2025-10-01
Brooke Strong
Sermon Text...
Serenity Prayer Sermon 2: God Grant Me the Courage to Change the Things I Can
Last week, we looked at the first part of the Serenity Prayer:
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.” We talked about how acceptance is not resignation, but wisdom, not defeat, but peace. We explored how scripture, our own experience, and even modern voices like Mel Robbins, writer of the book “Let Them” remind us that serenity is found when we stop fighting what we simply cannot change.
But the prayer does not stop there. Serenity and acceptance are only the first part. The second part is every bit as crucial: “God, grant me the courage to change the things I can.” If serenity calls us to let go, courage calls us to step forward. If serenity teaches us to accept, courage empowers us to act.
And I believe this is true on both a personal and a corporate level, both of which we will consider today.
The Bible gives us example after example, first of all, of people who found courage to bring change toward God’s justice on a large scale, by getting politically active.
Think of Moses, quaking in front of Pharaoh, yet daring to say, “Let my people go”
Think of Esther, risking her life for her people with the words, “If I perish, I perish”
Think of Jesus, as we heard earlier, overturning tables in the temple, confronting religious corruption, and proclaiming that God’s reign of love and justice, is greater than Caesar’s empire of power and wealth.
None of them prayed only for serenity. Each of them prayed, in one way or another, for courage to challenge the status quo .
And my friends, we need that same courage today. For such a time as this.
Courage to speak truth to power when lies are insipid and cunning and loud.
Courage to show compassion when cruelty seems so ever-present.
Courage to stand for justice when silence is so much safer.
Courage to practice frank and prophetic speech even while it also remains respectful and kind.
We live in an era when it is so tempting to shrug and say, “This is just the way things are. I am just one, regular person busy with my own life. I can’t change anything” But again, I remind you of Margaret Mead’s famous saying: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." And the Serenity Prayer calls us up short and tells us: there are some things we must never accept. There are times when resistance is holy; when silence would be complicity; when courage is absolutely essential for us to remain faithful to our calling as Christians. I believe now is one of those times.
But courage is not only about the great struggles of society. It also meets us in the close-in spaces of our own personal lives.
Some of us need courage to change habits that are slowly harming us—patterns of overwork, numbing ourselves with alcohol or screens, addictions to our own arrogant and cock-sure certainties that we are right, and everybody else is wrong- ways of living that keep us only half alive.
Some of us need courage to step out of toxic relationships, or to speak hard truths in broken ones. Others of us need courage to forgive, to open ourselves to reconcilliatiion and healing.
And some of us need courage to change the way we relate to ourselves—to stop believing the voices of shame and self recrimination in order to start believing the voice of God’s amazing love for each of us, personally.
Paul writes:
“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God”
That is a call to courage. Not to blend in with what is easy or comfortable, but to be transformed—and, through us, to bring transformation to others, because transformation is inspiring and contagious!
Or as 2 Timothy reminds us: “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of self-discipline.”
That is the Spirit we seek to embody as believers. That is the courage for which we need to pray fervently.
So, just as we prayed last week for serenity, this week we pray for courage on both a collective and a personal level:
Courage to speak, even when our voices shake.
Courage to act, even when the path forward is steep and intimidating.
Courage to live differently, even when it costs us so much.
Courage to love boldly, even when fear tells us to hold back.
Because courage is not about being fearless. It’s about moving forward even while fear grips us.
So again I will ask, how about you? What are the areas of your life that need courage right now?
• Are there habits, relationships, or activities that you sense God calling you to change?
• Where in our community or world do you feel a God-inspired nudge to act with bravery?
• What small, even tiny step can you take this week to live out that bravery?
And that brings us to the final line of this beautiful prayer: “And the wisdom to know the difference.” That last line is the key. It reminds us that life requires both serenity and courage—and the wisdom to know when each is needed. Too much acceptance can become passivity, codependence. Too much action can become compulsivity and lead to ineffective exhaustion. But wisdom—God’s wisdom—shows us when to let go, when to step forward, and how to walk that seemingly ever-so-narrow path between those two. So may God grant us serenity where acceptance is the healthy choice.
May God grant us courage where we need to step forward to change things.
And may God grant us always the wisdom to know the difference—
for our lives, for our relationships, and for the larger world which God so passionately loves.
Amen.