The Tower

Series: Beginnings

 “The Tower”

Text: Genesis 11:1-9  // Series: Beginnings

Message @ JRCC – Sunday, Feb 13, 2011

 

It is so great to be able to stand and affirm Brian and Jess’ call to ministry this morning.  Their journey has been one from Sask, to Lethbridge to Langley to Harrison…  Didn’t always go as planned.  Which is fairly common.  Some of you know a bit of my story, unlike Brian, I am a planner.  And I had a very, very solid plan for my life.  My grandparents were both successful entrepreneurs and business people, so was my father and so that was my plan.  I set this notion up in high school that I was going to go to the University of Toronto, get a degree in communications, get a comfortable job, get married, get a nice house with a white picket fence in suburbia somewhere have 2.5 kids settled down and have a nice comfortable life.  But along the road to that plan, I heard God speak to me about His plan for my life.  And it wasn’t very specific.  It was just ‘this is where I want you’.  And the here was Langley.  So I moved across the country to come to school at Northwest Baptist College and TWU and 15 years later, by God’s grace and in obedience to His plan I’m still here in Langley! 

 

One of the things we see in our study of the book of Genesis is how quickly people develop a plan for their lives.  A plan that does not include God or, as in the case of our narrative today, a plan that directly opposes what God has intended and asked of humanity.  If you are visiting with us, welcome here.  We’re in a study in the first book of the Bible, Genesis, the book of beginnings.  And it is here, like in any introduction or early chapters to any great narrative, we are introduced to some of the core principles and significant plot lines of our story.  We’ve seen in chapter 1 & 2 that God created the world and declared it good.  But then our forbearers acted in willful disobedience to God’s generosity and command and rose up with pride in their hearts and said “you’re not the boss of me!”.  And we saw how the human family continued to live out this fallen nature…  brother killing brother, genuine relationship with God substituted for religiosity and pretense.  Until it got so bad that God said that every thought, attitude of the heart of every person was bent towards wickedness and evil. So like a parent grieving over the poor choices made by a child or children, He destroyed the world with a deluge. But in His mercy, we saw last week that He spared Noah and his family.  And so in Genesis chapter 10, we begin to see Noah’s 3 sons and their families having babies…  It’s like Jericho Ridge where we have 2 babies this week, 11 babies in a  month period of time!  They have heard and obeyed God’s command in Genesis 1:28 – be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth!  And then God reiterates this to Noah and his sons and their families in 9:1…  But as they begin into this process, there is a problem that emerge: not everybody is on board with God’s plan.  They have their own plans and programs for their lives and they are intent on direct disobedience to God’s command.  Their plan?  A tower.  Actually, not just a tower, but THE tower.  And it doesn’t turn out well for them… 

 

Grab your Bibles and turn with me to Genesis 11, I’ll be reading from the New Living Translation and I want you to listen for the conflict between God’s dream and aspirations and their dreams and plans. 

 

Scripture slide 1 & 2 (11:1-4)

 

So here we get a picture of the origins of the nations of the earth, as described in 11:32.  One of the things the book of Genesis helps us with is to answer the question ‘how did all of what we see today in our world get here?’  If we all descended from one human ancestor or one family, how is it that we see such incredible diversity across the globe in language, culture, ethnicity and more?  Well Genesis 11 helps us understand the movement from mono to multi-linguistic global experience. 

 

Now, early in this narrative we see a few critical things.  There’s a lot of stuff we don’t know – who these people are, where exactly this city and tower was, were they building an ancient temple for pagan idol worship like a ziggurat – we’re not really told.  That’s not the point.  The point becomes clear to us in their expressed intentions in verse 4.  They intend to be famous.  And they intend to stay in one place.  We will make a name for ourselves, the text says, and this project will keep us from being scattered. 

Now, from the end of chapter 9, we know that Noah lived another 350 years after the flood, so this is likely still occurring in his lifetime.  And God has clearly reiterated to Noah and his family God’s plan for His world – that they would fill the earth.  That they would scatter.  But these people are not interested in participating in God’s plan.  I am indebted in my thinking on this to Eugene Roop and his believer’s church commentary on this passage where he notes that “Chapter 10 has told us that being scattered and filling the earth is an expression of God’s blessing…  The people seek to establish a unity, apparently set against God’s blessing to be scattered.” (82).  God has a plan.  People have another plan – a building plan, that they think is better and ought to be pursued. 

 

That doesn’t sound that unfamiliar to me.  My plan for my life was setting itself up in antithesis to God’s plan for me.  God wanted me here, I wanted to stay in Toronto (although, granted at this time of year when they have dumps of snow, I can see the wisdom of God’s plan J).  But the idea that my aspirations for my life would be different than God’s aspirations for my life is certainly one that I am familiar with, and I suspect many of you, too.  And so one of the early questions we are invited to ask or Life Lessons that we are invited to give thought to from Genesis 11 is:

  • What is the dream or aspiration that is driving your activity?

In the case of the tower builders, it wasn’t that God was opposed to architecture or urbanization or any of that.  The issue is that the dream that was in their hearts was diametrically opposed to the dream in God’s heart.  We’ve been reading through Proverbs in our Momentum journaling and I love the way that this comes up in Prov 19:21

-         “ Many are the plans in a person’s heart, 
   but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails.” (Proverbs 19:21).

 

Some of us have hidden or not so hidden dreams and aspirations that drive us.  It might be around money.  If you are single, it might be around meeting someone, settling down and having a family.  It might be around how your kids turn out or when and how you retire.  And these dreams have a way of driving our activity.  But the question is who’s dream is driving it?  Is it a dream that God has put there that is healthy and aligned with His desire and plan as revealed in Scripture or is it a dream that says “who cares what God thinks.  I am doing this.  And I’m doing it MY WAY!”  You may need to take some time this week to spend time in solitude inviting God to search your heart and see if there is alignment between His purposes for your life and your purpose for your life. 

 

But, not only do we see that their dream is off-not being scattered is off-base but the way they go about expressing it is also off base.  You can have a great aspiration but really negative expression or execution of that  dream and it still doesn’t please God.  Look again at their motives – not only do they oppose God’s scattering to be a blessing plan, but they do so with arrogance in their hearts.  It’s not just ‘we’ll settle here’ it’s ‘we’ll be famous’.  And so another question we need to ask is:

  • What is the attitude of your heart as your pursue your aspirations?

We’ve all likely met people with good aspirations and plans but they are jerks.  Some of them are great at hiding out in churches.  They talk about how they want to do great things for God, but really, when you get right down to it, their motivation and their methodology is all about them.   

-         “Pride goes before destruction,
 and haughtiness before a fall” (Prov. 16:18).
 

Let me see if I can give you a little picture of how this links together:

 

 

 

This really comes out in God’s response to the tower.  2 Scripture slides.

 

I love the way one cross-cultural worker puts in in the title of her book “The Tower of Babel was a Bad Idea: The joy and agony of second language learning.”  Anyone on our Guatemala team who is trying to learn Spanish or anyone like Colleen in Nepal or like Steph in India or like JungHoon and Pearl in Malaysia has sometimes wondered – is a multiplicity of language God’s curse on the world?  What was God doing at Babel?

Creating a diversity program?  Inventing multi-culturalism?

 

But here we have to keep in mind God’s heart.  Already in Chapter 10:5 and verse 20 we see the emergence of clans, tribes, territories, nations.  This is a normative part of God’s plan.  5 times in 9 short verses, it uses the phrase ‘the whole earth’ and 5 times in the same verses God hints at ‘language’ as an integrated part of this.  That God didn’t intend from the start for a monocultural expression of culture and language to be the norm on the earth.  That a vast diversity of nations and peoples would be a natural outflow of this continued scattering.  But these people here in Gen 11 wanted a unity.  They wanted to huddle up, to protect and to build a mono-cultural expression founded in their pride and rooted in their defiance to the commands of God.  So, just like God did with Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel, and Noah, God intervenes again.  He acts to prevent further problems.  The people have a come let us speech…  God has a come let us speech.  The people say our plans?  They are going to make us look great!  We will build something for ourselves here that the world will take notice of!  And here I think there is a lesson for us corporately as a community.  As a church family, what are we trying to build together?  To what ends are our efforts and energies bent?  Or more specifically, as we reach out individually & corporately locally & globally,    

  • Who are our efforts aimed at drawing attention to?

Some people look at a place like Jericho Ridge and say “all you people want to do is be a part of a hipper, more relevant church that you’ve experienced in the past.”  Friends, if that’s the highest objective we have – being trendy or hip or cool or young – we have missed it.  What a pathetic statement if any of us wander around going “yup… I go to Jericho Ridge.  It’s the cool church that meets in the cool facility that has that young staff team, the cool inter-church youth stuff.”  Notice in those statements where the attention is drawn to – it’s solidly focused on the wrong place: US.  It’s not about us, friends.  If our efforts in the community or in conversation are aimed at convincing people that Jericho is great, we are off base because we are drawing attention to the wrong thing.  If we thing    

-         “Let them praise the name of the LORD, 
   for His name alone is exalted; 
  His splendor is above the earth and the heavens.” (Psaslm148:13)
 

If we think for one minute that it’s about us, we are in deep trouble.  That’s the mistake that the people who built Babel were interested in:  So we are invited this morning to a corporate dimension of application – Jericho, who’s plan are we working on?  Our plan or God’s Plan?

So what might this differential look like?  Well, in Genesis 11 we see that

  • Our plan is making a great name for ourselves
  • God’s plan? That His name would be known among the nations

 The anthesis to the Tower of Babel exists in Acts 2 at Pentecost where God pours out his Spirit and language is not a barrier – all people hear about the greatness of God in their own heart language.  And also in Revelation where it talks about a great multitude from EVERY tribe, every tongue and every nation bowing in humble submission to their Creator.  And the exciting thing is that we get to be a part of this!  We get to stand in global mission like never before! 

  • Our plan is gather to protect (huddle up)
  • God’s plan? Scatter to bless
  • Our plan is monocultural
  • God’s plan? Multi-cultural!

And so that’s one reason why we are celebrating today with a Lunar New Year lunch.  It’s a reason why we’re showing a movie this Sat to raise funds for wheelchairs in Guatemala…  Because God has a huge heart for the nations.  For all peoples, all cultures and he invites us to have the privilege to participate in that.  As we close today, I’m going to invite you to stand with me as we make

 

A Corporate Declaration of our intent.  Taken directly from Psalm 67:

Leader: “May God be merciful and   bless us.  May his face smile                      with favor on us.”

                        

 ALL: “May your ways be known      throughout the earth,

                   your saving power among people everywhere.”

 

 

Leader: “May the nations praise you, O God. Yes, may all the                                     nations praise you.”

                        

 ALL: “Let the whole world sing for joy, because you govern the    nations with justice and guide the people of the whole world.”

 

ALL: “May the nations praise you, O God. Yes, may all the                               nations praise you.”

                        

Leader:       “Then the earth will yield its harvests, and God, our God,                        will richly bless us.

 

ALL:  “Yes, God will bless us,  and people all over the world                     will fear him.”

 

Let’s pray.

 

 

How do we move from one family to the multi-lingual, international flavour that our world has today? The Tower of Babel illustrates not only God's heart for the nations but also how personal and organizational ego can prevent us from being obedient to Him.

Speaker: Brad Sumner

February 13, 2011
Genesis 11:1-9

Brad Sumner

Lead Pastor

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