Laugh at Yourself | Laugh to Live

TRANSCRIPT

And so this week we're gonna land it. We're gonna land this one, and we are gonna bring it home with the transformation. The transformation that takes place, transformation that takes place when we understand just a little bit of God's sense of humor. And if there's one thing I want us to take home today, I want us to remember that when we learn to laugh, we learn to live.

When we learn to laugh, we learn to live. And God can actually help us do this. Does that sound like a good idea? We wanna learn about this. All right, let's get into it. So first I wanna have a bit, I wanna come, I give a bit of a confession, okay? I am not really that good at laughing at myself. It's probably a lot of people, other, other, anyone like that Here you're not, you're not very good at laughing at yourself.

Like when you mess up or when you do something wrong, you make a mistake. You don't sort of see the funny side of it. You know, I often get embarrassed, you know, or I get frustrated with myself, oh, how I'm gonna let this happen, you know? And it's just not good. And I'm sure there's others like that here. I remember.

When Katie and I, my wife, Katie and I, we had our first baby, little baby girl, Hannah. Oh, Hannah. She's not a little baby girl anymore, but this is, yeah. So she was our first little baby and we were down at John Flynn Hospital down at, uh, Tugen down there. And as the dad, I was allowed to stay in the hospital with, with my wife and our new little baby as I, I could stay there.

And, uh, I've gotta say, I mean, I did, I did the thing, right? I did, I got up and I was up there at night times and I was pacing the hallways of the, of the hospital, you know, trying to settle Hannah to get her to sleep, changing nappies. I was doing all the dad stuff. I was, I was ticking boxes. It was good.

And, uh, but it was exhausting, man. It was exhausting. I know there's, some of us just had recently had babies and you know what I'm talking, it's so just, just tired. Just this perpetual state of tiredness. And I remember I was so exhausted, but I was there and I had to go downstairs to the car to get something outta the car.

So I went down, I was like, it was like walking dead. I was just like a zombie. Walk down to the car, get the thing, come back, hop in the elevator, press the button, the door closes, just going up, almost trying to have a little bit of a, you know, power nap as you're going up. And then it stops and there's the jolt and the doors didn't open.

I'm like, what? So I pressed the button, another jolt doors didn't open. I'm like, oh no, I don't need this. Oh, come on, come on. I pressed it again, nothing. And I'm like, oh. So I started banging on the door because I know there's people, there's the nurses are just write, hello. Hello. I am in the elevator. Help.

Help. I've got right, just leaning up against a little help, help, help. Ah. Okay. Take a breath. Relax. Emergency number, ring the emergency phone. All right, so look, no emergency phone. I turn around to see if it's on the other side and there's a person standing there. Oh my goodness. Yes. And they, they had walked into the elevator from the doors that were at the back of the elevator, and I, I'd known this, I'd known it was one of the two door jobs, but I was so tired.

And I was like, ah. And this person's just sort of standing there and they sort of start moving away a little bit. I'm like, oh. And he goes, are you, are you all right mate? I said, I said, uh, I've just had a baby. Oh no, my wife's just had a baby, whatever. And I walked out. Oh my goodness. Now, I, I did not see the funny side of it at the moment.

I was so tired. I was spent, I went back to my wife and I told Katie the story and she just roared with laughter and had tears, tears coming down her face. And, you know, I thought about it a little afterwards. She said, you gotta admit it's pretty funny. And I was like, yeah, all right. Yeah, it's funny. So then I laughed, but that's how life works, doesn't it?

Things that aren't funny in the moment. You know, the delays, the detours, the spills, the mistakes, the misjudgments. Have you ever waved at someone and then you realize it wasn't that person that you thought and so you, oh, you pretend to wave to someone behind them? No, no, not you, mate. No, you,

oh no. And you just get embarrassed and it's not funny in the moment. But somehow they become the stories that we laugh about later. We laugh about, and I don't know, but maybe just, maybe that's God's way of saying, you know what? Don't take yourself so seriously. Don't take yourself too seriously. Remember, I've got this.

God's saying, I've got this. I'm in control, and that's what I wanna talk about this morning. When we learn to laugh, we learn to live. Now, I think it's important to mention at this time that it's not happiness that we're talking about. It's something that's actually deeper, something that is deeper than happiness.

We're gonna talk about joy. We sang about it this morning. We're talk about joy. You see happiness is fleeting. It relies on a circumstance. You know, you get to get, receive a gift or you get, have a nice meal, ooh, and you just feel happy. That's nice. You know, you know the, you're happy, you know,

it makes you feel, whereas joy, right? Joy is an inner feeling. Joy is something that's deeper. It can exist. Joy can actually exist even in difficult times. In difficult times, and there's such a deep sense of peace and of meaning when we tap into joy. Joy. So when we talk about hilarious, the series we've been talking about, we talk about God's nature of, of humor.

We understand that focusing on joy, something that goes deeper than just happiness. And that's when we learn to live. So when we learn to find joy. We learn to live. You see, laughter isn't emotional. It's actually spiritual. It's a reflection of faith. It's a sign that we trust in the God we can trust in a God who holds the punchline.

Even before the story has finished, he holds, he's read the last page. He holds the, he holds the punchline. He knows how this thing goes. And the trust that we have in him, knowing that that's where we get joy from. So no matter what you find yourself going through, no matter what hill you're trying to climb at this point, or valley of darkness, you might be going through, I don't wanna get too heavy, but you, you know, you might be walking through that we can find joy in knowing that God has got it.

God's in control. He knows the end. He knows what's coming. He knows. The punchline. Now, some people find laughter and holiness, and I was actually one of these people, right? They find laughter and holiness don't seem that they belong in the same sentence together. Oh, what do you mean? We're talking about God?

Laughter, holiness, holiness and God. You know, some of us grew up thinking that God was very serious. He was very serious. He was always frowning. He was not smiling. He was sitting on a throne with a clipboard and a big stick. I grew up like that. I grew up, I thought, this is, that was God. I had a, we talk about, in the scripture, it talks about a fear of God.

Well, this, I had a fear, real fear of God, like this is gonna, you know, you do something wrong. Whoa, you get whacked, you know? But that's not the case. When we read in scripture. We read something completely different. Psalms, the book of Psalms, chapter two. It says, the one enthroned in heaven laughs. The one enthroned in heaven.

Laughs not mockingly, not cruel, but peacefully and sovereignly. Why? Because he sees the whole picture. God's got the whole picture. He can see it all. So he's not anxious. You know, anxiety is a massive, massive thing that's happening in the world today. People suffering from it. God is not anxious. We've gotta realize and understand it.

Our God, God who loves us and is watching us and is looking after us, he's not anxious at all. He's not pacing up and down the floor of heaven. He is calm, calm, cool, and collected. And because he's like that, he can actually laugh. He can laugh. He can find joy. Well, he's already got joy. He is joy. God is joy.

And then there's a scripture that I really, I wanna draw from today as well. And it comes from the book of Nehemiah, chapter eight, verse 10. And Nehemiah, there's a backstory that goes with the, the people of Israel that come out of exile. They, and they, they, they're get getting read the law like their, like their Bible, I suppose from, from that time.

They're getting read the law and they become very, they begin to weep. They begin to get sad because they're like, oh man, we've missed the mark so badly. We have let God down. And Nehemiah says, wait, listen to the words that are being said. We're reading about a God of love and a God of second chances and a God who just wants the best for us.

So he said, be joyful. Be joyful when we hear these stories. And he says these words in verse eight. He in verse 10, he says, the joy of the Lord is your strength. And as I said, we sang about that this morning. The joy of the Lord is your strength. Everybody say, joy, joy, joy. The joy of the Lord is your strength.

You see, God's laughter is our strength, and then our laughter becomes an echo of the divine joy that's from him. Every time we laugh from a place of trust. I like this. Every time we laugh from a place of trusting him, we are actually tuning our hearts into heaven's frequency. Yeah, that is very cool. When you laugh from a place of trust, knowing that God has got it, he's, he holds the punchline.

He's read the last page. We tune our hearts into the heaven, heavenly frequency. I mean, there's so many examples of this holy laughter that we can find in scripture. I mean, we can look again, like Kev spoke about last week, Abraham and Sarah. So Sarah was like 90 years old. They had no children, right? She was like 90 years old and God comes to them and says, Hey, you're gonna have a baby.

You are gonna have a baby. You're gonna be tired at 90. Woo. And it says in scripture it has. Sarah laughed. She was like, it was one of those. Yeah, yeah. Right, right. A baby. Come on. Sarah laughed. She didn't, she didn't laugh 'cause it was funny. It wasn't. That was what? No, that's not funny. Come on. You gotta be joking me.

But later, here we go. Later in verse 20. In Genesis 21, when the promise actually comes true, and they have a baby boy at 90. Woo. I can't get it. They have a baby boy. She laughed again. Only this time. It was laughter of delight. It was like, wow. Her, her laughter went from Yeah, right to Wow. Look what God has done.

Look what God has done. They actually named their son Isaac. Most of us know the story they named their son Isaac. Isaac actually means he laughs. Believe they did that deliberately, almost. He laughs. He carries the name of laughter in his name. He carries a very nature of God in his name, Isaac. So you imagine growing up as Isaac was growing up, every time they would've called out his name, Isaac.

Isaac dinnertime. They would go, oh, everyone looked at each other and, oh, God's so crazy. Can you believe this is happening? He carries the name of laughter. You see, when God redeems something in our lives, when he gives something back or brings something back, he often gives us the ability to laugh, to laugh again.

And I know there are people and you've probably got people in your lives that that used to laugh. And they've been going through things and they have, and it's, and when you stop and think, you think, man, it's been a long time since I've laughed, or since I've seen that person laugh or seen that person have joy.

I want you to know that God can redeem, that. God can redeem that joy again. You can make you laugh and help you to laugh.

He brings us through something, or he gives us the strength to carry something. He often gives us the ability to laugh again, to find joy that gives us strength, to find joy that gives us strength. And it's not denial. You're not laughing in denial like, ha ha, ha, it's, I'll just keep laughing. It'll get better soon.

It's not denial.

It's a laughter of confidence. A confidence to know that my guide has got this confidence in a faithful guide. Because like I said before, he holds the punchline before the story's even finished. So why does laughter matter spiritually? I mentioned that before. It's not just emotional, it's spiritual. Why does it matter spiritually?

Well, I believe laughter happens when we do three things. Do you, do you wanna know 'em? Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's, let's have, let's have a go. Number one, they're a bit prickly, but let's go number one. Laughter happens when we surrender control. When we surrender control, because when we laugh, we're admitting.

We're admitting, you know what? I can't fix this. I can't fix this. I can't fix everything, but I have my trust in the one who can my one, the one who can I get my strength from? The one who can, that joy I can tap into is my strength. Number two, true laughter happens when we see God's perspective. We see God's perspective.

So remember we talk about how we can have trust and we can have faith and strength 'cause we know that God holds the punchline, but then we get a chance to see through his eyes. When we step back and we laugh. It's often because the problem that felt like a mountain looks a lot smaller when you have heaven's viewpoint.

When we can see through God's eyes, things seem to not look so bad. We understand that God has got this and God can give me the strength to carry through. And there is story after story of people I know in my life and people you know in your life, people in our family, in our church that have the strength to carry on, and I know it's because they've got the joy of the Lord.

Yeah, true laughter happens when we trust God's timing. It's number three. When we trust God's timing, oh, God's timing. Why can't it be when I want it to be done? Like, why can't it be happen when I want it to happen? God's timing is often very different to ours. You see Sarah's laughter, Sarah, who had the baby at night, her laughter was delayed.

It was not denied. It was just delayed. And some of you might be in a season right now where your joy feels lost, where you feel like it's not there. You might be going through something or carrying something, and your joy feels like it's lost. Well, I want you to know with all my heart, I believe that it's not lost.

It's just postponed. Just postponed a little. And I, I believe that you can laugh again. You can laugh in the waiting, and you can laugh in the mess. And as you do that, I believe it's a sign that your heart is actually healing. God is healing you from the inside out. When you learn to tap into that joy, that joy that often doesn't make sense to the world, often doesn't make sense to your own self.

'cause how can, how can I be finding joy and how can I be laughing at things and, and feeling happy about things when I've got this going on, or mom's going through this, or my sister's got that, or.

Our hearts are healing. Strength comes from inner joy. So how do we practice this laughter? Let's get, let's get wrapping up. How do we practice? How do we draw strength from the joy of knowing that God is in control? I'm not talking about a shallow kind of joy or laughter, but the sacred kind, the secure, the strong kind, a real joy laugh.

Let me give you three simple ways you can do it. We can all do it. I tap into these myself, number one. And this is, I'm all, I'm, I'm learning on this one. 'cause I struggle. We need to learn to laugh at ourselves. Gotta learn to laugh. Learn to laugh at yourself. Humility isn't beating yourself up. It's being able to say, you know what, I'm human.

I am human. And that's okay. It's okay to spill the coffee. It's okay to trip over my words 'cause God's grace will cover my blooper. Will cover my struggle. I found a story and it's interesting when Kev was sharing earlier about being a bricklayer when he was a younger man, younger, younger man,

I couldn't imagine you being a brick layer. Now, Kev,

I found this story a long time ago and I found it's quite. Interesting when we talk about, uh, laughing at yourself and understanding that we do make mistakes, and this, it's, it's a, it's a, it's an insurance claim. It's actually an insurance company filed this, uh, this paperwork and put it up on wherever someone found it.

I don't know, but it's this, the, it's an insurance claim. And what happened is a man had injured himself on the job site. And the insurance company requested more information, so the man wrote back this, this letter and he said, to whom it may concern, I'm writing in response to your request concerning clarification of the information I supplied in section 11 of the insurance form, which asked for the cause of the injury and I answered, I didn't use my brain.

I trust that the following explanation will be sufficient. I am a bricklayer by trade. On the date of the injury, I was working alone, laying bricks around the top of a three story building. When I finished the job, I had about 200 kilos of bricks left over. So rather than carry the bricks down by hand, I decided to put them into a barrel and lower them by pulley.

That was fastened to the top of the building. I secured the end of the rope at ground level. Then I went back up to the top of the building, loaded the bricks into the barrel and pushed it over the side. I then went back down to the ground and untied the rope, holding it securely to ensure the slow descent of the barrel.

As you will note, in section six of the insurance form, I weigh approximately 65 kilos. At the shock of being jerked off the ground so swiftly by the 200 kilos of bricks in the barrel, I lost my presence of mind and I forgot to let go of the rope. Between the second and third floor, I met the barrel coming down.

This accounts for the bruises and lacerations on my upper body. Fortunately, I retained enough presence of mine to maintain my tight hold on the rope, and I proceeded rapidly up the side of the building, not stopping until my right hand was jammed into the pulley. This accounts for my broken thumb, c-section four.

Despite the pain, I continued to hold tightly to the rope. Unfortunately, at approximately, approximately the same time, the barrel hit the ground and the bottom fell outta the barrel. Okay, so devoid now of the weight of the bricks. The barrel now weighed approximately 20 kilos. I again refer to section six where my weight is listed.

I began a rapid descent down the side of the building in the vicinity of the second floor, I met the barrel coming up. This explains the injury to my legs, and lower body slowed only slightly. I continued my descent landing on the pile of bricks below. Fortunately, my back was only sprained, but I am sorry to report however that at this point I again lost my presence of mind and I let go of the rope.

I trust that this answer, this answers your concern. Please note, I am done not using my brain.

Remember, it's okay to be human. Remember. It's okay. It's, we're all human. Things happen. We learn to laugh at ourselves. Number two, we need to learn to laugh with others, not at others. We need to learn with others. It's easy sometimes to laugh at others, but we need to learn with others. There's a big difference gathering with people, being in a community.

It needs joy. We need joy to be here. It thrives on joy. You know, we can weep and we must, we weep when others weep. Scripture talks about that we weep when others weep, but also we need to learn to rejoice when they rejoice, be happy for one another, excited for one another when things are going great.

Sometimes that's when healing begins. When we can rejoice with someone, especially, and this is the kicker, especially when you are maybe going through struggles. And other people, other family members are rejoicing and we can learn to rejoice with them even though we are struggling with something. That's a major shift, a major shift within you.

You take the time to be happy for others, and that's where healing can happen. Healing happens just in that simple thing, just in simply rejoicing with others. No matter what your circumstances, you rejoice. And it doesn't, that's, that's not come, doesn't come from a talking head or a sermon or a message or anything that happens.

It just comes from that simple act of putting others before yourself. So learn to laugh with others. And next thing we need to learn the last one. We need to learn to laugh in faith, even when it doesn't make sense. It's usually often, even when it doesn't make sense. That's the key, that's the big one, even when it doesn't make sense, because laughter is not a denial of pain.

Laughter is the defiance of despair. It's not a denial of pain. We hurt, we go through things and it hurts. So we're not denying that. But what we're doing is we are laughing at the despair. We're not gonna be despair. We're not gonna suffer despair over it because we know, as I said before, we know the one who has read the last page.

We know the one who's got the punchline. It's saying, you know what? The story is not over, and I know who's writing it. And he's okay. He's pretty good. He's not anxious, he's at peace. He's got joy. So you know what? I'm gonna tap into a bit of that. I'm gonna tap into that joy to get my strength. The joy of the Lord becomes your strength to get through and to see beyond what's in front of you.

So learn to laugh at yourself. Learn to laugh with others, and learn to laugh in faith. Alright, let's bring it home. I know that's about the third time I've said that, haven't I? Let's wrap it up now. Now Psalms, this book of Psalms, chapter 1 26, verse two says, our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy.

Then it was said among the nations. The Lord has done great things. The Lord's done great things for them and church, you know, the Lord has done great things for us. He's done great things for us. If you stop and took, uh, an inventory, if you top stop and took a tally of all the moments in your life where the Lord has done great things for you, you'll be amazed.

Sometimes our vision is clouded if we're going through stuff, if we have pain. Have you ever, ever had, like you have an operation or you have maybe toothache or something going on and there's just pain and you just can't seem to focus on anything else. Have you ever had that? You're just like, ah, you're going through that and you can't focus on anything?

And so when we're going through stuff, we can not see all the amazing things that God has done already for us. He's done great things and we can be filled with joy. And as we do, can you imagine the testimony that that brings the witness, that that is for your family, for the people in your world, when they look at you and they say, Hmm, what?

They've got something. There's something about that person. There's something about them. What have they got that I don't have? How are they able to keep walking and holding their head high and charging through, even though this and this and this is going on.

Look at the joy on their faces. Where are they getting that from? We know where they're getting that from. Laughter, when it flows from faith, it becomes worship. It tells the world that my God is good even here and even now, my God is good. So whether you are in a season of sorrow or a season of celebration church, my prayer is that you hear heaven's invitation and you learn to laugh again.

Because when we learn to laugh, we learn to live. And when we learn to live with that kind of joy, that joy that's deep, we sound a little bit more like the heart of God every time we do the joy. Now I am gonna wrap this up

for real. This is for real. We're gonna actually ask the MSOs if they'll come, because I think we're gonna send this out on a ripper, and I think we should sing that other song, that joy song again, as I just get ready. Okay, so I'm gonna wrap it up. I'm gonna wrap up.

Okay, I'm gonna wrap it up by pointing out the fact that there are some of you here this morning. I'm gonna point the finger. There's some of you here this morning and you've only heard about half of what I've talked about, and I get it. I'm okay with that 'cause I'm a bit like that myself. You've only heard half of it because you've been distracted.

You've been distracted by this thing. It is a fire extinguisher. It's a fire extinguisher.

And now I know from the moment I carried this up here and put it there, there were ones in the room that were saying, oh, wonder what that's for? Wonder what's going on. Even cha said, she whispered, what's that for? What's going on? What's he, what's, what's he gonna do with that?

And I get it 'cause I probably would've done the same myself. See, the problem is we focus on the wrong thing. Ah, see what I did there? See what I did there. We focus on the wrong thing and you focus on that to the point that you've missed. You may have missed some of the things that I've shared this morning, so you're gonna have to go back and listen to it again.

Or we can start it. I'll start from the top. Alright.

And the thing is, it can happen so easily in life, can't it? I put my hand up for this. I'm guilty of this. So often we focus on the wrong thing. We focus on the wrong thing. We focus on the thing that we're struggling with. We focus on the hill that we're trying to climb, rather than the victory dance that we get to do at the top.

Woo. When we make it. And we're so focused on that, and we focus on the, the, the struggle, and we focus on the things that are, that are happening that we lose sight of, Hey, I mean I've got, I've got strength that I can get through this with, and we've gotta tap into that joy that God has that to the point tying it in.

We cannot, that hilarious joy that God has.

We focus on that rather than a God who is at peace and a God who's not anxious. We don't focus on the joy that we have and the strength that we can have through that joy in order to get up the hill. Instead, we focus on the hill. So church, I want to give you a take home today. I'm gonna give us all an exercise, and I am gonna be in this as well.

Put myself right in there. I'm gonna give you all an exercise and you can start from the moment we finish here today to however long you wanna do it. And this is it this week or forever long. Every time you see something that is red, it sounds silly, doesn't it? Every time you see something that is red, it might be a fire extinguisher, it might be a fire truck, might be a pretty dress, might be a red car.

A red flag act. No. If you see a red flag run, red flags aren't good. Anytime you see something red,

I want you to focus.

I want you to focus on the victory dance and not on the hill. Focus on the victory dance and not on the hill, and I can't tell you when that victory dance will come. But I trust in a God who's all about the victory dance.

So focus on the victory dance. Focus on the strength that you get from the joy of the Lord. The joy of the Lord is your strength. Draw from that. So every time you see something that is red, I want you to focus on the strength that you can get from God. To get you through. And you might be in a place where you, eh, I'm doing okay.

Things are all right right now. Well then you use that to focus on others and maybe bring a bit of joy and a bit of laughter into their life. Rejoice with them when they rejoice. Maybe be there to, to weep within. Then they weep and it all comes together and we work together as a family. 'cause it's pretty cool to be part of a great family.

And remember. When you learn to laugh, you learn to live. Does that sound good? Yeah. Well, we're gonna stand, let's stand right now and we're gonna get ready to sing this song, the Joy of the Lord. And I wanna pray. I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna pray. I'm gonna pray for all of us, pray a prayer over us

and it's simple. I'm just gonna pray that we can learn. To draw from the joy of the Lord to get our strength no matter what. No matter what. He holds the punchline. Even though the story isn't finished yet, he's read the last page. He knows how it works. So let's just pray together. Father, we just thank you, thank you, heavenly Father, that you love us, that you love us unconditionally, Lord, that we mess up and we make mistakes and we do things wrong.

But Lord, you are there to forgive us, Lord, if we open our heart and we are sovereignly and we come to you and ask for forgiveness. Lord, you are ready to give us a clean slate. And Lord, we thank you for that. You're an amazing guide for doing that, Lord. Thank you. And Lord, we just want to right now, Lord, we want to just focus, focus on the victory dance, but we wanna focus on the end and know that you are the one who brings us there, who carries us there, who gives us the strength to get there.

And Lord, we wanna draw from your joy this morning, your hilarious joy. Lord, we wanna bring laughter and joy and funniness Lord, into our lives and all along, just to have you as our focus to know that it all comes from you and that you are our mighty God. And so, father, I pray for each and every one of us here, pray for each and every family and household represented here, Lord, that there will be joy unspeakable in those households.

And Lord, we just pray as we go out into our worlds or that we can be a witness by carrying you. And Lord, we just ask for that right now as we tap into the joy that is our strength, and we pray these things in Jesus mighty name and everybody said, amen.