Sermon preached at Our Savior for the 10th Sunday after Pentecost on Sunday, August 1, 2010. Sermon text: Genesis 18:1-14
They say laughter is the best medicine. Do you think that's true? Laughter can definitely be a good. It's hard to think of many sounds better than the laughter of children. When 
The Bible mentions that laughing will be a common occurrence in our lives. In Ecclesiastes it says there's a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance. (Ecc. 3:4) Even though there aren't any Bible verses that mention Jesus laughing, I'm sure he did. I like it when you see paintings of Jesus laughing; it's nice to see him with joy and a smile on his face and not always looking extra serious.
But I'm sure you all know that it's not always the right time for laughing. Kids, if you're being disciplined by a parent or teacher, do not start laughing. They will get very angry. Everyone else, if you're in court, and the prosecuting attorney is asking you very serious questions about where you were when a crime occurred, don't start laughing. It won't look good. And when God makes you a promise, when he comes to you with all his undeserved love for you, don't laugh it off. Don't treat it like it's not important. Don't refuse to believe it.
You might be thinking, "No! It wouldn't happen; I would never laugh in God's face!" But it happens. It happened in our text from Genesis today when Sarah laughed at God. And it could happen in your life, too. God has so many gifts of his grace that he constantly wants to give us. And when we don't think those gifts are important, or when we don't believe God could really give them to us, we might as well be laughing in his face. But God's grace is real! It's for you! He has done everything you need! You can always count on that. Because of that, God's grace is no laughing matter. He comes to visit us, and he keeps his promises.
Our text starts with God himself coming to visit Abraham. The Lord appeared to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day. (Gen. 18:1) Usually when we hear about God appearing to someone in the Bible, we picture something really spectacular. Remember, God appeared to Moses in the burning bush. Several other times God would appear to people in a dream or a vision of some sort. It was either impressive, or mysterious, or at least out of the ordinary.
But this appearance to Abraham was different. Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby. When he saw them, he hurried from the entrance of his tent to meet them. (Gen. 18:2) This appearance of God was so different because it didn't really look like God. From what we can tell, Abraham at first had no idea that these three men were God himself along with two angels. They didn't look spectacular; they weren't glowing. These were three plain-looking men.
We're not sure when exactly Abraham figured out who these men were. But any confusion he might have had didn't stop him from serving them quickly. As soon as he saw them, Abraham said to them, If I have found favor in your eyes, my lord, do not pass your servant by. Let a little water be brought, and then you may all wash your feet and rest under this tree. Let me get you something to eat, so you can be refreshed and then go on your way -- now that you have come to your servant. (Gen. 18:3-5)
And he's not all talk, either. After he said this, Abraham jumped into action. Sarah made some bread, while Abraham picked out a nice veal dinner for his guests, added a little milk, and voilà, the perfect meal was ready! (Gen. 18:6-8) You might be wondering why Abraham and his wife Sarah went to all this trouble for three strangers. Well, the ancient world usually took hospitality very seriously. Treating a guest poorly was considered shameful, and people would commonly do all they could to welcome anyone who came to visit.
Of course, this was God himself, plus two angels, visiting Abraham. We don't know when Abraham figured out who they were, but if he knew it was God, you can imagine he'd want to do as good a job as he could in preparing the meal. Martha certainly got worked up over the meal for Jesus in today's Gospel. (Lk. 10:38-42)
You'd definitely want to give God your best if he came to visit you, right? You'd do anything you could for him! But here's the thing: God does come to visit us. And kind of like with Abraham, God doesn't visit us in a way that looks spectacular. There's no bolts of lightning, no bright angelic visions. God doesn't require us to climb some high mountain or make a pilgrimage to some holy place for him to visit us. No, as the book of Deuteronomy puts it, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart. (Dt. 30:14)
God comes to us and visits us in his Word! What grace, what undeserved love for us that God would speak to us in the Bible! And that's exactly what he does. This whole service has been talking about how important God's Word is, and now we start to see very clearly why it's so important. In the Bible God is visiting us and giving us his grace.
And God's grace is no laughing matter. The Bible, even if it is the "best-selling book of all time," probably doesn't impress us all that much. We're used to it. Some parts might even seem kind of boring to us. So we think, "what's the big deal!" We practically laugh at it. But God's grace is no laughing matter.
How we treat God's Word says something about how we treat God. If we treasure it, read it, study it, come to a worship service to hear it, if we obey it...it all shows our relationship to God. When we don't find any of those things important, well, maybe we don't think God or any of the things he does for us are all that important either.
The more we think about that, the more we realize that God's grace really is his undeserved love for us. We don't deserve any good thing from him! We deserve eternal death! But, instead, he gives us his grace. He comes to visit us.
That's really what is going on when we have a worship service. We might think of a worship service as something we do for God. And sure, we do some things for God in a worship service. We praise him, we pray to him, we pay attention, we drag our lazy selves out of bed and to church. Those things are all well and good, and we should do those things. But those things are not the center and main point of a worship service.
No, the main point of a worship service is God coming to us, visiting us in his Word. His Word of grace comes to us in the parts of the liturgy, in the songs and hymns we sing, in the scripture readings, in the sermon. And the main point of all of those things is the message of God's Word that God loved us so much that he sent his one and only Son Jesus, who came and rescued us from sin, death, and hell forever. That's the center of a worship service. Then, if you add water to God's Word, you get baptism, where God washes our sins away and makes us his own and gives the Holy Spirit to kindle faith in our hearts. If you add bread and wine to God's Word, you get the Lord's Supper, where, again, God comes to us with the body and blood of Jesus, where he forgives us, where he strengthens our faith.
Yes, God's grace to us, God's visiting us with his grace, God's Word, is the center of our worship service. And that's appropriate when we remember that the Word incarnate, Jesus God's Son our Savior himself, is the center of all things in our world. It was he that God sent to save us. It was he who accomplished our salvation once and for all when he cried "it is finished" (Jn. 19:30) from the cross. In Jesus we find the true grace and love of God.
And it is the promise of that Savior that our text ends with. The three men, who were really God and two angels, had just finished their meal, when God said to Abraham. I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son. (Gen. 18:10)
Now, if you're really paying attention, you might say, "Wait a minute pastor, God was talking about Isaac in this passage, not Jesus." And you're right. This passage does promise that Isaac would be born. But God had already promised Abraham that the Savior would come through his line, that all nations would be blessed through him. (Gen. 12:3, 18:18, 22:18, 26:4) So this promise to Abraham that Isaac would be born was really a promise that Jesus would be born.
But there was a problem. Abraham and Sarah were already old and well advanced in years, and Sarah was past the age of childbearing. So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, "After I am worn out and my master is old, will I now have this pleasure?" (Gen. 18:11-12) Abraham and Sarah were old! Sarah could not physically have kids anymore! These were not the days of surgery and fertility treatments and surrogate mothers. Sarah was about 90 years old at this time!
So she laughed. She laughed at God's promise of a son, and, by extension, his promise of a Savior. God's grace is no laughing matter. He is God himself, who made all things, couldn't he do something like this? As he says in our text, Is anything too hard for the Lord? (Gen. 18:14) I find it interesting that God used another "impossible" birth, the virgin birth, when he finally did send his one and only Son.
Now, Sarah did eventually believe God. (She didn't have much choice once the baby was born!) But we wonder why she didn't believe it here. After all, she wanted a baby more than anything. She wanted one so much she had Abraham have a kid with her servant Hagar because she figured that was the next best thing. But a child of her own? She had given up on that. So she laughed at God's promise.
Friends, don't laugh at God's promises; he keeps every one of them. But that's the problem with sinful people like you and me: we forget God's promises so easily. God promises to be with us; we worry endlessly and complain that God doesn't love us when things go wrong. God tells us to pray to him and promises he will hear and answer us; we treat prayer as a last resort and even then doubt it will work. God promises he will use our troubles for our good; we look on our troubles as a curse and use them as a reason to be angry at God.
God's grace is no laughing matter. He keeps all his promises. But we have often laughed at them, shrugged them off, or flat out not believed them. But you know what the neat thing is? God's promises don't depend on us! His promises don't become null and void just because we sin. It's because we sin that we need God's promises!
So look to his promises, friends. Look at his promises and trust them. When you go through troubles, run to God's promise to be with you, and then rejoice that he is with you! When you are in need, remember God has promised to hear your prayers, so pray to him! When you feel the weight of your sins, run to God's promise that your sins are forgiven in Christ! When you are dying, run to God's promise that death is not the end, that because Jesus lives we will live with him forever!
God's grace is no laughing matter. But not all laughter is bad, remember. Someday we will laugh at all of God's promises, but not a laughter of unbelief or laughter of making fun of him. No, we won't be able to stop ourselves from laughing in pure joy that our God has rescued us, that he gave us life forever! We will laugh in joy for all time because of God's undeserved love, his grace, for us.
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