Genesis | Part 9

Hey, listen, um, I just feel like there's a wonderful atmosphere of worship, and I think our hearts, our hearts are ripe to receive God's word.

So go with me if you would to Genesis chapter 11.

Genesis 11 · chapter mention

If you're new here today, I want to say welcome.

Uh, we tend to peep preach book by book uh through our sermon series, and we happen to be in Genesis uh and we're on chapter 11.

This familiar story of the Tower of Babel.

Are you familiar with the story?

It's intriguing.

See if you have it, say amen.

Okay, as a matter of fact, let me just turn there real quick and we will just read it at the forefront if I can see it.

I have to print my scriptures out.

All right, let's try this.

Let's let's read it.

Now the whole earth had one language and the same words.

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

And 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 they said, Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.

And the Lord came down to the city in the tower which the children of man had built.

And the Lord said, Behold, there are one people, and they have 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.

Come, the Lord says, Let us go down there and confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another's speech.

So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of the earth, and they left off building the city.

And therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth, and from there the Lord dispersed them over the face of all the earth.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Well, as humans, we share a strong ambition to build something with our lives.

The great philosopher Oprah Winfrey at one point said, Create the highest, grandest vision possible for your life because you become what you believe.

And that resonates with some of us.

Build the greatest vision you can for your life.

This is even sometimes what we teach our children.

Dream big.

You can do anything you want to do.

You can become whomever you want to become.

The question I want to pose for you today, I want to put before you, that I want you to grapple with, is simply this.

As Christians, is it wrong to have the ambition to build something with our lives, something great?

You know, ask it one more time.

As Christians, is it wrong to desire to have the ambition to build something great with our lives?

Now, I'm gonna give you my answer and then I'm gonna show it to you through the text today.

And my answer is this it depends.

Last week we finished the story of Noah in the flood.

And remember, Noah, you know the story, builds this massive ark, right?

Now today we come to another building project.

All our construction people in here, like this ought to resonate with you.

So the people in Babel, they come to this land.

The world, you know, the world has now been repopulated after the flood, and the the people make their way to this place in Mest uh, I'm never mind, uh, a place called Shinar.

And uh, anyways, they they settle there, and they build a city and this massive tower.

Now, here's what's interesting Noah's ark that he built becomes an ark of salvation.

The Lord uses it to spare his life from the flood waters of God's wrath.

But the Tower of Babel, the men build a city, and they build a tower, but God destroys it.

It becomes a tower of despair.

And I don't think the point is that God likes boats better than skyscrapers.

All right, I don't I don't think that's it at all.

Here's what we learn from these two stories when we compare them.

We learn that there is a right way to build something with your life, and there is a wrong way to build something with your life.

You could say there's a right ambition towards greatness or for greatness, and there's a wrong type of ambition.

So I want to show you through the text today how you can build something that pleases God and something that bears eternal fruit.

And this is why I want you to listen.

Because we're always building, life is building.

Obviously, I'm not just talking literally.

I'd be in trouble if my wife life, you know, was all about construction work.

But we're always building.

And here's what I don't want to happen to you.

I don't want you to build and to strive and to labor and to toil your whole life only to the end.

In the end, realize that everything you've done, you've done in vain.

I don't want your tower of Babel to become the tower of despair.

No, there's a way that in all your working and toiling and building, that that legacy will carry on, not just in this life, but it will bear fruit for all of eternity.

That's what I want to help you with today.

It's a wonderful story, interesting story.

So we're gonna look at this.

Uh, we're gonna look at verses one through four at the people's project, kind of the story, what's going on here.

And then secondly, we're gonna look at verses five through nine at God's response.

Are you ready?

Smile at me this morning.

I need some more amens today.

Last week was a struggle.

Number one, the people's project.

I want you to see they are united.

All the people, they settle together.

I'm gonna take a stab at this again in Mesopotamia.

I did it.

Woo! And uh in the region of Shynar that becomes known as Babel, it corresponds to ancient Babylon.

And by the way, this is modern-day Iraq.

But the text tells us that they're all there in proximity, but not just in proximity, they share the same language and the same words.

Genesis 11:1.

Genesis 11:1

The whole earth had one language and the same words.

Now, all the people here descended from whose family?

Noah's family.

And you tend to speak the language of the family you grew up in, right?

Now, there are roughly, as far as we know, about 7,000 languages in the earth today, around the world.

7,000.

Think about that.

And so you you might ask this morning, you really expect me to believe that all of those languages, that we all used to speak the same language, and so all of these languages came out of the Bible story.

Yeah, I do.

And here's what I love.

I I get it, I get it, okay.

Like this is maybe a little challenging to believe.

But do you know that modern science is actually validating this claim?

It's unbelievable.

Secular non-Christian linguists, listen to this, can trace many languages back to common ancestors.

And some have hypothesized that all languages ultimately share a single source.

This is wild.

Secular linguist Merritt uh Roulon, he wrote a uh 2011 research paper, stated this.

He said, quote, recent work in comparative linguistics suggests that all or almost all attested human language languages may derive from a singer, single earlier language, end quote.

This is wild.

I love this.

Um, Arizona pastor Mark Driscoll told a story that happened to his daughter Ashley that incurred while she occurred while she was in linguistics class at uh Arizona State University.

She was in graduate school.

And the the professor argued, he stood up before the class, argued that the known languages spread across the earth share a common spoken language of ancestry.

Well, Ashley, knowing the Bible, she stands up and she goes, The Bible says that.

What do you think happened?

The classroom full of about 400 students, filled with laughter.

But if you know Mark Driscoll, he's pretty controversial.

And uh his daughter, you know, the the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree.

So she just stood up, opened her Bible to uh Genesis 11 and read verses 1 and 2.

So here's the thing.

Science continues to confirm what the Bible says.

Like we could have the Bible could have saved these uh the these people who study language like a lot of work.

Like this is this has been written for many, many years.

These people are united.

That's what I want you to get out of this.

But they're not just united.

Watch this, they're industrious.

I mean, there's technology technological advancement taking place here.

Look at verses three and four again.

And they said to one another, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly.

They had a brick for stone and bitumen, that's uh for mortar, that's kind of like asphalt.

And then they said, Come, let us build a city and a tower with its top into the heavens.

They're wanting to accomplish something that's up to this point has not been accomplished.

And watch what they're doing here.

They're they're banding again, they're in unity, they're banding around a single vision, and they're working together towards this ambitious, hyper-ambitious project to build a city and to build a tower.

I don't know how long it took them, but can you think?

I mean, this is wild.

This thing was so massive, and they had to build it brick by brick, and not only that, they didn't have the bricks imported, they had to form each brick.

They build something phenomenal.

That's the story, okay?

Everybody on the earth is gathered in proximity, speaking the same language, working together to build a city.

Now, my question is, does this sound, does this not sound like a good thing?

Working together, industry, technological advancement, like this sounds like a good thing, but as we read in the story, God destroys all this.

It's like if you ever, you know, as a kid, did you ever like build with Legos or Lincoln Longs or whatever this massive tower, and then your little brother or sister comes in and just knocks it down?

Like, this is kind of what this feels like.

Here's the thing uh, what's this sounds like a really good thing at first, but there are three problems with this, okay?

Well, let me let me tell you why I think first this sounds like a good thing.

It's important to speak the same language and use the same words, and you might think that sounds redundant, but it's not.

See, we have the problem in this country, this problem in this country right now.

Like we use the same words, but I don't feel like we speak the same language.

Like we can't even agree on what the word woman means.

Preach somebody, come on.

I that that's worthy of an amen.

Now, watch this.

Husbands and wives, you speak the same, you use the same words primarily, right?

But our languages can be as different as German from English, right?

And all the wives said, Amen.

All right.

So they're speaking the same language.

This is a good thing.

Then the people are walking in unity, gathering around a shared vision, like Psalm 133, right?

Behold, how good and pleasant it is when what brothers dwell together in unity.

Sounds like a good thing.

Unified.

And then the people are industrious.

Isn't that a good thing?

We've talked about this from week one.

We are created in God's image and in part, you know, the Lord has told us to have dominion over the earth, to subdue it, and in part, here's what that means.

We are to take God's good creation, we are to use the skills and talents that He's given us, and we are to craft beauty, to cultivate the beauty of the earth through music and building and gardening in all that we do.

And this is what they're doing.

I mean, they're making this beautiful, astounding building.

Like this all sounds so good.

That's my point.

So, what's the problem?

There are three.

Number one is disobedience.

Adam and Eve, Genesis 1.28, God's speaking and says to them, it says, God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and what?

Fill the earth.

Then God wipes the earth out, spares Noah and his family.

Noah and his family, get off the boat.

What's he say to them?

Genesis 9:1, and God blessed Noah and his sons, and he said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.

Genesis 9:1

God's command to humanity is to populate the whole earth so that we might spread his glory throughout the world, cultivate the beauty of the entire world.

The whole earth is meant to show forth, to display the glory of God.

And we're part of cultivating his good creation, that beauty from his good creation.

So by the people settling down in one place, the people in Shine are living in a rebellion against God.

It's a repeat of Adam and Eve who want to go their own way.

It's a repeat of Cain and it's a repeat of him.

Okay?

Now I get this desire to want to be together.

Now, some of you are like, you know what?

I'll go, I'll make my own nation.

Just leave me alone, right?

I want to live off the grid.

But a lot of us, we long for community.

You know, we're we're experiencing growing pains here in this church right now, and it's a good thing.

We're running out of parking.

We're we got a lot of people out today, but but we're running out of seating.

And so one of the inevitable things this happened pre-COVID to us is that eventually, and we're wanting to prolong you know, this, push this out as far as possible, is we're gonna need to go to two services.

And our staff and and myself, and we're we're kind of heartbroken about that.

You know why?

Because we kind of like each other.

And one of the things I was talking to one of my friends the other day, and she said to me from this church, and she said to me, She said, Chris, the the reason there's there are two reasons.

One, we need that people are hesitant.

One, we need more volunteers, and I would say yes and amen.

Our people, our volunteers now are already exhausted.

But number two, she said, the biggest issue is we love each other and we're afraid of losing that community.

And I was just reading, this wasn't in my notes until today.

Um, I was going through my text this morning, and I realized that I feel like the Lord spoke to me and said this to me, you know, when Jesus gathered his disciples before his ascension, go into all the world and preach the gospel.

When he gathered the people at Pentecost from the nations, the Jews from all these surrounding nations who had been scattered, he blessed them, he brought them, he gathered them, but then he scattered them.

Here's the thing.

Sometimes we like we we get in community and we love each other and we just want to keep that, and I get it.

And I'm thankful this church has never been a church of us for and no more.

You guys are so welcoming.

But it might, you know, here's the thing, eventually, it might be the case.

I hope it's the case that we have to go to two services, and let me tell you why.

Because there's thousands of people in this community that need Jesus and need the community that you experience here.

God gathers us and then scatters us.

Okay.

So, number one, first problem is disobedience.

But number two, there's the problem of autonomy.

Autonomy.

This is big in our culture today.

And particularly in this scripture, what does autonomy mean?

What do I mean by that?

It's life apart from God.

All right, Bible nerds again, I'm gonna preach to you for a second.

So in Genesis 6:9, it says this about Noah, that Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation, and Noah did what?

Genesis 6:9

He walked with the Lord.

Now I want to compare that to Babel.

Genesis 11 2.

And as people migrated, listen carefully to this.

When you hear what I'm probably pointing out, raise your hand.

I'll see if you're a Bible nerd too.

All right.

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

Anybody catch it?

All right.

When I read from the east, if you've been reading carefully along with us, that should give you pause.

Genesis 3 24, Adam and Eve have just sinned.

And it says, God drove out the man, this is from the garden, and east of the garden of Eden, he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life, east of the garden of Eden.

Genesis 4:16, Cain kills Abel.

Genesis 4:16

Cain went away from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

So God, think of this.

God stationed his cherubim east of the Garden of Eden, which is where God's presence dwells.

After Cain kills Abel, he goes further away.

It says, from the presence of the Lord, further east, further from the garden.

And now we find that they settle east again, these people who are disobedient to the Lord.

Now, I don't think the problem here is that living on the eastern side of the country is wrong.

Like, I would argue, like, don't go to California, okay?

Just saying, it's really funny.

Uh Skip just left.

He told me before service that uh he uh that he was gonna have to leave early uh to go somewhere.

And I'm glad he told me because they're from California, they just moved from California and they just walked out the door.

I would have been worrying I messed them up the whole time, you know, made them mad.

So, anyways, always tell me when you gotta leave, all right?

Here's what's going on here.

It's not that moving east is wrong, but this wording about the east seems to be an intentional pattern.

It's a literal literary pattern used by Moses through chapters one through 11 to sow to show the decline of humanity, how humanity is moving further and further away from God.

And you may say, okay, Pastor, that's a stretch, and fair enough, but the people's autonomy is expressed more explicitly by the threefold use of the first person pronoun us.

Watch this.

Let us make oven-fired bricks, let us build a city, let us build a tower, let us make a name for who?

Ourselves.

This is the biggest difference between Noah's building project and Babel.

Okay, watch this.

Noah walked with God, he built his life upon the foundation of the Lord.

Are you with me?

The people of Babel walked without God.

They clung to autonomy and they worked independently of the Lord.

So let me read you Jesus' words in Matthew 7, 24 through 27.

You remember this parable?

Jesus says, Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock, and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat on the house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock, who is Christ Jesus.

And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like the foolish man, like these Babylonians, who built his house on the sand, and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat up against the house, and it fell.

And watch this the and great was the fall of it.

That's the language of Genesis 11.

So let me ask you are you like the people in our text building things God didn't ask you to build?

That'll preach.

Are you aspiring for success without walking with God?

Like, let me ask you just specifically, are you trying to build a relationship He didn't lead you to build?

Or the He doesn't want you to build.

Are you building a business according to your own wisdom instead of the wisdom of God?

Or are you living life in accordance with the word of God?

Or are you living by your own rules and quote unquote convictions?

The issue is not, watch this.

The issue is not that you are building something with your life.

We're always building.

The issue is what you're building on.

So we've got the problem of disobedience and the problem of autonomy, but then finally we've got the problem of self-glorification.

Genesis 11:4.

Genesis 11:4

And they said, Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its tops to the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed.

Build a tower with its top to the heavens.

Scholars believe this building, uh this tower was a ziggurat.

And in the ancient world, these towers were associated with the temple.

And here's what the pagans thought.

They thought if they built the tower tall enough that the people could get to heaven and then that the gods could get to earth.

You know, they never thought about why they never passed any gods, you know, on their way up the stairs.

But that's what they thought, and this is exactly what's going on here.

Remember Eden?

Again, I said it was a cosmic temple, an overlapping of heaven and earth.

Remember that?

It's where the presence of God dwelt, where man and God dwelt together, and then because of sin, uh, man has been exiled from the garden.

You know what they're trying to do here?

They're trying to get to God on their own terms.

Oh, you know what?

You kicked us out.

We can get to heaven ourselves.

That's what a lot of people are doing in our culture today.

We don't need Jesus.

We we can get to heaven our own way.

We can get our own security.

If we build the tower higher enough, high enough, here's really what it is: we can be like God.

That's the lie that Adam and Eve believed in the garden.

And then they said, Let us make a name for ourselves.

God created humanity in his image to make his name known, to reflect his greatness, not to make our own names great or known.

And people shine our building and creating, not so that God would be known, but so they would be known.

Let's go back to Noah and the Ark.

Noah built the Ark for God's name.

I was thinking about uh I had this image in my mind all weekend, but uh, if our president built the Ark, it wouldn't probably have Trump written across the side in 30-foot gold letters, like Trump Ark and Resort.

Come on, somebody, you know I'm telling the truth.

That's funny right there.

Um, the people of Shinar built a tower for their name and their glory.

Though those big letters stamped on it.

So let me ask you in all of your building, whose name are you attempting to make great?

Just sit with that for a minute.

Your career?

Your family, all that you're striving to do, whose name are you trying to make great?

That's what we're thinking about, and let me just let me just apply this to our church because I just talked about growth and and praise God for that.

But can I tell you, oh my goodness, we're not called to make our church's name great, or called to make show that Jesus' name is great.

So let this never be about real life.

You know, I tell people, if if you're new here, we'll invite you to a VIP room in the back, and I'd love to meet you and all that.

You'll hear more at the end of service.

But I tell people, and some of you who've come recently, you've heard me say this.

You know, I tell you that we'd love to have you as part of this family, but here's what I say I want you to be where God wants you.

And if you're looking for a church, if God's leading you a church with, you know, something that maybe we don't have here, I'll help you find it because there's a lot of good churches in Richmond.

That's hard for me to say, but I mean it.

Please don't let this ever be about real life or a pastor.

Let it be about Jesus.

So that's what's going on.

That's um, that's the project that's happening.

You get it.

They're building this tower for their own glory apart from God.

Now, how does God respond?

He's not too happy.

Um, look at verse five.

Here's what I want you to see.

This is so beautiful.

Uh, God responds first with irony or with a joke.

I love it because, like, for a second I might feel bad for talking about the Trump ark, but God's joking here.

This is great.

Look at verse five.

And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built.

You don't get the joke, do you?

This is way funnier than what I just told.

The Lord came down.

Now, this is uh interesting.

He came down to see the tower.

Let me ask you, isn't God omnipresent?

Proverbs 15, 3, the eyes of the Lord are in every place.

He's always watching the evil and the good.

That's right.

That's right.

If God is omnipresent, if he's all-knowing and he sees everything, why does he have to come down?

Here, here's here's the irony.

I love this.

Man builds this to them massive city.

And they build this tie this tower.

This is wild.

They build this tower, and scholars tell us if going off other buildings, that the the base of this thing was probably 300 by 300 feet and it was 300 feet tall, which is like what 25 to 30 stories of a modern building.

Think about that.

That's a in the ancient world, that's a big building.

It's impressive.

And so just imagine this.

They're all, you know, they're getting close to finishing, and they're just all looking.

Wow, look what we've done.

We're gonna get to God, like we're gonna be like Him.

Are you kidding me?

And then the God who flung the stars into space and knows them by name and created the universe and everything in it, the ever-expanding universe, every galaxy, every planet, every hair on your head, it's from God.

The earth and all within.

And he's supposed to be impressed.

So here's what's going on.

God's saying, All right, they're standing back looking, and God's going, you know what?

Let me just let me just crouch down.

I'm having trouble seeing that.

That's what's happening.

Here, here's what it's like.

Imagine you, you know, you've seen the ants work really hard, and they're like building, and I mean, you feel sorry for them, and they're striving all day.

And to them, they have this ant hill, and it's like you, you know, they're good, they're probably going, man, this is great.

And but for you to see it, you have to go, oh yeah, that's pretty cool.

That's what's going on here.

God's not impressed with the city nor the tower.

So he responds with with irony.

I love it.

Then he responds with judgment.

Look at verses 7 through 9.

Come, let us go down.

And in the us, there is probably God's divine counsel, Mike.

And they're and he said, Let us confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another's speech.

So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of the earth.

And they left off building the city, and therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language and all the earth, and from there the Lord dispersed them over the face of the earth.

Bless you.

So they had to uh they had to scatter.

How many of you are holding your hearts like you thought that was God's judgment coming on you?

You're like, listen, I thought his voice would be deeper, right?

You know, no, I don't know.

Anyways, but God responds with judgment, and they have to abandon the project.

Can you imagine how many bricks they would have had to use one by one?

And they have to abandon this.

God comes down, and here's what we see.

He scatters the people.

Here's what we see: God's purposes cannot be thwarted.

We can build and we can build and we can build.

You know, Korea and Russia and the United States, we can do what we can build our great buildings, and we can and we can do all these things, and we can turn our back on God.

North Korea can think they're so, you know, uh, North Korea, South Korea.

Listen, I don't care how the whole world can band together, all of us, and we can shake our fist at God like many are doing today.

And in a moment, poof, God can wipe us out.

You think we can thwart the promises of God?

You know, Jesus has promised to come back, and you may look around and go, Well, I'm not sure that his kingdom's coming.

Like, it seems like the the wicked are winning.

Don't be so sure that they can build the tower, and right before it reaches heaven, it'll come tumbling down.

Because our Lord, his will will come to pass.

Okay, and it's interesting here that everything the people are trying to avoid actually happens.

They want to avoid scattering.

What's what happens?

God scatters them probably further than what they would have scattered, scattered originally.

They have a desire to be named made known.

Listen, who built the ark?

Okay, who was the foreman for the tower?

Who was the architect?

Name one laborer.

Their name's not known.

Building apart from God, watch this, never will bring you what it promises or what you intend it to bring.

Let me give you an example again.

The Bible teaches that Christians should not intermarry with unbelievers, yes?

But there's a lot of people who don't listen.

So let's just say you meet Prince Charming, and he's not a believer, but he's so nice to me, and he's so cute, and he's this and he's this, and he shares my Christian morals.

He just doesn't believe in Jesus.

Okay?

And you think you know better than God.

And so you put a ring on, you let him put a ring on your finger, and you put a ring on his, and you start grasping for happily ever after.

But happily ever after will not come because God knows more than you.

It will eventually bring you misery.

I've counseled a lot of couples through this, and that's not just true of relationships.

That's anything.

Listen, anything.

You you want to start a business that God hasn't told you to build or has told you not to build, you're asking for heartache.

Whatever it is, take a job that God hasn't wanted you to take when he's told you to stay at the company you're at now.

Don't do it.

God responds with judgment, but here's the best.

God responds with mercy.

Genesis 11, 6.

And the Lord said, Behold, they are one people, and they have 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.

First reading of this, you might think God has divine fear.

Oh my gosh, they're building the tower.

They might actually make it to heaven, they might overthrow us.

You know, that's not what God's saying.

He's not saying they might take my throne.

No.

Here's what he's saying.

This is so important, this is so relevant to where we are today.

This is about fallen humanity working together because when left unchecked, fallen humanity will do unbelievable acts of evil.

This might be the first attempt at globalism.

God knows.

Did you notice what he says?

He goes, This is only the beginning of what they'll do.

God knows this isn't about a tower.

He knows this is about this is a aim to centralize, let's say, authority.

No, it's scary.

You know, those in charge, they're they're promising that their technology and their advancements will bring peace and security.

So all the people blindly, they're sheep, and they say, All right, we'll help you, we'll be the city, but somebody's at the top of the tower.

That's the problem.

And here's what the Lord knows.

Oh, this isn't about a tower.

I'm I'm not so much concerned with the tower, but with these people, if they buy into this centralized government, it'll turn into tyranny.

It always does.

It's the story of Egypt and Assyria, it's the story of Babylon and Persia and Rome and Nazi Germany and um the Soviet Union under Stalin.

Don't buy into this.

This is a good thing.

You know, people, uh modern people today, they think, well, we're we're getting, we're we're basically good people, so we can get it right this time.

No, we can't.

It doesn't work.

Oh, would it work if we were good?

Yes, but we're not.

The world is full of evil, and and this kind of centralized authority always turns into back breaking to radical rule.

Think about this.

This is where the world is moving us today.

Think about it.

Centralized news media.

Here's what happens when a select group can control the narratives, they can suppress the truth and give you false lies, which is every and you go, yeah, CNN, it's Fox News too.

Centralized control over social media.

Do you know they're manipulating your fees, your your feeds?

TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, centralized finances.

This is being made possible now through cryptocurrency.

But or through digital currency.

Think of what that could mean in the future.

Think about AI.

This is scary.

See, technological advancement is good, but the problem is we can't handle it because we're not so good.

The people who are making this AI, listen, I love Chat GPT, I use it all the time.

Sometimes, see, I I work by myself a lot because you know, I've got an administrative assistant, but we don't work a lot at the same time.

And so sometimes I just turn on Chat GPT and start talking to it just to have a friend, you know?

Everybody say, Oh, that's how sad my life is.

No, I'm just joking.

Um, listen, I say, hey, let's work on this project together.

Let's dream like I was in a staff meeting.

But but here's the thing: I I really do love Chat GPT, it's so helpful in research and so many other things, but it's scary because it's in the wrong hands.

God destroying the Tower of Babylon and scattering the people to them.

Watch this, it seemed like punishment.

They're looking at the city and and and by God not allowing them to finish it and scattering the people, destroying any hopes of it being done, they're going, Oh, this is awful.

Why would God do this?

It's but this is actually mercy.

This is actually a sign of mercy.

Watch this.

Maybe the thing that you're so frustrated about that's not happening in your life, the thing that you're trying to build that God is not allowing you to build, and you're mad about it, you're frustrated about it, could it be that it's an act of mercy on God's part?

Because it might destroy you and the people around you.

It's mercy.

So, in closing, in closing today, the people of Babel wanted community, didn't they?

They wanted to be together, they wanted heaven.

We're gonna build a tower, they wanted salvation, security, they wanted greatness, and that's the desire of the human heart.

But their own efforts could not provide any of it.

But here's the thing the story doesn't end there.

I want you to know these fundamental desires are now met in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, this is beautiful.

Please don't check out.

I'm almost done here.

The story of Pentecost, recorded in Acts chapter 2, is a it's not meant to be read out of context with the rest of the Bible.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

Here's what the story is: it is a reversal of the Tower of Babel.

Think about this.

At Babel, the people were scattered.

At Pentecost, they were gathered.

The Jews who had been scattered throughout the ancient world, brought together in Jerusalem.

At Babel, the people tried to go up to God, remember to get to heaven.

But what happens at Pentecost?

God descends by his spirit.

At Babel, God confused the languages.

But at Pentecost, what happened?

You remember the story?

God uses the gift of tongues.

This isn't random babbling, these are real languages.

So watch this.

The people who spoke all these different languages could hear the gospel in their native tongue.

Oh my goodness.

At Babel, the people did not find security or salvation, but at Pentecost, Peter preached, they heard in their own languages, and 3,000 were saved.

Everything that Babel could not provide, Jesus provided at Pentecost and he still provides today.

So is it wrong to aspire for greatness, to have ambition to build something with your life?

It depends.

My question is: what are you building your life upon?

Are you trying to make much of your own name like Babel, or are you trying to make much of the name of Jesus?

Christianity Today published an article about Derwin Gray, who grew up believing that football could give him a different life, could make his wildest dreams come true.

And so he earned a college scholarship and he actually made it to the NFL.

He became a safety for the Colts.

He had built the life that he dreamed of.

He made the tower, made it to the clouds.

But as injuries threatened his career, he realized finally how much of his identity rested on being Derwin the football player.

He had achieved success, yet it could not take away his guilt, giving the love and security or meaning that he needed.

So in 1997, he put his trust in Jesus.

And years later, he would help start a church where he could tell others about the grace that he had found.

Like the people of Babel, Derwin spent years trying to make a name for himself.

And aren't we guilty of the same thing?

We build careers and families and skills and even ministries, hoping they'll finally tell us that we matter.

Some of you are on that quest this morning going, but please, I've got to accomplish this or this or this, or so-and-so has to say something nice to me because you want to be seen, you want to matter.

And you're striving to feel like you matter.

But you know what?

The only way to really know that you matter is to come to Jesus.

You know, let me say I'm gonna be corny for a second, but here that you'll remember this.

God gathers, in other words, he breathes into the kingdom, and then he scatters.

We go out into the world, preach the gospel because people matter.

God gathers, he scatters because people matter.

This morning, you're here, you're gathered with us.

And you might, I don't know why you're here.

Maybe many different reasons.

You know, just just what we do on Sunday?

Maybe you're here for the first time.

Listen.

You're searching for identity in all the wrong places.

You've got a hole in your heart that can only be filled by Jesus Christ.

The only way you're gonna be satisfied, you can achieve those dreams, right?

How many people who achieve it all end up taking their own lives because they get to the top and they realize it's not what it's cracked up to be.

It still can't give you meaning.

David Foster Wallace at the height of his career, took his own life.

And you know, story after story of celebrities and singers, and I mean, you name it.

But there's somebody today who can feel that longing of your heart, and it's the Lord Jesus Christ.

And here's the great news for you, friend.

If you're here and you don't know Jesus, you don't have to build the tower, Jesus built it for you.

He died on the cross for your sins so that you, sinful man, could come to God.

You don't have to build your way to God because Jesus came to us.

If you'll put your faith in him, believing upon his death, burial, resurrection, repent of your sins, follow him in baptism, listen today, you can know the Lord.

And you could have what Babel did not get.

The name you make for yourself will fade.

The name you make for Jesus will forever stand.

The name of Jesus will forever stand.