Video Transcript: Phrase Six

All right, welcome back to this mini class, on the Serenity Prayer, hopefully,  we've been looking at all these phrases, in part to help you apply the Serenity  Prayer to your life to your day. So you're walking around with your serenity  prayer mug, or you have one of these jewelry pieces to remind you about the  serenity, prayer and all these aspects of the Serenity Prayer in your own life, the  difficulties that you face, but also to use it as a ministry tool to minister to the  people around you. So we're gonna look at phrase, phrase number six reads,  taking as he did this sinful world as it is not as you want it to be. So the whole  strategy, let me read it read off my coffee mug here, God grant me the serenity  to accept the things I cannot change the courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Living One day at a time accepting  hardships, as the pathway to peace. And then this one accepting hardship as  the pathway to peace, taking as he did, this sinful world as it is not as I would  have it to be. So in some ways in some ways, we want to look at the world is so  full of brokenness and hurt, but that's not what we want. Where we want to see  the world as God intended it to be, or the world that we imagined heaven would  be like. And it's interesting that often we have really high expectations of the  people around us. In other words, we're sort of unforgiving with the people  around us in terms of the standard we think they should meet. So, you know, the spouse should, you know, be caring and, you know, listening and, you know, do  their part and, you know, contribute to the marriage. So we're often critical of our spouse in terms of their ability to do their part. But we're very forgiving for our  own lack of being able to do that. We're, we're very unforgiving with our children  and high expectations we have for them and their life. But we're also often very  forgiving with our own frailties, and even the same thing with our friendships. Or  we're very unforgiving with our leaders in our church, but we're pretty forgiving  with our own foibles and shortcomings. So the phrase number six, is basically  saying, Look, we have to first of all realize that the world we live in is a sinful  world, and all of us are sinners. So look at Romans 8:23, All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, your spouse, your kids, your boss, your pastor, you,  okay, we all fall short, of God's perfect standard. So sometimes we have to be a  little less judgmental of all the people around us. That, you know, Jesus, you  know, if you read the Gospels, Jesus spent most of his time with so called  sinners. In fact, he got in trouble often with the religious people, because he  spent so much time when the sinners trying to bring them hope, trying to give  them Grace Colossians 3:13 Bear with each other, and forgive one another. If  any of you has a grievance against someone, forgive as the Lord forgave you.  So instead of expecting everyone to, you know, rise to this, I mean, we don't  have expectations of people, and we want the best for them. And we want them  to become all that they can possibly be in Christ. That's all true. But sometimes  we have this judgmental view of everyone around us, that they're failing to be all that they can be Well, hello, they're failing in part because they're sinners. And guess what you are too. Forgive people that hurt you just like God forgave you. I Corinthians 9:22-23 I've become all things to all people. So that by all possible  means I might save some, I do this all for the sake of the gospel. In other words, Paul was able to accept people as they are not as they wanted him, not as he  wanted them to be. I have to be willing to except my spouse, my wife, as she is  not as I want her to be. See, I have vision of what I would like her to be, and  then I find fault with who she is now. Why can't I celebrate what God is doing  with her right now? You know, in other words, I, I look through a lens of  judgment on the people around me. And as I said, In the beginning, we often  look at ourselves in a different lens, we look look at ourselves in the forgiving  lens or in the, you know, it's not my fault. Yes, I have these faults, but it's not my  fault. It was my parents, how they raised me. It was my situation is it's my  difficult situation. And so people should have grace towards me, but I don't have  grace towards others. So this phrase, really is about, you know, God give me  the grace to accept people as they are, but also the vision to see see them as  what they could be with Christ in their lives. Alright, so, we're gonna look at the  next phrase in the next session.