Verse by verse teaching - Proverbs 14:13 "When Laughter Cries"

All right, if you take God's precious word tonight and turn to the book of Proverbs, please. Proverbs chapter 14, verse 13, as we'll be expounding. Proverbs 14 verse 13. Katie, it's good to see you in church tonight. I miss you when you're not here. You need to be in church on Sunday. I miss you. Proverbs 14 verse 13. The title of the message tonight is When Laughter Cries. When Laughter Cries. Let's go ahead and read our verse tonight. The Bible says, even in laughter. The heart is sorrowful. In the end of that mirth is heaviness. Even in laughter, the heart is sorrowful, and the end of that mirth is heaviness Laughter is an amazing and unique gift that God has given people. There's no such thing as a laughing hyena. They don't laugh. What is laughter? I was thinking about laughter when I was preparing this message. And this is the way I would describe laughter to you. Laughter is like a balloon. When it pops. When I was studying for this message, I was in my study and I heard this wonderful sound coming from my living room or the kitchen probably and uh do you know what that sound was it was a sound of my wife laughing She must have seen I I still don't know what it was. She must have seen something maybe on the internet or something that caused her to laugh, to bust out laughing. But that's what we say. We say they they bursted out laughing. Isn't that what we say? And when I think about that, I think of laughter being like when a balloon pops. I heard her Burst out laughing, and when she burst out laughing, I was sitting there working on this message. She couldn't see me, and I had a big smile on my face. listening to my wife laugh in the kitchen. And this joy filled my heart and a big smile came on my face. But the difference between Tammy's laughter And the big smile on my face. There's the difference between a balloon being filled with air and a balloon that gains so much air that it can no longer contain itself and it finally pops. As a balloon bursts, so people burst out laughing. We become so full of playfulness or joy. You can't contain it any longer. And it just comes out in laughter. It's really a beautiful thing, you know, when you think about what laughter is. Being Crosby. Have you kids ever heard Bing Crosby sing? Okay. Bing Crosby explains singing in a similar way. He said singing is when you talk and then suddenly talking's not enough, and talking turns in to song, to singing. It's a form of extraordinary communication. And uh And so that's the way it is with us, when our heart is so full, again, of either joy or playfulness, then uh It pops with the sound of laughter. And the sound of laughter is a powerful expression of happiness. It's it's so powerful, in fact, that it I wonder if this has ever happened to you. Have you ever heard someone laughing? maybe in another room of the house or in another room of a building and they're laughing really hard. I'm not finished. The Bible says he that answereth the matter for he heareth it to him it is folly, Benjamin. So let me finish my question. And you hear them laughing really hard, and because you're unaware of the context, you can't discern whether they're in trouble. They're crying or they're laughing. That ever happened to any of y'all? Isn't that funny how that works that way? And so what do you do? You suddenly get real quiet and you listen. And then you go, oh, they're laughing. And suddenly everything's relief, right? They're they're laughing. They're having a good time and they're everything's okay. That's happened to probably most all of us. And um And when we hear them laughing, and we know they're laughing, then we go, they're okay. They're okay, they're having a good time. Laughter is the height. Of joy. But the Bible says, if you look in your text tonight, even in laughter. Now notice that Solomon didn't start off this verse by saying, in laughter. He started off the verse by saying, even in laughter, which tells us that laughter is the last place that you would expect to find sorrow. Normally you think, no, they're laughing, they're happy, everything's okay, but it's true. Even in a person's laughter, look back in your text, the heart. is sorrowful. The heart is sorrowful. Because we're made in the image of God, the human heart is far more complex than that of animals. I went outside one day and one of my chickens were was uh dead in the chicken coop, lying in the bottom of the coop and all of its fellow chickens were around it. And when I opened the door to that chicken coop to let the chickens out, there was no prayer meeting. There was no mourning for the dead. You know what those chickens wanted? It's ready to eat. There's a dead chicken mate in there. And they're just ready to eat. But uh our our our hearts are far more complex than that. We We understand that we're made in the image of God. And when a loved one passes away, Our heart is injured for the rest of our life. Don't y'all agree with that? Damaged for the rest of your life I was driving down the road the other day and I started thinking about my brother. And uh and I got sad And uh I thought, well, I'll see him soon. I'll see him soon. But our hearts injured the rest of our life, and that that sorrow will always be there. How many of y'all have laughed? How many of y'all have lost a very important loved one to you? How many of y'all have laughed since you lost that loved one? How many of y'all have not been able to? Anybody? You haven't been able to? Good. Good. The sorrow's always going to be there Nevertheless, we still have to work. We still have to think. We still have to problem solve the daily problems that come our way. We still have to plan. And hopefully, we still have to enjoy the remaining years that God's given us on this earth. Have a gentleman who lost his son not too long ago, but it's been a little bit now. It's been some time now. And he's still having a hard time overcoming that. Hard time. But the only way to retain the ability to laugh is if we do a certain thing we're going to be looking at tonight. And then we have to learn that even in that laughter, the Bible says the heart is sorrowful. We have to retain the ability to laugh even when we're crying on the inside. Otherwise, tragedy will control our life. We'll never overcome it. We'll live in constant state of depression. And God does not want you to live in a constant state of depression. Jesus said, My joy I leave with you. Not as the world gives. But Jesus gives us his joy. Did you know that the Bible says that Jesus had a joyful hope when he went to the cross. The Bible says for the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross. That's incredible. But God wants us to be able to laugh. He wants us to have joy. God has given our hearts great awareness, great capacity, and great complexity. And some people are so injured by deep personal sorrow that they find it hard to laugh and smile again And maybe they've gone two or three years. Maybe if you're listening online tonight, you've gone a long time and you've lost your laugh. Well, you need to get it back. You say, well, I'll never get it back unless I get my son back or my daughter back or my loved one back. Well, I tell you what. You may not have your son or your daughter or your husband or your wife back. But you know what? You still have Jesus. And if you have Jesus, you have something to be joyful about. And if that person has Jesus, if that loved one of yours had Jesus, they are already in the presence of joy and you're wrong for losing your joy. I'm not saying you're wrong for hurting. I'm not saying you're wrong for being sorrowful. The Bible says, even in laughter, the heart is sorrowful. It's okay to k to retain the sorrow. It's okay to retain the broken heart. That's normal. But it's not okay to lose the laughter. It's not. Maybe you're here tonight or you're watching tonight and maybe you feel guilty. Having fun if you know a loved one is suffering. I think psychologically a lot of people go through that. And that's where, again, God has given the human heart the ability to compartmentalize. The ability to compartmentalize our heart is by God's design. We see that in the scripture tonight. So if if compartmentalization, if you're not familiar with the term, and I know the human heart is not the organ right here, but when I'm pointing here, I'm pointing to the inward man, okay? our our mind, our inward self. Your heart can have l all kinds of little places for things. You stick your heartache over here. You bring up to the front of your mind the business you're working on today. You've got some you've got some issues over here with some relationships you need to deal with. You got politics that's set over here. Your mind and your inner self has all kinds of concerns and things that you juggle throughout the day and throughout life. God designed our heart to be able to house different things. He's put like different compartments in our hearts. So that we can take the sorrow, take the hurt, stick it back over here in a little compartment. And bring something else out and bring it up here to the forefront. And you know what? Always needs to be in one of those compartments? The joy of Jesus Christ. You know what always needs to be in one of those little compartments? Thankfulness for what God has given you and the celebration of the life that you have here on this earth. You always need to be able to celebrate the life you have here on this earth. But so what you don't want to do, and this is what the devil will do, the devil will try to take uh something bad in one of those little compartments. He'll try to always keep it up here at the forefront. So it's always on your mind, always at the forefront of your mind, overshadowing your day. And like a heavy burden, you just walk around with it like this. Even in laughter, the heart is sorrowful. So you can, by God's design, have the sorrow. But you know what? You can still enjoy the laughter. It's okay. That's what God has created us to be able to do so we can manage. Here's the kingdom truth for you tonight. Laughter can be enjoyed when we learn to put our heartaches in long-term storage. Rather than keeping them on permanent display before our eyes. Laughter can be enjoyed when we learn to put our heartaches in long-term storage rather than keeping them on permanent display before our eyes. There's a couple I know I used to go to church with. They lost their daughter in a tragic car crash. She was a beautiful teenage girl. And my heart went out for them. When I met them, their daughter had already been gone for quite a while. But just having teenage girls myself, my heart broke for them knowing that they're daughters in heaven. And I went over to their house one day. For I can't remember what I was doing over there, but I went over to their house one day. It's the first time I was in their home. And They were showing me around their house. They were very proud of their home. They had a very nice home. And when they took me to their bedroom, I kind of was taken back. In their bedroom, standing next to their bed was a life-size photo cut out like she's standing there of their daughter that was in heaven And I'm sure the rationale was, well, it'll be like she's with us all the time. But you know what the reality is? It's cardboard. It's cardboard. But do you know what that was? That's not healthy. That's taking tragedy and hanging up before your eyes so that the last thing you see when you turn your light off is the tragedy. The first thing you see when you turn your light on is the tragedy. You step out of the bathroom and having gone to the shower. Tragedy You're getting ready to go to work. You leave tragedy. You come home to tragedy. It's always at the forefront of their eyes, so it was always at the forefront of their mind. And in the same way, even though that may sound so bizarre to us, a lot of times people in different ways Maybe not with a life-size cardboard cutout, but in different ways, they'll take their tragedy and keep it always to the forefront of their mind. If if you've lost a loved one, we're sorry for that. We have sorrow for that the rest of our life. We don't take that away. It's good to have sorrow the rest of your life. You never need to be happy you lost your loved one. You always need to be sad. You always need to keep that broken heart. But at the same time You need to remember that your loved one is not still here on earth in those same circumstances. That part of their life is gone. I thank God that my brother is in heaven. He's better off than I am. And not just in some kind of fairy tale way, but in reality. In reality, he wouldn't come back here at all. Thank God we can laugh in sorrow, as Solomon said. This verse lets us know also that it's okay for us to laugh even when we are experiencing God. great sorrow because that's how God designed the human heart so we can be able to balance the heaviness of adamic pain with the lightness of Christian joy. That makes The heaviness that we receive from Adam and the joy that we have inherited from Christ, they're both real in our lives And we never need to let the damage pain overshadow the Christian joy. The God-given ability for us to laugh. In times of sorrow, keeps our hearts beating even when they are breaking. Does that make sense? Don't feel guilty laughing when other people are crying. Yes, we should weep with those who weep, but if you don't eventually start laughing, then you may never stop weeping. It's normal to laugh when we're sorrowful. It's the way God designed us, and it's why we can both laugh and cry at funerals. How many of y'all have ever laughed really hard at a funeral? Almost everybody in here. Isn't that weird? Have you ever thought about that? But you know what? Isn't it a big relief? Now when someone stands up to eulogize their loved one, and their loved one is either in a vase, And their powder up here. Sometimes they'll do that. They're burned to ashes. Or their bodies laid out here. And you're looking at their dead body. And you're so sad that that person is gone and someone's up here eulogizing and then people over there wiping tears and crying, and then that person will say something That's funny. That that person did. And then people will remember the funny. And then suddenly the tears give way to laughter. Aren't you glad you can do that? Sure. Sometimes laughter conceals sorrow, though Sometimes the saddest people on earth are the ones who laugh the loudest. That's what we learn from this verse as well tonight. For some people, laughter is a a way out of hiding their sorrow and deceiving the people around them. I can't help but think of the comedian Robin Williams, who made other people laugh, but he was so miserable he took his own life And this verse lets us know that happy on the outside does not always mean a person is happy on the inside. Some people are struggling. And that's why we need to be a constant witness for Jesus Christ to those around us, because you don't know what someone's going through. And we need to learn to speak candidly. About our pain. Because if you do You may learn that someone you're talking to is going through that same struggle. And then when you can share. How the grace of God has delivered you and allowed you to manage with that pain, they can then apply that in their lives. That's that's what I did on the knowumsaved. com website. I've had so many people write me and say when I read your book It felt like I was reading the story of my own life. Or I can so identify with this And if we if we just went around and acted like we were normal, we never had issues like that before, and we never had any struggles before. We never had anything we had to overcome before then everybody else's drug will would remain buried in their heart and they might remain without help So speak candidly about your hope in Jesus Christ in the midst of your sorrow. I was speaking to a a young man yesterday who likes to be known as a tough guy. He let me know yesterday. It's the first time I've talked to him. He let me know yesterday that he wakes up every morning at 3 a. m. So he can exercise. He works ten-hour days at work. When he's off work, At 5. 30 p. m. , he immediately drives to his jiu-jitsu training so he can train in martial arts. When he gets through this jujitsu training, he then drives home and he lifts weights. Three exercises a day. Gets in bed at 8. 30, gets back up at 3 a. m. to exercise again He wants to be strong and tough and invincible And he did say that he read a couple of pages in the Bible each day. He said that he he um He does pretty good in the first few books of the Bible. When he gets to Leviticus, it all gets kind of jumbled up. And based on his outward persona, I didn't think that man would ever display any kind of weakness toward me at all. 28 years old But I I told him when he told me he read a couple of pages out of the Bible each day, I told him that I was a pastor. And I felt uncomfortable asking him this because of his tough guy persona. I figured it would get completely rejected. I said, do you have any questions about the Bible you'd like to ask me that I could answer for you? Man, we started talking a long time. Next thing you know, he softens up. He starts letting his weakness come out. Sharing with me some of the issues and questions he has about life and about the Bible. It's amazing. And I found that the tough man on the outside had a very soft heart on the inside, and he was struggling with certain things in life. As even in laughter there is sorrow, so even in toughness there is weakness Hurting people, laugh. Look back in your text tonight. And the end of that mirth, that is the end of that gleefulness, the end of that that kind of joy when they're laughing with a broken heart. Solomon said the end of that mirth. Do you know what that tells us? It tells us that the mirth of earthly laughter always comes to. An end. An end. Do you know what the good part of that is? If that is true, then it's equally true that The sorrow of a broken heart, the earthly sorrows of a broken heart will also come to an end But the laughter, that mirth, it says that mirth, the mirth that laughs when there's a broken heart, it always comes to an end. The laughter will come to an end. And apart from the gospel of Jesus Christ, nobody lasts forever. That's what we learned from this verse tonight as well. Apart from the gospel of Jesus Christ, nobody lasts forever. Eventually, when people aren't around, You can be in a big crowd laughing, but have a broken heart inside that you're hiding from people, and then when people aren't around and when things get quiet and you're alone. And you're still then our laughing heart stops dwelling on the happy thoughts. of the moment and then we begin to remember the sad realities of the life the life that we live. And then the laughter ends. The mirth ends. There are two things in my life that will keep my heart broken until I die. Two things. I'm not going to share them with you. But I bet you got them too, don't you? There are two things in my life that'll keep my heart broken. until Jesus comes again. I love life though. Those y'all who know me know I have an incredible, almost crazy sense of humor. I love to laugh. But our hearts will always return to the place where they hurt the most. Have you found that out? Eventually, you can circle around high up here, but eventually your heart is going to come full circle, and it's going to land where it hurts the most. And when our hearts do that, the lightness of the heart then turns to heaviness. Solomon said, the end of that mirth, look back in your text, is heaviness. It's heaviness. It's a burden. It's a burden when we start to think about the things that burden us the most. Maybe it's a loved one that's lost. And the con the idea of their life being destroyed and them going to hell is a great weight on us, and we can rejoice in the Lord Jesus Christ. praise God for people who are coming to faith in Jesus. We can thank God for all the wonderful things he's done in life and we can praise him that we have hope that when Jesus comes again we're going to meet him up in the sky. But then the thought will go back to what makes your heart heavy. What about my loved one that's lost? Or the thought will go back to what about My loved one who's passed away, or your thought will go back to what about this issue in my life that I'm dealing with that hurts so bad? The end of that mirth is heaviness, the only way for our laughter to not end in heaviness. is if we don't laugh as others laugh. The Bible says that Christians don't sorrow as others without hope, right? A child of God is sorrowful, but we don't sorrow as other people sorrow. Our sorrow will one day come to an end because of Christ. Well, if we don't sorrow as other people sorrow, so we don't need to laugh as other people laugh. We don't need to laugh as the world laughs. Because of Jesus, we sorrow and hope. And you know what? Because of Jesus, we can laugh and hope. We can laugh knowing the sorrow shall forever be wiped away by Jesus Christ one day. One of the most priceless verses in the Bible is what we'll close with tonight. It's in Revelation chapter 21, verse 4. And it says this, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. How many tears? All of them. When Jesus gets through working his gospel plan There won't be a single hurt left in a human heart forever God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow. Nor crying. Neither shall there be any more pain For the former things are passed away. Do you know how that works? The Bible says, therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature The former things, the old things are what? Passed away. That's our legal standing in Christ. In the mind of God, all of the old things are passed away. Do you know what? That's the standing. But our standing before God in the gospel is different than our earthly walk before God in the gospel. If I am a person who went to prison for hurting somebody, And then I get out of prison and I become a believer. I don't have to walk around with that guilt the rest of my life because I know Old things have passed away, all things have become new. But you know what the reality is? That's my legal standing in Christ. The reality is I still committed that crime. I still hurt somebody, and they're still a victim because of me. That's the reality. But when you get to the last book of the Bible, Not only is the legal history passed away But now all the consequences of sin are now passed away. And so Your standing in the gospel will at that time become your reality in the gospel. The world's reality in the gospel. Heaven and earth will be new. And as things are passed away legally now through the gospel, they will be passed away. in experientially, actually, and eternally in the gospel And so tonight I hope that you can learn to take, and if you're not struggling, struggling with it now, you'll have to in the future. Learn to take your sorrow and put it in long-term storage And to keep the joy of Jesus forever before your eyes. Take out the long-term storage. Weep over it. Remember the loss. But don't sorrow as other people sorrow. That way you won't laugh as other people laugh. Your sorrow will come to an end because of Jesus, but your laughter will never end because of Jesus. Father, we thank you so much for your precious word. Oh Lord, how healing your word is for us. It's like a balm that's applied to our minds when we understand it, when we read it. And by faith believe it. Thank you, Father, for giving us that healing ointment of your word to encourage our hearts, to guide our minds. and to help us make it through this troubling world until we reach that point in time when you will wipe away all tears from our eyes. In Jesus' precious name. Amen.