The Top Ten Bulletin Announcements
10. A bean supper will be held on Tuesday evening in the church hall. Music will follow.
9. The choir invites any member if the congregation who enjoys sinning to join the choir.
8. Thursday night – Potluck Supper. Prayer and medication to follow.
7. Due to the Pastor’s illness, Wednesday’s healing services will be discontinued until further notice.
6. The eighth graders will be presenting Shakespeare’s Hamlet in the church basement on Friday at 7 pm. The congregation is invited to attend this tragedy.
5. Low Self-Esteem Support Group will meet Thursday at 7 pm. Please use the back door.
4. At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be “What is Hell?” Come early and listen to our choir practice.
3. Weight Watchers will meet at 7 pm on Tuesday. Please use the large double door at the side entrance.
2. Today, Christian Youth Fellowship House Sexuality Course, 1 pm-8 pm. Please park in the rear parking lot for this activity.
And the number 1 Bulletin Announcement…
1. Missionary, Bertha Belch, from Africa speaking at Calvary Memorial Church. Announcement: “Come tonight and hear Bertha Belch all the way from Africa.”
The definition of laughter is, “to express certain emotions, especially mirth or delight, by a series of spontaneous, usually unarticulated sounds often accompanied by corresponding facial and bodily movements.” The definition itself makes me want to laugh. Often, when we think of laughter we only think of amusement or delight. But there are other emotions that are expressed through laughter in different situations; emotions such as amazement, being nervous, disbelief, wonder, joy, happiness, etc. Tonight, I want to look at three situations in the Bible where people laughed and showed their inner feelings.
The first person we are going to look at is Abraham. If you remember from last week, we talked about how Abraham, at the age of 75 was told by God to leave his country, his friends and his inheritance and to go to a land that God would show him. Abraham showed his faith in God and went without any complaint. One of the promises that God had given him was that he would become a great nation. But after Abraham had moved to the land of Canaan his wife Sarah couldn’t bear him any children. 14 years went by and Abraham and Sarah still did not have a child of their own. When Abraham is 99 years old, God comes and speaks to him again. This time God is more specific and promises that he and Sarah will have a son of their own. Let’s look at Abraham’s response in 17:17.
Abraham is in shock! “This I have to see!!” he thought. Abraham is laughing in amazement just at the fact of what God might do. What would your response be if you were going to have a son or daughter when you are 100 years old? What we learn from Abraham is that his faith had room to grow. You would think that after all he just went through, leaving everything behind and heading out trusting God with providing a home, that nothing God did would surprise him anymore. But Abraham still had room for growth, his faith was still limited. He went deeper in his relationship with God and trusted God in his promise.
The second person we are going to look at is Abraham’s wife Sarah. God appears to Abraham again at his home and this time with two other men, who were possibly angels. They all sat and ate with Abraham. The Lord again, promises a son to Sarah and Abraham. Let’s look at 18:9-15 to see Sarah’s response.
Sarah’s response was completely opposite of Abraham’s. Sarah laughed in utter disbelief. “Yea right! I am too old to have children and so is Abraham.” What is sort of scary in this passage is God’s response to Sarah. If you look closely in verse 12 it says that Sarah laughed to herself, she didn’t laugh out loud. God knew her heart though and so he questions why Sarah laughed. “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” he asks. Then if it isn’t bad enough that Sarah just basically laughed in God’s face in disbelief, she then lies and says, “Umm…I didn’t laugh.” Again, God knew her heart though. “Yes, you did laugh.”
How many people have ever felt like laughing at God before? I sure have! When we are growing in and working at our relationships with God we should be challenged. One of the biggest issues I see in the church today is that people don’t want to be challenged and that they want to just stay comfortable. Unfortunately, the only way we can grow is by being challenged. We need to constantly be reading God’s Word and listening to Him. Then we need to be ready for God to say something that will rattle our previous beliefs or challenge us to try something new. What we need to look at though is how we respond to that challenge of God’s Word.
Are we going to respond like Abraham? When Abraham was challenged he laughed in wonder and shock. He knew God could do it and he couldn’t wait to see it. He put his trust and faith in God and got ready to be amazed. Hebrews 11:11 said the following about Abraham in this situation. “By faith Abraham, even though he was past age – and Sarah herself was barren – was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise.” Or…
Are we going to respond like Sarah? When Sarah was challenged she laughed in disbelief. She looked at the circumstances around her and said, “Yea right!” By saying this to God Sarah was basically saying to God that he couldn’t do it. She was limiting God and putting things above God. That is called idolatry. Sarah sinned in her response to God and then that led to more sin by lying about her response.
As I have said the last couple of weeks, faith is an action. If we are going to say that God is faithful in all situations then we need to live that out. In essence, this is exactly what we do when we become Christians. God made us a promise in the gift of his Son, Jesus Christ, that his death on the cross for us would forgive us for our disobedience towards God and grant us eternity in heaven forever. We can’t stop there though. God has made many more promises in his Word that he wants to follow through on as well as giving us eternity in heaven.
Our response to God’s Word isn’t just relevant to our relationship to God though, it is relevant to those who are around us. The third situation of laughter that I want to look at is 21:6. It is now a year later and just as God had promised, Abraham and Sarah have a son. “God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.” Laughter is one of the most contagious things in the world, in my opinion. It is absolutely amazing that you could be sitting in a room with your friends and one of them just starts laughing and suddenly the whole group is rolling on the floor. Sarah was now laughing with Abraham in wonder and amazement. Abraham’s faith in God had an effect on Sarah and now, they together would have an effect on the people around them. Sarah said, “Everyone will laugh with joy and wonder when they see what God has done.”
If you are not a Christian, God wants you to make that first step. The promise of eternal life through the death of Christ is open to any who accept it. All you have to do is ask for it. God stays true to his promises, especially his promises to love you not matter what, to forgive you for your disobediences, and to give you eternal life.
As Christians, we need to be going deeper with Christ every day. We need to let God challenge us by his Word and then we need to put our full faith in God. We need to watch how we laugh at God. Sometimes it will seem like God wants us to do something unattainable but God will always stick to his promises. We need to be faithful to God and we need to be examples of faith to others by the way that we live out our relationship with God.
