally. 00:01:40.102 --> 00:01:44.885 Obviously, I'm talking about this specifically with Christian God, with Jesus in mind. 00:01:45.263 --> 00:01:50.802 It's well known by a lot of people in those circles, and so you may have heard of it from there. 00:01:51.168 --> 00:01:54.302 A lot of times the prayer is kind of said in a shortened version. 00:01:54.302 --> 00:01:58.397 The first part of the prayer is the most well-known part of the prayer, 00:01:58.649 --> 00:02:04.162 but there's actually longer versions of it. The prayer was originally written by Reinhold Niebuhr. 00:02:04.202 --> 00:02:11.142 He was a theologian and pastor, and he wrote this prayer, and it's since then 00:02:11.142 --> 00:02:16.262 been adopted by anonymous programs and 12-step programs across the world. 00:02:16.555 --> 00:02:21.742 So I thought this prayer is well-known for a good reason, because it's got a lot 00:02:21.742 --> 00:02:26.142 of really helpful principles, and it's got some really deep theological and 00:02:26.142 --> 00:02:32.662 spiritual truths that can really help shift us and orient us in our direction 00:02:32.702 --> 00:02:35.622 of recovery of seeking life change. 00:02:35.937 --> 00:02:40.942 So I thought today we would spend some time kind of just breaking this prayer apart. 00:02:40.942 --> 00:02:45.622 So I'll open our time together with just reading this prayer aloud so that you 00:02:45.622 --> 00:02:52.582 can hear the whole thing in its entirety. Maybe you've only heard the first part of it, but, uh, I'm sure that you've 00:02:52.699 --> 00:02:55.382 probably maybe heard this once or twice before, but let's. 00:02:55.742 --> 00:02:56.759 Dig into it. 00:02:57.596 --> 00:03:07.286 So the serenity prayer goes like this. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, 00:03:08.111 --> 00:03:13.446 and the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. 00:03:14.406 --> 00:03:26.629 Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time, time, accepting hardship as a pathway to peace, taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as 00:03:26.886 --> 00:03:34.126 it is, not as I would have it, trusting that You will make all things right if I surrender 00:03:34.126 --> 00:03:41.086 to Your will, so that I may be reasonably happy in this life, and supremely happy with 00:03:41.086 --> 00:03:43.958 You forever in the next. Amen. 00:03:44.886 --> 00:03:50.266 Now the short version of that that most people know is that first four lines there, God grant 00:03:50.266 --> 00:03:56.606 me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change and the courage to change the things 00:03:56.606 --> 00:03:59.433 that I can and the wisdom to know difference. 00:04:00.945 --> 00:04:07.046 But that other part of the prayer goes on into just such deep territory and reflection 00:04:07.046 --> 00:04:09.946 on Christ's character and all of that. 00:04:09.946 --> 00:04:19.126 So let's unpack this prayer together. see why it has stood the test of time, why it has become so well known, and what truths 00:04:19.126 --> 00:04:20.525 we can glean from it. 00:04:21.587 --> 00:04:25.246 So let's start with just those first four lines right there. 00:04:25.246 --> 00:04:31.286 God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the 00:04:31.286 --> 00:04:35.244 things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. 00:04:36.036 --> 00:04:48.946 Man, that is a big deal, right? So often, we get stuck because we're stuck wishing we had control or the ability to change 00:04:48.946 --> 00:04:50.989 things we simply cannot change. 00:04:51.726 --> 00:04:58.083 And then we ignore the things that we can probably change, we just maybe don't want to. 00:04:58.866 --> 00:05:06.026 That is a big deal. It seems like we're called in two seemingly opposite directions at once. 00:05:06.026 --> 00:05:10.986 A direction of action and then also a direction of surrender. 00:05:12.414 --> 00:05:19.864 God is inviting us to know our limits. God, we are not God, in case you're not aware of that fact. 00:05:19.864 --> 00:05:24.724 I'm not God, you're not God. We are not supreme. We do not control all things. 00:05:24.724 --> 00:05:27.004 We are not responsible for all things. 00:05:27.628 --> 00:05:31.264 But sometimes we wish we were God. We wish we could control everything. 00:05:31.264 --> 00:05:36.504 We wish we were responsible for everything. We wish we could just kind of micromanage everything. 00:05:37.341 --> 00:05:41.704 Or we treat ourselves like we ought to be. And that's, that's not a way to be living. 00:05:42.446 --> 00:05:45.844 To understand that we are not gods and that we cannot control everything. 00:05:45.844 --> 00:05:50.864 We're invited to say, you know what, that's outside of my control. 00:05:52.312 --> 00:06:04.264 That is such a simple thing, but it's so hard to do, but it's also equally hard to say, you know what, this is inside of my control and I can take action on that. 00:06:05.221 --> 00:06:09.304 We're invited to take what's been given to us inside of our control and to be 00:06:09.304 --> 00:06:13.252 good stewards of it, to say, what is God calling me to do right now with the, 00:06:14.098 --> 00:06:18.864 thing I can control, even though there's things that I cannot control. 00:06:20.480 --> 00:06:27.104 This should ultimately be a relief for us. This should be a calming and a letting go of something. 00:06:27.104 --> 00:06:32.164 We might be tempted to think that we can control everything around us, but we simply can't. 00:06:32.164 --> 00:06:37.244 Can't. We aren't supposed to. And when we offload the weight of trying to control 00:06:37.531 --> 00:06:44.284 everything or everyone, we can more appropriately tackle what God has asked 00:06:44.284 --> 00:06:50.684 us to do. That's big. How many times have we gotten into a situation where we're 00:06:50.684 --> 00:06:56.164 just like, I'm so mad at this situation over what's happening. I wish I could 00:06:56.462 --> 00:07:02.004 just fix it. You can't fix it because somebody else is involved, right? This is 00:07:02.004 --> 00:07:05.104 This happens in family dynamics all the time, right? 00:07:05.104 --> 00:07:11.892 Maybe we've got a family member who is just consistently making decisions that are making our life harder. 00:07:12.342 --> 00:07:15.764 And we're just like, I'm trying to control what that person does. 00:07:15.764 --> 00:07:20.696 If only they would listen to me or do what I said, then it would be better. Right. and. 00:07:21.885 --> 00:07:26.872 You know, maybe that's true. Maybe if they did listen to you, it would be better, but they're, 00:07:27.335 --> 00:07:34.615 not. And they're a person. They're an individual. You actually can't control what they do. Only you 00:07:34.615 --> 00:07:41.015 can control what you do. You can control how you respond. You can set up a boundary saying like, 00:07:41.015 --> 00:07:46.535 hey, like if you behave this way, like this is how I'm going to respond in kind, right? Like not, 00:07:46.535 --> 00:07:50.375 I'm not trying to be mean, like that's just me trying to take care of myself. 00:07:51.340 --> 00:08:00.586 So we often get stuck because we begin to wish or want or try and control things that we simply 00:08:00.919 --> 00:08:06.615 cannot control. That's so often when we get into a place where we're just running a situation over 00:08:06.615 --> 00:08:12.135 and over in our heads, it's often because we're like, I want to find a way to fix it. 00:08:13.072 --> 00:08:19.295 And we keep running it over in our heads and we're not figuring out a way to fix it is because ultimately we can't fix it, 00:08:20.246 --> 00:08:23.375 It's not inside of our control. We see this, 00:08:23.975 --> 00:08:35.735 Exemplified to us in Job. Job is a phenomenal book of the Bible. It's also Immensely dense. It's really long. It's like 43 chapters, but it's a book that is so often 00:08:35.735 --> 00:08:42.335 misunderstood, misquoted, and not really held up for what it says because so 00:08:42.335 --> 00:08:45.535 How often we get into a place of saying... 00:08:46.929 --> 00:08:55.040 Of trying to figure out why something happened, which is a really normal thing that to happen, right? 00:08:55.040 --> 00:09:02.240 If you're walking in a dark room at night and you stub your toe, you're gonna scream, ow, out in pain. 00:09:02.240 --> 00:09:06.400 And then the second thing after you're done, like yelling out in pain, 00:09:06.400 --> 00:09:10.400 maybe saying an explicative or two, you're going to want to say, 00:09:10.400 --> 00:09:14.386 what was it that I hit my toe on? What was it that I hit, ran into? 00:09:14.760 --> 00:09:19.800 I wanna figure out if it's a toy, if it's a coffee table, what was it I ran into? 00:09:19.800 --> 00:09:24.360 And the reason you wanna know what it was, why did that happen is because you wanna avoid it 00:09:24.360 --> 00:09:28.007 from happening again. We don't wanna encounter that pain again. 00:09:28.421 --> 00:09:33.282 And so, so often and so much discussion over the bad things that happen in our life, 00:09:33.804 --> 00:09:38.845 are stuck answering this, trying to answer the question of why did this happen to me? 00:09:39.520 --> 00:09:43.920 And there's a ton of biblical reflection and people have a lot of answers 00:09:43.920 --> 00:09:51.160 to why bad things might happen to you, but Job is probably the most comprehensive reflection 00:09:51.160 --> 00:09:56.094 on it in the entire Bible, but it gives an answer that we're not very fond of. 00:09:56.480 --> 00:10:03.360 It gives an answer that we're not God, we don't necessarily get to know why. 00:10:03.360 --> 00:10:08.440 And this is kind of exemplified, Job kind of wrestles, and he's having these conversations 00:10:08.440 --> 00:10:14.269 with his, with supposedly friends who keep saying, well, maybe God did this to you, or maybe this is 00:10:14.680 --> 00:10:19.000 happening to you because you didn't have enough faith or because you weren't faithful enough or 00:10:19.000 --> 00:10:23.160 because you've sinned or because someone in your family sinned or something like that. Try, they're 00:10:23.160 --> 00:10:27.160 trying to give him all these reasons and Job just is like, no, none of that's it. Like, and then he 00:10:27.160 --> 00:10:32.280 gets mad and he calls God and he says, God, you've got to give me an answer as to why this happened. 00:10:33.066 --> 00:10:39.880 And then God shows up in dramatic fashion and then when Job sees who God is. 00:10:41.006 --> 00:10:47.656 He realizes that, Oh, actually I'm not God. I don't need the answer because God's got the 00:10:47.656 --> 00:10:52.936 answer and I'm just going to trust him. And this is Job's response here in Job 42, 00:10:52.936 --> 00:10:59.896 Job 42, verses one through three, Job replied to the Lord and said, I know that you can do 00:10:59.896 --> 00:11:07.496 all things. No purpose of yours can be thwarted. You asked, who is it that obscures my plans 00:11:07.496 --> 00:11:14.536 without knowledge. Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to 00:11:14.536 --> 00:11:20.296 know." Job says, like, God comes out and says, who is it that's asking me this question? Who's. 00:11:21.264 --> 00:11:27.176 Demanding I give them an answer? Who's wants me to explain to them all of the things that I know? 00:11:27.176 --> 00:11:35.496 And Job's like, oh, that was me, God. I spoke without thinking. I spoke of things I did not 00:11:35.496 --> 00:11:39.971 understand of things too wonderful for me to know. He's saying like, God, you know 00:11:40.256 --> 00:11:45.576 what? You're right. Like, you are God. I am NOT. I'm not in control of everything and 00:11:45.576 --> 00:11:52.056 I don't necessarily... I'm not owed an answer. I'm here to kind of trust God and 00:11:52.056 --> 00:11:56.736 submit to him. And that is a radical mind shift. That's so different from the way 00:11:56.736 --> 00:12:03.856 that we operate and live in our world. We want answers. We want explanations. We We want the details. 00:12:03.856 --> 00:12:06.516 We want the case file. We want everything. 00:12:06.516 --> 00:12:10.200 We want to know all the nitty gritty and we want it now, right? 00:12:11.136 --> 00:12:17.348 And we think we're owed it. But Job says, no, no, no, I'm not God. I'm just a man. 00:12:18.156 --> 00:12:23.856 God created me. God is over all things. I'm going to leave it in God's hands. 00:12:23.856 --> 00:12:26.377 And that's a place of surrender. 00:12:27.296 --> 00:12:32.156 And it's a place where Job finally begins to experience some peace in the midst of his 00:12:32.156 --> 00:12:35.326 Yes, awful things happen to Job, and he's absolutely 00:12:35.756 --> 00:12:44.196 torn up about those things, but he's no longer running around demanding an explanation, or demanding that things 00:12:44.373 --> 00:12:50.206 that are outside of his control be given to him, or that he be able to fix things, right? 00:12:51.134 --> 00:12:58.196 So much of our own suffering and pain and being stuck, particularly when we get stuck in suffering, 00:12:58.296 --> 00:13:05.356 when something awful has happened to us, to us or we're in a bad situation and we get stuck, 00:13:05.356 --> 00:13:07.428 we're just running it over and over in our heads, 00:13:07.761 --> 00:13:13.054 it's because we wanna control something, we wanna change something, we wanna figure it out, 00:13:13.476 --> 00:13:15.512 when actually we need to kind of let it go. 00:13:15.876 --> 00:13:22.138 We're not going to be able to control it or figure it out or have the answer as to why. 00:13:22.858 --> 00:13:28.916 But that doesn't mean that there isn't things for us to do, because that's the second part of that prayer. 00:13:29.474 --> 00:13:33.476 Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. 00:13:33.903 --> 00:13:37.279 And then the second thing is that it asks is the courage. 00:13:38.603 --> 00:13:44.526 The courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. 00:13:44.769 --> 00:13:52.992 See, God also invites us into a new way of living. You are invited into an integrity of being, 00:13:53.632 --> 00:14:02.272 by living out the teachings of Jesus. In 1 John 2, verses 3-6, this is the apostle John 00:14:02.272 --> 00:14:06.744 talking about the obedience to what Jesus Christ taught here. He says, 00:14:07.176 --> 00:14:12.388 We know that we have come to know Him. He's speaking about Jesus. We've come to know Jesus 00:14:12.487 --> 00:14:18.708 if we keep His commands. Whoever says, I know Him, whoever says, I know Jesus, 00:14:19.086 --> 00:14:24.752 but doesn't do what Jesus commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. 00:14:25.856 --> 00:14:34.032 But if anyone obeys His word, obeys Jesus, love for God is truly made complete in them. 00:14:34.876 --> 00:14:41.231 This is how we know that we're in Him. Whoever claims to live in Jesus must live as Jesus did. 00:14:43.743 --> 00:14:51.372 So have you ever felt stressed or overwhelmed in anxiety? Or maybe you're just reliving something 00:14:51.372 --> 00:14:57.232 over and over again. It might be because you're holding on to too many things that are not inside 00:14:57.232 --> 00:15:04.520 of your power to change. Jesus is inviting you to say, come, lay them down at my feet. 00:15:05.732 --> 00:15:12.514 And then you can begin to discern what are the things that you can change in obedience, 00:15:13.312 --> 00:15:19.952 and what are the things that you can't. Christ is saying, what is too heavy? What is not 00:15:19.952 --> 00:15:26.452 fair for you to carry? Come to me. We talked about this last week. Come to me all who are 00:15:26.452 --> 00:15:31.632 weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest for your souls. Take upon my yoke and 00:15:31.632 --> 00:15:37.694 learn from me, for my yoke is light." Christ is saying, let me bear what you cannot bear, 00:15:38.112 --> 00:15:43.072 what is out of your control, what you simply wish you could control, what's painful, what 00:15:43.072 --> 00:15:47.052 you wish you could change but you can't, what you wish you had answers to but you won't 00:15:47.052 --> 00:15:54.429 have them, come give that to me. Trust me with those things. And then, what's left? 00:15:55.012 --> 00:16:00.932 If you give over all the things that you cannot change, that are outside of your control, 00:16:00.932 --> 00:16:05.916 what's left? What's inside of your control? Those are the things where Jesus says, all right, let's start. 00:16:07.032 --> 00:16:13.784 Small steps, beginning to live into these things that are inside of your control in 00:16:14.202 --> 00:16:15.683 a way that's like me. 00:16:16.242 --> 00:16:18.222 In a way that's like Jesus. 00:16:18.978 --> 00:16:24.280 WWJD is a helpful question for a reason. What would Jesus do? 00:16:25.342 --> 00:16:33.382 How would Jesus live in or respond to this situation? Someone does something that I wish they hadn't done. 00:16:34.480 --> 00:16:39.503 It puts me in a difficult situation. How can I respond like Jesus would have responded? 00:16:40.742 --> 00:16:48.562 And how can that be a freeing experience? So that's the first part of that prayer. 00:16:48.562 --> 00:16:53.342 And that's the most powerful and not most powerful, but it's the most familiar part 00:16:53.342 --> 00:16:57.602 of that prayer for a reason, because it's a place of just simply saying, you know what, 00:16:57.814 --> 00:17:03.062 like I need to figure out what's outside of my control, surrender it to Jesus, what's, 00:17:03.602 --> 00:17:08.642 inside of my control, and then ask Jesus to help me live like him in the midst of it. 00:17:09.247 --> 00:17:15.362 And the wisdom to know the difference. So often we get stuck into places where we don't have 00:17:15.362 --> 00:17:20.482 control, and that's when we run into our addiction. It's when we run to our coping mechanisms. It's 00:17:20.482 --> 00:17:26.918 when we run back into old habits because we want to control it, and we don't want to deal 00:17:27.278 --> 00:17:33.362 with the emotional unrest that is welling up inside of us because of what's going on. 00:17:33.362 --> 00:17:42.258 And Christ is inviting us to experience serenity, experience peace in the midst of the storm by surrendering it to Him. 00:17:44.482 --> 00:17:49.762 Now let's go on to the next couple lines of this prayer. It goes as this, 00:17:49.762 --> 00:17:51.602 Living one day at a time, 00:17:52.719 --> 00:18:01.602 Enjoying one moment at a time, time, accepting hardship as a pathway to peace, taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as 00:18:01.602 --> 00:18:04.043 it is, not as I would have it. 00:18:17.475 --> 00:18:24.685 Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time, accepting hardship as a pathway 00:18:24.685 --> 00:18:32.014 to peace, taking as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it. 00:18:33.925 --> 00:18:43.357 See Jesus entered into the world to save it. God has turned the understanding of glory and redemption upside down. 00:18:44.605 --> 00:18:52.845 And so what do I mean by that? What I mean by that is that we have one particular way that we would like things to kind of play 00:18:52.845 --> 00:18:53.097 out. 00:18:54.345 --> 00:18:59.845 If you were to think about like a new skill that you're learning or the change you're 00:18:59.845 --> 00:19:05.862 trying to make in your life or your spiritual life or the way things go, we want things 00:19:05.943 --> 00:19:07.645 to go from good to better. 00:19:07.845 --> 00:19:12.525 And we generally want that to be a straight line. If you think about like a line graph, right? 00:19:12.525 --> 00:19:17.905 You've got your axes here and it kind of goes up as it goes along time and you're just like, 00:19:17.905 --> 00:19:21.301 yeah, like, you know, we want things to get better over time. 00:19:21.525 --> 00:19:25.225 Maybe we'll have a small dip, but it will just jump right back up to where it was 00:19:25.225 --> 00:19:27.495 and it'll go keep and go trending upwards. 00:19:27.865 --> 00:19:34.745 That's what we like to see, right? Whether it's in our business profits or if it's in our finances 00:19:34.745 --> 00:19:37.496 or if it's in how the change or habits, 00:19:37.865 --> 00:19:44.482 we like things to be constantly going in the direction we want them to be going, positively. 00:19:44.905 --> 00:19:48.825 We might say, okay, yeah, yeah, We know like there will be some tough stuff. 00:19:49.964 --> 00:19:56.354 It'll bounce right back, right? But that's not life. That's not my life, that's not your life, right? 00:19:56.968 --> 00:20:02.354 Life is a lot more messy than that. Things rarely go in a straight direction. 00:20:03.288 --> 00:20:09.754 We often wish that our stories were in a straight line from, even if they start out bad, 00:20:09.754 --> 00:20:12.054 we wish they went from bad to good to better. 00:20:12.452 --> 00:20:17.454 And the thing is, is that what we often do is we often feel like we go from bad to good to bad, 00:20:17.454 --> 00:20:22.381 the worst to better, to good to bad, the awful all the way back up to just okay, right? 00:20:22.814 --> 00:20:28.354 We feel like we're just kind of spinning our wheels that we're constantly in this place of, 00:20:28.854 --> 00:20:32.354 running around in circles, and that just doesn't make any sense to us. 00:20:33.751 --> 00:20:38.994 And I think this is an interesting question. If you and I were to imagine, 00:20:39.549 --> 00:20:42.663 all right, God's going to save the world. 00:20:43.474 --> 00:20:46.886 How would he save the world? What would he do? 00:20:47.903 --> 00:20:55.894 Well, I don't think we would come up with Cross. And what I mean by that is that when you think about a superhero, 00:20:55.894 --> 00:21:00.182 a superhero swoops in to save the day. 00:21:00.920 --> 00:21:01.994 And how do they save the day? 00:21:02.775 --> 00:21:06.994 By kicking the bad guy's butts, right? They swoop in, they're just like, yeah, here I am. 00:21:06.994 --> 00:21:09.194 Have no fear, underdog is here, right? 00:21:09.194 --> 00:21:13.094 I'm strong, I'm gonna take care of this. I'm gonna save the damsel. 00:21:13.094 --> 00:21:17.434 And they're gonna do it all, looking good. and they're all powerful, right? 00:21:17.434 --> 00:21:21.354 And even if they've got like a weakness, they still, they overcome it, right? 00:21:21.985 --> 00:21:26.494 That's the story that we tend to write, and it's the story we want for ourselves, 00:21:26.494 --> 00:21:29.354 but it's not the story that God chose. 00:21:29.354 --> 00:21:36.794 God, the creator of the entire cosmos, decided to come into human history, 00:21:36.794 --> 00:21:39.198 into the mess of humanity, 00:21:39.855 --> 00:21:45.571 take on human flesh and all of its frailties, and then die on a cross. 00:21:46.823 --> 00:21:54.016 That's upside down, that's not the way our brains work. It's not the way we would think it would work, 00:21:54.376 --> 00:22:00.794 but God did choose that, and in choosing so, he brought about the redemption of the world. 00:22:01.658 --> 00:22:13.055 If the death of God on a cross can save the entire world, what can God do in the midst of your difficult circumstance? 00:22:13.550 --> 00:22:19.222 In the midst of your suffering, in the midst of your pain, what might God bring about through it? 00:22:20.113 --> 00:22:26.757 Now, don't you mishear me. I'm not saying that that's the reason why something bad happened to you. 00:22:26.913 --> 00:22:32.131 Not saying that God caused something bad to happen to you because he wanted to do something better. 00:22:32.593 --> 00:22:32.932 No, no. 00:22:33.933 --> 00:22:38.559 I'm saying that God doesn't waste anything. I'm saying that something has happened to you. 00:22:39.153 --> 00:22:41.205 You don't know why. I don't know why. 00:22:42.033 --> 00:22:49.839 And God wants to do something in it. That God wants to bring about something glorious in it. 00:22:50.493 --> 00:22:56.273 This is one of my favorite passages when I think about this concept in 1 Peter 1, 00:22:56.273 --> 00:22:58.193 verses, starting in verse three. 00:22:58.793 --> 00:23:03.054 Peter says, praise be to God and Father, our Lord Jesus Christ. 00:23:03.913 --> 00:23:09.353 In his great mercy has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection 00:23:09.353 --> 00:23:11.673 of Jesus Christ from the dead. 00:23:11.673 --> 00:23:16.953 Saying like, that's the hope is the death of Jesus Christ and his resurrection gives 00:23:16.953 --> 00:23:23.393 us a hope and we have been given an inheritance that can never perish, never spoil, and never 00:23:23.393 --> 00:23:29.629 fade. This inheritance is kept for you in heaven, who through faith you are shielded 00:23:29.863 --> 00:23:34.153 by God's power until the coming salvation is ready to reveal in the last time. There 00:23:34.153 --> 00:23:39.193 is coming a day where Jesus is going to reveal himself and he's going to take all of his 00:23:39.193 --> 00:23:46.713 believers and make all things right. And in all of this you rejoice greatly. 00:23:46.211 --> 00:23:52.381 Though for now, right? There's this promise of this future of God making all things right, 00:23:53.079 --> 00:24:01.101 But there is a for now Though for now a little while you have been made to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 00:24:02.154 --> 00:24:11.461 These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith Greater worth than gold which parishes even though refined by fire 00:24:11.461 --> 00:24:16.701 may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you, 00:24:17.521 --> 00:24:21.061 have not seen Him yet, you love Him, and even though you do not see Him now, you 00:24:21.061 --> 00:24:26.550 believe in Him, and you are filled with a joy, an inexpressible glorious joy, and, 00:24:27.000 --> 00:24:33.381 you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your soul. God 00:24:33.381 --> 00:24:38.325 might be bringing you through something that feels like a fiery furnace, that 00:24:38.541 --> 00:24:44.421 feels like the heat has been turned up, feels like it is just melting everything 00:24:44.421 --> 00:24:47.301 away, and it's because He's refining you. 00:24:47.750 --> 00:24:54.021 He wants to bring out something that is worth more than its weight in gold, salvation of your soul. 00:24:55.150 --> 00:25:04.701 God does not waste anything. And so what we're invited to in that prayer of serenity is to accept the 00:25:04.701 --> 00:25:10.301 world as it is, to find a pathway through peace of, through suffering, through 00:25:10.301 --> 00:25:13.341 suffering, suffering has a role. 00:25:13.341 --> 00:25:21.741 We'll talk more about this in coming weeks, but we so often want to run and hide from suffering, and of course we do, there's nothing bad with 00:25:21.981 --> 00:25:23.840 avoiding suffering if we can. 00:25:24.641 --> 00:25:29.501 But what do we do when suffering does come? Because it will indeed come. 00:25:29.981 --> 00:25:33.381 Can we see it as a pathway to peace? 00:25:34.094 --> 00:25:41.381 The Serenity Prayer goes on with this final section saying, Trusting that you will make all things right, 00:25:41.773 --> 00:25:46.381 If I surrender to your will, so that I may be reasonably happy in this life, 00:25:46.381 --> 00:25:50.621 life, and supremely happy with you forever in the next. 00:25:52.360 --> 00:26:03.009 Is the goal the avoidance of pain altogether, or does God promise us a life free of discomfort 00:26:03.324 --> 00:26:10.517 if only we would follow Him? The answer to that question is no. If you're listening to any Bible, 00:26:11.090 --> 00:26:18.370 teacher or preacher or pastor or book writer or author who says, if you follow Jesus, everything 00:26:18.370 --> 00:26:23.610 Everything will always go exactly the way you think it should, where you will never 00:26:23.610 --> 00:26:26.370 experience suffering or pain if you follow Jesus. 00:26:26.890 --> 00:26:32.798 All the right things will happen to you if you start following Jesus. That's not true. 00:26:33.581 --> 00:26:37.416 Jesus is a great example of that. He was God. 00:26:37.930 --> 00:26:46.220 He got crucified on a cross, right? We follow a Savior who was wrongfully murdered on a cross. 00:26:46.922 --> 00:26:53.250 Job, another perfect example, there are so many people who were faithful to God who still 00:26:53.690 --> 00:26:56.258 experienced suffering in this life and. 00:26:57.311 --> 00:27:03.270 So we're not trying to seek this perfect life where we never experience pain, 00:27:04.162 --> 00:27:11.490 We're trying to experience a life where even in the midst of pain even in the midst of the storm we can have serenity 00:27:11.490 --> 00:27:19.285 See, that's the thing about the serenity prayer, is we think of a very serene kind of picture in our head. 00:27:20.267 --> 00:27:27.490 When we think of serenity, we might think of sitting by a lake that's perfectly still in the morning hours, 00:27:27.490 --> 00:27:34.139 and there's maybe some ducks, and there's a little fog on the lake, everything's just so quiet. 00:27:35.255 --> 00:27:46.130 And the and everything's so peaceful it's very serenity it's very just you know and there's a little babbling sound water and there's nothing to disturb it 00:27:46.220 --> 00:27:57.810 right that's what we think of in serenity when what I think is probably a more accurate picture is when Peter is walking with Jesus on the water in the 00:27:57.810 --> 00:28:03.610 middle of a storm Jesus calls Peter to step out of the boat and walk on the 00:28:03.610 --> 00:28:08.250 water with him and Jesus doesn't say hold up Peter wait wait wait don't get 00:28:08.250 --> 00:28:12.309 out of the boat yet I'm gonna calm storm and then I'll have to get out when all 00:28:12.410 --> 00:28:17.490 the all the waters all calm down he says no no while the storms happening get out 00:28:17.490 --> 00:28:23.250 of the boat and walk with me right that serenity is walking in the middle of the 00:28:23.250 --> 00:28:30.090 storm with Jesus and knowing that Jesus has got you that's serenity because we 00:28:30.090 --> 00:28:34.770 can't control the storms of this life. We can't get them to go away by snapping 00:28:34.770 --> 00:28:39.640 our fingers, but we can walk with Jesus and we can know that he's got us, he's, 00:28:40.090 --> 00:28:44.250 It's got all the things we can't control and that it will be okay. 00:28:46.193 --> 00:28:52.043 That is what serenity is. God is not a vending machine, maybe like we wish he was. 00:28:52.043 --> 00:28:55.105 We don't come up to God and say, you know what, I'm going to pray this prayer, 00:28:55.343 --> 00:28:58.143 I'm going to do this thing, I'm going to do it like this, this many times, 00:28:58.143 --> 00:28:59.543 and I'm going to get exactly what I want. 00:29:00.399 --> 00:29:06.043 That's not how God works. God will give us good gifts, and he does provide what we need. 00:29:06.520 --> 00:29:11.443 But God also will uphold us when we're fainting in the middle of the storm. 00:29:12.651 --> 00:29:19.088 Let this last passage be an encouragement to you. This is Psalm 121. 00:29:20.096 --> 00:29:24.894 I lift my eyes up to the mountains, where does my help come from? 00:29:25.965 --> 00:29:32.303 My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. He will not let your foot slip. 00:29:32.883 --> 00:29:39.865 He who watches over you will not slumber. Indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. 00:29:40.723 --> 00:29:46.121 The Lord watches over you. The Lord is your shade at your right hand. 00:29:46.523 --> 00:29:49.992 The sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night. 00:29:50.643 --> 00:29:55.178 The Lord will keep you from all harm. He will watch over your life. 00:29:55.763 --> 00:30:02.443 The Lord will watch over your coming and going, both now and forevermore. 00:30:02.443 --> 00:30:05.008 Serenity is not the absence of pain or suffering. 00:30:06.683 --> 00:30:18.463 It's not everything going exactly our way. It's the quiet, quiet assurance that God is with us and that you sit in his hands. 00:30:18.854 --> 00:30:21.563 It's saying, I know that my help comes from the Lord. 00:30:22.263 --> 00:30:27.423 I look up to the mountains, I look up to the high places, I look up to where, where else 00:30:27.423 --> 00:30:35.256 can I look and God comes and he meets me. He will not slumber, he will not abandon me, he will not let my foot slip. 00:30:36.963 --> 00:30:43.083 He watches over me in the midst of the difficulties I'm going through. 00:30:43.083 --> 00:30:49.146 That's serenity, that peace that comes when we understand that truth, when we've let go 00:30:49.443 --> 00:30:53.923 and given God the things we cannot control, and then we've sought to be obedient in the 00:30:53.923 --> 00:30:58.163 things that we can, and then we say, God, what is the thing that you're doing through 00:30:58.163 --> 00:31:01.515 suffering in the midst of this circumstance? 00:31:02.043 --> 00:31:10.275 And Lord let me trust you and find serenity here and now, even though things are not serene. 00:31:13.110 --> 00:31:11.364 Ciao. 00:31:13.110 --> 00:31:21.360 That's just some reflections on the serenity prayer. I'll have it linked here in the description if you want to read the full text and use that in 00:31:21.360 --> 00:31:28.720 your own personal life. I recommend you maybe take it and save it as a screenshot for the back of 00:31:28.720 --> 00:31:34.320 your phone, or you can put it and print it out and put it on your mirror, put it on your window, 00:31:34.320 --> 00:31:40.540 like find a place where you can commit that to memory, learning to constantly come and say, 00:31:40.882 --> 00:31:50.440 What Lord I'm gonna surrender this to you and once you memorize it It's not something we just say and it makes all things better. It's something it's a heart movement 00:31:50.659 --> 00:31:55.720 We move our hearts through in order to become more in aligned with Christ, 00:31:57.564 --> 00:32:08.160 Let me give you a question or two to wrestle with today I might encourage you to ask yourself. What might God be calling you to surrender to you him that you've been holding on to 00:32:08.160 --> 00:32:11.260 What's that thing that you are holding on to and you're like, 00:32:11.460 --> 00:32:12.660 I don't want to surrender. 00:32:12.660 --> 00:32:14.299 I don't want to give it up. What's that thing? 00:32:15.160 --> 00:32:19.560 What's that thing that you need to let go of so that you can find serenity? 00:32:21.465 --> 00:32:25.750 And what might God be calling you into deeper obedience in? Right. 00:32:26.263 --> 00:32:30.360 Okay. If we're surrendered this thing, because I simply cannot control that. 00:32:30.660 --> 00:32:35.260 What am I supposed to be obedient in? What do I have control over? 00:32:35.260 --> 00:32:38.820 Control over and what is Christ calling me to do in that place. 00:32:39.784 --> 00:32:45.460 And then the last question is, what does it mean for you to have serenity in life right now? 00:32:46.455 --> 00:32:52.060 What would it mean? Not for all your circumstances to magically get better, but what would 00:32:52.060 --> 00:32:56.020 it look like if you were to experience right now today, as you were listening 00:32:56.020 --> 00:33:03.100 to this, serenity, a assurance that God's got you in the midst of your difficulty. 00:33:03.505 --> 00:33:04.513 What would that look like? 00:33:05.918 --> 00:33:09.100 Thank you for joining me this week. I hope to catch you all next time. 00:33:09.100 --> 00:33:11.598 Time. Send me any messages in the comments. 00:33:11.600 --> 00:33:28.687 Music.