Written by C.R. Wiley |
Sunday, July 3, 2022
To produce a feeling of security in those under your care, you truly must know how to keep them secure. A scornful laugh is based not on self-help platitudes but on genuine strength (at least if you want people to laugh with you and not at you behind your back). And naturally, the secret source of a father’s strength, even in the most capable men, is God himself.

One of the best things that a father can do for his wife and children is laugh at what God laughs at.
Now, some things are not laughing matters; for instance, God’s promises should never be laughed at. He’s someone you should laugh with, but never at. Consider Abraham and Sarah — first they laughed at what God said to them, but in the end, they came to see that the joke was on them. And it was a good joke too, good in every way.
He promised them a son in their old age. It was a long-hoped-for blessing, finally given after the realm of possibility had been left far behind. But upon hearing the news, they laughed, and not for joy. And if it wasn’t scornful laughing, it was close to it. Here’s what I mean:
God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her, and moreover, I will give you a son by her.” . . . Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said to himself, “Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old?” (Genesis 17:15–17)
We’re not told if Abraham laughed out loud, or just to himself. But his laughter isn’t gladness for news that he’s long wanted to hear. He’s laughing because common sense tells him it’s ridiculous for a man of his age to sire a son.
Sarah’s Snicker
When Sarah hears the news, she laughs too, and in her case there’s no question that she laughs out loud.
The Lord said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife shall have a son.” And Sarah was listening from the tent door behind him. . . . So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, “After I am worn out, and my lord is old, shall I have pleasure?” And the Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh?” (Genesis 18:10, 12–13)
The Lord asks rhetorically, “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” (Genesis 18:14). Embarrassed by her gaffe, Sarah denies laughing, but the Lord won’t let it pass. In fact, he mocks her laughter — and Abraham’s too — by telling them to name their child Isaac, which means “laughter” (Genesis 17:19). As the saying goes, “He who laughs last, laughs best.”
But the Lord isn’t the only one laughing in the end. We see Sarah join in — now laughing for joy at the absurdity of her blessedness. “And Sarah said, ‘God has made laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh over me’” (Genesis 21:6). She goes on to say, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age” (Genesis 21:7).
When Contempt Chuckles
We’ve toned down the scornful character of laughter in our time. I suppose it has something to do with egalitarianism — no one should feel bad, or be laughed at, ever. But I think that God knows more about laughter than we do. Can you hear the self-deprecation in Sarah’s final laughter? She’s been humbled and she’s glad. Perhaps there’s a lesson in this for us: those who laugh along with God at themselves laugh best.
I’ve had a hard time finding a reference to God’s laughter in the Bible without detecting a little scorn in it. Take this, for instance: “He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision” (Psalm 2:4). The Lord laughs at kings who are foolish enough to plot against him. The verticality of the picture can’t be separated from its meaning. Without the downward glance, there’d be nothing to laugh at.
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As sinners we stand in need of grace and mercy more than anything else; and David is saying that’s one thing that I shall always have. God will never cease to deal with me in mercy: and He will always be good to me. The Bible admits that there are times when He seems to hide His face as He chastises those He loves, but He never forgets His promises, and He never ceases to be good to His sheep.

The Shepherd of whom the psalm speaks of is Jesus.  It was Jesus Himself who would later say, “I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd gives his life for the sheep.” So, when we say “the LORD is my shepherd” we are talking about the Lord of glory.  This is Emmanuel: God with us.  He is the “image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature” and the One by whom “all things were created.”
So we have here a very capable Shepherd.   He is wise, He is strong, and with Him the Bible says there is nothing impossible.   But what comforts David isn’t only His strength or sovereignty or wisdom.  It is His character. We see repeatedly in Israel’s history that they had shepherds (pastors and leaders) who utterly failed them.  But the promise of Ezekiel is that where men failed them the Lord Jesus wouldn’t. Men may not love them but God loved them; and being the Good Shepherd He had said that He would search them out and find them. He had said that He would bind them up, He would feed them, he would protect them, and He would be their shield and their exceeding great reward.
 And, of course, He came as He promised. This, then, is the kind of Shepherd that we have: One altogether unlike these miserable shepherds who fed only themselves.  Jesus actually lay down His life for the sheep. He was (and is) so committed to them, so full of love and compassion for them that He would lay down His life for theirs. When you say “the Lord is my Shepherd” you are talking about a good Shepherd. He is not only a competent Shepherd and a diligent Shepherd and a faithful Shepherd. He is also a loving Shepherd. He loves His sheep. And so He seeks out the scattered and the lost and brings them back to Himself. He binds up the wounded, He feeds His people, and He leads them beside the still waters. He is with them and He comforts them.
There are three things that I would like to highlight in this psalm.
First, David does not say the Lord is a Shepherd or the Lord is the Shepherd.  He says the Lord is my Shepherd. What a marvellous thing to be able to say!  “He is my Shepherd.”  It’s so personal.  Do you know that is just what He says about us.  “You are mine”.   He is a shepherd and we are sheep – but we can actually say, by faith, that we are His sheep and He is our shepherd. When a wolf comes a hireling flees. He’s afraid. And these aren’t his sheep anyway, so he doesn’t have a vested interest in them.  He’s a hireling, and he runs. He doesn’t care for the sheep, but the Good Shepherd does.  That’s why He – unlike the hireling – doesn’t run, that’s why He doesn’t forsake us, and that’s why the Good Shepherd gives His life for His sheep… because He loves them.  And He loves with a love that God says passes knowledge.
Let the wonder of those words to sink in: the Lord is my Shepherd.  The God of heaven and earth, the Creator of the ends of the earth, the One who takes up the isles as a little thing and counts the nation as a drop in a bucket, this great Redeemer who is mighty to save and unapproachable in the brightness of His majesty, this holy King who is good and faithful and kind is mine, and I am his.  This is why David says “I shall not want.”
Isn’t that what we hope for our children, that they shall want for nothing?  The question isn’t whether we are willing to provide for them and care for them. The question is whether we can. Here there is no question… Knowing nothing about the particulars of the coming days David can still say, “I shall not want.” Its as if he is asking a rhetorical question: “How can I want when I have Him?  How can I truly lack anything when I have God?”   David knows that with a Shepherd like the Lord Jesus he shall be very well cared for.  Do you remember how Paul put it?  If God would give His Son for us how will He not with Him give us all things?  In other words, if He wouldn’t spare His own Son, surely He will not withhold anything truly good for us.   But David is also saying “having Him I have all. I have God for my Shepherd so I already have everything.”
That is the great reality that explains the rest of this Psalm. Over and over again we read here about what the LORD will do. He makes me lie down, He leads me beside still waters, He restores my soul, and He leads me in the paths of righteousness.  None of that should come as a surprise because He is our Shepherd and we are His sheep.
Do you know what it is about Him that allows the psalmist to speak in this way?  Again, I am not talking about His sovereignty, His providence, or His ability to look after you and protect you. I am talking about Him: the Shepherd himself – the beloved. Its because I have Him that I can say “I shall not want.” Other things can be taken from me, but not Him.  And what the psalmist is saying in these words is simply this: He is enough. When the bride (in the Song of Solomon) was asked what it was about Him that was “more” than other beloveds she didn’t back down and apologize for exaggerating. She had an answer. She said, “My beloved is white and ruddy, the chiefest among ten thousand.” She went on and then ended with these words: “His mouth is most sweet: yea, he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem.”
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When Peter denied Jesus, Jesus looked at him. If you sense the Lord looking at you right now, you have two choices. You can try to run from the gaze of Jesus just like Adam and Eve tried to run from the eyes of God. Or you can run to the gaze of Jesus and see that there is forgiveness and acceptance and restoration in his eyes.

To my friends who are no longer friends with Jesus: I want you to know that if I am aware of you walking away from Jesus, I have prayed for you and even cried for you. A couple of years ago I was reading The Last Battle from C.S. Lewis’s “The Chronicles of Narnia” to our kids. I came across a passage that took my breath away and filled my eyes with tears. Tirian, the last king of Narnia, is meeting the former kings and queens of Narnia:
‘Sir,’ said Tirian, when he had greeted all these. ‘If I have read the chronicle aright, there should be another. Has not your Majesty two sisters? Where is Queen Susan?’
‘My sister Susan,’ answered Peter shortly and gravely, ‘is no longer a friend of Narnia.’
‘Yes,’ said Eustace, ‘and whenever you’ve tried to get her to come and talk about Narnia or do anything about Narnia, she says, ‘What wonderful memories you have! Fancy your still thinking about all those funny games we used to play when we were children.’
The reason I got a lump in my throat and then looked at my wife Melanie and saw that we were both tearing up is because we were thinking of you, friends. Walking away from Jesus is not child’s play. At the end of The Last Battle, it is revealed that there has been a crash and the kings and queens are in heaven. They are safe, eternally. Susan is not. But there is still time.
It seemed that you used to be friends with Jesus. You sang to him, you read his Word, you prayed to him, you talked about him with me.
Only God, and maybe you, know if that faith was genuine. But I do know this: the Jesus you used to confess with your lips is the same Jesus who can save you today. It doesn’t matter if it has been years or months of walking away from him, Jesus died and rose again not to make it possible for us to earn our way back to God, but to bring us to God. He will still do that for you if you will come to him.
You are not the first disciples of Jesus to deny Jesus. Do you remember Peter, one of Jesus’s closest disciples and friends? He denied Jesus three times, when Jesus most needed someone to come alongside of him and stand up for him.
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