The Laughter of the Gospel

Very word of God. Now the Lord appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamra while he was sitting at the tent door on the heat of the day and when he lifted up his eyes and looked to be hold three men were standing opposite him and when he saw them he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth and said my Lord if now I have found favor in your sight please do not pass your servant by please let a little water be brought and wash your feet and rest yourselves under the tree and I will bring a piece of bread that you may refresh yourself after that you may go on since you've visited your servant and they said do as you have said so Abraham hurried into the tent to serenity quickly prepare three measures of fine flour needed and make bread cakes Abraham also ran to the herd and took a tender and choice calf and gave it to the servant and he hurried to prepare it and he took curds and milk and the calf which he had prepared and placed it before them and he was standing by them under the tree as they ate then they said to him where is Sarah your wife and he said behold in the tent he said I will surely return to you at this time next year and behold Sarah your wife shall have a son Sarah was listening at the tent door which was behind him now Abraham and Sarah were all advanced in age and Sarah was past childbearing and Sarah laughed to herself saying after I have become old shall I have pleasure by Lord being old also and the Lord said to Abraham why did Sarah laugh saying shall I indeed bear a child I am so old is anything too difficult for the Lord at the appointed time I will return to you at this time next year and Sarah shall have a son Sarah denided however saying I did not laugh for she was afraid and God said no but you did laugh chapter 21 first one then the Lord took note of Sarah as he had said and the Lord did for Sarah as he had promised so Sarah conceived and bore a son to Abraham and his old age at the appointed time of which God had spoken and Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him whom Sarah bore to him Isaac that Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old as God had commanded him and Abraham was 100 years old when his son Isaac was born to him and Sarah said God has made laughter for me everyone who hears will laugh with me and she said who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children yet I have born him a son in his old age amen would you bow your head please would you pray would you pray first for the preacher his tongue is thick his mind is dull his heart is stubborn his man of unclean lips he does not deserve to be the bearer of the gospel of Jesus Christ would you pray that Jesus would be revealed even through such a flawed instrument and would you pray for the listener your heart is slow to believe your mind is prone to wander would you pray that Jesus would be received would you even make it your prayer right now Lord as you visited Sarah long ago come visit me speak Lord my child is listening amen be seated please someone say the idea of laughter and Christianity that's sort of antithetical church isn't about laughter church is about being serious and being somber and being devout and being formal and and the spirit that seems to prevail in most church life is in church you want to be quiet and not do anything wrong and not drop your Bible and and not get up and go to the bathroom too many times and and in church you want to you know be careful about what you do and what you believe and what you say because of all things in all places that's the one place where you want to look like you've got everything together and right and and so churches in a place where you're really free to just kind of laugh and have joy and be filled with delight not in church not a family families are the place where we would think of for laughter that laughter would fill the house and around the table and through the life of children and parents in fact we would desire what what parent wouldn't desire that even after their children leave the house you can sit in your easy chair in front of the fire and you can still hear the laughter of your children just echoing off the wall of your that's my desire in fact got a sweet taste of this a week or so ago on by the way thank you to Ryan and Jim for leading worship last week they're filling in for me and able me to be with mom for Thanksgiving and you guys are nice but mom can cook and so on that trip to moms we visited a college together as a family and it wasn't just my soon to graduate daughter that therefore it was the whole family on the college tour and let's just say I'm not sure they were prepared that is the college so the tour took on a certain festive air let us say my two sons with the football wherever we went in the classrooms in the chapel and you know the football is being passed and catches were being made as we made our way through the campus my son was in in his full you know as we went into the library has to take the book off the shelf and pass it through the detector at the door to set off the alarm in the library well just checking the security where his sisters going to school of course and then we went into the girls dorm and they were pretty vacant because kids were gone for Thanksgiving but every door of every girl's room had a whiteboard on it so my older son got the pen of every whiteboard Tiffany where's that black dress you said you would have in my room before I left Brandy and at the next one it was you know Amber where's my hair dryer and you would not believe who I saw out with your boyfriend and you know and you know as he worked his way down the hall and and our my wife insisting that our tour guide she's a music student studying operand assisting that she's sing for us in the in the student commons and and then Tucker fell in one of the fountains catching a football and we got back in the admissions office our tour guide I heard her go in the back room and she said I've never given a tour like that she she said that's the that's the most fun family I've ever been with and I want to tell you the heart of a father swells she couldn't I could hear back to just laughing and saying you wouldn't believe this group I'll tell you something this morning it's very important families are the place for laughter and no family more than God's family you might think what does laughter have to do with Christianity I'm here to tell you it has everything to do with Christianity in Genesis chapter 18 you see that God goes to a woman whose heart is filled with bitterness and with cynicism she laughs costically and before we're done with her this morning we'll see that she was laughing with wonder and joy and and the little date this is the great instrument work of the grace of God in his children you have a father who loves to hear his children laugh there is the language of the Christian every Sunday after service here a woman comes up to me and she has cancer and her cancer serious and she's got tubes and ports and pumps and and all the horror stories of chemo and radiation and you too many of you know it all too well and when she comes up to me she beams she her heart and her life give off all the evidence that though her circumstances are as lousy as they could possibly be she is one delighted daughter of the living God laughter has everything to do with Christianity last night after the service a father came up to me and he said you don't know how I've been set free tonight I should tell you he's an elder of this church he said I have stolen the laughter out of my own home I have sucked the laughter out of my own family once it was there now it's not but he had the biggest smile on his face but he said God's gonna bring it back listen I don't suppose that we'll be the laughing children of God until we hear our father laughing and you know this just might be the morning take your sermon outline this father loves his children to laugh and his children do laugh because he's the God who comes near Genesis chapter 18 tells us here's the deal God's starting a whole new family he's chosen the progenitor of the family his name is Abraham his wife's name is Sarah the problem is Abraham's almost a hundred Sarah's 90 I'm gonna kid it's in the heat of the day Abraham sits in his tent it's the noon time see Esther such as it is at that part of the world you don't do much at this time of the day when suddenly there are three visitors and the Abraham's tent the Bible paints a picture of us of him jumping up and we see his battle in hospitality he runs out he intrigues them to stay but notice the language he is it really is fascinating the humility of I mean because after all these visitors are so prominent look at his behavior he bows he begs he intrigues please stay he's you know they'll be shayed for you they'll be cool water for your feet but notice what he says he can't say I'm gonna prepare a sumptuous feast come sit at my table he understands he's a nobody they're eminent if George Bush was here today he wouldn't walk up to him and say how about meeting us at Taco Bell after service you would say he's important he has things to do he wouldn't dare have the time and it would be how dare I to put myself on his level to consider myself his equal to say you know come by and and eat with me so Abraham's aware of that notice the language he uses let a little water be brought in wash your feet rest yourselves I'll bring you a piece of bread and as soon as you're done you can go you can go and I will never forget that you stop by my play meanwhile he runs into the tent and says to Sarah what fixes sumptuous feast fixes last meal he goes to the service get the calf get ready you know we're gonna pour out the spread of spread the best of everything we've got a beautiful picture Abraham recognizes that that his visitors are not just visitors royalty is present one of those three visitors is God God it's not every day God comes for dinner and the picture here is as intimate as is implied God coming over your house to eat in a minute we're gonna ask what God what's God doing there but before we do that we just want to stop in marble that he's there the God sharing food with I mean if he's coming to Abraham's house for dinner it implies that he and Abraham are friends I heard somebody say this week about somebody else I wish they'd stop calling me their friend I'm no friend of theirs I've never even been in their home they've never been in my home you see it's understood that if you're really friends then you're doing life together then you're in at each other's homes you're breaking bread together God comes to his friend house for dinner could it put that really be true that the God with whom we have to do intends this to be that even it the Bible the Bible starts with God walking with Adam and Eve walking with Adam and Eve hey Adam want to go for a walk I mean it's permissible for you to let your mouth hang open he comes and walks with them we read of God in the center of the encampment all the Israelites around him and in the middle is the tent the dwelling place of God right in the middle of life then came a prophet named Isaiah and said you know a virgin will be with child and she'll name him his name shall be called in manual which means God with us John writes the word became flesh and dwelt among us remember when Jesus is walking the streets breathing the air living amongst people of perspiring getting hungry God in our midst God was skin on and he sees our wee little man and he says get down out of that tree Zacchaeus because today I'm I'm going to your house I'm staying with you God is sleeping in the back a God who comes and eats a God who comes into your home a God who comes and says to you I'm coming to eat with you and you get all the way to the other end of the Bible and was it say behold I stand at the door and knock if any man here's my voice I an opens the door I will come into him and I will I will suck with him I will dine with him I will eat with him we'll break bread together because I intend for you to be my children and sit at my table do you understand why the Christian life is a life of communal living and not be lived in sterile isolation you know why we have donuts on Sunday morning it's not because we want to make wider Christians it's because we want you to grasp more of the width and the depth and the height of the love of God through community with each other because it is not the Christian experience to come to a church here's someone preach sing some songs enjoy a solo walk out the door get in your car and come back the next week and say that's the Christian life that's not the Christian life at all the Christian life is a shared experience where we worship together yes but we eat together we play together we raise our children together we educate them together we we join together in small groups we pray for each other we visit one another we help the week we rejoice with the successes of one another it's all done together it has to be because the father comes in each with us therefore we are to eat with one another I call a Paul and Dorothy Pratt this week they're 49th anniversary if you could earn your way into heaven and Dorothy Pratt has done it and and and congratulated them and and they said the Stevensons are coming over tonight to play dominoes not to say something what we're doing right now we're in church and Sunday morning it's all very spiritual but it's not one I owe to more spiritual than playing dominoes with your brothers and sisters in Christ and if you don't believe that then you don't know your father he loves when his children are together he loves when they're they're they're doing life with one another God is the God who comes near JB Phillips wrote behind all our fun and games at Christmas time we should not try to escape a sense of all almost a sense of trite at what God has done we must never allow anything to blind us to the true significance of what happened at Bethlehem so long ago nothing can alter the fact that we live on a visited planet what is advent it's the celebration of the visit when God came all how I long for you the experience knowing God as the father who sits at the head of the table child sit down sit down my house is your my table is your table I'm so glad you're he's the God who comes near that's why his children laugh can you believe that can you believe you're welcome there but your mouth hang open second God's children they laugh because they have been extended his favor here's the question before why why does God visit whom he visits why does God draw near to home he draws near well what's God doing with Sarah here why does he come to Sarah now believe it or not there's a lot of people who have a look at this passage and say here we have a classic understanding of the Bible is that if you have faith here's a woman who is childless but if you have faith even a 90-year-old woman can bear children because nothing is impossible with God but it's up to you the power of God is available the power of God is excellent but if you want to unleash the power of God in your life it's up to you have faith if you will visualize it if you will believe it if you will name it if you will claim it then God will do it have you ever been in a in a hospital emergency room kind of setting someone's critically ill they're perhaps in a coma and the whole family's gathered around maybe if your family and somebody has the goal or the temerity to suggest that the ill person is going to die and the whole rest of the family goes hmm get out you infidel you know you have dared to be an unbeliever we all have to get together here and what believe let's believe you know they they haven't got a brainwave they haven't got a pulse let's all believe as if somehow all of us join in the circle believe sparks are going to be created leap into the patient and they will be miraculously healed now perhaps you're picking up by my tone that I don't think much of this approach to Christianity God helps those who help themselves if you believe in the power of God is available to you haguash haguash is a multitude of problems the first and most obvious is that the most faithful person in all the bible's name was Jesus nobody prayed nobody nobody knew the father nobody ever lived their life without one day a one act of disobedience and yet when he asked the father the father said what no his life was horrible his life was wretched his life was not filled with blessing because God's made no such promise in this world and but the second and most obvious part of this passage is is that great things happen in the womb and in the life of Sarah and yet she does not live she doesn't believe she doesn't have faith she hasn't walked down to the other side let me tell you something God helps the helpless God helps the undeserving that's the story of the bible from beginning to end get it out of your mind and somehow you're gonna unlock the power of God and something that you do is going to open up streams of blessing into your life God sets his favor on Sarah she doesn't merit it she doesn't deserve it and let me tell you something it's not very often God shows up at your house I matter of fact I would suggest it's not very often an angel even comes by and if you think that happens regularly I don't even want to know about it but Sarah doesn't just get an angel she gets God and she laughs in his face she laughs in the face of the living God and God gives her the baby anyway she has no faith she has no belief and she's blessed anyway and let me tell you any blessing in your life has nothing to do with your face nothing to do with your belief it has everything to do with the favor of God this formula is found in the Old Testament forty times you can find it in chapter six verse eight of Genesis where it says Noah found favor with God you can find it in chapter 19 verse 19 where it says a lot even lot found favor with God how else could you explain the rescue of lot except for the favor of God not the merit of lot not the merit of Sarah not the merit of Noah but the mercy and grace unmerited of the living God I want you to see the grace of God extended towards Sarah you understand the God goes to visit Sarah not Abraham where's your wife he asks he's dealt with Abraham he's come to deal with Sarah did you notice how he deals with her when God comes and most of the Bible what's it like I mean it's like refrigerator parry barrel and through your front you know it is a traumatic and it is look at Genesis chapter 15 you remember an Abraham and the ratification of the covenant there's darkness there's smoke there's fire there's dead animals there's blood there's there's gore there's trembling there's dread there's birds of prey Abraham is like in the middle of this house of horror at universal studio you know God's coming then you get the Genesis chapter 18 was it say none of that why because in Genesis chapter 18 God is coming to a broken woman she's 90 years old she's outcast her she's failed her husband has taken no interest in her in years and years and years and she cannot believe the promise of God and God comes to her and does he reduce her to a pile of ashes she laughs in his face she laughs in the face of the holy God and what did he do nothing he's a big boy he just reasserts his promise to her gently and firmly and says I'll be back in a year some of you in this room said I know I'm supposed to believe I know I'm supposed to be filled with faith I know I'm not supposed to have doubt but you know what I do and I don't know who to go with it I'm afraid if I tell people how much I struggle how much my heart waivers that they'll look down on me I don't know maybe they will but I'll tell you there's one council you can go to the Bible says he's the wonderful counselor and he'll be gentle with you a bruised read he does not break go to God go to your father lay your doubts on him look at how tenderly he dealt with Sarah and what I want you to see in this passage is that he comes for Sarah because Sarah doesn't know him and you know what some of you don't know him either oh Sarah knew the promise there's nothing new there Sarah had heard about that Sarah knows who God is but she doesn't know him God's around God's influence is there God's power she respects him she doesn't know it God comes into Sarah you need me there's a church in Harlem a very powerful church called Bethel gospel Bethel gospel was begun 80 years ago it was begun when a group of African-American women decided they wanted Jesus they started going down to Midtown Manhattan to to white churches and they were told very directly that their type weren't welcome and this young woman German-American decided that if these women weren't welcome in her church then it wouldn't be her church anymore and she lit out for Harlem and she began to meet with these women and she began to disciple them and teach them the Bible and form a fellowship but guess what happened this young woman was engaged to a young man from a very prominent New York family and the family made it very clear that if she continued to fraternize with these type then the marriage was not going to take place so there she had it before her the choice on the one hand everything the world has to offer a husband security well a home children a family power influence ease importance everything the heart could ever crave in this world was hers all she had to do was walk away from Jesus

not an easy decision to turn your back on everything you grow up longing for but as she searched her Bible she came to Isaiah chapter 54 which is a reference to Sarah where it says that the barren woman shall have more children than the married woman and Bethel gospel was born when that young woman made her choice in thousands she has thousands of children today children in the faith children who walk the streets of heaven and call that call her their spiritual mother Sarah doesn't need a son Sarah needs what she needs a father and the father comes and this morning he's coming to you will you hear him some of you I need to tell by looking at you some of you don't laugh very much I'm still waiting for the first one from a few God wants to come into your life and turn your cynicism and your bitterness your anger and whatever royals inside of you who wants to turn it into laughter he's the God who comes near he's the God who who who who sheds his favor on the most undeserving thirdly I want you to see that God's children laugh because he restores their wonder he restores their wonder Sarah's cynical laugh is responded to by God and God says Sarah is anything to what is anything too difficult for God if you may even have a little margin note in your Bible that'll tell you that that's not the literal translation the literal translation is not is there anything to difficult for God is there anything too wonderful for God Sarah has lost her sense of wonder you know we are made to wonder we love to wonder we love to have our breath taken away we love the word it left me speechless it left me breathless wow can't forget that that happened where it come from I didn't expect that we love that experience you know it's particularly good at wonder little children aren't they little she just think of little children at Christmas you know it's to grab them up in bed and you pull out the old book to us the night before Christmas and all through the house you know and reindeer are going to be in the snow on the top of our house tonight and you live in Lakanto and the kids are like yes and Santa's coming down the chimney and you've got a wood burning stove you know they know but they're with you know in the next morning you give them the simplest little present and they don't even care it's got paper and buzz and color and there's a box but it's a coolest box it's just so filled with wonder I mean take a you know what happens you get older you lose their ability to wonder and we live in a wonder killing rationalistic western culture that explains everything well there's such a thing as love it's just a chemical reaction it's an evolutionary process everything is explained away as a scientific reaction there's not no such thing as mystery wonder and we lose it let me take a four-year-old to the zoo they sit there and they look at the giraffe you take a 14-year-old to the zoo what are we doing here this is hot let's go um darks go to the zoo dad

that's why we go to these you know that that's why we read books we want to capture that sense of there's some vast dilemma and in some power has to be brought to bear and then there's no way out we walk out of the movie just out I was so implausible all that was character development star lots of stupid as summer blockbuster meanwhile you paid all your money and you go to that one you go to the next one you go to the next one you go to the next one because we long for wonder you know what the most wondrous thing of all is it's the gospel it's that you who are once far away from God have been brought near Tim Keller Tim Keller says that he was talking to a university professor a skeptic and agnostic and unbeliever who who was not open in any way shape or form to the idea of God and but he happened to notice he was looking for some chink in her armor and he happened to notice that in her pile of books she had Harry Potter book she was trying to cover it up you know children's stories she's an eminent professor you don't read children's stories but she had this Harry Potter book and and he said why do you read Harry Potter and she said I don't know and he said I think I know she said why he said I think it's because deep in your heart of hearts you long to believe that what you can see in this world is not all there is all of us have eternity in the fabric of our hearts we have a desire for wonder what happens to Sarah and Genesis chapter 18 and in verse 20 at chapter 21 look at her response in verse 6 and 7 of chapter 21 Sarah now once laughing cynically in chapter 21 we read Sarah laughing again do you understand how God restores our wonder you know what she names her child she names him Isaac which means laughter she names her son after her sin so restored is she the God the wonder of it the God would give me the dream of my heart and she sits there a 90 year old woman and what does she say in those verses who would have believed it who could even have imagined it God has made a laughter for me everyone's laughing with me who would have who could have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children she must have just sat there and looked at that little baby and said day after day after day what I believe that I want to ask is there any wow in your life you know that religious people don't have any wonder ask a religious person are you a Christian they say of course come from good people grew up in the church always taught these things always believed them yeah I'm in the choir and I'm

of course ask somebody who gets the gospel are you a Christian and they say yes but how wow but how could it be how could it be that God loves me and can it be that I should gain that I should gain an interest in the Savior's love that I would sit at the table of the living God wow there's no of courseness about it I'm at the table of God if I walk in his house he drops what he's doing and runs to greet me Larry crabs that a friend of his grew up in an angry family dinner table was the worst it was sarcastic comment with silence so when he got to be 10 11 12 he began to have the courage to be dismissed from the table and face his father's wrath and he would hustle down the street to one of his friends house a big house filled with children on a big wide porch and he would sneak up to the house and he would go underneath the porch and he would listen to the family as they ate dinner together and he would just sit and listen to the laughter at the dinner table and dream that he could be a part of that family and doctor crab said picture the father coming out of the house and finding you under the porch and saying come on out of there and come on in and sit at my table you're in this family now and pictures sitting around that table and just looking around saying

and then you reach to get something at the table you knock over the milk and it spoils your dinner and it gets all over you and you're ready for the back of the father's hand when you hear the father laugh and he says get this boy another shirt and get him another plate of food everybody makes mistakes in my house I've covered it I paid for you I paid for this food there's plenty more you'll never be a laffer in your home until you hear the father laugh you'll never build a home of joy and delight until you're convinced you live in one how much wow is there in your life was sitting last age to tell you personal story sitting there last Saturday night in the orange bowl with my children and the orange bowl is a football stadium in Miami it's where I grew up and the last Saturday night I was able to bring my children to the place of my youth and I can't tell you how awesome the feeling it was for me I can remember when I was a little scutter about six years old my dad taking me to the orange bowl to see the unity of the Miami play the Southern California Trojans they are the Trojans tail back you the evil the darkness from the I'm California came over to the fair state of Florida and and I remember going to see the the fine Christian young men of the University of Miami take on the the evil Trojans and Miami prevailed and and and I remember standing outside the stadium in the rush of people and just a littlest hike with my dad and I could tell you a hundred other memories just like that and here now I was having one with my own children in the same place 40 years later and as it was happening I sat there and I just looked at my kids and I said God you're so good why do you even let me have you why do you let me have moments like this how do I get to live in the smile of your embrace how much wow is there in your life do you need God to restore your wonder and last let me just finish quickly with this the last point is this is that the passage here you know it's really about a sun it's about a long awaited sun and God's children laugh because the sun has been provided Isaac was his name he was provided I just want to tell you one interesting thing when his eight days old they waited a long time for him and yet when it was eight days old they did what to him they they cut him go figure you know what that cutting meant it meant that you violate the law of God and you shall be cut off from God's family that's what it meant well you know the Bible tells us that it's not really about Isaac the Bible story it's about another son and centuries later a messenger came to another woman and the messenger said to this woman you're going to have a child just like the messenger said to Sarah came to this woman and said you're going to have a child and this woman said I don't think so I got a big problem her problem wasn't that you had an old old old husband her problem was that she didn't have one at all this woman's name was Mary and she said to God I'm not going to laugh in your face but I don't see how this guy I don't know how you're going to pull us one off and what did God say is what did the messenger say is anything impossible for the Lord is anything too wonderful is anything too difficult the Bible says that Jesus was in the bosom of the Father into all eternity past you need to understand that the happiest family that has ever lived his father's son and Holy Spirit in all eternity and what God is doing is inviting us to join that family but for us to get into that family someone had to be put outside so the Bible says that Jesus left the bosom of his father and he came to earth to live a life that was not a life of laughter it's called the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief and I want to tell you that he got cut off he didn't get ceremonially cut only at eight days off he literally got cut off so that at the end of his life he was hanging on a cross bleeding crying out for his father and his father turned his back on him why did Jesus give up the laughter of his family he bore the scorn of his father so that we wouldn't have to and we would know the father's laughter why do we laugh because Jesus paid it all all to him I owe sin had left the crimson stain but he washed it white as snow so yes we're sinners yes we're mess up yes we're we're so fickle but our sin has been born away by the long awaited son we have to staff about their Thanksgiving experience and Adam Jones said we just stayed together as a family the biggest delight in our family was watching Sashi laugh Sashi Jones is a little dark-skinned girl that was abandoned by her mother in India two years ago when she was born she was weak and small and malnourished and injured of body and parentless and this Thanksgiving she sits in the Jones family living room and she what I guess she must have had faith huh

or did God not have favor on her to bring her from the other side of the world into the family circle with his love and orphan now she's found she has a family I'm not talking about Sashi I'm talking about you and until you realize that's your story well you just won't be elapsed with you once we were far from God now we said it is table