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Last week, we finished the book of First Samuel. We will pick up with Second Samuel in a few weeks. In between, I’m really excited to host a short series of messages by Wade Jones. Wade is my daughter’s father-in-law, and one of the pastors of a church about thirty miles away from us here in Tennessee.

Wade will spend the next few weeks talking us through the Serenity Prayer. Although the prayer itself is not from scripture, Wade will use plenty of scripture as we go. One reason I’m excited about this is because I think it will get very practical, very relevant to living day-to-day as we follow Jesus.

A note to to those who will listen to the audio version: Wade is a good preacher. Before this, he had never recorded a message except in front of a live congregation. So, during this first message, he said he felt a bit stilted—he was worried about making too much background noise. But I’ve already heard the second one, and he seems to have gotten into the flow quite well for that one. My point is: have patience. I think this will be good stuff for us.

Without further ado, here’s Wade!

SERENITY PRAYER #1: GOD, GRANT

Greetings, brothers and sisters of ClearBible! My name is Wade Jones. I’m one of the pastors at Priest Lake Christian Fellowship, where we pray for your church family at each service. Perhaps more importantly, I have been blessed for many years by the friendship of your pastor, Tom, and we have become family – not just metaphorically, as my son Matthew is married to his daughter Alana. I talked with Tom recently about a teaching series I’d done at Priest Lake, and he asked me to share it with your fellowship as well, which I feel honored to do over the next several weeks.

            The substance for these messages will come from the Serenity Prayer. It’s unusual for me to spend this much time on writing that is not specifically from Scripture, but I have made an exception in this case, in part because this prayer specifically has greatly blessed my life and walk with God, and I hope it will prove to bless yours as well. My father had the words of this prayer on the wall of his study at home when I was child. Later, when I came into the world of 12-step recovery, I learned that this prayer was (at least in part) important to that community as well. Praying this prayer has become a regular part of my spiritual disciplines and routines, and God often speaks to me through it. Today will mostly be an introduction to this series, so bear with me through the first part.

            Depending on what your spiritual background and tradition is, the idea of praying a prayer that someone else wrote may feel awkward or impersonal to you. And certainly, you have the freedom to pray as the Lord directs – I have no intention of insisting that you use this prayer in the same ways that I have. However, I have found that it is at times useful to pray words that others have written, and I want to spend a few minutes talking about that before we get to the prayer itself.

            Often when we pray, we speak conversationally with God, using whatever words and phrases come to mind. That kind of extemporaneous prayer is a wonderful thing. I practice it regularly. At the same time, I find that I sometimes have difficulty putting into words what I am thinking or feeling, or knowing how to come to the Father with what is on my heart. Four different approaches have helped me in those times. Sometimes my best response is to pray in tongues (and talking about that might be a whole different series). At other times, I will turn to the Psalms, and pray the prayers that Jesus would likely have learned in his home and in the synagogue. Yet again, I may sing my prayers with hymns I learned as a child or the most recent worship tunes, and let the words of those texts express my heart’s cry. And I will also turn to prayers that have been a part of classic Christianity – some for hundreds of years, some for decades. One of those last prayers is this one: the Serenity Prayer.

            The origins of this prayer are unclear, and go back to classical philosophers. Certainly, the American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr used part of this prayer in the 1930s, and he attributed it to a German theologian named Friedrich Oetinger. But as with many good sayings and quotes, there are several different theories and attributions for it. No matter who wrote it, the important part is what it says, and whether or not the words of the prayer fit with the teaching of the Bible and can help us as the Holy Spirit works in our lives to bring us closer to living the life the Jesus has given us.

            This prayer has also become very important in recovery circles. I’ve been in 12-step recovery for over 20 years, and almost every meeting I’ve attended has started with the beginning and most familiar part of the prayer. “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” There’s quite a lot to unpack there, and we will focus on those lines over the next three weeks. But the prayer goes beyond that to say this: “Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time, accepting hardships as a pathway to peace. Taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it to be. Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His will – that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him forever.”

            With that background, I want us to spend the rest of this week’s time focusing on just the first two words of the prayer: “God, grant.”

            There are many types of prayer: prayers of praise and adoration, prayers of confession, prayers of intercession, prayers of petition – even prayers of complaint! (If you’re not sure about that last category, there are several psalms I can show you.) The first words of this prayer show us what kind of prayer it is. This is a prayer of petition, of requesting. We are asking God for something. And so, let’s talk about what it means to ask God for something.

            Let’s start with God. This prayer is addressed to God, which is just a generic term, although we often think of it as a proper name. For us, we mean specifically the God of the Bible, the Creator of heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them; the God who revealed Himself to the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; the God who spoke to Moses, giving him the law and using him to lead Israel out of Egypt; the God who spoke through the prophets, did miraculous works through kingdoms and exiles and returns, and the God who has revealed Himself most fully in Jesus the Messiah, His beloved Son. When we approach this God, what does it mean for us to ask Him for something?

            Here’s one important piece. When we come to God to ask Him for something, that means that we know Him well enough to expect that we have the invitation to ask Him. I don’t just go up to strangers on the street and ask them to give me something good. But when I come to someone I know and love, and someone I trust loves me, I am free to ask with hope and expectation. Jesus talks about this in Matthew 7:7-11:

“7 Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. 9 Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11 If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”

            What does this passage tell us about asking God? First, Jesus actually directs us to do this. It’s a straightforward instruction. Ask, seek, knock. But not just ask anywhere, or seek for anything, or knock on any door. Look at the last verse of the passage. “How much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him!” Jesus is pointing us to the Father as the one who can give us the things that we need for life. And He compares the Father’s response to the response of parents. While there are cruel and painful exceptions to the general rule, most parents want and try to give our children what they need when they ask for it. When it’s time for dinner, we give our kids food they can eat, not rocks or serpents. But Jesus says the Father in heaven’s goodness in giving is so much greater than ours that the kindness of parents is evil by comparison. That’s pretty strong! We could talk a lot about what and when and how the Father gives, but the point I want to emphasize here is that it is good and right and even necessary for us to go to the Father to ask Him for what we need. That’s what He expects; it’s what He wants.

            What would keep us from going to Father God to ask for something? Well, the picture we have of God will certainly influence that. And often that picture has been distorted by things that we have experienced, or even by beliefs that we have absorbed from the world around us – often without realizing it. If you experienced a parent who was unpredictable, untrustworthy, or unkind – one who might in fact give you a stone or a snake – that can distort the image of who God is. And it can become a vicious cycle. We don’t trust God to give us what we need, so we don’t ask Him, so our life gets worse, and then we trust God less, so we ask Him even less – and it just goes downhill from there. On the other hand, when we can push through whatever barriers the enemy has erected in our relationship with our Father (or when He tears those down for us), and we ask Him for His help, we will receive it. It doesn’t always look like we might choose – sometimes dinner includes broccoli because it’s good for you – but it will in fact be good. And the more we experience His goodness, the easier it becomes to trust and ask Him again.

This is part of what the Hebrews writer is saying in Hebrews 11:6: “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” Don’t hear this as a reprimand – it’s an encouragement found in the middle of a long list of deeply flawed people who were nevertheless blessed by Father God. Do you believe that God exists? If you don’t, you aren’t going to ask Him for anything, are you? And do you trust that what He gives is good? That He will reward those who seek Him? We will talk more about trust later in this series, but for now, think about trust as enough willingness to ask God for help. Or maybe it isn’t willingness, but desperation.

One more note about God before we turn to the second word. James 1:16-17 says,

Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

The ultimate Source of anything good in your life is God. If it’s a good gift, it comes from Him, even if it passes through other channels to get to you. The air you breathe? A gift from God. The car you drive? A gift from God. The work that puts food on your table? That’s a gift from Him as well. The people in your family, your community, your life? Those are His gifts as well. If it’s good, and you have it, you have it because God has given it to you.

Now on to the second word – and we are not going to go word by word each week, but these two initial words set the context for us to understand everything else that we would pray in this prayer. “Grant.” Or give. Provide. The Person we are asking for something is God, and in asking Him we are acknowledging that He has something we lack and need.

That can be hard for us for at least a couple of reasons. A few minutes ago, I mentioned beliefs that we have absorbed from the world around us. Here’s one: “God helps those who help themselves.” Do you remember where that is found in Scripture?…That’s right – it isn’t! Benjamin Franklin popularized it in America, and while he did many good things, his religious beliefs are not generally ones we want to take for ourselves. And he was expressing a belief that goes back to Greek myths about their gods and goddesses and the ways they interacted with people. Again, not a good source for us to build our understanding of the Christian God on. But many of us have internalized that as a part of our faith. We thank Jesus for salvation through the cross, and then proceed as if the rest of life and godliness are up to us. I’m reminded of the prayer Jimmy Stewart prayed at the dinner table in the film Shenandoah: “Lord, we cleared this land. We plowed it, sowed it, and harvested it. We cooked the harvest. It wouldn’t be here, we wouldn’t be eatin’ it if we hadn’t done it all ourselves. We worked dog bone hard for every crumb and morsel, but we thank you just the same anyway, Lord, for the food we’re about to eat. Amen.” Wonder what picture of God Jimmy Stewart’s character had? It doesn’t appear to be the same as what Jesus revealed. But it is one that can easily slip into our thinking, and so we don’t ask God because we believe it is really all up to us anyway. We adhere to salvation by grace, but then act as if sanctification and daily Christian living are things we are supposed to do for ourselves.

Peter, however, in 2 Peter 1:3-4 says,

 “His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

Now, we aren’t passive in all this. Peter goes on in the next verses to tell us to make effort to put these gifts into practice. But they begin as gifts – things God is doing for us that we cannot do for ourselves.

That brings us to a third and final (for this week) barrier to asking God to grant us something. Sometimes, our pride gets in the way. At times I don’t like acknowledging how badly I need God. A cultural message of self-sufficiency and independence, being able to do things on my own, has infected our faith. In fact, I need God desperately. Not just for the big things, but even in the small details of my life – sometimes in those more. I love the bumper sticker that says, “Do I really need Jesus to go to Heaven? Man, I need Jesus just to go to Wal-Mart.” And yet, it’s easy for me to adopt the attitude of a toddler who insists on doing it myself rather than admitting that I need help. And when I say, “God, grant” I am beginning with an admission that what I am and have is not enough, and that I am coming to the One who does in hope and expectation that He can give me what I need for this day.

I want to end each week by praying the Serenity Prayer, and I hope that over time, as you listen, you may decide to learn it and pray it as well.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time, accepting hardships as a pathway to peace.

Taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it to be.

Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His will – that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him forever.

Thank you for letting me be a part of Clear Bible, and New Joy Fellowship for a season. May God bless you and keep you as you go through this week. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.