2025-09-24
Brooke Strong
Sermon Text...
Sermon Series: The Serenity Prayer, Sermon One
This Sunday and next, we’ll be reflecting on one of the most beloved prayers in modern faith life—the Serenity Prayer by Reinhold Niebuhr. Most of us probably know the short version by heart. There is actually a longer version, which was the original Niebuhr. It is printed on the back of your bulletin for your contemplation at home. But in these two services, we’ll be concentrating on the short and more familiar version. It’s simple, but it carries deep wisdom for how to live faithfully in a world that is both beautiful and broken.
This week, we’ll look at the first half: ‘God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.’
Next week, we’ll look at to the second half: ‘God, grant me the courage to change the things I can.’
Together, these two prayers—serenity and courage—hold us in balance. And at the end, we’ll remember the line that ties them together: ‘and the wisdom to know the difference.’”
We begin this series with a more general question that most of us wonder about, at least from time to time, Does prayer really work?
We’ve all prayed for something at some point. Sometimes those prayers are small, maybe (even a little silly. “Lord, please let there be a parking space right by the front door.” (I’ve prayed that one…)
And sometimes those prayers are enormous. “God, please let this treatment work.” “Please keep my loved one safe.”
And if we’re honest, the results feel mixed. Sometimes our requests are answered just the way we hoped. Other times, it feels like the heavens are silent. And we are left to wonder: Was God even listening? Did I not pray the right way? Or… does prayer really work at all?
But maybe that question—Does prayer work?—isn’t the best one. Maybe the better question is: What is prayer for?
Because maybe the deepest truth about prayer is not that it changes things, but that it changes us. I believe God does God’s best work when we pray not for external outcomes, but for inner resources—for peace when life is chaotic, for acceptance when circumstances are unyielding, for courage when the road ahead is steep. I think this is what is meant by the scripture, “seek any you shall find, ask and it shall be given, knock and the door shall be opened.” When we ask for inner resources to do the right thing, I believe we’ll get them. Maybe not immediately, but they really will come. At least they always have for me. And I think this is what the Serenity Prayer gets right. It doesn’t begin with “God, fix this situation for me.” It begins:
“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.”
Notice—it begins not with the outside world, but with our inner world. Not with outcomes, but with inner resources to meet the present need: serenity, peace, calm.
The writer of Ecclesiastes knew something about this kind of wisdom. In chapter 3 we hear the words that have been read at countless funerals, words that have comforted generations:
“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.”
It’s a beautiful passage of acceptance. Because it reminds us that the painful seasons are just as real and just as inevitable as the joyful ones. There is a time for death as well as birth. A time for weeping as well as laughing.
We would love to live only on the positive side of those polarities. Only birth, never death. Only laughter, never weeping. Only dancing, never mourning. But the wisdom of Ecclesiastes tells us the whole truth: life comes with both sides. Both are real. Both belong.
The question is not whether we will face difficulty. We will. The question is whether we will fight reality, and waste our energy resisting what cannot be undone… or whether we will learn to accept it and discover peace right in the midst of it.
Eckhart Tolle tells a story about being caught in a downpour, trying to change a flat tire on the side of the road late at night. Picture it: rain pouring down, tools slipping out of his hands, anger rising with every passing minute.
And inside his mind was a chorus of resistance: This shouldn’t be happening. I don’t have time for this. This isn’t fair. Why me?
Does that sound familiar? Have you ever had a day when one thing after another seemed to go wrong, and instead of calmly dealing with it, step by step, you found yourself fighting the very fact that it was happening?
Tolle says that every ounce of resistance only makes things worse. The tire doesn’t change itself just because you’re angry. The rain doesn’t stop because you shout at the sky. In fact, your suffering increases, not because of the tire or the storm, but because of your resistance. It’s a grim, tight posture of fighting what is, and it actually makes things worse!
But, when you finally do let go, when you finally say, Yes, it’s raining. Yes, the tire is flat. Yes, I am wet, and I don’t like it, but here we are—then, a shift can happen. The circumstances don’t change, but your whole mind and demeanor can.
That’s serenity. That’s the prayer being answered.
I think we’ve all had our own version of that flat tire in the rain. Think of Jesus in the garden who prayed passionately for deliverance from his circumstances, but ultimately came to, “Nevertheless thy will, not mine, be done.”
Maybe it’s been at the hospital, waiting for test results. Or at home, when someone you love refuses to change. Or at work, when the decision is made and you have no power to alter it.
The more we resist, the more miserable we feel. But when we stop fighting reality—when we breathe, and pray, and accept—suddenly something major shifts, and there’s room for peace.
Current day self help guru Mel Robbins talks about something she calls the “Let Them” theory. And I think it pairs beautifully with this prayer.
Here’s her idea: if people are going to act a certain way, you just…let them. If your friend doesn’t call you back, let them. If your coworkers don’t invite you to lunch, let them. If your grown children make decisions you would not make, let them. And you stop resisting, obsessing and allowing the whole thing to drain away your energy.
Now—this doesn’t mean we allow harm or ignore healthy boundaries, especially if we’re being abused. Nor does it mean we stop trying to effect change in the world. (A point which cries out for mention this week as we our cultures consider the first amendment. Remember that Margaret Mead said, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.) That’s where changing the things we can comes it. So come back next week! But what the first half of the serenity prayer does mean is that in most areas, we stop trying to control the behavior of others. Because we can’t. It doesn’t work and it never did. Even when it at first appeared to work, wasn’t the truth that eventually that other person, despite their rhetoric of compliance, did exactly what they wanted to anyway?
We can’t make people do what we think is right. We can’t force someone to value us the way we think they should. We can’t shape another person’s life into the picture we have in our head.
And the more we try, the more frustrated we become. But when we learn to release, to let them, to pray instead for serenity in our own hearts—suddenly we discover freedom.
That’s really what the Serenity Prayer is asking for: not that things bend themselves to our will, but that our spirits find calm even when things do not.
And folks, this is important: acceptance is not resignation. It is not saying, “This is fine,” when it is not fine. It is not pretending that pain doesn’t hurt. And again, it is not allowing abuse or giving up our struggle for justice.
Acceptance is simply telling the truth: “This is what is right now. And if I truly cannot affect chage, I will not waste my soul’s energy resisting it.”
And here is the mystery of God’s grace: when we stop fighting, when we open ourselves in prayer, God begins to pour serenity into the spaces that were once filled with grim resistance…
So how about you. How do you come today, this very minute?
• What are some things in your personal life right now that you absolutely cannot change despite your most compulsive obsessing and effort?
• How do you usually respond when you face situations you cannot control?
• What would it look like to accept those realities with peace instead of compulsivity and
resistance?
• Where might God be inviting you to let go and find serenity?
Let us pray:
God, grant us serenity. Help us to accept the things we cannot change—the seasons of loss, the behavior of others, the storms of life. Remind us that in your presence, acceptance is not weakness, but wisdom. Not defeat, but peace. And may that peace guard our hearts and minds, today and always. Amen.