Week of Sunday, August 30, 2026
Sarah — Genesis 18:13-14
God brings us laughter
The Big Idea
Sarah laughed at God, and God did not take it back.
Memory Verse
"God has made laughter for me"
She laughed at the promise. Then she laughed because it came true. Same woman, two completely different laughs.
Conversation Starters
For the dinner table or the car line this week.
- What's the last thing that made you laugh so hard it hurt?
- Is there a difference between laughing AT someone and laughing WITH them?
- What is something you have given up hoping for?
Family Activity · 10 min
The Laughing Hand
Everybody draw a face on the side of your fist — eyes on your index finger, mouth across your thumb. Open and close your hand and it talks. Now use it to make one other person in the house laugh. That is the whole assignment. When you see it on your hand tomorrow, it is there to remind you that the laughing is from God too.
Pray Together
God, thank you for the laughing. Thank you that you are not offended by it. Thank you that you kept your promise to Sarah even after she laughed at it.
What We Did Sunday
We told the story of Sarah and Isaac, and we told it as a comedy — because it is one.
What they learned Sunday
Sarah laughed at God, and God kept the promise anyway
Three visitors told a ninety-year-old woman she would have a baby within the year, and she laughed — quietly, behind a tent wall, where she thought nobody could hear. God heard. He asked her about it. She said she had not laughed, and he said yes you did. And then he did it anyway. A year later she had Isaac, whose name means "he laughs," and the second laugh was nothing like the first one.
- What's the last thing that made you laugh so hard it hurt?
- Is there a difference between laughing AT someone and laughing WITH them?
- Sarah laughed at God and God was not finished with her. Does that surprise you?
Chaplain America
She laughed at God. From behind a tent. And he heard her.
Sunday night
Genesis 18:13-14
The LORD said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?’ Is anything too hard for the LORD? At the appointed time I will return to you, about this time next year, and Sarah shall have a son.”
Around the table
This Sunday: Sarah. She was ninety, God promised her a son, and she laughed out loud at him. That is not the twist — the twist is what he did about it.
What is the most impossible thing you can think of?
Isaac means "he laughs." Sarah picked that name herself, after the year she spent being told she was too old. She could have picked anything.
If you got to rename yourself for one day, what would you pick?
Tomorrow at 9:30. Elementary is in the Fellowship Hall. Bring a face you can make.
Show me your goofiest face. Now hold it for ten seconds.
Today they met Sarah, and they acted the whole thing out as a comedy. Ask them what the funniest part was — there was definitely one.
What made you laugh in class today?
Sarah laughed at God's promise and God kept it anyway. He asked her about the laugh, she denied it, he said yes you did — and then a year later there was a baby.
Has anybody ever been kind to you right after you got something wrong?
There is laughing WITH somebody and laughing AT them, and from the outside they sound identical. The person who can tell the difference is the person it is about.
How can you tell which one is happening?
Family night. Tonight's question is whether there is a wrong time to laugh — and Sarah gives you two laughs to compare.
When is laughing the kindest thing in the room? When is it the cruelest?
This week's mission
The Laugh You Give Away
Make one person laugh this week who was not expecting to. Not a joke at anybody — a joke for somebody. A kid who is sitting alone, a grown-up who has had a hard week, a sibling who is in trouble. You do not have to be funny. You just have to try, out loud, where they can see you trying. That is usually the part that works.