Thursday, September 14th | Laughter Sermon Recap

Well, today is Thursday, September the 14th. I'm Jon Galantis.

And I'm Elly Galantis. And you are listening to Clearview Today with Dr. Abbadon Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can find us online at ClearviewTodaysShow.com. Or if you have a question for Dr. Shah, anything you'd like to write in or suggest we talk about, send us a text at 252-582-5028. You can also email us at contact at ClearviewTodaysShow.com. You can help us keep the conversation going by supporting the show.

You can share it online, leave us a good review on iTunes or Spotify, anywhere you get your podcasting content from. We're going to leave a link in the description so you can do just that. And today's verse of the day is coming to us from Job chapter eight and verse nine. For we were born yesterday and know nothing because our days on earth are a shadow. Yeah, no, I mean, I mean, just shows that we're only here for, I mean, maybe a hundred years, if that, if that, what is that to God? Yeah. Yeah.

What is that on the lip of a timeline? Yeah. I mean, like in the, in the wake of eternity, a hundred years, I mean, even a hundred years is like, that's generous. Let's say we even just have 70. I think even Moses says it, it's all nineties. Like our, our days are 70, maybe 80 years compared to God.

That's nothing. And I like his response in that to teach us to number our days. Yeah. Yeah. And I like the, you have to teach us. It's not something that we, we always think we have more time, you know? Yeah.

I really love, I love when y'all do that song in particular on the worship team. It's just, it's just always one. And so it's a good reminder. Because in the busy-ness of life, you just, you just keep going and doing whatever you've got going on in life and you don't stop to think, Oh, we're only here for a short, short bit of time. Yeah.

Yeah. Especially in those formative years when like Ellie and I both have small children now. And so life is like whizzing by and if you're not careful, you'll miss it.

And I think that it'll pass you right by. And that's, that's one of those things that you have to learn. It's not natural to number your days.

And I love that prayer that Moses makes is teach us to number our days on earth. You know, I actually had, this is, this is a huge departure, but I had someone write into the show today. A while back we did it. We had, I can't remember if this person, it was someone else wrote in and was like, what's your most irrational fear? We got a, we got a, a text today to the number from Dane S here in North Carolina.

I'm still catching up on podcast episodes. So this response is very late and irrational fear I had from when I was, from when I was little was a fear of flush. Hold on. And irrational fear I had from when I was little was a fear of flushing the toilet after my first run in with a clogged toilet with a clogged toilet overflowing onto the floor and seeing my parents panic, trying to stop it from getting worse. My child brain assumed the panic was hard. My child brain assumed the panic was from a place of fear and that we were, do you, do I need to read it? My child brain assumed the panic was from a place of fear and that we were in danger. And if it overflowed too much, it would flood the house and we'd all drown. Love Dane S. He thought it was just going to keep overflowing and they were just going to be like, in the ceiling. They're always like toilet water and they're at the ceiling like trying to catch all that breath. Did you have any irrational fears when you were a kid?

So I didn't really think about this cause it didn't immediately come to you, but, um, I'll have to give one of them first, just while we're on the subject of water. It was, I was really scared of diving into a pool and I still kind of am. I was going to say why do you mean you were?

I still am. She's 30 and I cannot get her to dive. I can't get her to dive at all. Now, disclaimer, I'm not scared of water. I'm not scared of swimming.

Just that particular action of diving into the pool. You don't want your head below your feet. No, I don't want water going up my nose. I don't want water rushing, rushing all up my nose. Why don't you blow out?

I could never master all that. Can you master blowing? Can you blow out of your nose right now?

If I'm swimming, yes, but I don't know. Diving just every time I end up with a mouthful of water from where it went up my nose. That that's why to this day, that's the reason I hold my nose when I go under water now.

That's true. That I did know about her. She, she will not dive for any reason. If she goes under water, she, it's always like, and I'm like, babe, just, just, you can blow out and it won't go up your nose. I didn't used to hold my nose though.

It was from where my dad was trying to teach me to dive and he did it so much that I just, that became what I did. I hear you. I hear you. Another one I had is my parents, I don't know why they did this to me as a child scarring me for life, but they told me that the boogeyman lived in storm drains. Why?

I don't know. Were they scared you were going to go down there? I guess they were scared I was going to stick my foot in it or something. There was one in particular I remember we, we, we had a pediatrician in a couple of towns over about an hour and away that we went to and there was always one right there in that lot that you could see. And they always told me in that particular one, the boogeyman was just down there, bro. I bet. Are you still scared of storm drains today?

No, no. But when you pass them as a, as a kid, what did the boogeyman look like in your mind? Like what did, what did that look like? I don't even know. I guess just darkness with like a pair of eyes.

Just like a big swirling cloud. Something like that. I just pictured the boogeyman as Frieza from Dragon Ball Z. He had like the horns, like Frieza's first form. Horns? Yeah. I'll put a picture of it right here in the video. I mean, I know what Frieza looks like.

Yeah, but the, the viewers might not. This is Frieza from Dragon Ball Z. And that's, that's always what I thought the boogeyman looked like. He had the horns, like the big horns that come out like this. And he had that just mean scowly face. I don't think I, I don't think I thought too much about what he looked like. It was just darkness with eyes. Yeah.

You didn't want him to, you didn't want him anywhere near you. I hear you. I hear you. We're going to start the show in just a moment.

Why don't you guys write in, let us know what your irrational fears were. Thank you Dane S for writing in by the way. We're going to start in just a second, but if you have any questions or suggestions for new topics, you can text us at 252-582-5028, or you can visit us online at ClearViewTodayShow.com.

We'll be right back after this. Well, good morning, afternoon, evening, Clear View Today listeners. My name is Jon. And I'm David. And we just want to take a quick second and let you know about another way that you can keep in touch with Dr. Shah's work.

And that is his weekly podcast series Sermons by Avidan Shah, PhD. As a lot of you may know, or maybe some of you don't know. If you don't know, you do now. And if you don't know, then maybe just hop off the podcast. David, hop off the podcast.

I'm just playing. Keep listening. Dr. Shah is actually the lead pastor of Clear View Church in North Carolina. Every single weekend, he preaches expository messages that challenge and inspire us to live God honoring lives. One of the four core values of Clear View Church is that we're a Bible believing church. So every sermon is coming directly from scripture, which is great because that guarantees that there are timeless truths that are constantly applicable to our lives. This is a great resource because whether you're driving, whether you're cleaning the house, whether you're working out, you can always benefit from hearing the word of God spoken into your life. And God's word is always going to do something new for you every time you hear it.

Sometimes it's conviction and sometimes it's encouragement. But know that every time you listen to God's word, you're inviting the Holy Spirit to move and work in your life. You guys can check out the Sermons by Abbadon Shah PhD podcast. First and foremost, check it out on our church app. That's the Clear View app. You can get that in the Google Play Store. You can get that on iTunes, but you can also find the podcast on the Apple Podcast app or on our website at ClearViewBC.org. And listen, if you've got a little extra time on your hands, you just want to do some further reading, you can also read the transcripts of those sermons.

Those are available on Dr. Shah's website, AbbadonShah.com. And we're going to leave you guys a little link in the description so you can follow it. But for right now, David, let's hop back in. Welcome back to Clear View Today, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can visit us online at ClearViewTodayShow.com. If you have a question for Dr. Shah, anything you'd like to write in, suggest we talk about here on the show, send us a text at 252-582-5028.

You can also email us at contact at ClearViewTodayShow.com. I'm here with my wife, Ellie. Good to see you. A lot of you guys may or may not know, if you don't know, you certainly know now, Dr. Shah is not here. Him and Ryan and the rest of the staff are in Greece.

And last time he was in India, we had the show must go on. So what we did was Ryan and I listened to a bunch of his sermons, sermons that we felt like had impacted us, sermons that we felt like really spoke to where we are as a church and where we are kind of in the world today. So Ellie, I asked my beautiful wife, who is subbing in for Ryan this week, who also went to Greece, to pick out four of her favorite sermons. And so that's kind of what this week is. These are sermons that have kind of touched you and impacted you as well.

So that's what we're going to do. We're going to listen to, this is one that I think he preached in 2022. It was around November, December of 2022.

2022. This one is in our Man of Promise series called Laughter. I love that series. Great series.

I could have picked all of them, but I chose one. Yeah, it was a series about seeing Christ in the Old Testament specifically through the story of Abraham. Laughter was a sermon series that was part of a larger series called Echoes, which is about to be turned into a book that is coming out very, very soon. So the series or this sermon is called Laughter. So let's begin with the first laughter, which is found in Genesis chapter 17 and verse one. We read Genesis 17, 17, but back up to verse one. When Abraham was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to Abraham and said to him, I am almighty. God walked before me and be blameless.

I will make my covenant between me and you will multiply you exceedingly. Then Abraham fell on his face. How old is he?

99. He falls on his face. God talked with him saying, as for me, behold, my covenant is with you and you shall be a father of many nations. Does he have any reason to laugh? Of course not. Why? Because, yeah, he has a son named Ishmael. So what he is thinking is, yeah, of course, you know, this kid that I have through Hagar and not Sarah, but yeah. Okay. I'm going to be a father of many nations.

Okay. Verse five. No longer shall your name be Abram. Abram meant either he is exalted as to his father or the father is exalted. Either way, it implied that he was of noble birth. You know, sometimes when you read the Bible and we don't look at extra biblical sources, we think Abram, Sarah were just some ordinary people moving about.

No, they were kings and queens. In ancient biblical literature, we find that information. Abram even had the title of king of Damascus. But nonetheless, here's a name change. But your name shall be Abraham, which literally means the father of a multitude. Now I know the Bible says here, father of many nations, because it is connected to another name of Hamon, which means multitude of nations. So when God changed his name, it was not as much etymological, like this is exactly word for word. It's more the idea behind it. You will be a father of many nations.

Nothing to laugh about. God goes on to say in verse six, I will make you exceedingly fruitful and I will make nations of you and kings shall come from you. I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants.

Now go to verse 10. This is my covenant which you shall keep between me and you and your descendants after you. Every male child among you shall be circumcised. Okay God, Ishmael and his children and whatever, we're gonna take care of that, okay?

All the male will be circumcised. But now there is a shift towards Sarai. Listen to Genesis 17 15. Then God said to Abraham, ask for Sarai your wife. Sarai in the Hebrew means my princess. As to Sarah your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah. No longer she will be your princess or maybe her dad gave her that name my princess, but now she will be the princess.

Sarah means the princess. And I will bless her and also give you a son by her. Then I will bless her and she shall be a mother of nations.

Kings of people shall be from her. What is Abraham's reaction? He fell on his face and laughed. The laughter of incongruity. What he is seeing is his 90 year old wife and he's going, just like the clown suit on me made you laugh. She's like, it's not happening. And he's like, some of you are laughing, but you're scared to laugh because you're talking about women and age, okay?

I get it. See, now you're laughing. He is laughing because he's thinking, I don't think you know her and I don't think you realize how old she is. He laughed and said in his heart, shall a child be born to a man who is 100 years old and shall Sarah who is 90 years old, I'll call you her Sarah, not bear a child? You see, this was a laughter of uncommon mixture of relations.

It was a laughter of unbelief. How about Hagar? In fact, he does tell God in verse 18, and Abraham said to God, oh, that Ishmael might live before you. Can we not just bless Ishmael?

Can we not just go with him? Because it's kind of funny that my 90 year old wife will get pregnant and go through pregnancy and all the trimesters and all that. God, it's kind of funny. What is God's response? No. Genesis 17, verse 19, God said, no, Sarah, your wife shall bear you a son and you shall call his name.

What's the name? Isaac. By the way, do you know that in the Hebrew, the word for laughter is Yitzchak, which is the same as Isaac. You know, sometimes God takes the messes we have made in our lives, bad decisions, bad memories, those valleys, and we think if I can just get that behind me, I got to get that behind me. God says, you don't have to get that behind you.

I can take that and bring it back and use it for something good. You're laughing? You're laughing because of unbelief?

Well, how about this? Here's something funny. You're going to have a child, you're going to call his name Laughter.

Okay. Let me ask you that question before we go to the second laughter. Do you have the laughter of unbelief in your life?

Whether you hear a message like this or read a book or read the Bible and God begins to tell you this is going to happen in your life, I have good days ahead, and you just have a laughter of unbelief. Not me. Somebody else maybe, but not me.

Maybe them. And you laugh. It's not like you're angry with God. It's not like you don't believe in God. It's just the laughter of unbelief because you think your time is gone. I'm going to tell you on the authority of God's Word, in God's timing, He will answer your promises that you're holding onto.

Trust Him. He will answer your prayers. But for now, this was the laughter of incongruity. But here comes the second laughter which happens in Genesis chapter 18. So turn your Bibles over to the next chapter.

Here's laughter number two. Then the Lord appeared to him, to Abraham, by the terebinth trees of Mamre. Terebinth are like oak trees. As he was sitting in the tent door in the heat of the day. Now, coming from India, India is not like Israel. It's not desert and all that. But still, heat of the day is somewhere between 1230 to about three or four o'clock in the summertime. You don't go outside. You come home from school, whatever, and you stay indoors. It's siesta. It's whatever you want to do, but you stay indoors. People, when they go outside in May and June, they get sunstroke.

Just like that, they hit the ground and die. And I don't know who came up with this idea, but if you carry an onion in your pocket, you'll be safe. So a lot of people walk around with onions in their pocket.

I did too. My grandmother's like, take that onion. I was like, why?

This is going to keep you safe. So we had some onion in our pocket. It just smelled pretty bad. But anyways, but that's, that's the heat of the day. So, so here he is sitting by the tent door. Some old wag on the way out said, you know, there's a reason why he was sitting at the tent door. He want to go inside because Sarah was in there. But anyways, that's kind of mean.

That's, that's the aggressive humor. So he's sitting at the tent door in the heat of the day. Nobody should be out there. He lifted his eyes and looked and behold, three men were standing by him. There's a reason why the Bible gives us these details. If no one is supposed to be out there, these three out there means this. They are not ordinary men.

In fact, they are supernatural. Two of them are angels and one is the preincarnate Jesus. So he is sitting there by the tent door in the heat of the day. He sees these three men. When he saw them, he what?

He ran from the tent door to meet them. He knows something is up. What is up? Could it be that what God promised is about to happen? Now I want to give you a statement. Here's a statement.

I hope he'll take it with you. And it's this. Hope has a way of bringing life where there is death. It's a simple statement.

Nothing too complex about it. Hope. You know what hope means? That there is a better day coming. Hope means that God will fulfill what he has promised. Hope means that you will not forever live in sorrow and pain.

Hope means that not everything has to be my best days are over. How old is Abraham? Oh my gosh. How old is Abraham? 99 years old. This is an involved message.

If you don't, I don't know, find somewhere to listen. He's 99 years old and he is running. This is what happens when you have hope come back into your life. You begin to have passion. You begin to have joy.

You run and he is running and he runs to these three. And listen to what he says in verse three and said, my Lord, if I have found favor in your side, do not pass on by your servant. Please let a little water be brought. Wash your feet and rest yourselves under the tree. Why under the tree?

Because it's too hot in the tent. And I will bring a morsel of bread that you may refresh your hearts. After that you may pass by in as much as you have come to your servant. And they said, do as you have said. They're here on a mission.

The mission is this. The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, the sin has come up to God. What is their sin?

The same sin we're struggling with today, homosexuality. And God has heard it. God has seen it. He has come to investigate and give them one more chance before he will destroy everything.

But there is a little side detour they have to make. So they come to Abraham and Sarah. Now listen to what happens in verse six. This is Genesis 18. So Abraham hurried into the tent.

I mean he is, everything is fast paced now. To Sarah and said, quickly make ready three measures of fine meal needed and make cakes. And Abraham ran to the herd, took a tender and good calf, gave it to a young man. And he what? He hastened to prepare it. So he took butter and milk and the calf which he had prepared and set it before them.

And he stood by them under the tree as they ate. This is hospitality. But where I grew up with my mom and dad, we had missionaries come through our home all the time.

All the time. They were from America, they were from Canada, Sweden, Germany, Philippines, Africa. They were always, because they knew my dad was a pastor himself, a missionary. So our door was always open.

It was not unusual for me to come home from school and find somebody lying in my bed. It was not unusual to have guests on the dining table. And by the way, we have lost that, that sense of hospitality. Now if somebody wants to take somebody for dinner, it's like let's take them out.

Let's take them out where we don't have to worry about anything. There's something special we have lost, especially in the American culture of bringing somebody in your home. When they come into your home, that's when there is blessing. When they come into your home, that's where you get to interact. I'm standing here doing all this because I was prepared all those years. Some of these missionaries were academics with PhDs from Oxford and Cambridge, Bible translators, and I'm sitting next to them. So this doesn't just happen. It's because through the years of my parents, my mom, my dad opening our doors and inviting people in, not only were they blessed, but they blessed me in the process. And Abraham, he doesn't sit with them, he stands.

Why? Because there's a sense of anticipation there. But now listen to the conversation in verse 9. Then they said to him, where is Sarah, your wife? So he said here in the tent, keep in mind these are massive tents separated by curtains.

So she is standing behind the curtain. And he said, I will certainly return to you according to the time of life. And behold, Sarah, your wife shall have a son. Sarah was listening in the tent door, which was behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, well advanced in age, and Sarah had passed the age of childbearing. Therefore Sarah, what? Yitzchak. She laughed.

Now here's a question for you. What kind of a laughter was it? It was not a laughter of unbelief. This is a laughter of ambivalence where it's coming out of guilt and remorse and a little bit of anger too. I think it's something that's really, really relatable. This kind of laughter, not necessarily of I don't believe this is going to happen, but just this emotion coming out of us that a lot of times I think we try to put in its place, put in its proper place in our minds, and yet at all the wrong times it comes out. Like imagine laughing like that in the presence of God. Granted, she had no reason to think that those three men were anything other than men, but I think it's in those moments where we feel like we're safe or we feel like we're, I don't know, justified in letting those emotions come out that we really kind of expose who we truly are and where our belief in God actually lies.

Yeah, I agree, because never will we intentionally do that. It's just something that, like you said, just comes out. We don't mean to laugh and doubt God, but it just kind of shows what we're actually thinking. This sermon in particular, kind of shifting from that slightly, it really spoke to me because at the time that Pastor Sean was preaching this, I was pregnant with our second son. And not only that, but we had a hard time conceiving our first son.

That's true. So I really resonated a lot with Abraham and Sarah and their story. So this series, Man of Promise, not just Laughter, but it just really spoke to me a lot. Just from our personal circumstances and where we fell in life. I'm glad you picked this one to talk about because that is true.

I remember the frustration of trying to have Gavin and trying to get pregnant for the first time and just nothing happening. And then your faith starts to waver and then you start to question things and then you start to overthink. And then you start, if you really go off the deep end, you start trying to do something silly like Abraham.

Not seeing us as Christians, but just people. You're like, okay, I want to have a kid. Abraham was in the same thing. Like, I got to get my wife's hand servant pregnant.

Sarah was like, yeah, okay, go ahead. They took matters into their own hands. You know what I mean?

You start getting desperate and clinging for ideas or trying to work it out in your mind or seeing how you can fix this problem and take it into your own hands. But really, we're not called to do that. We're called to just wait on God's timing. I think his changing of Abraham's name is sort of like a reflection of his new purpose in life. Even with Sarah, when Dr. Shaw was talking about Sarah, he was like, my princess.

My princess to the princess. That was another thing that stuck out to me a lot too in that series was Abraham or Abram thought that the promise was only supposed to come through him, but that wasn't the case. Sarah was just as much a part of that as he was. And sometimes I think, I've been there and I'm sure other women have too, but sometimes you think, especially with us being in ministry, you think, oh, well, my husband's called to do this. It's like, no, we're both called to do this.

We may do it in slightly different ways, but we're both called to further the gospel and be in ministry. Yeah. You get that kind of pastor's wife syndrome where I'm the pastor's wife or I'm the worship wife. I'll just kind of fade to the background and this is my husband's job or this is this, et cetera.

Yeah. It's one of those kind of insecurities that I think a lot of women have. And it even comes from Sarah where her role does get overlooked a lot of times in the shadow of Abraham's glory. And I say glory with a small g there, but what I mean is her identity and Abraham's identity, when he changes their names, their identity is now rooted in what they're going to do for God. Like, okay, you're going to be the father of nations.

You're going to be the mother of nations. Your identity is now what you're going to do for my kingdom. Whereas our identity is rooted in what Christ has already done.

He's already done it. So when we say our identity is in Christ, he's already accomplished everything. So I guess for us it's really an easier time because we have his grace and we have the light of the cross 2,000 years ago. And it's one of those things I think with Abraham, if you even look in Romans four, there's a passage in Romans four that kind of talks about this. In Romans four, starting in verse 19, no actually starting verse 18, this is Paul writing, against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations.

There's a, there's a cause and effect there. He in hope he believed and so he became the father of many nations just as it had been said to him, so shall your offspring be. Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead since he was about a hundred years old and Sarah's womb was also dead. Yet, this is verse 20, he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God being fully persuaded that God had the power to do what he had promised. And I don't know about you, but that's what I want for my life.

He hoped, he believed and it came to be. Great sermon. Really, really recommend that you guys check it out. If you have any questions or any topics that you want us to talk about here on the Clearview Today Show, make sure you send us a text at 252-582-5028. You can also visit us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com and don't forget you can support us financially on that same website as well. Every single gift or every single donation you make helps make this radio show possible and we want to take the name of Jesus Christ as far as we possibly can. Thank you so much for all of your gifts, all of your donations so far. Again, that's ClearviewTodayShow.com. We love you guys and we'll talk to you tomorrow on Clearview Today.