Genesis 11;1 9 build on the rock 2 tucson

Genesis 11:1-9 [Build on the Rock Summer Series 2] Pastor Ron Koehler

Grace-Tucson

June 10, 2018

Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. 2 As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there. 3 They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. 4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.” 5 But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. 6 The LORD said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.” 8 So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. 9 That is why it was called Babel —because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

LESSONS FROM A HALTED BUILDING PROJECT 1. DEFIANCE AGAINST GOD WON’T BE TOLERATED 2. THE LORD IS A GOD OF JUSTICE AND MERCY Dear Friends in Christ, So when you refer to this account in Genesis 11, do you say “The Tower of Babel” (Bey-buhl)? Or are you supposed to say “Babble” (Bab-uhl)—you know, because of the whole not-understanding-the-languages thing? It can be a little confusing. And if you try to look it up, you’ll find some differing opinions…and online dictionaries will give you both as acceptable pronunciations…and they’ll tell you that our word babble comes from Middle English so it doesn’t seem that our word babble is really related to this since this was written in Hebrew. If it seems confusing, then you’re actually closer to the truth than you know! The Hebrew pronunciation really is Babel (Bey-buhl) and the word means “confusion!” So while the people sounded like they were babbling with these never-before spoken languages, it was really their confusion which caused the place to be named Babel. But before we get into just what happened at this place and what kind of lessons we can learn from what happened there, let’s back up maybe 100 years to the time of the Great Flood. You recall that at that time, God used a worldwide flood to bring judgment on human beings because they had rejected him. Once the waters had receded enough for land to appear and dry out a bit, the Noah family stepped out of the Ark, worshiped the LORD, and God gave a command to those he had spared—Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth (Gen 9:1). Noah’s sons—Shem, Ham, and Japheth and their wives—would have certainly shared with their children and grandchildren and great grandchildren the details of the arkbuilding, the judgment and death of the Flood, their experiences on the Ark, and God’s command to them after they eventually disembarked: Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth. But somewhere along the line in the 100 or so years following God’s rescue of Noah’s family, the consensus among the thousands and thousands of descendants of Noah was that they would not follow the LORD’s direction. The story of their disobedience and the result of it, is found in the history before us this morning—the account of The Tower of Babel.

God tells us that the people of his world spoke one language and they were all banded together. But his specific command was to go out over his whole created world. Based on what God says here and the actions he took, this was a clear act of defiance on their part. Their defiance, their rejection of God’s will, is seen clearly in their motivation for doing what they set out to do, in their words, and in their actions. The story of the people is the story of full-blown sin. Their motivation for building a city with a great tower—maybe a ziggurat, if that’s something you can picture—is found in two phrases. The first is, “so that we may make a name for ourselves.” There was no interest in building something to the glory of God, only something that would bring praise to them. The second is, “otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.” Their purpose was to go directly against what the LORD had commanded them to do! Their words explain their sinful motivation. But their words did more than that. Whoever these masterminds were, they encouraged others to join them in their praise of themselves and their rejection of God. “They said this to each other…” and they urged others saying, “Come, let us build…” And so they shared their motivation for doing this and with their words, they enlisted the help needed to make bricks and start their building project. And so with sinful attitudes, sinful words, and sinful actions they began this monument to themselves in direct defiance of God and the command he had given them. You know, God doesn’t share bits of history with us so that we can look back at those people and say, “How could they?!” There’s a lesson we can learn from this ill-conceived building project. That is, DEFIANCE AGAINST GOD WON’T BE TOLERATED. Any time you know what God tells you to do or not do in order to honor him and you do whatever you want to do instead—that is defiance. Do you have sinful motives? You do whenever you are looking to please yourself instead of pleasing God. It happens when you, like those people, go in the opposite direction of what God wants. Sinful words? We have those too—in lots of different ways. We may even replicate the sins of the people we hear about this morning, leading others down a sinful path that leads to God’s judgment. And sinful actions? Well, do you ever carry out the sinful thoughts your mind conceives? What is the thing that has caused you to act defiantly toward God like the 2-year old standing at the end of the hall saying “No!” when mom says to get back in bed? What are you doing right now in your life that is absolutely contrary to God’s will? We all have a sinful nature that insists on having its way no matter what God says. The actual sins will vary with each of us though.

It’s gossip for one. It’s a love of money for another. It’s a lack of compassion for others for someone else. One person decides sexual freedom and expression is better than God’s will of reserving that for marriage. o Someone else loves power and authority and thinks the church is a place to take advantage of others instead of a place to serve others, as God requires. o A young person disrespects parents because they want to, even though they know God says to do the opposite. o o o o

You know, in a sense, it doesn’t really matter what the actual sins are. The motivation of the sinful mind and heart is “I want to do what I want to do instead of what honors God.” And that is defiance against God already before words are spoken or actions are taken. Maybe it seems like you’re “getting away with it,” whatever “it” is. If God has not yet intervened in some way to put a stop to your wayward behavior, where will this end for you? Will it end in your eventual departure from life under God’s grace? Will you ultimately reject God in favor of your ideas and your desires? Will God eventually hand you over to your sins, like he hardened the heart of Pharaoh at the time of Moses? In either case, you will have gotten what you wanted—both here and eternally! You will go on living without God and his will in this life. And you will live without God eternally too—just like those people destroyed in the Flood and like any who still didn’t learn their lesson from the Tower of Babel. The lesson to learn is to not take your sin lightly! Willful, purposeful, sin—defiance against God—will find God’s judgment one way or another. DEFIANCE AGAINST GOD WON’T BE TOLERATED. Moses is the one who, at the command of God, recorded this history. He speaks of the LORD coming down to see the building project. Certainly God can see just fine from heaven. He is the all-knowing, all powerful, Triune God. Incidentally, you hear the Triune God in the phrase, “let US go down…” This idea of the LORD going down to see and to take action expresses his involvement with the people he created. Nothing escapes his notice and he does intervene! Despite what University of Arizona classes and the History Channel may tell you, ancient people were blessed by God with ingenuity and creativity. They had knowledge and skill and methods for building, some of which we are still trying to figure out! And what does the LORD see as he observes the building project these people had begun? He sees them using his blessings of communication and teamwork and ingenuity and skill and strength to defy him. Their planned tower would be an “in your face” gesture to God as it reached “the heavens.”

Their defiance brought God’s divine justice to the forefront. They had rebelled, so there must be judgment. God’s judgment did not come by floodwaters or fire and brimstone from heaven or by opening the earth to swallow them. The LORD scattered them by confusing their languages. He made them split into groups of people who could understand each other. And in these separated bands, they moved on to settle their groups in different lands. The justice of God put an end to their spiritually ill-conceived building project. The partially completed building did stand as a monument, just not the kind the people thought it would. Their abandoned skyscraper stood as a testament to the power of God, who halted the building project in judgment for their sin. This halfcompleted tower would have reminded everyone who saw it that God sees everything, that he knows the motives of heart and mind, and he will not let sin go without judgment. Their defiance also brought God’s mercy. Although a little harder to find it in these words, it is here! Instead of leveling these people and their building project like he did with the Flood, the LORD shows mercy. He did not allow them to complete their building of this city where this sinful mindset, shown in speech and action, would have intensified and propagated itself for generation after generation. They were not allowed to complete this tower, this monument to their own brilliance and power and whose very presence would reinforce the idea that people do not need to listen to God, that they were in control and that they could do whatever they wanted. God did not allow them to stand banded together in defiance of him, which would have only brought continued trouble on themselves. In mercy, he spared their lives and allowed them the opportunity to remember him as their God, to repent over their sin, and to show their change of heart going forward in their motivations for doing things, with their words, and in every action they would take. In confusing them, by creating new languages for them to speak, he caused them to do what he wanted them to do for the last 100 years or so—fill his created world. They would not forget this experience and those who saw the LORD’s hand all over it would be sure to tell their children and grandchildren and on down the line. They could recall this world-altering event whenever they considered disobeying the LORD’s will. God gave them an opportunity to consider their sinful defiance and repent. Those who did found a forgiving God, a God who was not only merciful (withholding punishment), but also full of grace (offering undeserved love and forgiveness). When we consider our sinful defiance of God, there is a lesson here for us too: THE LORD IS A GOD OF JUSTICE AND MERCY. He was with the people at Babel and he still is with us. We have the same eternal, Triune God. He has not changed.

The LORD still must treat our defiant motives and words and actions with justice. And he does. I should say, “He has.” God sent his Son, Jesus, to live in a way we cannot live. Our sinful nature makes it impossible to perfectly obey the commands and will of God. We want to—and we sometimes do—live like the people we hear about today. We do set ourselves up as the authority, the expert on what is best for us in this life. We decide what we’ll do and why—and if it is the opposite of what God wants, so be it. But this was not the attitude of Jesus. He wanted what his Father wanted. His motivation for doing everything was to please his Father in heaven. Every word he spoke exposed a heart and mind in tune with God the Father and the Holy Spirit. Each action over the span of his earthly life was seen from heaven and was acceptable. There was no defiance in Jesus. There was only meeting the expectations of the holy God. As we heard in the second lesson today, “Jesus Christ, the Righteous One…is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world (1 John 2:1b-2).” His perfect compliance with his Father’s will was offered as a sacrifice on the cross. That means that our sins of defiance—our thoughts, the words we speak, and the rebellious things we do—were all paid for by Jesus. The justice of God was satisfied when his Son bled and died on the cross. Jesus did that so that you and I would not suffer the consequence of our sins. And so we experience the mercy of God in this way—we do not receive the punishment we ought to receive. The LORD does not treat us as our sins deserve, just as he did not come crashing down on those people at Babel like he could have. He lovingly did something else with them and he lovingly does something else with us by faith in Jesus. I pray that we learn these important lessons from this halted building project. I pray that the love of God in Jesus is enough to move us to walk away from the monuments we build to ourselves in this life—building a life the way our sinful nature wants it instead of honoring God. Leave those half-built, humanistic projects behind and move on to live the life that God seeks from his people. Follow his direction and build a life that honors him. Amen. Now the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.