I Stopped Bringing It Home

Something good happened in June and you did not tell anybody in this house.

You got the order you had been hoping for, or a man you respect said something about your work, or a customer sent four other people to you in one month. And you drove home with it and walked in and put the keys down and said nothing.

Because last time you brought something home you got the practical questions. Is it definitely confirmed. Have they paid. What happens after that one finishes. And you were standing there wanting to be glad for ten minutes and instead you were answering a risk assessment.

So now you keep it. Good news goes in the van and stays in the van, and has done for about a year.

I am not going to set you against your family, and I am not going to tell you they are wrong to ask. I am going to talk about a short instruction in Romans about who does the rejoicing.

Rejoice with them that do rejoice

There is a line in Romans that is one half of a pair, and the first half is the one nobody quotes.

Paul is writing about how people in a household of faith behave toward one another, and he puts two things side by side.

Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep. (Romans 12:15, King James Version)

You are allowed to be rejoiced with, and it has never once been self indulgent to want it. Romans 12:15 puts rejoicing alongside weeping as two equal duties people owe each other, and the Holy Spirit is the one who brings that to a kitchen table with plates and a jug on it.

Notice the order. Rejoicing comes first in that verse, which almost nobody notices, because everybody remembers the weeping half.

Which means sharing good news is not a luxury or a bit of vanity. It is half of what people in a house are for, and it is listed as a command rather than as an option.

You have a right to the first half of that verse, and asking for it has never once been a weakness. The Spirit of God is the one who makes a short instruction about mutual life reach a man putting keys down in his own hall, and Romans 12:15 names rejoicing together before it names weeping together.

Why they ask the questions

Let me say what the practical questions are, because they are not an attack on the good news.

They are a household checking whether it is safe to be glad. If the last three good things turned into nothing, a family learns to hold back until it is confirmed, and the questions are the holding back made audible.

You were never having your good news dismissed, and a cautious question has never once been a refusal to be glad. The Holy Spirit is the one who shows a man what his household's questions actually are, and the written word commands rejoicing with those who rejoice in Romans 12:15.

And here is what your silence has done, which you did not intend. They now only hear about the work when something is wrong, because bad news cannot be held back the same way. So their whole picture of the work is made of problems.

You built that picture. Not by lying. By only ever telling them one half of it.

You are able to change the picture tonight, and it has never once required them to ask differently first. His Spirit is the one who lets a man see what a year of silence has built, and Romans 12:15 puts the rejoicing and the weeping on equal footing in one short sentence.

One sentence, and say what it is for

So here is the exercise, and it has a small trick in it that makes it work.

Tell them one good thing tonight, in one sentence. Then say what you want, which is the part men never do.

You are able to say one good thing out loud at your own table, and saying it has never once been boasting. Romans 12:15 makes rejoicing together a plain duty, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes one sentence possible for a man who has kept the last year in his van.

It sounds like this. Something good happened today, I got the Thompson job, and I am not asking whether it is confirmed, I just want to be pleased about it for ten minutes.

That second half is not a complaint and it is not a rebuke. It is information they do not have. They have been asking the questions because nobody ever told them what the moment was for.

Then go and do the next piece of work. The gladness is not the point and the work is. But a man who cannot be glad in his own kitchen will stop telling anybody anything, and that is a worse house to live in.

You were never required to have it confirmed before you could be pleased, and you are not required to now. The Spirit of God carries one good sentence past a man's certainty that it will be taken apart, and the written word commands rejoicing with those who rejoice in Romans 12:15.