Tag: acceptance

SERENITY PRAYER #7: TAKING THIS SINFUL WORLD AS IT IS

On By Pastor TomIn Podcast, Religion, Serenity Prayer, Sermon, UncategorizedLeave a comment
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Jesus has better things to do than try to directly fix all the places and patterns of sin in the world. He is, instead, focused on establishing a people who will be different, who will respond differently. Trying to make the world live differently is not a healthy response to its sinfulness. Instead, Jesus lives differently Himself, and He calls us to do the same.

To listen to the sermon, click the play button:

For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen.

To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download Serenity Prayer Part 7

Taking, as Jesus Did, this Sinful World as It Is, Not as I Would Have It to Be

John 17:9-16; John 19:10-11; Matthew 22:16-21; 1 Corinthians 5:9-13

            I don’t know if you’ve noticed it this week or not, but the world is a wreck. We are surrounded by news around the world about wars, revolutions, economic collapse, famines, droughts, floods, earthquakes, disease. And sometimes things nearer to home aren’t any better. We experience painful losses, misunderstanding, betrayals, and disappointments on a somewhat regular basis. It is not hard to sing with Andrew Peterson that the world is broken, that the shadows deepen, and that all creation is groaning. But that same song (Is He Worthy?) also calls us to recognize that there is something else going on, and because of that, to move beyond despair into hope. Jesus did that. And this week, as we continue our journey through the Serenity Prayer, we will focus on the line, “Taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it to be.” Let’s pray as we begin.

            Maybe I’m stating the obvious, but it seems to me that if we want to take this sinful world as Jesus did, we should probably look at how Jesus (and His earliest followers) responded to the world. The brokenness of the world is nothing new. In fact, the description I gave as we began is a loose paraphrase of what Jesus says in Mark 13 and Matthew 24 as He prepares His followers for what is coming. And, in truth, that description has applied to much of the world for much of the time. Not all of it at once, of course, but some part of it almost anywhere at almost any time. And Jesus was describing the brokenness largely in physical terms. What about the brokenness of sin: murder, rape, theft, racism, abortion, sexual sin in all its diverse forms, deceit, treachery, greed? We encounter at least some of these almost daily, and others at all-too-frequent intervals. So did Jesus. The world of His day was one where the Jewish people lived in a relatively insignificant province of the Roman Empire, which was not a good place to live unless you were part of the handful of wealthy and powerful ruling families, or at least connected to them. So how did Jesus deal with the brokenness and sin of the world around Him?

            Let’s look at two stories where Jesus encounters the sinful world and see how He deals with it.

            We will start with the most direct encounter between Jesus and a representative of the sinful world He lived in – His trial before Pontius Pilate. Jesus has already stood trial in front of the Sanhedrin (the Jewish Leadership Council), and now He is in front of the person who wields the power of the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire was known for many things – most of all, the willingness to exercise power in whatever form was necessary to get the job done. Pilate was no exception to that rule. According to the first-century Jewish historian Josephus, Pilate eventually lost his governorship after slaughtering a group of Samaritan archeologists. Josephus and another first-century Jewish historian, Philo, also record separate incidents where many Jews rioted over Pilate’s decisions regarding images of Caesar, shields with inscriptions of Caesar’s divinity, and the use of the temple treasury to fund an aqueduct. This was not a good and godly ruler. We know his decision about the execution of Jesus was based on political expediency, not justice. He couldn’t afford another riot and the political fallout from it. So, when Jesus, the Son of God, is face-to-face with this unjust, callous manifestation of the sinful world, how does He respond? Let’s read Mark 15:1-5

“15 Very early in the morning, the chief priests, with the elders, the teachers of the law and the whole Sanhedrin, made their plans. So they bound Jesus, led him away and handed him over to Pilate.

2 “Are you the king of the Jews?” asked Pilate. “You have said so,” Jesus replied.

3 The chief priests accused him of many things. 4 So again Pilate asked him, “Aren’t you going to answer? See how many things they are accusing you of.” 5 But Jesus still made no reply, and Pilate was amazed.”

            If there was ever a time when Jesus could have demonstrated His power over the sinful world, this would appear to be it. He is in front of a corrupt political leader. He is there because of bogus charges. And Pilate’s only concern is how to get out of this with as little damage as possible. And what does Jesus say about the injustice of this? About the hypocrisy of the accusations? About His own innocence? Virtually nothing. His only statement in the synoptics is a short sentence: “You have said so.” He doesn’t admit to being the king of the Jews (because in the sense Pilate means it, He isn’t); He doesn’t deny it (because in a deeper sense, it absolutely is true). Jesus is not surprised by political corruption or the abuse of power by pagan authorities. He takes this world as it is – broken, sinful and a mess.

            John records another sentence of Jesus when He is on trial before Pilate. 

Jesus answered, “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above. Therefore, the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.” (John 19:11)

I’m not going to get into the different ideas about who “handed Jesus over” to Pilate today – but I am going to highlight that Jesus recognizes that even though Pilate is misusing the power that he has in Jerusalem, he only has that power because God above has allowed it. This connects back to what we talked about last week: that part of accepting hardship is recognizing the sovereign power of God to intervene, and trusting that when He doesn’t, He is still at work. Jesus has already asked the Father if there is another way and accepted that this path is the path of His Father’s will. In one sense, Pilate is just a bit player in the great drama of redemption that is unfolding. And while Jesus would be accurate to point out all that Pilate is doing wrong, He has more important things to focus on. He is taking the world of the Roman Empire, and its power over Jerusalem, as it is, even though that is not how He would like it to be.

            Let’s look at a less well-known example of Jesus recognizing the sinful world and choosing to do nothing directly about it. In Luke 9, Jesus is pivoting toward the crucifixion. Everything from that point forward is pointing toward Jerusalem. And as He begins that journey, He encounters the sinful world. Luke 9:51-56

“51 As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. 52 And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; 53 but the people there did not welcome him, because he was heading for Jerusalem. 54 When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, “Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?” 55 But Jesus turned and rebuked them. 56 Then he and his disciples went to another village.”

            Jesus is moving toward His death. The path takes Him through a Samaritan village, and He sends people ahead to prepare a place, but they are rejected by the Samaritans living there. Part of what Jesus is facing here is racial prejudice – the Samaritans and Jews were regular enemies (which is what makes the story of the Good Samaritan so offensive to its original hearers). It is unfair and not right that He can’t stay in the village. And two of His apostles, James and John, see the unfairness of it and jump to their master’s defense. They are ready to bring the wrath of God down on this village. They seem to me to be quite excited about the prospect, in fact. And Jesus, rather than approving of their fiery judgment or correcting the village, rebukes them! That must have been quite a shock. Not the first or last time Jesus shocked His followers, but still…why isn’t He ready to destroy those sinners? Instead, He just goes further on the journey, and hopefully (the text doesn’t tell us), gets a better welcome there.

            What do those two stories show us? If I could sum it up in a sentence or two, I might put it like this: Jesus has better things to do than try to directly fix all the places and patterns of sin in the world. He is, instead, focused on establishing a people who will be different, who will respond differently. Trying to make the world live differently is not a healthy response to its sinfulness. Instead, Jesus lives differently Himself, and He calls us to do the same. In John 17, as Jesus is praying for us, He acknowledges that we are still in the world, and will be subject to the evils of the world – we will experience the world’s hatred, in fact. But He explicitly says that He is not asking the Father to remove us from this sinful world, but to protect us so that we don’t give in to the ways of the evil one while we are surrounded by the sinful world. He is calling us to a different life (John 17:9-16).

            Now, an important side note here: we are talking about how to engage the sinful world as it is – not ignoring sin in ourselves or the people of God. Jesus does directly and firmly address the sin within Israel, almost always directing it at the most Godly and religious people. You can read Matthew 23 for a clear example of that. But this week we are not talking about taking sin in the church as it is – we are talking about taking the sinful world as it is, as Jesus did. And Jesus saved His confrontations of sin for God’s people, not the world at large.

If we go to Paul for a moment, he is really clear about the distinction between our response to sin in the world and sin in the church. 1 Corinthians 5:9-13 follows Paul’s direct statement to the church at Corinth that they were wrong to tolerate a man having an affair with his stepmother and needed to put him out of fellowship. And he goes on to clarify:

“9 I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— 10 not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. 11 But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sisterbut is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people. 12 What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? 13 God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you.”

Paul is about as clear as he could be here. He does not expect Christians to cut off all relationships with sinful people – that would certainly make evangelism difficult, wouldn’t it? At the same time, he is drawing a hard line about tolerating sin in the church. And I do want to point out here that Paul’s list includes more than sexual immorality, and it can be worth thinking about how we deal with unrepentant sinners in lots of different categories – but that’s for another series of sermons, I think. The point I want to be clear on here is that, of course, we deal with sin among people who are committed to a life of following Jesus as Lord – but we don’t hold those outside the church to the same standard. We take, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is – full of people and systems and structures that are opposed to the ways of God.

So, what can we learn from Jesus’ responses to Pontius Pilate and the Samaritan villagers? After all, most of us are unlikely to be sent to a kangaroo court in the middle of the night because our Messianic claims are making us too popular, or denied a place to stay while walking from one village to the next. We’d have reservations at a hotel or AirBnB ahead of time. Where and how are we likely to encounter this? And how can we respond?

I may step on your toes some at this point. If I’m wrong, forgive me. If I’m right, please listen! I am convinced that as American Christians, we spend way too much time and energy trying to make the world not be sinful when we would be better off focusing on tending the fruit of the Spirit in our own lives and our own communities. One of the places where I believe I see this most often is in the way we interact on social media. We condemn non-believers for acting like non-believers – how else do we expect them to act? I don’t like it any more than you do when people do or say outrageous things about Jesus Christ, but He put up with much more than that and chose to save His confrontations for the sin in Israel (and now, in us). Let me give you one concrete example of what I mean from this summer’s Olympics. Were there some offensive things done and said around the Olympics? Absolutely. Pagan things were exalted, and it should not be that way. But pagans do pagan things (around a contest that was pagan in origin to begin with). And me posting about my offense on Facebook doesn’t feel like the way Jesus responded to the pagan injustice of his day, or the way Paul tells us to. Again, I may be wrong, or only partially right, but I think it is at least worth considering the possibility that it is God’s job to defend us against the world, not our job to defend Him.

I think a Christ-like response to the sinful world begins with acknowledging that it is, in fact, a sinful world, and will be until the True King comes for His Bride. We don’t like it. We don’t approve of it. And we certainly should not cooperate with it. But we do need to accept that it is a fact, and then ask God how to respond to the evil that exists without being consumed by it or drawn into using the methods of the world to fight the world. Ephesians 6:12 tells us, “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Paul goes on to list the weapons of righteousness, which are very similar to the fruit of the Spirit, and he finishes by exhorting us to pray. Our main weapon in the battle against the sinfulness of the world is not social media posts, or protests, or better laws, or better politicians. All those may have a right time and place. But our main weapon is prayer, and living the life of Jesus in spite of the world around us that will not understand what it is that we are doing.

I am under no pretenses that this will be easy, and I am deeply aware that prayer often feels weak in the face of worldly power. This is one of the most difficult and challenging places for me to accept that Jesus’ way of living is best, even when it feels ineffective. As I was writing this sermon, I got a call from a family at church. I am currently furious about what I see as a deep injustice being done by an insurance company that could endanger the well-being of children in a family I care about deeply. I honestly want to go break something (or worse, someone). If I thought I could fix this by calling down fire from heaven, I would be very tempted to give that a try. But the first thing I need to do is acknowledge, this world is full of sin and brokenness. God has allowed this to happen. How does He want me to respond to this sinful world in this moment?

I don’t have all the answers to that yet, but I know it begins with prayer. I prayed for the person who called. I prayed for the medical people involved. I prayed for the insurance agency. I prayed for the whole family and everyone else who will be involved. And I asked a few others to pray as well. Now, God may also provide some steps for me to take in this situation. There may be actions that I will need to take with serenity, courage, and wisdom. But first and foremost, I need to seek my Father’s face and listen for His voice. That’s where the answers will be – whether I like them or not.

It strikes me that this is one reason Jesus was often withdrawing to pray. The sinful world puts lots of pressure on us, either to conform to it and its ways, or to respond to it in ways that don’t bring anyone closer to the kingdom of God. If I am going to be able to respond to this family’s situation in the manner of Jesus, I will need to continue to spend time with my Father and pray.

With that said, let’s close again this week with the Serenity Prayer. I hope you’ll join with me as we pray.

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.

Next week’s phrase, “Trusting that He will make all things right” is one that strikes me as a key to this whole prayer, and indeed as something that is at the heart of the Christian way of life. Until then, may God protect you from the evil one as you walk through this sinful world this week.

SERENITY PRAYER #6: HARDSHIP AS A PATHWAY TO PEACE

On By Pastor TomIn Podcast, Religion, Serenity Prayer, Sermon, Uncategorized1 Comment
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Hardship is an important and often unrecognized pathway to peace in Jesus Christ. We tend to dodge hardship with denial, control, or escape. But Jesus walks with us in all things, including in difficulties.

To listen to the sermon, click the play button:

For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen.

To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download Serenity Prayer Part 6

Accepting Hardship as a Pathway to Peace

Scriptures: John 16:33; James 1:2-4 2 Corinthians 4:4-10; Romans 8:15-19; Rom 5:3-5; 1 Peter 4:12-13

            Welcome, children of God! I’m Wade Jones from Priest Lake Christian Fellowship, and we are about halfway into our journey through the Serenity Prayer as a tool to encourage the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Let’s invite Him into this time together.

            This week we are looking at the line “Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace.” Now, I am not usually one to be pedantic about small words, but this week there is an important thing I want to note right off. You can find several different versions of this prayer, and they have slightly different wording. When we went through this study together at Priest Lake, one of the brothers pointed out the difference between praying “accepting hardship as a pathway to peace” and “accepting hardship as the pathway to peace.” Have you ever met someone who always assumed that God’s will would be to do the most difficult thing possible? I see how they get there; it’s way too easy to “hear” that God wants me to be as comfortable as possible, and never hear things the hard way. But the opposite of a wrong idea is usually also a wrong idea, and if we believe that God wants nothing but the most difficult choice for us, we may miss out on seasons of joy and Sabbath rest. So, while we are going to talk about the pathway of peace that leads through hardship, please understand right from the beginning that this is not the only road God will use in your life to bring you to a place of peace, of serenity. It is a really important one, and it’s often a neglected one, but it is not the only one.

            Why would I say it’s a neglected one? Well, we live in a time and place where many things that were hard historically or are hard in other parts of the world are relatively easy for us. I think we all live in homes with indoor plumbing, clean water, electricity to power all our devices, including a refrigerator and freezer so we always have food on hand. If we want to go on a long journey, we have cars or buses or planes that allow us to cover in hours or days what might be a journey of months or years in other settings. This is not to say that our lives are without difficulty and hardship. But I am saying that it is easy for us to come to believe that hardship is an aberration, a distortion of “normal life,” when most of humanity has experienced and continues to experience hardship as a normal part of daily existence. Many of our brothers and sisters around the world and throughout the centuries have prayed, “Give us this day our daily bread” out of basic necessity rather than just a phrase in the Lord’s Prayer.

            When we encounter hardship in our lives, whether it is with our health, our family, our finances, our employment, it is easy to miss the opportunity that God has for us along this path simply because we are so unfamiliar with it that we don’t even see it as an option to let God use difficulty in our lives. We see it as something to get out of as quickly as possible so that we can get “back to normal.” But is that a Biblical view?

            In Jesus’ long conversation with the apostles on the night before His execution, He talked to them a lot about the difficulties they were going to face. He says it plainly, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33) So much of His last conversation is letting them know how hard it’s going to be. They will be cut off from long-term relationships. They will face condemnation and shame from friends and family. The world is going to hate them. They will eventually, according to early church history, be killed for their commitment to trust Jesus (except for John – he lives in exile instead).

            Before you say, “But those were the apostles, so their suffering was special. My life is just as an ordinary Christian, so I shouldn’t expect that, right?” Well, James is writing to ordinary Jewish believers when he says, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” (James 1:2-4) This is how he opens his letter to them! And he’s not just talking about persecution, he says trials of many kinds. Later in this letter he talks about wealth and poverty (and the challenges of being poor), conflict between brothers and the harm it brings, and physical sickness. This is a very practical, everyday letter, and James expects hardship to be a part of practical, everyday life for the believer. Almost at the end of the letter, he comes back to it. He talks about the need for patience like the prophets when we suffer. James expects Christians to experience hardship and gives us encouragement to deal with it well.

            Paul talks about the hardships of life as well, particularly in Second Corinthians. In chapter 4, he goes into a long list of things that show the value of his ministry to them and to others. Listen to verses 4-10: “4 Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; 5 in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; 6 in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; 7 in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; 8 through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; 9 known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; 10 sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.” Persecution is a part of that, absolutely – but so are normal life difficulties. And so are positive things that surely we all want to be part of our normal, Christian lives: purity, patience, the Holy Spirit, righteousness, truthfulness. For Paul, anything on this list should not come as a shock to any believer – this is part of life as a follower of Christ.

            There’s a lot more that can be said about the normalcy of hardship in our lives, but honestly, you can just listen to Tom’s podcast (Hope in Hard Times) and get a full and robust teaching from Tom and his sidekick (that’s me). And maybe I’m saying too much about this, but I think it is crucial for our growth as believers that we expect to encounter suffering in our life so that we can respond to it in a healthy and godly way.

            If we don’t expect hardship – if we believe it’s not a pathway we can walk toward peace in Christ – then we are likely to respond in unhealthy ways. That list could be long, but I’m going to talk about three unhealthy responses, and then three responses that I believe counter them. The unhealthy responses are denial, control, and escape. The healthy ones are acceptance, the presence of God, and the presence of community.

            Denial. It ain’t just a river in Egypt. One unhealthy way we sometimes respond to hardship in our lives is by pretending it isn’t there. This is already a problem, since, as we talked about last week, God lives in the Present and in Reality. When I am refusing to face Reality as it is, I am not living in the world where God can engage my life. Let me give you an example from my past week. As I write this, I am coming off a retreat weekend with about eighty men from at least fifteen different churches where we call each other and a group of younger men to come and stand by Jesus. (We call this retreat the Calling of Men – if you want to know more about it, please ask me, because it is absolutely incredible.) Anyway, the first time we did this retreat I was in my thirties. I could stay up until 2 am talking with guys and still be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed to serve the next day. I was proud of the fact that I could still easily get in and out of a top bunk and leave the ones below for the “older men” who needed it. Well, now I’m in my fifties. I can’t stay up all night talking anymore – at least not if I want to be conscious and helpful the next day. But this year I still took a top bunk. And on the last day, trying to get up, I fell out, and now my pinky toe is bright purple. Didn’t break anything, but it did hurt. Hmm…that makes me think about the reality that hardship will eventually make you notice it. Ignore something long enough (like getting older) and a bigger, more obvious problem may emerge. I didn’t break anything – but I definitely could have. I think next year I’ll take a bottom bunk instead of trying to deny the changes that come with age.

            Of course, there are more significant examples than a bruised toe. Many of us could tell a story of someone who ignored symptoms of an illness until it was far worse and harder to treat than it would have been in the first place. And the same can be true of financial difficulties (ever refuse to look at your bank balance because you don’t want to hear the bad news?), or our relationships (pretending that all is well in a marriage that is in crisis because we can’t face the fear of what may happen next?), or any other area of our lives. Denial doesn’t fix the problem. We can’t just ignore hardship and hope it goes away (at least, not healthily).

            For some of us, we can see the problem, and we are sure that we can fix it. If we can just figure out what caused it, we are sure that we can change our circumstances so that they won’t be as hard. We will work that extra job, have that difficult conversation, change our diet and exercise – whatever it takes to get control of this issue so that it doesn’t hurt me anymore. We try to beat hardship with control. And this is where, in our culture, there are so many things we can control that it can be hard for us to admit that there are things that we can’t. There are things that are beyond us. There are hardships that we can’t fix. And when we can’t fix it ourselves, sometimes we move into blame. I can’t fix it because I didn’t cause it. But if I can figure out whose fault it was, then I can get them to fix it. Sometimes things aren’t someone’s fault. Sometimes we have hardship because we live in a broken world. And trying to pin the blame for that brokenness on someone or something else (or even ourselves) is not going to bring us to that place of peace…serenity…shalom.

            When I can’t deny it, and I can’t control it, there’s only one bad option left. I can try to escape it. Escape takes so many different forms: alcohol, sweets, shopping, pizza, sex, video games, exercise, work, entertainment – the list could go on and on and on. Did I hit one of your favorite escape routes? I included a few of mine. These things are not bad in and of themselves, as long as they are used in line with God’s design for them. But when any of those good and Godly things are being used to numb me, to help me detach from a Reality that is too difficult or painful for me to engage, then they are an unhealthy response to hardship. God’s intention for us is to use that hardship to strengthen us and build us up. James said that; Paul says that. But I will not develop perseverance by distracting myself from the things that are hard for me.

            So, how do we respond healthily to hardship? How do we come nearer to God and allow Him to form us more into His image as we go through difficulties? This line of the prayer describes the first healthy response: acceptance. We talked about this some when we discussed serenity. Acceptance does not mean saying, “I’m glad that this happened,” or “I’m sure this is better than what I wanted,” or any other pretending that we are not hurting. It does mean saying, “Since my God, who I know is loving and good, has allowed this to happen, He must be at work in it somehow.” An important note here: just because God allows something doesn’t mean He caused it, or that it was what He most wanted. It means He permitted it. This is exactly what Paul is saying in Romans 8:28: “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose.” Please notice that Paul does not say that all things work together for his specific good – for Paul’s benefit. But for those who love God. We are part of a people, a kingdom-wide community that the Father is shaping and forming through the Holy Spirit into a spotless bride for His Son. The hardship in your life may well be for someone else’s benefit. Are we willing to patiently endure hardship so that someone else may come to know the love of the Father? Then can we trust that anything He allows is something He intends to use to benefit His people? Even exile, even cataclysmic loss, even death itself. Or as Paul says later in chapter 8: hardship, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword. Sometimes, as God works to reconcile all creation to Himself in Christ Jesus, He uses hardship in our lives as one of the paths to get there. And when we can accept that God knows what is happening, and trust that He knows what He is doing, it helps us respond to hardship well.

            So, remembering God’s sovereignty is part of a healthy response to hardship. So is remembering His immanence. That may be a new word for you. It comes from the Latin immanere, which means “to inhabit.” One definition of immanence is this: “the state of being present as a natural and permanent part of something.” In this case, the something is us. God always intended to be in deep ongoing relationship with people. The fall fractured that. The resurrection has restored it. Take seriously the language of the New Testament about the people of God being the body of Christ and the temple in which God’s Presence lives. God is present with us and in us, both corporately and individually. This means that when we are going through hardships, God Himself is choosing to go through those hardships with us. This is part of what the Incarnation of Jesus was about, and that incarnation continues in His body now. In First Corinthians 12, Paul is describing what it means for us to be the Body of Christ, and he says (verse 26), “If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.” We usually think about that in terms of our relationships with one another, and we will come to that in a minute, but it is also true of Christ. Jesus Christ is not just standing idly by watching when you are hurting. He has united you to Himself, and in that, He enters into your suffering and goes through it with you. You are not abandoned or alone. God Himself has lowered Himself so that He is able to enter into our suffering with us. That means that we have permission – even encouragement – to invite Him into a situation with us instead of only asking Him to take it away. We can do both. And He will respond to that invitation. In fact, He already has.

            And He has given us a Body to go through these things together. I often need someone to remind me of truths that I believe when I am in a hard place. I don’t mean the platitudes that may, in fact, be true, but that often sound trite and shallow in the middle of our pain. I mean the brothers and sisters who can stand alongside us and say, “I don’t have any answers for this. I can see how difficult it is. I don’t know how to solve your problem, but I will be with you here in it and bring the Presence of Christ in me to comfort you.” We need someone who is able to cry with us as we mourn. We need each other at all times; when we are going through hardship, we need each other even more. I can’t imagine walking through the hardships in my life (addiction, recovery, raising a profoundly disabled child, death) without having people next to me that I could lean on and depend on to hold me up when I could not do it for myself.

            That’s what brings me to peace when life is hard – and life is often hard. I accept that anything that happens is happening with God’s permission, I trust that He is walking through it with me, and I am grateful for the friends and companions He has provided to hold my hand in the middle of it all.

Let’s close again this week with the Serenity Prayer. I hope you’ll join with me as we pray.

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.

That’s all for this week. Next week we will be on similar ground with the line “Taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it to be.” Until then, may God walk with you intimately in whatever hardships present themselves in your life this week, and may you trust Him even as it hurts. Amen.

SERENITY #2: THE SERENITY TO ACCEPT THE THINGS I CANNOT CHANGE.

On By Pastor TomIn Churches in Lebanon, Podcast, Serenity Prayer, UncategorizedLeave a comment

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Serenity to Accept the Things I Cannot Change

John 14:27; John 16:33; Luke 22:41-44; Hebrews 12:1-3

            New Joy Fellowship, I’m glad to be with you again. If you missed last week, I’m Tom’s consuegro, which means our children Alana and Matthew married each other. I’m also a pastor at Priest Lake Christian Fellowship in Antioch, Tennessee, and I’m blessed to be able to be a direct part of what God is doing in your fellowship for a little while.

            Last week we talked about this prayer as a petition to God – asking Him to give us things that we need. This week we will look at the first thing we are asking Him for – serenity – but I want to emphasize that this is something we are asking God to give us. I may overemphasize this point because it is so easy for me to pray and prayer like this, but interpret it as, “I need to work harder to be serene (or courageous, or wise)” instead of admitting that on my own, I will never reach that goal, and what I am doing is asking God to give me something that I can’t do for myself, and trusting that He wants to do that, is capable of doing that, and will do that in response to my prayer.

            So this week, we will focus on asking God for “the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.” Serenity may not be a word you use often in your daily life – I know it isn’t common for me – so let’s talk a little bit about what serenity is. Or maybe we can begin by talking about what it isn’t.

            Do you ever feel like life is coming at you faster than you can handle? As soon as you put one fire out, the next one starts. Or you run from spinning plate to spinning plate, trying to keep them all going so that nothing falls to the ground and smashes. Do you hit the pillow at night worn out because your whole day was lived trying to fix one thing after another, solve one problem after another, and clean up one mess after another? Or even if the circumstances you are in are fairly routine and predictable, do you find that your mind can move at breakneck speed, bouncing from one worry to another, and never quite able to settle into a place of peace?

            And it’s not just our individual lives, it is also the world around us. We are surrounded by conflict, anger, violence, unpredictability, and rapid change. It seems like as soon as one war ends, another begins. Our neighbors argue, our kids fight, our marriages have tension, and we see all kinds of pain and suffering in the communities around us. It’s no wonder that we often have trouble coming to a place of peace in ourselves!

            In fact, the peace that we need and are designed for is not something we can find in ourselves anyway. As Augustine, one of the great church fathers, said, “God, You have made us for Yourself, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in You.” Serenity – peace – true rest. It’s something we receive from God, and that may be why this prayer begins by asking God to give us serenity – a peace that goes beyond anything that the world can experience or that we can create for ourselves.

            The world’s peace is dependent on circumstances. My family goes to a vacation spot in West Virginia every two years called Capon Springs and Farms. It is a beautiful place in the Appalachian Mountains. When we are there, I have a week of real rest and relaxation. The most difficult decision may be whether to have a slice of cherry pie or a brownie with ice cream and hot fudge for dessert (and sometimes I do both). Our kids are all old enough to take care of themselves, and Mom and Dad pay for everything, so it is easy to lay in the hammock and read a book while smelling a hint of bacon cooking on the cool mountain breeze. I usually turn my phone off for the week, so the outside world doesn’t intrude. And my greatest disappointment may be missing a short putt on the mountain golf course. When everyone is having a fun time, getting plenty of sleep, and no one has to do anything but have fun, it is pretty easy to find peace.

            Then we come back home. And we find that life has all the same problems it had when we left. The bills are still due. The truck still has no working air conditioning. The child without a job is still without a job. Our friends’ marriage that was struggling when we left is still struggling. That sick relative has gotten worse. And for that matter, the neighbors have gotten a new dog that barks. All. Night. Long. The peace that comes from living in comfortable circumstances has evaporated. In fact, it likely didn’t survive the traffic on the way home.

            But Jesus offers us something different. In John 14:27, He says, “27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives.” It’s pretty obvious that what Jesus is describing is not dependent on what is happening around Him. Judas has just left to betray Him. He has told Peter that Peter will deny Him that very night. And when this conversation ends, they will head to the garden, where He will be arrested and then brought to trial and executed. Most of the disciples will flee. And yet, Jesus has peace to offer them in the midst of trouble. In fact, later in this same conversation, in John 16:33, Jesus says, “33 I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

            There seems to be a connection between the peace Jesus offers and a confidence that He has overcome the world. And in these chapters of John, Jesus is also preparing the apostles for the coming of the Holy Spirit to continue the work He has begun. So peace (or serenity) is connected to the work of the Holy Spirit as well. In fact, John makes this connection again after the resurrection. In John 20:21-22, when Jesus appears to some of His followers, He says to them, “21 Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you. 22 And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” I think Jesus is making it pretty clear that if we are to receive the peace that He is offering to us, the serenity to walk in assurance that Jesus has overcome in the middle of events that would seem to say the opposite, we will have to receive this gift through the Holy Spirit. This is why we need to ask God to grant us this serenity.

            So what does it look like to walk with serenity through a chaotic and painful world? This prayer talks about accepting what we cannot change. Let me begin by saying this: accepting does not mean approving. There are many things in our lives that we do not, should not, and cannot approve. But one of the things that gets in the way of our peace is when we attempt to insist that the world simply must be different than what it is. Jesus’ peace did not depend on the loyalty of His closest friends, the justice of the Roman governor, the religious and spiritual maturity of the leaders of God’s chosen people, or living a pain-free life. In fact, He maintained His peace, His serenity, through the betrayal of His closest friends, the injustice of a cruel government, the hypocrisy and manipulation of the priests, and the brutal physical suffering of the cross.

            How did He do this? Partly, by accepting that those things were part of God’s will for Him. By trusting that since His Father is Good, He will not allow anything that He does not intend to use and redeem for good. This does not mean that Judas or Peter or Pilate or Annas or Caiaphas or the centurions carrying out the sentence were right. They were wrong, and in need of forgiveness. But Jesus trusted that God would make all things right in the end, and that faith carried Him through the pain, not just of the cross, but of His entire misunderstood life up until then. The cross was not the beginning of Jesus’ suffering, but its culmination. And yet He lived in peace. In serenity.

            Have you ever noticed how rarely Jesus seems flustered? How infrequently He seems to be in a hurry? And how willing He is to accept some situations that were not what He wanted them to be, coming to the highest and clearest point in the garden. Luke describes this in Luke 22:41-44 “41 He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, 42 “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” 43 An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. 44 And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.”

            Accepting the Father’s will did not keep Jesus from asking if there was another way. It didn’t keep Him from experiencing pain and anguish as He asked. But it did give Him the ability to walk through this night with assurance that, no matter what happened, His Father was ultimately in control, and He could accept those events with confidence and serenity, even though they were going to be indescribably painful for Him on many levels.

            We also face things in life that are painful, unjust, and difficult. And one of the things that derails peace is trying to insist that the world should not be this way. On the one hand, we are right – this is not what God wanted from the beginning. But on the other, we can only live with God in the life that is in front of us, and that means accepting many things that we cannot change. What are some of the things we can’t change? Things that are outside of our control? The weather. The decisions other people make. Whether or not I keep my job. What happens with the economy over the next year. Who runs for president. How long it will be until my car breaks down. Do I have some influence over some of those things? Yes, in some cases I do. And we will talk next week about the courage to change the things I can – to take the actions that God does want me to take in my life. But that will not be enough to make sure that these things go the way I want.

            In fact, that’s a good thing. If I could control all those things in my life, what would that make me? Well, it would make me a god. Lowercase g. And I know when I am honest with myself, that a life that runs according to my own plans, wishes and desires is not going to work out in the long run. Not for me, and certainly not for the people around me. Instead, I have to turn my life and my will over to God. And part of that means accepting that, for today, this is the life He has given me to live. With its joys and pains, with its heartaches and its celebration. This is what Jesus did.

            And what Jesus has done, He wants to empower us to do. The Hebrews writer says, “12 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.” (Hebrews 12:1-3) Now remember, the witnesses the writer refers to in chapter 11 includes people who faced a lot of suffering: jeers, flogging, torture, stoning, prison, poverty, mistreatment, persecution. And he says we have it better than they do, because we can look to Jesus Himself. Jesus endured with hope and peace (serenity) because He saw the joy that was coming. He saw resurrection. He saw our reconciliation with God. And that helped Him keep going – not just trudging along, but walking in joy because He knew that what He was facing was leading to an outcome that God had guaranteed would be good.

            Brothers and sisters, we can have that same joy. In fact, for us, we can already see that resurrection has begun in Jesus. He is the firstborn from among the dead, but we know by faith that we will be raised to life to join with Him. A key part of the serenity that comes from accepting things we cannot change now is the confidence that God will right all wrongs, exterminate all evil, and bring us fully into His kingdom of joy and peace.

            As we wrap up this week, let me say one more thing about asking God for serenity. The most valuable things God has given me in my life have come as part of a long process. God rarely answers my prayers with instantaneous transformation. I believe He can. I know sometimes He does. But it has been much more frequent that He works on me gradually, over time, to form and change my character into the character of Jesus Christ. I did not ask for serenity once and receive it forever. But as I have continued to ask, to seek, to knock, I find that He is faithful to give it to me one day at a time. And Jesus talks about that, too. Matthew 6:34 “34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

            When I pray, God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, I am not praying it generically for all things that will ever happen. I am praying it for this day, this moment, this circumstance. I am asking for the serenity to accept the fact that I hit a pothole and have a flat tire that will make me an hour late to my next appointment. I am asking for the serenity to accept the reality that one of my children has just made a decision is not what God wants for them. I am asking for the serenity to accept that my performance this month did not give me the bonus I had hoped for. I am asking for the serenity to accept that it rained during the one good slot I had to work in the yard. And over time, I have found that God has expanded my ability to receive the serenity that He has for me in each of those moments and walk in confidence that His future for me is good – even if that good is a good that I experience after the resurrection.

I’ll close again this week by praying the Serenity Prayer, and if God leads you, please feel free to join me in learning and praying this 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.

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 with you last week at New Joy, and for listening today. May God bless you and keep you as you go through this week. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.