You cry alone. You laugh with others.

Steve Brown:
You cry alone. You laugh with others. Let’s talk about it, on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
Key Life is all about God’s radical grace. Grace that has dirt under its fingernails and laugh lines on its face. If you want the Bible to be a book of rules, you may want to stop listening now. But if you’re hungry for the truth that’ll make you free, welcome to Key Life.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. Hope you guys had a great week-end, and I hope your pastor’s sermon was as good as my pastor’s sermon. If it was, tell him so. I think I’ve told you that I go to places to speak, and it’s gotten so it’s regular. It happens all the time, people come up to me and say, hey, Brown, my pastor’s sermon last Sunday was better than your pastor’s sermon. I’m trying to start a movement of encouragement for pastors. But at any rate, if you’re just joining us, we’re studying the Book of Philippians and I’m your tour guide. And I’ll be pointing out some interesting sites as we go along. But first let’s pray and then we’ll study. Father, we come into your presence and we come here with joy, joy that we didn’t earn, joy that we didn’t go through five steps to achieve, joy that you have given as your gift to your own. Father, teach us to cry in the right way, but teach us to laugh so that the world may hear the laughter of the redeemed. Father, you know everybody who’s listening to this broadcast, and you know the hard and the soft places, and you’re in charge of both. Teach us to lean on you, and to lean on you hard. And as always, Father, we pray for the one who teaches on this broadcast, that you would forgive him his sins, because there are many. We would see Jesus and him only, and we pray in Jesus’ Name. Amen. If you were listening yesterday or last week when we ended this study on Thursday and then we did question and answer with Pete on Friday, but on Thursday I introduced this idea of joy that is found within the entire Bible. I pointed out that I got out my Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance and my Young’s Analytical Concordance, and I thought what I’ll do is that I’ll count the number of times that joy or rejoice is used in the Bible. And then I’d come on this broadcast and impress you by the fact that I knew how many times in the Bible the word joy or rejoice is used. But I gave it up, there were too many to count. There really are. It’s everywhere. There are hundreds and hundreds. In fact, as you read the Bible, you begin to see that it’s embedded into the very nature of creation. We saw that the Scripture says the morning stars sing together.

The trees clap their hands. Hills dance like lambs.

E. Stanley Jones spoke of his conversion and he says this.

When I became a Christian, I wanted to throw my arms around the world and laugh and share what I had found. A few minutes before, I had no such desire for I had nothing to share.

In Pilgrim’s Progress, there’s this wonderful scene where Mercy is laughing in her sleep. I may have told you this, it’s one of my favorite stories, and Mercy’s laughing in her sleep. And Christiana asked her the reason for her merriment. And she says.

That the night before, she dreamed that she was being held in derision. And she was dressed in rags and dirty, and she looked down and she was dressed in silver and gold and was ushered into the throne room of the universe where she heard a voice. And the voice said, Welcome daughter, welcome. And I awoke, but I did laugh, and laugh, and laugh.

Someone told me about a speaker who said to a congregation.

That a lot of the people who became Christians start looking like prunes or like they were drinking lemon juice.

And he said.

That means it wasn’t real.

I can tell you the spiritual temperature of a congregation by how much laughter there is in the, I really can. I go to a lot of strange places where I’ve never been before. I speak in churches that I have never attended and conferences where I don’t know anybody. But I always listen for the laughter. And if I hear the laughter, I know that the time is going to be complete because Jesus will be there. And if they look like they’ve been drinking lemon juice, I also know that Jesus has left the building, or maybe persimmon juice. Fred Smith, my late mentor, used to tell a story about a small Baptist church who had read in the Bible that Jesus had used wine in the Last Supper. And they decided they had been using grape juice, that they ought to be using wine. But nobody knew where to even find wine except one lady who said, I have two sisters and they make persimmon wine. And so, the pastor said, bring it next Sunday and we’ll celebrate communion with real wine, and so they did. They took the bread and drank the persimmon wine and Fred would laugh and say at the end of the service. The pastor got up and said, go in peace, and we will whistle the doxology. Lemon juice, persimmon juice, that’s not Jesus. When Jesus is present, there is laughter. There are a lot of things interesting about this text that we’re looking at, from Philippians 1: verses 18 through 26. And the first thing and, well, there are six facts and what I’m going to do is just simply share those facts with you. So, without further chitchat, let’s dig in. First, I want you to note in the text that joy comes from knowing the powerlessness of isolation. Look at Philippians 1:19.

For I know that through your prayers and the help given by the Spirit of Jesus Christ what has happened to me will turn out for my deliverance.

Philippians 1:26

So that through my being with you again, your joy in Christ Jesus, will overflow on account of me.

Listen, you cry when you’re alone, you laugh when you’re with other people. You know my natural proclivity, I’m a loner. I really am, I could be a Trappist monk if they would let me bring my wife, but they won’t. And I manifested that as a pastor for a very long time. One of the people in our church referred to another staff member and said, he loves us, steve teaches us. And I was coming out of the church one Wednesday night after a service and a young lady was talking to a young man and said, Pastor, could I talk to you for a minute? And she introduced me to her friend and she said, my friend says nobody spoke to him tonight when he came to the service. And I told him, we don’t come here to be spoken to, we come here to be taught. That was right, wasn’t it? And I thought, no, that’s not right. And I laughed, and I said, I’ll speak to you the next time. I got in the car as I was driving home. I said to Jesus, and I say it very often, something’s wrong with me, and you’ve got to fix it. I’m sour, but I’m clear. I don’t laugh very much, but as a matter of fact, I teach your word and your doctrine properly. But there’s, but I don’t care about people. And as a result, there’s not much laughter in my ministry. And God put God’s people on my heart, and it changed everything. Do you know the thing that it changed the most? It was the freedom of laughter that takes place when God’s people get together. Let me tell you something interesting about rhinoceroses, if you’ve ever seen them, and I did in Africa. They are in the water because they’re so fat. That’s true. I mean, they can’t support that much weight, and so they go into the water and you can see them there. But there’s an interesting thing that happens. There’s a small bird that has made a deal with a rhinoceros in God’s economy. Whenever you see a rhino, you see the birds on their backs and the birds and insects, warn of danger that rhino is free from itching. It takes others, doesn’t it? To laugh. You think about that. Amen.

Matthew Porter:
Thanks Steve. That was Steve Brown resuming our tour through the Book of Philippians. Today, looking at some facts from Philippians 1:16 through 26. And tomorrow we’ll dive back into our study with a look at our circumstances and how we should view them. Well, you and I both know that we fall short of God’s standards. All of us. We even fall short of our own expectations. We’re called to radical obedience, but why do we struggle so much? Why do we feel guilty? Well, the fact is we are weak and needy people, and so when we run to Jesus, we find the power we lack. Well, Steve spoke about this in a powerful message called, When Being Bad Isn’t Bad Enough. We’d love to send you that full sermon on CD for free. Just call us right now at 1-800-KEY-LIFE that’s 1-800-539-5433. You can also drop an e-mail to [email protected] to ask for that CD, to mail your request go to keylife.org/contact to find our mailing addresses. Again, just ask for the free CD called When Being Bad Isn’t Bad enough. And finally, did you know that you could support the work of Key Life through your giving? Just charge a gift on your credit card or include a gift in your envelope. Or you can pick up your phone and text Key Life to 28950 again, that’s Key Life, one word or two, just text that to 28950. And as always, if you can’t give right now, or maybe God’s just not telling you to do that, no worries. But please do pray for us, would you? Key Life is a member of ECFA in the States and CCCC in Canada. And we are a listener supported production of Key Life Network.