Real Security and the Call of God

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Good morning, I'm Melissa Arosuniega and I'm part of the El Cerrito Kensington Community Group and Oikos Group and the Deacon.

Today's scripture reading is from the book of Genesis, chapter 11, verses 1-9, and chapter 12, verses 1-9, as printed in your liturgy.

Genesis 11:1–9

A reading from the book of Genesis.

Now the whole world had one language and a common speech.

As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shiner and settled there.

They said to each other, come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly.

They used brick instead of stone and tar for mortar.

Then they said, come, let us build ourselves a city with a tower that reaches to the heavens so that we may make a name for ourselves.

Otherwise, we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.

But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building.

The Lord said, if as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this,

then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.

Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.

So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth and they stopped building the city.

That is why it was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world.

From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

The Lord had said to Abram, go from your country, your people, and your father's household to the land I will show you.

I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you.

I will make your name great and you will be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you and whoever curses you, I will curse.

And all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.

So Abram went as the Lord had told him and Lot went with him.

Abram was 75 years old when he set out from Haran.

He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated,

and the people they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan.

And they arrived there.

Abram traveled through the land as far as the site of the great tree of Moray at Shechem.

At that time, the Canaanites were in the land.

The Lord appeared to Abram and said,

To your offspring I will give this land.

So he built an altar there to the Lord who had appeared to him.

From there he went on toward the hills east of Bethel and pitched his tent,

with Bethel on the west and I on the east.

There he built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord.

Then Abram set out and continued toward Negev.

The grass withers and the flowers fade.

The Lord of our God stands to our Lord.

Good morning Christ Church.

We have these flowers here from our memorial service yesterday for Will Muller,

where we celebrated his life and the precious gift that he was to us.

And that also means that this is my second day in a row of preaching.

So I need your help a little more than usual.

So if you're here this morning, just kind of give me an eyebrow raised or something like that.

More than your typical, hmm.

Okay?

We're exploring this first part of the first book of the Bible.

And we just heard this word in Genesis 11, 8.

So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth and they stopped building the city.

And, you know, the initial question is, is God against cities?

Is God anti-urban?

Is he pro-agrarian?

And I won't repeat everything we said over the past few weeks,

but we'll just say that God created us to live in cities.

And that all this stuff you see in these first 11 verses of Genesis 11,

with people moving closer together to consolidate the social order,

people building city walls to protect the vulnerable and the poor from harm and injustice,

people pooling their diverse talents for creative potential,

people using language to cooperate and to draw out all the riches of nature and of the soul

for both the sciences and the arts,

people dividing up their labor to build civilization.

All of that is good.

All of that is part of what God intended for his good creation.

And God intended cities to be a place where we would collectively reach up to heaven,

where we would look for a spiritual center,

where we would seek an elevated reality beyond just ourselves.

All that is what our creator God intended from the very beginning.

But there's something amiss, right?

There's something off kilter here in this story.

And so we want to ask ourselves, what's fundamentally flawed in this city?

And what is God's solution for our most basic human problems?

And so we want to look at three things.

Surprise, surprise.

We want to look at Humanities Babel Project, God's Blessing Project,

and Living by the Promises of God.

Humanities Babel Project, God's Blessing Project,

and Living by the Promises of God.

You with me?

I told you I need your help today.

Okay.

So Humanities Babel Project, verse 4, says this,

that they said,

Come, let us build ourselves a city with a tower that reaches to the heavens

so that we may make a name for ourselves

and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth.

This tower is actually a ziggurat.

It reaches up to the clouds, up to the stars.

It's got a shrine at the very top,

and it's got this giant staircase coming down from the top.

And it's meant to be a bridge between heaven and earth.

It's designed by its builders to make it easier for God,

to make it more convenient for God to come down,

as if this city and these people can somehow help God be God.

And what we see already is there's this transactional relationship

where we're here to help you, God,

and you, God, are there to help us, protect us, make us prosper.

This is not only a bridge to heaven, but it's also a beachhead.

Right?

It's a beachhead for this kind of covert assault on God.

We don't want to make a city so that his name will be great.

We want to make a city so that our name will be great.

The strength of our unity is our language.

The symbol of our unity is our tower,

and we are going to unite together to make a name for ourselves,

to seek an identity and a significance independently apart from God.

And we've seen this already.

This is a replay of Genesis chapter 3.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

Remember we talked there about the creator-creature distinction

where God is authoritative and he's independent,

and we as creatures are derivative and we're dependent.

And yet there in Genesis 3, Adam and Eve said,

we don't want to abide by this creator-creature distinction.

We want to assert our own autonomous, self-made, self-defined identity.

We want to be the masters of our fate and the captains of our soul

without depending on the one who gives us life and breath and everything else.

And that's what's happening here, again, in the city on a grander scale.

We're going to satisfy our material and spiritual aspirations independently apart from God.

Our language, our ingenuity, our technology, all these good gifts from God,

we're going to use these to make a name, make a significance apart from God in our collective achievements.

And it's kind of confusing because the tower looks religious, you know,

and they're pursuing it with a religious kind of zeal,

but actually it's a symbol of their own self-centeredness,

that we're going to use God, we're going to use the gifts of God to make us great.

We don't really care about God himself.

We don't want to glorify God.

We want to glorify ourselves.

This is a city that's not centered on God.

It's centered on the collective self.

And you can really see that in the tallest and highest buildings in any city today, right?

They're monuments to our human power, monuments to our money, monuments to our success,

monuments to our technology and our reason and our intellect and our science.

We, after all, can split atoms and we can launch rockets into space and we can edit genes

and we can create artificial intelligence and we can live by DoorDash.

So who needs God?

Who needs to live by his rule and his authority?

We can be our own lords and our own saviors.

You know, and all the Babel projects from the ancient city to modern cities say,

we don't need the rule of heaven.

We can live without God at the center and we'll be okay.

And in verse 5 it says this,

The Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the people were building.

The irony is that the builders of this tower are so proud that it reaches up to heaven,

but God can hardly see it, right?

And we know God is capable of perceiving what people are doing without having to reposition himself.

But he intentionally parodies their heaven-storming aspirations by bending down, right?

To see the thimble-like grandeur of their puny and pathetic power to preserve their own identity

and control their own fortunes and glorify themselves.

And verse 6 says,

In other words,

If they keep infringing on my divine sphere,

if they keep transgressing into the place where only I deserve to be,

if they keep putting themselves in my place,

living as if I'm unnecessary,

living as if they can achieve stability and durability independently from me,

as if nothing can shake them,

as if nothing can destroy them,

then there will be absolutely no end to their arrogant schemes.

They're not going to respect any of the God-given boundaries that I've built into my creation,

and they're not just going to try to build a city,

they're going to try to build an entire empire

in which the Creator is excluded from His very own creation.

And so, verse 7,

That word Babel in Mesopotamia meant the gate of the gods.

But now in Hebrew it means the city of the confused.

Right?

The metropolis of the mixed up.

They sought to make a name for themselves apart from God,

and the result is that they now have this infamous name

that's the exact opposite of their desires,

which is what Jesus taught.

He said,

Anyone who exalts themselves is going to be humbled.

Well, how do we apply this to our own lives?

Application number one is on a corporate and collective level,

God's judgment here is not a spiteful move to keep humans divided and dumb.

Rather, this half-built, unfinished, incomplete tower

and its dispersed builders

show us the power of God's grace

who will not allow human autonomy to go unchecked.

But rather, in His grace,

He restrains the damage

that our human autonomy will cause.

And He comes to limit the extent

to which human beings

will harden themselves against Him.

And so if God frustrated the human schemes in Babel,

how do you think He might be at work

in the frustrations and failures of our culture right now?

The weakening of our institutions,

the fraying of our social fabric,

the polarization of our perspectives,

the erosion of our trust,

the rising tide of global populism and authoritarianism,

the increase of political violence,

do we think that God might somehow be at the back of it all

allowing us to be disabused of our stability,

to be shaken up

so that we might be a people

who more seriously seek after His name

and glorify His name

rather than seeking to glorify

and make a name for ourselves?

That's application number one.

Application number two is that

on an individual and a personal level,

if you're here today

and you've mapped out your future life,

you've mapped out how your career's supposed to go,

how your plans ought to be,

and all the relationships in your life,

ask yourself this question,

is this plan made under God?

Or is it made apart from God?

Because if you plan your life without God at the center,

without seeking His blessing,

He will, in His grace,

allow it to be frustrated.

He'll allow it to come to nothing

because He loves you so much.

He wants to protect you from you.

He knows that you cannot live without Him.

This is what the Babel Project is all about.

It's a foolish errand.

It's absurd.

So it's interesting to me that

God saw fit to put Genesis 11 and Genesis 12

right next to each other,

juxtaposing them

so that we could compare and contrast

humanity's Babel Project

with God's blessing project.

God's blessing project in Genesis 12.

You see, in the first three,

two chapters of Scripture,

Genesis 1 and 2,

we see God's good creation

but then from Genesis 3 and on

to Genesis 11,

that good creation's fallen into this

downward spiral of sin and death and judgment.

And the question at this point is,

if the nations have lost their way,

then how will God shine His light on us?

How will He provide a way of salvation for us?

Genesis 12 comes along

and Genesis 12 is a new beginning.

Genesis 12 says,

For God so loved the world that He gave Abraham.

For God so loved the world that He gave Israel.

And this is God's counter-initiative

to our Babel Project.

And here's what it says in Genesis 12, 1.

It says,

The Lord had said to Abram,

Go from your country,

your people,

and your father's household to the land.

I will show you.

I will make you into a great nation.

And I will bless you.

I will make your name great.

And you will be a blessing.

See, Babel's desire to make a name for themselves

is in diametric contrast

to God's promise to Abraham

because only God can give an everlasting name.

Only God is the source and the center of life.

And only He gives us a name

so that we will glorify His name

and not ourselves and our own achievements.

So who is this person that God chooses to bless?

Who is Abram?

Well, just to trace a line from Genesis 4 last week,

we learned about Seth and Enosh

and their family line

which began to call upon the name of the Lord

and through that family line,

the knowledge of God was to be preserved among humanity

all the way to Abraham's family line.

This was the one ray of hope

in a world that was mired in oppression and violence.

But if you look at right before Genesis 12,

it's very interesting that when God calls Abraham,

His family is actually living in a center of lunar worship.

And Abraham's father's name means moon.

Right?

So the one family that's supposed to be preserving

the knowledge of the true God

is no longer worshiping the Creator.

God is worshiping the creation.

And by the end of Genesis 11,

the last flickering candle of humanity

has just gone out.

Right?

Abraham is lost spiritually.

His wife, Abraham,

or his wife Sarah is barren physically.

And the human situation

is really quite hopeless.

And it's at a dead end.

And there's no human power

that can bring a change

to the violent world in which we're living.

But God,

but the Creator God

who spoke in Genesis 1

and said,

let there be light,

He's the same Redeemer God

who speaks in Genesis 12

and says,

Abraham,

I'm going to bless you.

The Word of the Lord comes

and it creates hope.

It creates life.

The Word of the Lord

calls into existence

things that are not.

And what this shows us

is that Abraham

is utterly dependent on God

for blessing.

Right?

The blessing of God

is not something

that Abraham initiates.

It's not something

that he goes to get.

It's not something

that he takes for himself.

But rather,

it's something that God gives

by His grace.

Right?

Because Abraham's

not even looking for it.

Abraham's not qualified.

He's from an idol-worshiping family.

He's compromised.

He's paganized.

He's bowing down

to all the wrong things.

But God in His grace comes

and He says,

I'm going to bless you

and I'm going to make

your name great.

We have a slide,

I think.

And what it seeks to show

is that our culture

operates according to this

in-shaped dynamic

where we perform

and God rewards us.

We offer gifts to God

and God responds with blessing.

So performance

leads to reward.

That's the default mode

of our culture.

But Genesis 12

and really the whole Bible

operates according to

a U-shaped dynamic.

We can go to the next slide

where God gives us grace

even though we don't deserve it.

God is not waiting

for Abraham to change.

He's not waiting for him

to come up to scratch.

He just blesses him.

He just gives him grace

which he presumes

will lead to gratitude.

He just gives him blessing

which he assumes

will lead to response.

And what exactly

does God promise Abraham?

Well, four things.

You guys with me?

Alright, four things.

He promises a people.

Verse 2,

he says,

I will make you a great nation

and I will bless you.

And to bless someone,

to bless a person

means that you give them

the power of life,

you give them

the enrichment of life,

you give them

the increase of life.

And of course,

Abraham has no kids.

He's 75 years old.

His wife, Sarah,

is barren.

And God says to him,

I'm going to give you

a miracle child.

I'm going to give you

an offspring.

I'm going to give you

descendants.

I'm going to give you

grandchildren and

great-grandchildren

and extended family

and tribes

and a nation

that's blessed

with life.

Well, where are all

those people going to live?

And that's the second thing

is God promises a place.

In verse 1,

he says,

go to the land

I will show you.

In verse 7,

he says,

to your offspring

I will give this land.

I'm going to give you

the land of Canaan,

the promised land.

Your offspring,

you're going to live

in this land

that's flowing

with milk and honey.

The great nation

that comes from you,

childless Abraham,

is going to live

at this crossroads

between the most powerful

civilizations

of the ancient

Near East.

And how will

that happen?

How will this

promised people

live and survive

in this promised place?

Well, the third thing

is God promises

protection.

In verses 2 and 3,

he says,

I will make your name

great and you

will be a blessing

and whoever blesses

you, I will bless.

And then this next part

doesn't really come

through in the English,

but the Hebrew says

basically,

whoever deals lightly

with you,

whoever dismisses

or disparages you,

whoever holds you

in contempt,

whoever seeks to harm

you will be removed

from my blessings,

will have their life

diminished.

I will curse them.

So God is saying

to Abraham,

I'm going to

sovereignly protect you,

I'm going to actively

intervene for your welfare

so that you can be confident,

so that you can walk

unafraid.

And what is God's

ultimate plan

for his promised people

and the promised place

and his promised protection?

The fourth thing

is God promises

international blessing.

Verse 3,

he says,

all the peoples

and all the families

on the earth

are going to be blessed

through you.

We have another slide.

And what this shows

is God's gracious blessing

is meant to go

to all the nations

that he made

and that he loves.

And it's like this hourglass

that funnels down

through this narrow neck,

this narrow passageway

through his covenant partners,

through this one man,

through this one family,

through this one nation

and through one particular

offspring of that nation

named Jesus,

God's blessing

is going to go out

and his life

is going to go out

to everyone else.

Why does this matter?

Because remember

in Genesis 1-2,

God's people,

Adam and Eve,

were living in God's place,

Eden,

and they were enjoying

God's protection

under his word

and they were at rest

with God's blessing.

But they lost

all four of those things.

But now God says,

Abraham,

through you

and through this

royal fourfold promise

to bring my kingdom

from heaven to earth

through you,

I'm going to begin

to reverse

the downward spiral

of sin and death

and judgment.

This is how

I'm going to overcome

the devastation

and alienation

wrought

by human sin

and pride.

And how does Abraham

respond to God's

call and his promise

and his blessing?

Well, Abraham

says yes.

He says yes to God.

And that's amazing

because God does not

give Abraham

all the details.

God doesn't even tell

Abraham where

he's going to take him.

He just knows

that God is calling me

to forsake

all that's familiar

and all that's secure

and all that's comfortable

and all that's precious

and to abandon

all of the things

I'm bowing down to,

all the things

that I'm seeking

for blessing in life

and instead

to enter into

a personal relationship

with the living God

and to exclusively

embrace

this one true

creator God

and to have no other

gods before him

and simply to live

by faith

in his promises.

And pagan Abraham

says yes

and he repents.

He converts

and he demonstrates

his faith in God

through his obedience

and he left

absolutely everything

to follow the Lord.

and the question

for you today

is have you been called?

Have you been called

out of humanity's

Babel project

and into God's

blessing project?

Are you willing

to come out

of your old life

apart from God

in order to enter

into a new life

with God?

And do you want

what Abraham has?

Do you want to share

in this fourfold

amazing blessing

that God has given

to Abraham?

So we talked about

humanity's

Babel project

and God's

blessing project

but I want to close

talking for a moment

about living by

the promises of God

because Abraham

doesn't just say yes

right?

He does yes.

Living by the promises

of God.

Other scriptures

give Abraham

the highest honor

by calling him

the friend of God.

He's the friend

of God.

What does that mean?

It means that Abraham

rebuilt his entire life

around the promises

of God.

It means that Abraham

restructured and

recenters his whole life

on the word

of God

and the promises

of God

in personal

and practical

ways.

And you see it

right here

in verse 4.

So Abraham

went as the Lord

had told him

and Lot

went with him.

Abraham was 75

years old

when he set out

from Haran.

He didn't consider

himself retired

from life

with God.

And he went out

to do something

that was not convenient

that was not easy

that was not comfortable

and that was not safe.

He was 75

years old

he goes out

where there's

no secure sources

of food and water

no police force

no justice system

and he goes

as God sends him

into enemy

occupied territory

to live as a tiny

minority

in the midst

of a majority

of unbelieving

pagans

who are opposed

to his faith.

And if Abraham

had not done that

if Abraham

had not acted

then we wouldn't

be here today.

We would not

be experiencing

the blessings

of God

through him.

So what that means

is in order

to get the blessing

and in order

to be the blessing

we've got to go.

We've got to act.

We've got to obey.

Abraham exchanged

what was known

for what was unknown

and he lived

the rest of his life

for things

that he absolutely

could not see.

Right?

He did not die

with the whole

promised people.

He died

with one child.

He did not die

with the whole

promised land.

He died

with one tiny

little burial plot

in that land.

The promises

of God

had barely

begun

to be fulfilled.

But as Hebrews

11 1 says

faith

is the assurance

of things hoped

for

and the conviction

of things

not seen.

And look at how

Abraham lives out

his conviction

of the things

that are not seen.

It says in verse 6

Abraham traveled

through the land

as far as the site

of the great tree

of Morah

at Shechem.

At that time

the Canaanites

were in the land

the Lord

appeared to

Abram and said

to your offspring

I will give

this land.

So he built

an altar there

to the Lord

who had appeared

to him.

And from there

he went on

toward the hills

east of Bethel

and pitched his tent

with Bethel

on the west

and I on the east

and there he built

an altar to the Lord

and called

on the name

of the Lord.

Why did he do that?

Because he knew

that in order

to be a blessing

to all the peoples

of the earth

I've got to go

to the strongholds

of their foreign gods

and the strongholds

of all their pagan idols.

That's what that sacred tree

at Morah is all about.

That's what these mystical hills

in Bethel

are all about.

And Abraham knows

that he has to go

to those places

and he has to worship

the Lord there.

He's not building

a tower

up to the heavens.

He's simply

leaving behind him

altars of costly sacrifice

and praise

and prayer.

Symbolically

claiming

that this place

will one day

be filled

with people

who call

on the name

of the Lord.

Is that not

what we

are doing

in Berkeley

in the East Bay?

Verse 8

in English

says he called

on the name

of the Lord

but in Hebrew

it says

he made proclamation

of the Lord

by name.

And what that means

is that the worship

of Abraham

involved witness.

It involved

calling on the name

of the Lord

in the midst of

and in the hearing

of people

who did not believe

in this one true God

because Abraham

felt responsible

for them.

He felt responsible

for the peoples

and the families

of the earth

and he said

if they're going

to get the blessing

of the Lord

through me

then that means

I need to share

my newfound faith

with them.

I need to share

the meaning

of the Lord's name

the attributes

of his name

the activities

of his name.

I need to share

with them

the knowledge

of the Lord

and the promises

of the Lord.

See Abraham's faith

was a faith

that not only

obeyed the word

of the Lord

but also shared

the word

of the Lord

with others.

And it wasn't

about making

a name for himself

it was about

making a name

for the Lord.

And all of his

spiritual offspring

who want to be

called friends

of God

must follow suit.

You all

including me

are blessed

to be a blessing

to others.

God's blessing

on you

is not an end

in itself

it's a means

to the end

of blessing

all the nations

of the earth

and you've been

blessed not just

so you can

know the Lord

but so through

you many people

can come

to know

the living God.

And friends

we have a

greater message

to proclaim

than the one

that Abraham

proclaimed.

Jesus said

in the gospel

of John chapter

80

said

your father

Abraham

rejoiced

at the thought

of seeing

my day

he saw it

and was glad.

In other words

Abraham knew

that all the

peoples of the

earth

would be blessed

through one

blessing bearing

person

a particular

son

of Abraham

and I want

to suggest

to you

as we close

that

Jesus

is a true

and better

Abraham

Abraham

because he

answered the

call of God

to leave

all that was

familiar to him

all that was

secure in heaven

all that was

comfortable

all that was

precious

and Jesus

left his

father's house

and he went

out into

the unknown

he went out

into a very

unsafe place

and he went

out to live

by faith

and the assurance

of things hoped

for and the

conviction of

things not seen

and Jesus

created a new

people of God

by the shedding

of his blood

and the forgiveness

of their sins

and the blessing

of abundant

and eternal

life

and Jesus

would turn

the whole

world into

a place

where heaven

and earth

can come

together

and where

all creation

can be the

promised land

that's filled

with the presence

and the power

and the kingdom

of God

and Jesus

would pour out

his Holy Spirit

so that we

could experience

the protection

of God

and the

international

blessing of God

until he comes

again to make

all things

new

and so like

Abraham

we are invited

to have

a faith

in things

that are already

secured for us

things that are

already promised

for us

by God's

eternally beloved

son

Jesus

and that's why

the resurrected

Jesus

he blessed

his disciples

and he said

go make

disciples of all

the nations

go be a blessing

to all the peoples

of the earth

and know

that I'm

going to be

with you

every step

of the way

as you

complete that

task

and even

now friends

through the

church

the call

of God

the blessing

of God

the promises

of God

the life

of God

the salvation

of God

is extending

out all

over the world

right now

today

so friends

Abraham

built an altar

to the Lord

in a pagan

place full

of idols

and he made

proclamation

of the Lord

by name

to a majority

of unbelieving

people who

were opposed

to his faith

and that's

why he was

called

a friend

of God

and that's

how we too

can be called

friends

of God

the letter

of the Hebrews

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

chapter 11

says this

and I'll

close with

these words

it says

by faith

Abraham

made his

home in

the promised

land

like a

stranger

in a

foreign

country

for he

was looking

forward to

the city

with foundations

whose architect

and builder

is God

in the name

of the Father

Son and Holy

Spirit

Amen