Faithful Then, Faithful Now | Life Goes On - Genesis 10:1-11:26 (Dec 11) Myles Holmes

Hello and welcome to the Redemption Church Podcast.

We're a church in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada that exists to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission and the Spirit of the Great Commandment.

Thanks for joining us today.

Father, we boldly declare declare that truth together.

And God, we not only declare this truth, but we delight in this truth this morning, Lord, because as we consider ourselves, as we consider the weight of our sin, if we consider our inability to do anything apart from Jesus that is of eternal value, God, we are delighted because we needed this Savior.

And God, even today, we need him.

And so God, we pray as we open up your word that our ears, our ears would be so tuned to his voice.

That like sheep who know the voice of their shepherd, Lord, we would hear you and hear the words of life.

You always speak and live.

So speak to us, Lord.

God, I'm so thankful for the presence of your Holy Spirit here and now.

Lord, you're so ready in this moment to speak to us where we need to be spoken to.

And so I pray that you would find your children here.

Ready to hear all that you have to say.

God, we pray this all in the name of your son.

Amen.

Amen.

You guys can grab a seat.

As you grab a seat, you can take your Bibles and open them up to Genesis chapter 10.

Genesis 10 · chapter mention

Genesis chapter 10.

Genesis 10 · chapter mention

We're going to be working to Genesis chapter 11, verse 26 this morning.

Genesis 11:26

A few years ago, five years ago now, just over five years ago, my wife and I had our first daughter.

And at this time we were attending Redemption Durham.

And Redemption Durham at the time was about a third children on a Sunday morning.

There would be 180 kids.

Imagine the chaos of our children's ministry.

Redemption Durham, there would be 180 kids on a Sunday morning.

And so something happens when you're having your first child, and in the presence of all these other young families, we would have at least once a week a young family, either maybe the husband or the wife, maybe the husband would talk to me, the wife would talk to my wife, but they would rush up to us and have a prophetic word for us.

And this prophet, who also had young children of their own, would have dark bags under their eyes, looked like they hadn't slept in the last few years.

And they would declare to us two things.

First thing they declare to us is that life is over as we know it.

Having children means no freedom, no more nights out.

At one point I really began to wonder if I'd ever be happy again in my life.

I'm just kidding.

Wondered if I'd have joy again.

Well, the second thing though they tell us, and we're really thankful for this one, they told us that time goes fast.

Can you just nod your head if you agree with me that life goes fast?

Maybe nod your head with me.

Yes, we all agree that life goes fast.

And it seems, especially now, that it's going faster.

Like I don't know if there is some control center where you can turn up the speed on time, but doesn't it seem like in these last few years they've just kind of like flown by?

And as we even look forward, and I say this reality, this is might shock some of you, that in two weeks we're going to be celebrating Christmas.

Well, it's a reality of our life that life goes fast.

There's nothing you can do to stop time, life goes on, whether you like it or not.

And if you've been with us walking through the book of Genesis from chapter 1 to chapter 10, we've really come to understand this reality.

For the people of Genesis, for the families in Genesis 1 to 11, life really does go on.

Time really does not stop.

In fact, in these chapters, we've covered just about the longest period of history that the Bible covers.

Almost 20 families.

20 families are recorded in the span of Genesis 1 to 11.

To put that in perspective, for the rest of Genesis, you kind of split Genesis up into two sections, chapter 1 to 11, and then chapter 12 to 50 to the end.

And for the rest of Genesis, we're going to cover just three families.

And so Genesis 1 to 11 kind of like fast forwards through a really important part of history.

And it reminds us this reality that you just cannot stop time.

That ever since the fall, people have sinned, people have suffered, and yet God has always related to his people.

And this is the reality of our existence even today, thousands and thousands of years later.

Life goes on.

There's nothing you can do to stop time.

The suffering you experience does not pause time.

The good things you experience don't pause time.

Time keeps moving forward.

Life keeps progressing.

And this is my concern, my heart for us this morning.

Knowing this reality, knowing that life goes on, what if we get to the end of our life and express this sentiment?

Where did the time go?

What if we get to the end of our life and as life has progressed and come to an end, we look back and wonder if we had wasted it?

Wonder if time slipped through our fingers like sand?

Wonder if we made the best use of the time that God had given to us, or it had just kind of slipped past us without us thinking intentionally about it.

And so as we get to the end of this mini section in Genesis chapter 10 and 11, I want us to consider this.

Genesis 10 · chapter mention

How do we make the most of time?

How do we make the most of our life as it continues to progress forward?

I want us to see in Genesis 10 and 11 three things that we must do in order to make the most of time.

Three things we must do as life goes on.

And the first thing I must do is rest in the care of God.

I want you to see this in Genesis 10.

The first thing we must do is rest in the care of God.

Now you remember from our context that last week in chapter 9, we kind of close the chapter on the life of Noah.

And the flood had finished.

And Noah had died.

Genesis chapter 10 then carries up the genealogy of Noah's sons.

Genesis 10 · chapter mention

In many ways, this is God reminding his people.

Remember again that Moses is writing Genesis to give historical perspective to Israel as they are sitting in the desert.

Israel sits in the desert, they're not an established nation, they have no land, and they're looking to their leader and they're saying, Moses, who are we?

And so Moses writes the book of Genesis to show them exactly who they are.

And one of the things that comes up time and time again is these genealogies.

We read this numerous times in the book of Genesis, and we've been confronted with it numerous times in the book of Genesis, what it says in chapter 10, verse 1, these are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

Writer of Genesis is very concerned to track the generations, to track the genealogies of God's people.

And so in Noah here, we find a fresh start.

Remember that God wiped out all of humanity in the flood.

So that Noah and his three sons were the start of a new humanity, were the start of a new people.

And now, as Noah and his sons have children, what we find here is really a table of nations.

The people of God in the desert, as they read this book in Genesis, would read this and they'd be able to point to many nations like Canaan in verse 15, like Egypt in verse 13.

It would point to many nations around them that had come from Noah and his sons.

This was very relevant for them.

But notice that at the start of this chapter, God is concerned to track all of these nations and where they are.

He doesn't leave a nation out.

Now, what does this mean for us?

What can we draw from this?

Often we read the genealogies, we just kind of pass through them, a lot of names that we can't pronounce.

But I want you to recognize right off the bat that what this shows us is that God is a God who cares for all people.

God cares about the nations.

He cares about all the nations.

And yes, in many ways, the Old Testament is a story about God's chosen nation, Israel, but that doesn't mean that God chooses and focuses on Israel to the neglect of all the other nations.

God is the God of all nations.

Not necessarily the God who is worshipped by all nations, but he is the God who is sovereign over all nations.

And we need to be careful because it's possible that in our theology, as we think about the Old Testament, sometimes we can be too Israel focused.

Sometimes we we care too much about what God is doing with Israel, as though God doesn't actually care about the nations.

And what you find through the whole Old Testament is that actually God does care about the nations.

God cares about all people.

In fact, what we're going to read as we continue to progress through Genesis is that God chose Abraham, and God gave Abraham a very specific mission.

Do you remember what the mission was for Abram?

It was that he would be the father of many nations.

God's plan was always that Israel would be a light to the nations.

See, the Gentiles being grafted into God's chosen family, to God's children, was not just a plan that God kind of came up with 2,000 years ago.

This was always God's plan.

God always had a heart for the nation.

God always had a heart for all lost people.

This is God's care for the lost.

God cares for those who are far from Him.

This is why, as a church, we care about the lost.

This is why I'm so glad that as a church we're part of the GCC, the Great Commission Collective.

Because the mission of the Great Commission Collective is to plant churches that are planting churches.

The mission of the Great Commission Collective is to reach the nations by planting churches.

And that's the heart of our church, too.

And I hope that you pray for this church that in the next few years God would be commissioning people from our midst to be planting in our region and to be committing to churches around our world.

Because we are a church that cares about the nations.

The reality is also that God has his mind on any unbeliever before you ever could.

That unbeliever that you've been thinking about sharing the gospel with, that unbeliever that you have been praying for, lifting to the Lord, asking God to save.

Do you know that God has thought about that person?

God cares for that person more than you ever could.

This should kind of excite us as we share the gospel, shouldn't it?

That person that you're sharing the gospel with, we often go with so much fear, so much fear of rejection.

Do you know that God cares for that person?

God knows that person.

God knows intimately the details of that person's life.

And as you share the gospel, you share the gospel with a person that God knows, that God is sovereign over, that in a moment God can change the status of that person's heart.

God cares for young believers that we share the gospel with, but recognize this that this is the God who cared for you and your lostness.

This is a time for us as the children of God to rejoice in God's love, that when we were lost, God found us.

That no matter how far away from God you were, you were never outside of his sight.

He always had his gaze on you.

And just like God knew all the nations of the world that would come from Noah and his sons, so God knew you, and he chose you, and he saved you by the blood of Jesus Christ.

This is the care of God that as child of God we rest in.

Now, as Moses continues to write Genesis 10, what he does is he starts to focus in on each of the sons of Noah.

And so you'll notice in chapter 2 that we read of the sons of Japheth, and then in, sorry, verse 2, we read the sons of Japheth, and in verse 6, he tracks the sons of Ham.

And you'll remember from the context of chapter 9 that Ham represents the enemy of God because of the way that he treated his father, and just like the serpent did to Adam and Eve, exposed his father's nakedness.

And then in verse 21, Moses tracks the line of Shem, and he'll carry up the line of Shem again as God's chosen elect line again in chapter 11.

And so first we read of the line of Japheth.

And in verse 5 we read that these are the nations, these are the coastland people, Moses said.

These are the coastland peoples spread in their lands, each with his own language, by their clans in their nations.

These were the coastlands people, these were the faraway people.

As Israel read of these nations, as Israel read these names, these would be like the when you go to the globe and you go to the part that you're not too familiar with, and you read the names and you say, you know, I knew this place was a country, but I don't know the capital of it.

I'm familiar with this small country, but I don't know what the flag looks like.

And for Israel, as Moses tracks the line of Japheth, I'm sure that this is what it was for them.

They were geographically far from Israel.

The family of Japheth and the nations that would come from him would never be their enemies.

They would just be distant neighbors.

And yet it's a reality for us that these people that are far from Israel are still under God's care.

See, God's a God who cares for the lost, but he's also a God who cares for those who are far away.

He's a God who cares for those who might otherwise be forgettable.

This is who God is.

His compassion is so far-reaching, his care is so far-reaching, there is nothing that does not concern him.

God is compassionate.

I was meditating on this reality this morning and it brought my mind to my wife.

I don't know if there's any person who's more compassionate than my wife is, but it often creates this sort of tension in our family.

It's a common experience we have where we might be lying in bed and she's on our phone, and she loves to be part of these illustrations, by the way, I can just tell by her face right now.

And she'll be on her phone looking at, you know, the news or maybe social media or something, and then all of a sudden her heart breaks, and she says, Awww.

And I'm, you know, try to be tender and compassionate in that moment.

So I say, What's wrong?

And then she shares a story of her friend's sister's mother who has a friend who's in the hospital, and while that friend was in the hospital, their cat at home broke its leg and is in a cast.

Something along those lines.

Where for me, if it's like more than one degree of separation from me, it's just off my radar.

For her, her heart is filled with compassion for this person that she might not even know for the situation that if even if it was, you know, connected to me, I might not even care about.

Her heart breaks for these people.

She cares for them.

Her heart's filled with compassion.

And you need to know that God's care for you is much more like my wife's compassion than my compassion.

God cares for the things in your life that you feel are forgettable.

God cares for the requests on your prayer request prayer list that you think God might not actually care about.

God cares that you bring every little detail to him.

He cares about all things.

And church, let me just exhort you that in the routine of life, in the mundane of life, in all the small things that you do to bring these things to the Lord.

God is a God who has an ear for your requests.

God is a God who cares for you in the smallest things to the greatest things.

And so often ours is a faith that only runs to God when horrific things happen or deep suffering happens.

And I just wonder if so often in the mundane, routine parts of life, God is just looking at us, wishing that we would run to Him.

He's a God whose heart is filled with compassion, who cares about all things, even the forgettable.

In verse 6, Moses attracts the sons of Ham.

Again, we're reminded that Ham was the enemy of God's people.

He acted in the line of the serpent who exposed the nakedness of Adam and Eve.

So Ham exposes the nakedness of his father and gossips about it to his brothers and therefore is cursed.

And we see, though, that God is still blessing Ham.

Remember that the mission that God had given to all mankind was to be fruitful and multiply, and then the mankind was able to do that because God had blessed them.

And what you find with Ham is that he's still being blessed by God.

Doesn't this show you something about the care of God?

Even if you're an enemy of God, God still cares for you with common grace that is relevant to everyone.

And so what we find is that the sons of Ham are multiplying.

Verse 9, we read of a mighty hunter.

It says in verse 9 he was a, or sorry, in verse 8, Cush fathered Nimrod.

And he was the first on earth to be a mighty man.

Verse 9 he says, he was a mighty hunter before the Lord.

Therefore, it is said, like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord.

Notice further down, more nations are multiplying and multiplying and multiplying.

And Moses takes a moment just to focus on Canaan.

Canaan would be primarily the enemy of Israel.

This would be the nation that Joshua would conquest in his battles.

And in Genesis 10, verse 19, we see that the nation of Canaan is even being blessed and extending farther and farther and increasing in territory.

Genesis 10:19

And it says the territory of the Canaanites extended from Sidon in the direction of Jarar as far as Gaza, and the direction of Sodom, Gomorrah, Adma, and Zeboim, and as far as Lasha.

What Moses is pointing out is that these nations that stand as enemies to God are experiencing blessing.

That these nations even include mighty people like Nimrod.

Now it's likely that the thing that Nimrod hunts is actually people.

That what's being spoken of here is actually Nimrod as a mighty warrior.

And the reason that God's enemies grow so profoundly is because they're filled with people of violence.

Just as they were in Noah's day filled with violence, it's likely that this generation and the generations after Ham were filled with violence.

What we see here is God's people are progressing, and yet we're reminded by this genealogy that God is the God of all people.

He's the God of Nimrod, He's the God of all these nations, He is the God of Canaan.

God's even sovereign over his enemies.

And as the children of God, we praise God for this.

We praise God because we look back to a time in our life before we had faith in Christ.

And what does the Bible say?

That in our sin we were enemies of God.

Praise God, because God does not forget his enemies.

Praise God because on the cross Jesus Christ prayed for his enemies, had a heart for his enemies.

And when we found ourselves at enmity with God, he cared with us to such a degree that he would send his own son to die with us.

Die for us.

And that because of that, you've lived your life pridefully living against God's kingdom.

I want you to recognize the care of God for you even now in this moment, to have you here in this very place, hearing of the good news of Jesus Christ, hearing of all that God has done for you through Jesus.

This is God's care for you.

Consider that he might actually have you here for a reason.

Listen in this message for a reason to show you that he cares for you, that he wants to cover your sin in the blood of Jesus Christ.

Lastly, Moses goes to the line of Shem.

You read in verse 21 to Shem also the father of all the Children of Eber.

And so he goes on to show the nations that were born out of Shem's line.

These are God's people.

And you'll notice here that there's a split.

After in verse 25, it says to Eber were born two sons, and the name of one was Peleg.

For in his days the earth was divided, and his brothers was Joctain.

And what's going to happen here is the godly line of Shem is going to be split into, and for a moment, Moses is going to follow the line that pursues sin.

And this will eventually lead to what we're going to get to in a moment, the Tower of Babylon, chapter 11.

And in chapter 11, verse 10, Moses is going to take up the line of Shem again to follow the godly line of Peleg.

God's sovereign over all people, He's sovereign over the lost, He's sovereign over the forgettable, He's sovereign over his enemies.

And here we're understanding that God is sovereign over his own children.

God has a heart for his children.

Even the wayward ones.

This is really what the whole book of Genesis is about.

The book of Genesis is kind of like, have you ever met that person who just, I try the hardest in my life, maybe this is one of my main priorities in life, not to be this person.

But they just show you way too many pictures of their kid on their phone.

You ever met someone like that?

Oh, you've got to see this picture.

You're like, oh, that's, if I'm honest with you, a pretty ugly baby, but I don't want to say it.

No, you would never say that.

They're showing you drawings that their kids did, and you're like, oh, it's some scribbles.

That's really cool.

But you see in their voice and in their actions this pride over their children.

They love their children.

And isn't it interesting that we read of all these genealogies in Genesis of God tracking for his people his chosen line.

His chosen children.

Why?

Because God is that parent who loves his children.

If we could illustrate it, your picture is in God's wallet.

He cares for you.

He cares for you.

And this is the care that we rest in.

In the love of God, knowing that He knows us, and He knows that we are His, and He will care for us.

This is the God who cares.

As life goes on, even in the deepest moments of the people's sin, God is caring for them.

But as life goes on, what we find in chapter 11 of Genesis is that as the children of God, we must prioritize the glory of God.

If you're taking notes, this is the second point of things we must do as life goes on.

The second thing I must do is prioritize the glory of God.

And so time has continued to progress.

And what we find in chapter 11, verse 1, it says this the whole earth had one language and the same words.

And as the people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.

The people have multiplied.

And they found themselves together.

And in verse 3, they have united their hearts in a common mission.

Look what it says in verse 3.

They said to one another, Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly.

And they had brick for stone and bitumen for mortar.

And look what they said in verse 4.

They said, Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens.

Let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.

Now, as we're reading through these chapters in Genesis, when we read these people, come together, and then in verse 3 say, Come, let us make.

Our jaws should drop, we should do an audible gasp.

Because the last time that we read those words, come, let us.

Do you remember who said that?

It was God Himself.

In Genesis chapter 1.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

It was God who said, Come, let us make man and make him in our image.

And now what are the people of that God has created doing in Genesis 11?

Now they've gathered together and they face God and they say, instead of doing what God has commissioned to do, let us gather together and do what we want to do.

It's these shocking words.

Come, let us make bricks.

Come, let us build ourselves a city.

Notice that their desire is to build a city to make a name for themselves.

It's this prideful desire.

Instead of prioritizing the mission that God had given them to be fruitful and multiply and to live in relationship with Him, these people had prioritized their own desires, their own missions, their own priorities.

This is the human problem.

This is our problem.

It's a pride problem.

Each of us have this pride problem.

It's prioritizing what we can do instead of what God has called us to do.

This is the pride that runs deeply in our sinful, broken hearts.

Notice that at this moment there is not one person who is not living with this pride.

And it's a reminder to us in our world that the condition of your heart is just the same.

None of us have escaped a sinful brokenness of a heart condition.

We're born into it.

We're born me monsters.

You don't have to teach children how to care for their own needs.

The moment a baby comes out of the womb, they're crying for their own needs.

They're crying for their own kingdom.

They're crying for their own wants.

You don't have to teach children how to sin and look out for themselves.

That's just their natural desire.

And so it is with us.

Our natural tendency is to pride.

Our natural tendency is to not care what God thinks or says, but to care only what we think and only what we want.

I want you to notice that in their pride, these people can actually accomplish a lot.

You notice this so much that in verse 5 it says, the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the children of man had built.

And even the Lord acknowledges that in their pride, they're actually accomplishing a lot.

So then in verse 6, the Lord said, Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do.

And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.

God acknowledges that when you live for your own glory, when you live in the pride of all that you can accomplish, you can actually accomplish a lot.

And the reason you can do that is because God has created you as a human being in order to accomplish a lot.

And when your desires turn from God's kingdom to your own kingdom, you can actually build a pretty good kingdom.

You can accomplish much.

The Bible doesn't shy away from the fact that those who don't live for God often experience many blessings in life.

In fact, in Psalm 73, the whole psalm is about this reality.

The psalmist is looking at around the world and he's recognizing that it seems like God, you've said that blessed is the man who walks in paths of righteousness.

You said, if I live for you, I would be blessed, but now Asaph in Psalm 73, he's looking around and he's realizing that actually he's not very blessed.

Seems actually like the people who are not following God are prospering.

He's looking at the wicked and notice what he says, for they have no pangs until death.

Their bodies are fat and sleek, they enjoy any food that they want.

He says they're not in trouble as others are, they're not stricken like the rest of mankind.

See he looks around and he recognizes that actually the wicked are prospering.

The wicked are doing pretty well.

And here's Asaf.

He's saying, Hey, God, I'm living for you.

God, I'm trying my best here.

And I don't feel like I'm getting any blessing.

I don't feel any joy.

I don't feel any riches of this world.

I'm trying to live in humility, doing what you've called me to do.

But it's the wicked that are prospering.

It's not until in verse 16 of Psalm 73 that Asaph comes into the sanctuary and he says, There I discerned their end.

Truly you set them in slippery places, you make them fall to ruin.

He says, How they are destroyed in a moment, swept away utterly by terrors.

Like a dream when one awakes, O Lord, you rouse yourself and despise them as phantoms.

And what Asaph comes to recognize is actually that the wicked, even though they prosper now, eternally they have nothing.

And church, this is my fear for our generation in the place in the world where we live.

We live in a country that by all standards is very successful.

In fact, to live in this country really is very likely to be probably the top 1% richest people in the world.

And as a people, especially in the city that we live in in Newmarket, it's very likely that we experience a lot of worldly success.

That we can look at our life, maybe look at our salary, look at our jobs, look at our positions, look at our promotions, look at our families, look at our houses, look at our possessions, look at our accomplishments, look at our degrees.

And by all these things, we can start to accumulate this list of things that we have done.

And we look at this life and we say, look at this life that I've earned, look at all that I have accomplished.

And there are many reasons to be prideful for the rich.

And my fear is that pride can easily slip into our life.

And what God wants to show us in Genesis 11 is that pride is costly, that pride is dangerous, that pride will ruin you.

And you say, how can pride ruin me?

Well, there's three ways that Moses is showing us in Genesis 11 that pride can ruin us.

First way that pride can ruin you is that pride defeats self.

Pride defeats self.

If you're walking around in pride, you have the gun pointed at your own body.

Pride, the only person that it damages is yourself.

And we see this in Genesis 11.

You see, in verse 4, you see what the people said.

Come let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens.

Let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.

The people build this tower to try to escape being dispersed over the face of the whole earth.

But what happens in verse 7?

God sees what they're doing, and God is sovereign over them, and so he says, Come, let us go down there and confuse their language, so they may not understand one another's speech.

And in verse 8, so the Lord dispersed them from there over all the face of the earth.

In their pride, they try to build a tower to escape the reality of being dispersed over all the earth, but instead it they run right into the reality of being dispersed all over the earth.

And the reality for you and I that we must come to terms with is that our pride will never accomplish anything for us.

Pride never progresses us.

Pride only penalizes us.

This is the reality of our pride.

This is the reality of living for our own purposes and not living for God's purposes.

This is my fear that I see so often.

My fear is that we might have this spiritual pride, this unwillingness to listen to the word of God.

We might live with a spiritual pride that's unwilling to be in places of vulnerability, it's unwilling to be shown areas of sin in our life, it's unwilling to be confronted with the word of God.

And I wonder if you were to consider and examine yourself and ask yourself this question: Am I willing, if a spiritual concern is raised in my life, am I willing to deal with it?

If a person can show me how I'm living contrary to God's word, am I willing to deal with it?

In fact, ask yourself this question: When was the last time you were confronted with sin in your own life?

If it wasn't recently, the reality is that you're probably walking with a spiritual pride.

Sin is constant in our life.

And as we read God's word, it should be like a mirror, almost on a daily basis, that is showing us our sinfulness, showing us our pride, showing us our shortcoming.

We might have the spiritual pride where we're unwilling to deal with the problems in our life, we're unwilling even to see them.

We can never progress with pride.

Pride defeats self.

Second thing I want you to see about pride is that it devalues God.

So the people, they don't want to be dispersed, and they say they're going to build this tower in verse 4.

And they say these words, let us make a name for ourselves.

Let us make a name for ourselves.

They pursue the building of the tower thinking that they can make a name for themselves.

This is the second thing that pride does, it devalues God.

Pride inflates your sense of self and deflates the worth that you place in God.

To be prideful is to be blind in life to what is truly valuable.

This is why Paul says that salvation is like God coming into your heart, saying, Let light shine out of darkness, shining light in your heart, so that then in the darkness of your heart the lights go on, and you see the worth and glory of following Jesus Christ.

What salvation does is it turns pride on its head.

No longer do you think pursuing your own way is valuable.

Now you realize that the only thing that's valuable, of eternal value in this life, is pursuing Jesus Christ.

And so you pursue him.

This is what salvation is: it's a changing of value systems.

So, like the man who found the pearl of great price realized that it was worthy in order to obtain this treasure of great price.

It was worthy to sell everything in his life in order to get this treasure.

So it is with us.

Salvation is a humbling experience that makes us realize that the things that we are pursuing in our pride are no longer valuable.

The only thing that's valuable is bringing glory to God, not to build a name for ourselves, but to build the kingdom of God for his glory.

Third thing I want you to see is that pride damages man.

And so, mankind has been on a journey since Genesis 1, created in the Garden of Eden, in the very presence of God.

And in Genesis 3, cast just outside of the Garden of Eden.

And you'll notice that geographically, the people of God have only gotten step by step farther and farther away from God until at the Tower of Babel they are dispersed over the whole earth.

This is our condition apart from God.

We believe that we don't need Him.

People who built the Tower of Babel believed that they could build a tower that would make a name for themselves, that they could escape God's sovereignty, that they could live outside of God's rule, but they were sorely mistaken.

Instead, it just damaged all of them.

All of them separated from Him.

Apart from Jesus Christ doing a work in your life, there is nothing that you can do that will bring you closer to Him.

Every action will only drive you farther and farther away from God.

This is why Isaiah says that your righteousness is like a filthy rag to God.

There's nothing we can do outside of Christ that will bring pleasure to God.

The only thing we do is drive ourselves away from God.

And this is what we've seen in Genesis 1 to 11.

That man's greatest efforts can only drive him farther and farther away from God.

Verse 9, it says, Therefore its name was called Babel.

Because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth, and from there the Lord dispersed them from over the face of the earth.

But then listen to verse 10.

And in these verses we find such bright hope.

Hope in the providence of God.

Because as soon as the people who built the Tower of Babel are dispersed over all the nations, God gets right back to his chosen line.

Right back to the generations of Shem.

And this has been the story of Genesis 1 to 11, the people that God created failing time and time again, but no time is wasted in God's eyes before he gets back to doing what he wants to do, to saving his people.

You read through the generations of Shem, that through his families, through the family of Peleg, down through verse 20 to 26, would come Abram.

When Terah had lived 70 years, he fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

And if you're familiar with the story of Genesis, you know that Abram plays an important role.

That Abram, whose name would be changed to Abraham, would be God's chosen deliverer.

This would be the one that God would choose to go to the nations.

A mission to be the father of many nations.

Just as the people of God, by their pride, had been dispersed over all the earth.

God had a plan to get his children back.

He raised up a man named Abraham.

And Abraham would be the father of all these nations.

Through Abraham, God would bring his children back home.

Abraham reminds us that our God is faithful.

Doesn't this feel like it's like rapid fire if you're Genesis 1 to 11, isn't it?

God just that the people of God keep failing and God keeps forgiving.

The people of God fail, God forgives.

They fail, God forgives.

They fail, God forgives.

Time and time again, the people of God just keep on failing until one day, in a manger, is born a baby.

And that baby's name is Jesus.

And he is the Christ.

And this child does what God had always planned to do.

He goes to the nations and he preaches a gospel of repentance and faith.

If you repent and you believe, you will now be a child of God, no matter your ethnicity.

Only thing that matters is your faith.

See, because we know God, hopelessness is not our position.

Our God is a God who forgives our failures.

And the line of Shem reminds us this as it gets to Abram, who would be God's chosen deliverer of God's people that would eventually, through the lines of Abram, give birth to Jesus, who would deliver us from our sin on the cross.

God doesn't give up on his people.

He constantly forgives his people.

And in this reality, there's hope for us.

Time and time again, the people of God would fail at God, and God would send a deliverer.

And Jesus would come, and the failure has not stopped.

Do you sense it in your life?

I know I do.

The weight of my sin, the consistencies of my failures, and yet Jesus has come to forgive.

He's come to be our hope.

And Jesus gave his church a reminder of that hope in communion.

And this morning we're going to celebrate communion together, a reminder that we have a living hope.

And so hopefully, on your Way in, you grabbed a communion cup, and if you didn't, someone's going to come and find you right now, and you can just slip your hand in the air and they'll come and find you.

Communion is a celebration of the living hope we have in Jesus Christ.

Celebration that no matter how many times you fail, Jesus Himself instituted this tradition that we would take this cup of juice, that we would take this cracker, and be reminded that God's forgiveness is available for you.

God has not forgotten you.

God has not cast you off just because of your sin.

Instead, he's provided a way for you to draw near.

No longer does your sin need to drive you from the presence of God.

Now, through the cup of communion, through the blood that Jesus shed, through the flesh that was pierced, you find access to God.

Greater access than even Adam and Eve could enjoy in the garden.

As the people sinned drove them from the Tower of Babel, dispersed them over the face of the earth through the blood, through the cup, through the bread.

We find access to God.

And so we take this to celebrate the grace of God this morning.

As we participate in this, there's two reasons why you might not take this.

One is if you just haven't given your life to Christ.

And we just ask you that you'd withhold from taking the cup of communion and eating the bread.

As this is a celebration of the life, the eternal life that we found in Jesus Christ.

And if in this moment you've placed your faith in Jesus, then we'd be happy to celebrate this alongside you.

Another reason you might not take this is because you're harboring sin in your life that you haven't repented of.

I'm not talking about just the presence of sin in your life.

We all sin, but I'm talking about constant sin that you're just not willing to repent of.

Areas of your life that you're not willing to give over to God.

Paul says that if you drink of this cup without repenting of your sin, you drink judgment upon yourself.

And so I just ask that either you repent or you let the cup pass this morning.

You'll find in this cup there's two layers.

The top layer, you'll find the bread, and you can take that out now.

As you take it out, I just want to invite you to reflect on God's care for you, on his love for you, on the reality of forgiveness, all because of the pierced flesh of Jesus.

Let's take a moment just to reflect in our own minds.

Father, we praise you for this cup.

And we praise you for the bread.

God, that symbolized for us what Christ has accomplished.

So that we no longer have to be cast away from your presence, but now we can live delighting in your presence and your nearness to us.

God, if it were our own to our own doing, if it were our own based on our own righteousness, we would never have a chance of being nearer to you, Lord.

Our pride is too great.

But God, we give you praise that you have sent Jesus for us, so that we might have access through Him to draw near to you, a sinful people in the presence of a holy God, because we have been cleansed by you.

And so we give you all the praise, God.

Thank you.

And I pray that in the depth of our hearts we would rejoice in the celebration that communion is, God.

We pray this all in the name of your Son.

On that night, Jesus with his disciples took the bread and he broke it.

He said, This is my body broken for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.

Afterwards, he took the cup and he reminded him that this cup symbolized his blood that was shed for the forgiveness of their sins and the establishing of a new covenant with them.

Let's celebrate that together.

Why don't you stand with me and pray before we respond in song?

Father, we give you all the praise.

God, thank you for your cross.

Thank you that you have delivered us from our sins.

Lord, that what we just celebrated, God, is the freedom that we have in you because of all that you have accomplished.

And so, God, we give you praise that ours, ours is a living hope.

Not a hope that ever vanishes, not a hope that can ever be taken from us, but a hope that is alive in heaven for us.

God, thank you for this living hope that is in Jesus Christ.

And we sing this song now to declare, Lord, that