Video Transcript: Phrase One

All right, welcome back. This is a mini series on the Serenity Prayer. And we're  going to be taking apart the first phrase in the Serenity Prayer phrase one, God  grant me the serenity to accept the things that I cannot change. Serenity is an  interesting word. I don't think it's a word that we use that often. And if English is  your second language, you, you may not know this word at all. Serenity comes  from the word serene. The quality serenity is the quality or the state of being  serene. Well, that definition doesn't help a lot. If you don't know what serenity or  serene means. How's this gonna help. So let me add to it. Serenity is marked by or suggestive of utter calm, and unruffled repose or quietude. I think of mothers,  you know, with little kids at home, and the kids are making all kinds of noise and  making a mess. And you know, mom is trying to bring a little order to the  household, and it's hectic and it's pressure filled, or someone goes off to work  and, and where you're working. There's a lot of things happening, a lot of  people, a lot of moving parts, a lot of pressure. Life can be filled with, you know,  all this pressure. And then in the middle of it, in the middle of all the chaos of  someone's life. The person is just handling it well. They're not getting ruffled,  they're not getting riled, they're not getting upset. They're not anxious, they're  not angry. They're not filled with all these extreme emotions. They're like, they  have the attitude that even though there's chaos around me, it's all going to be  okay, that sense that it's all going to be okay. That's what's powerful about the  Serenity Prayer, because people are going through difficult times in their life.  They're going through difficult times in their families, they're going through  difficult times in their careers. Maybe, maybe you're taking classes here at  Christian leaders Institute, you want to be used by God in some sort of ministry,  and you've been nothing but frustrated about that. It seems like it's one closed  door after another. In fact, the church you go to, it seems like they're not  interested in your services and all the things that you're learning, and it's just  frustrating. Life is filled with all kinds of frustration. So how can you maintain a  serene composure In the midst of all this conflict, and confusion? That's what  the Serenity Prayer is all about. Okay, the Serenity Prayer starts out with God.  Okay. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. This is  not something that I can just do. I need help. You know, I've been talking about  when life is hectic and chaos, and then a person, you know, the godly responses to have some trust is serenity that we don't just muster, that in and of ourselves.  It's, it's a prayer. We're coming to God and saying, God, I'm filled with chaos, I'm filled with conflict, I have anger, I have frustration. And I want those feelings  replaced with serenity. So I'm coming to you and pleading that you help me do  that, because right now, this is not how I feel. God grant me the serenity, to  accept the things I cannot change. Philippians 4:6-7. Do not be anxious about  anything but in every situation by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present  your requests to God, and then this phrase, and the peace of God, and the  serenity of God, which transcends all understanding. The peace of God, that 

serenity of God sometimes doesn't even make any sense. You're going through  a really stressful difficult time. And then all of a sudden, in the middle of the  stressful situation. You feel a peace that you can't even understand. Haven't you experienced that? Maybe you've gone through the grief process. Someone  close to you died and you were crushed, and your heart was as empty as it  could be. And then all of a sudden, one night, you're praying to God, or you're  reading from the Scripture, or you're singing, worship songs, or the minister  says, Some words and all of a sudden a piece comes over you that you can't  even explain. Like, where did this come from? I'm sure you've experienced that.  And if you haven't, this is what the Serenity Prayer is all about to pray for this.  The peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts.  Won't let your heart devolve into anger and frustration in the sense that you just  want to give up and guard your minds in Christ Jesus, so you won't go down  dark paths. That's what people do, bad things happen. And then their minds take them down these dark paths, where they end up thinking that there's no hope  that the future won't change that their life is, you know, on this downward spiral.  God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. Well, what  things do we naively often think we can change? Number one, we often think  that we can change our spouse a lot of times, you know, we're attracted to  someone, you know, in our dating or courtship time, and, you know, we like, you  know, 80% of who they are, but there's 20%, we think, you know, well, I like  them. But you know, I'd like to change that 20%, and we marry them thinking,  that's what we're gonna do, I'm going to change that 20%. Are you? It often  doesn't go that way. Or your children. In often in situations, we, most of us have  sort of a controlling nature, we want to control our children, we have this picture  of what the family ought to be. And then we want to make that happen. So we  want to control our children into being what we want them to be. Or if you own a  business, you try to control your employees to be what you want them to be,  we're trying to control life. But there's so much of life, we do not control the  people around us. If you think you're going to control all the people around you,  you're going to be disappointed a lot of things about people you cannot change  doesn't mean that people can't change. But generally people change because  they want to change not because you want them to change. There's so much in  life that we don't control. I didn't control, you know, the color of my hair, or  whether I lost my hair, or how tall I was, or, you know, what kind of physical  specimen I am or how smart I might be, I mean, there's certain things that I can  do, I can, you know, work out, I can be in shape, I can eat, right, I can exercise, I can take classes and learn things, but they're, you know, the basic parts of who I am. You know, this is, this is the body that God gave me. I remember as a kid  thinking, you know, I'll never be, you know, I was pretty tall when I was like 13,  14, but I never grew after that. And that's, you know, my father is six foot three,  and I thought that that was gonna be half that was gonna happen to me, and it 

didn't. And I remember when it did not, you know, I have to go through my whole life being this shorter person, when I had an image of what I could be, accept  the things that you cannot change. There's a lot of things that, you know, we end up worrying about things that we really can't do anything about. God grant me  the serenity to accept the things I can't change. So is brought this up instead of  accepting what do we do? We end up worrying. Matthew 6:25-34 Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life. Can any one of you by worrying add a single  hour to your life? How much of our lives do we spend worrying, or worrying  about what is going to happen tomorrow with our jobs, we worry about what is  going to happen in relationships, and many of those things we don't control. We  worry about the economy. We worry about the direction the world is taking. Most of these things I mean, I'm not saying we can't have anything to do with change, you know, making things happen in our world. But there's so many global things  that are out of our control. What what is it that you do control? If we just spent  our time praying about and working on the things we actually control? Instead of all the things that we can't control, we'd probably make more progress. Instead  of accepting, we ended up complaining. complaining, I think, I think human  beings spent, like half their lifetime complaining. And, and why do we complain?  We often complain about things. Number one, we either can't do anything about. We complain about the government, we complain about our workplace, we  complain about our spouse, our family, our friends, our church. And a lot of  times, we have no influence over some of those things. We complain about  things that we can't do anything about. But we also complain about things that  we can do something about, but we don't. complaining, generally is not doing.  There's doing and then there's complaining. And if we're complaining, we're not  doing. If you're going to complain about something, then you should do. The  minute you start complaining, you should ask yourself, Is this something I can  do? Or is this something I can't do anything about? If it's something I can't do  anything about? What are you talking about? If it is something that you can do  about it, do about it? Then Then why are you complaining? Why aren't we just  doing something about it? So in other words, complaining is never the answer.  Philippians 2:14-15 Do everything without complaining or arguing. Then you will  be pure and without blame. You will be children of God without fault among the  sinful and evil people, then you will shine among them, like stars in the sky.  Bottom line, bottom line with this opening phrase of the Serenity Prayer is to  trust in the Lord. That there are things in your life that you can't do anything  about. You have to leave those things to the Lord. Proverbs 3:5-6, trust in the  Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your  ways, submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight. So it's not like we,  you know, there are things in our lives, chaos in our lives, that often we can't do  anything about. That doesn't mean you can't do anything. You can leave these  things to the Lord. All in all your ways. submit to Him. As part of the Serenity 

Prayer, it's about giving the things that you cannot control the things that you  worry about the things that you want to complain about. Give those if you find  yourself worrying about things. Or if you find yourself complaining about things,  this is your list. This is your list, to give to God submit these things to God, and  you know what God will do God will make your paths straight. God will take care of these things not always in the direction in the manner or in the timing that you want. But in God's perfect timing. God oversees the whole, He knows your life.  He knows what he's trying to accomplish, and he will make it happen. Our job is  to trust him. So that's the first phrase. We'll come back and look at the second phrase.