Genesis 11

Transcript

We study through books of the Bible here at The Village Chapel, and this week is no different as we study through Genesis chapter 11.

Hello, friends. I’m Pastor Matt Pierson, and it is my privilege and delight to lead us in our study this week. We’re calling this chapter Who Do We Think We Are? But I’m excited to walk through this chapter with you all because it touches on so many questions that I nerd out over, questions like identity, who we think we are versus who God says we are. How do we define ourselves? What does it mean to be human, especially nowadays? What does it mean to be a human biologically, spiritually, culturally? How do we define and assess that for ourselves and others, especially others with whom we disagree?

And how we think not only as a biological, chemical, electrical process, but how our thinking is shaped by culture around us. And the question of science and technology, how they affect how we think and how they actually fit in God’s plan for man. Especially how all of these questions, how all of this points us to God’s pursuit of us in his unfolding plan of redemption through Jesus Christ.

If you see the Bible as one interconnected story of God’s covenantal love with mankind, the story with a perfect beginning, a very complex middle, and a beautiful wrapping it all up kind of ending, it’s important to know where we are right now today in the story, because knowing where we are in the story helps us know how to respond and to relate to the world around us and the times in which we live.

So I think of this chapter, chapter 11, as a hinge chapter between pre-history and the patriarchs. So the first 11 chapters of Genesis focus on a broad overview of the origins of the earth, primeval history, if you will. We’ve read about the creation of the earth, the creation of Adam and Eve, our first parents, the account of how sin entered into this world, the flood. Last week, Pastor Jim walked us through chapter 10, the table of nations, the generations of Noah after the flood.

If you wanted four words to sum up the first 11 chapters of Genesis, it would be creation, fall, flood, and today tower. Then the rest of the book of Genesis 12 through 50 chapters recounts the history of the patriarchs, and it tells us how God has focused on one man in his family through which he intends to bless all the nations of the earth and direct his plan of redemption. If we wanted one word to sum up all the rest of Genesis, it would be covenant.

The chapter we’re going to read through today, though, chapter 11, it’s the pivot point. It’s the hinge between these two sections of Genesis. And so, this chapter is neatly divided into two parts versus one through nine, which we’re really going to focus on today. It recounts the events of the Tower of Babel and explains how mankind was scattered over the earth and how we came to be many tribes, tongues, and nations.

Then verses 10 to 32 finishes out the chapter with the genealogies of Noah’s son, Shem. Then the camera lens zooms in, leading us to Abram who will become Abraham, the father of the nation of Israel through which Messiah will come. We’ll read through the whole chapter, but I really want to focus on verses one through nine.

The story of the Tower of Babel, what happened there? Why is this account in the Bible? What was mankind’s sin that prompted God’s response? So spoiler alert, but just so you’ll be thinking on this idea while we read, it was not our technological progress in building the city and the tower, but our collective statement of autonomy and independence that was the issue. The issue was not the tower. It was what the tower meant to us and what we intended to do with it.

Swiss theologian Emil Brunner says,

“Sin is the desire for the autonomy of man; therefore, in the last resort, it is the denial of God and self-deification; it is getting rid of the Lord God, and the proclamation of self-sovereignty.”
Emil Brunner

Okay, those are tough words.

So before we read, I’d like to take a look at where our culture is now, just thinking about this idea of technology. Technology in of itself is not the problem. Technology can be an important tool and servant to us as part of our service to God, and helpful as we follow his creation mandate to fill and form the earth, to be fruitful and multiply, to build and care for all creation.

So I’ve got some examples of technological advances for us to look at. So these first five on this first slide, it’s technical advances down through the ages. Obviously there’s too many to list. I didn’t list any areas of medicine, for example, which really is a primary importance. But I just was thinking of some advances that had significant impact on civilization. Of course, you could include the staggering amount of advances that we’ve had just in the last 150 years.

So take a look at these five technological advances with me. So the wheel is one. That was our first one. Then think about the printing press and how, especially with the spread of the gospel, that enabled bibles to be printed and spread to civilization.

Here’s another huge one, indoor plumbing. Hello, that was quite the technological advance that changed society. Electricity was another one. Then the last one I put down is a smartphone.

You might ask, okay, why did I include the smartphone? Well, because today, it’s 2021, but it’s just in a relatively short time, just since 2007, how virtually the entire world has changed the way we do just about everything since the introduction of the smartphone.

Okay, so for our next slide, if you look at some of these examples of modern day towers of Babel, it’s amazing how quickly the record for the tallest buildings continue to change. It doesn’t last very long. Our quest to make a name for ourself, it leads to this never-ending frenzy to be the newest, the fastest, the tallest, or the biggest. Some of these buildings like the World Trade Center, they don’t even exist anymore. An actually only the Shanghai Tower and Khalifa Tower would even make the top 10 list today.

So let’s take a look at this. We’ve got the Empire State Building. It’s 1250 feet high, 1454 feet including the antenna. The two World Trade Center towers, they were 1368 feet tall. Then the Sears Tower, it’s called the Willis Tower now, in Chicago, that’s 1450 feet tall. Then you get to the Shanghai Tower in Shanghai, 2073 feet tall. Lastly, the Khalifa Tower in Dubai, 2722 feet tall, just over half a mile high, including the spire and the antenna. That is crazy high.

Then for our next and third technological advanced slide, according to the website simplylearn.com, some of the top technological advances for 2021 include artificial intelligence and machine learning. Okay, machine learning, that’s just spooky.

Then comes robotic process automation or RPA. Do we really want our robots that are learning on their own to have this process automated? I don’t know. Then next comes edge and quantum computing. Frankly, I’ll buy you the biggest Americano or latte you want if you can truly explain this to me in a way I can understand it. Then we have virtual reality.

Then, lastly, we have the internet of things. This is where your vacuum cleaner tells your refrigerator that judging by the number of Cheetos vacuumed up from under the couch, the fridge needs to email you and tell you it’s time for more Cheetos. Frankly, I’m not sure I want our appliances talking to each other like that.

Science could and should be a quest for truth, for discovering how things work in this glorious creation we are given and tasked with the privilege of overseeing. Technology could and should be a useful tool for helping us steward this garden and for helping form and fill what God has given us.

But, instead, we see knowledge as power and technology as a weapon. We literally think we know it all, or at least have the capacity to do so. The question what is truth gets taken over by what is useful? Frankly, if science and technology were the answer, all our problems would be solved by now, or very nearly.

If you think about it, think about technology these days, we have the potential to be more connected with each other than ever before in history. But in reality we’re not more connected, we’re not more unified. We’re more isolated and divided than ever before. All you have to do is just take a look at the news, just take a look at social media on your device, and it’s tragically apparent how divided we are.

Well, friends, after all that good news, let’s read the text together, would we? Let’s see what God has to tell us about our identity and where things lie. So this is Genesis chapter 11. “Now the whole earth had one language and the same words, and as people migrated from the east, they found a plane in the land of Shinar and settled there.” That’s actually what we would call Babylon or what we would call today Iraq. That’s where mankind settled.

“And they said to one another, ‘Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly.’ And they had brick for stone and bitumen,” which is tar or pitch, “for mortar.” So here’s a technological advance. “Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens,’” think skyscraper, Khalifa Tower, “‘and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.’”

Okay, here’s an interesting thought. If mankind had been obedient to God’s command to be fruitful and multiply, to form and fill creation, they would have naturally spread out over the earth in a manner that still fostered communion and community and connectedness with God. But as we find out instead, their very fears are going to come to life here.

So, “They said, ‘Let us build 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 Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the children of man had built.” Here’s a little bit of humor that Moses, the author of Genesis, puts into this. Here’s mankind thinking they’re a big deal building this tower, this skyscraper, that’s going to touch heaven, and God’s peering down thinking like this is some ants that you see down on the sidewalk or something. He’s like, “What is that I see down there? Okay, we’ve got to go down and take a look.” So a little bit of dry humor there.

“So the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the children of man had built. And the Lord said, “Behold, they are one people and they have all one language. This is only the beginning of what they will do. Nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.”

Don’t misread that as being that God’s a little anxious or worried about how advanced mankind is getting. That’s not the point. God is realizing that, left undisturbed, the course, the direction that mankind is taking here is not going to end up in anything good.

So, “The Lord says, ‘Come, let us go down and there confuse their language so that they may not understand one another’s speech.’ So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth and they left off building the city.” Pastor Jim said the other day when we were talking about this, he goes, “The Tower of Babel, now that is truly the bridge to nowhere,” because they just stopped building it halfway through. “So 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.”

So that’s our first half of the chapter, that first part. Here’s the second part, starting in verse 10. “These are the generations of Shem. When Shem was 100 years old, he fathered Arpachshad two years after the flood. And Shem lived after he fathered Arpachshad 500 years and had other sons and daughters.”

Okay. Have you noticed that we’re starting to see the age of man decrease, the lifespan? So this is down to 600 years, and it’s going to keep decreasing.

“When Arpachshad had lived 35 years, he fathered Shelah. And Arpachshad lived after he fathered Shelah 403 years and had other sons and daughters. When Shelah had lived 30 years, he fathered Eber. And Shelah lived after he fathered Eber 403 years and had other sons and daughters.” So we see that mankind’s lifespan has not been cut in half from where it originally was 800 to 900 years.

“When Eber had lived 34 years, he fathered Peleg. And Eber lived after he fathered Peleg 430 years and had other sons and daughters.When Peleg had lived 30 years, he fathered Reu. And Peleg lived after he fathered Reu 209 years and had other sons and daughters.” And so, now we see the lifespan has been cut in half again, down to about 200 years.

“When Reu had lived 32 years, he fathered Serug. And Reu lived after he fathered Serug 207 years and had other sons and daughters. When Serug had lived 30 years, he fathered Nahor. And Serug lived after he fathered Nahor 200 years and had other sons and daughters. When Nahor had lived 29 years, he fathered Terah. And Nahor lived after he fathered Terah 119 years and had other sons and daughters. When Terah had lived 70 years, he fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran.”

“Now these are the generations of Terah. Terah fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran fathered Lot. Haran died in the presence of his father Terah in the land of his kindred, in Ur of the Chaldeans. And Abraham and Nahor took wives. The name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor’s wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran the father of Milcah and Iscah. Now Sarai was barren; she had no child.”

“Terah took Abram his son and Lot the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife, and they went forth together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan, but when they came to Haran,” the city, “they settled there. The days of Terah were 205 years, and Terah died in Haran.” That’s the reading of the Lord, amen.

So who do we think we are? Where do we find our identity?

Tim Keller says,

“If our identity is in our work, rather than Christ, success will go to our heads, and failure will go to our hearts.”
Timothy Keller

Who do we think we are, our identity? It’s a burning, nagging, driving question for us, isn’t it? Especially if we’re carrying the burden of trying to create and constantly recreate our identity on a daily basis. It is exhausting work.

So what can we learn about our identity from this passage, especially these first nine verses? So I think the first thing we can learn is the human condition is obsessed with autonomy. Here’s a hint. Not a new story. This is not news. Ever since the garden, we have wanted to do things our own way. Bible commentator David Atkinson says this:

“Our human sin is that we fail to recognize that God is God, and we try, both individually and corporately, to take God’s place.”
David Atkinson

He continues on how easy it is to fall into the temptation to grasp at divinity. The root of sin is rebellion, rebellion against God’s lordship and assertion of human autonomy without God, a refusal to live in dependence on the Creator who is the covenant Lord Yahweh.

Look, we all desire some form of these three basic things: security, significance, and self-sufficiency. Some of this is normal. We are wired for it. But it can turn sinful quickly when we strike out on our own to find it apart from God.

The issue with the people in Genesis … and I have this strong urge to call them the Babelites but I’m not going to call them that. I’m just going to call them the people in Genesis 11. The issue with them is that they were looking for their security in a city. They were looking for their significance in a tower. They were looking for their self-sufficiency in a name.

When we base our security in things, our perception of our security will rise and fall from day-to-day, even hour-by-hour based on the success or failure of our efforts. When we base our significance on feelings, our perception of our significance will also rise and fall depending on our mood, how we feel. If we’re tired or hungry or stressed, happy or sad, our feelings will dictate and constantly inform our identity, and our identity will be in perpetual flux.

God says, “I hear you. I know you need security. But let me give you protection.” God says, “I hear you. I know you’re looking for significance. But I have created you with purpose.” God says, “I know you’re looking for sufficiency, and I offer you my provision.”

It’s no wonder that people in Genesis 11 were scattered. Without God as their center, they had no central cohesive force holding them together.

Imagine using a hand mixer to mix up some cookie dough. All’s well as long as you keep those beaters in the mixing bowl. But if you pull the beaters out of the bowl, the cookie dough is going to go flying everywhere all over the kitchen. Trust me when I tell you I know this from personal experience. But just like God wants to be this for us, that bowl is the central cohesive force that’s holding the dough together inside the bowl. That’s what God is longing for us to do, to cling to him, to allow him to be the center of our identity.

So here’s how autonomy is its own worst enemy. We’re actually hardwired for relationship, and yet sin isolates us and removes us from community. We are created to be dialogic in nature. In other words, our self-identity, our self-consciousness is framed by relationships both vertically with God and horizontally with others. This is the way God created us and this is the way we are. We frame our identity in our relationships.

As a spouse, I’m not just Matt, I’m Kristen’s husband. As a child, I’m not just Matt, I’m Don Pierson’s son. I’m not just Matt, I’m Harrison and Sam’s dad. I’m not just Matt, I’m Jim Thomas and Tommy Bailey’s friend. Well, at least I hope I am.

But you get the point. Our identities are, in large part, formed by all of our relationships. I mean even as a kid, we find ourselves forming our identities as we form our relationships.

Both Pastor Jim and Pastor Tommy have mentioned two ways of thinking about the world around us: mimesis and poiesis. So mimesis views the world as having a given order and a given meaning. Notice the emphasis on the word given, implying that there is a giver behind it, a giver of meaning, an order. But this view sees humans as basically being required to discover that meaning and conform themselves to it.

Poiesis, however, sees the world as just being so much raw material, out of which can be created meaning and purpose by the individual. Author Rosaria Butterfield says that:

“We reject mimesis, which finding excellence by imitating something greater than yourself, for poiesis, by finding authenticity, by inventing yourself on your own terms.”
Rosaria Butterfield

The problem with this view of the world of poiesis and our identity is that we’re all, in effect, writing our own autobiographies, and my autobiography is in direct competition with your autobiography. All of these issues are rooted in man’s elevation of self.

Cornelius Plantinga says,

“In an ego-centered culture, wants become needs, maybe even duties, the self replaces the soul, and human life degenerates into the clamor of competing autobiographies. People get fascinated with how they feel, and with how they feel about how they feel.”
Cornelius Plantinga, Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be

Do you see how we painted ourselves into a corner? What happens now? So in the case of the people in Genesis 11, God’s answer, his response came in the form of a scattering, a correction, which leads us to our second point. God’s correction is founded in righteousness and mercy.

C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity, has this to say about the idea of progress:

“We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.”
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Friends, God takes sin seriously because of its terrible effect on us. Just like a parent who they not only want the best for their child, but they also will do anything they need to protect their child. As a parent, if you see your child headed down a wrong path, whether it’s physically or mentally or emotionally, behaviorally, if you see what the effect will be if they don’t change course, well, then you’re going to correct their course. I remember Kristen and I used to call that a course-correction with our boys when they were younger.

This is why God’s judgments are called righteous, because they’re based on his character and his love for us. Psalm 7 calls God a righteous judge. God’s judgment is based on his intent to make all things right. God’s wrath is not based on a desire to punish us. It’s based on being against all that desires our harm. Thankfully, the one to whom we will one day stand before and give an answer to is both a righteous judge and a merciful savior.

Bible commentator Derek Kidner, in his commentary Genesis is the title of it. It’s fantastic. He says this regarding Babel:

“Unity and peace are not ultimate goods; better division than collective apostacy.”
Derek Kidner, Genesis

It’s so good.

Genesis 11 is a story of people, they want something that isn’t good. Oh, they’re unified, but unified in wanting something that isn’t good. God knows that they will self-destruct if left to their own unchecked desires. Any inhibitions man had are disappearing quickly. By building this tower, not only are they seeking significance on their own, but they’re actually just … They’re attempting to bring God down to their own level.

God knows that further corruption will be unavoidable once they finish the tower. And so, in that sense, the judgment on the men of the plain of Shinar, it’s actually a mercy.

His response to them, man, it is better for mankind to be confused and scattered rather than go down the drain together. Why is that? Why is that God’s response? Because the goal is redemption and reconciliation. God has made a covenant with Noah after the flood and he intends to keep his promise.

Our last point is just this. God’s commitment to redemption is sovereign and it is steadfast. Just as God’s corrections are founded in righteousness and mercy based on his character, so is his commitment to redemption. He will literally stop at nothing to rescue and redeem us.

I love the flow of this chapter because it shows us just that in spite of what man was doing in Babel, in spite of God’s righteous judgment on them, he is still directing the course of redemption history. He has not thwarted in his plans for us. Nothing can stop the love of the Father in his pursuit of our rescue.

Beloved author Warren Wiersbe says,

“What humanity cannot achieve by means of its proud towers, Jesus Christ has achieved by dying on a humiliating cross.”
Warren Wiersbe

Amen to that. The cross is God’s response to the Tower of Babel.

The work of sin is to isolate us and separate us. The work of the cross is to reunite us. The intent of sin is to scatter us over all the earth, scattered and confused. You know what the response of the Holy Spirit, is Acts chapter two, where men of all nations heard tell in their own native tongues of the mighty works of God.

Loved ones, we are made for relationship. We are made for the Lord, and God’s relentless pursuit of grace is intended to restore just that. The Saint Augustine said,

“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”
Augustine of Hippo, Confessions

So, friends, who do we think we are? What’s our identity? Here’s what the Lord says about an identity properly understood in Jeremiah chapter nine [ v 23-24].

“Thus says the Lord: ‘Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight,’ declares the Lord.”
Jeremiah 9:23-24

Does the Lord tell us not to boast? No, far from it; we were made to worship, to delight, to boast in the Lord. We just weren’t intended to boast in the self. That’s boasting in the wrong direction. In this passage, you notice that the Lord doesn’t tell the wise man he shouldn’t be wise. Does he tell the mighty man he shouldn’t be weak? No. Does he tell the rich man he shouldn’t be rich? No.

But he’s telling us, don’t find your identity in the gifts that I’ve given you. Rejoice in your gifts. Share them. Bless others with your gifts. Give me glory with your gifts. But don’t let those gifts give you your identity. You are so much more than what you do.

Here are some really good news. Your identity, it’s so much more than what you’ve done or even what you will do. Your sin doesn’t define you.

Here’s how the Lord identifies us. Here’s how the Lord defines us. He says, “Your identity is in my love for you. Your identity lies in my only begotten son who clothed himself in flesh and blood, who lived out his life on this common earth under these ordinary skies, who went to the cross for the joy that was set before him.”

That joy that was set before him, friends, that was you and that was me. We are the joy set before Jesus, who was obedient unto death and triumphant over death for our sake.

So, friends, I would seek to remind you and persuade you of this. Your significance, it is not wrapped up in your success. Your significance is wrapped up in Christ, Christ who lived and died and rose again for you.

Your security is not wrapped up in what you own. Your security is wrapped up in Christ. He will hold you fast. Your sufficiency, it’s not wrapped up in your performance. Your sufficiency is wrapped up in Christ, and he says, “My grace is sufficient for you.”

Last week, Jim used a passage out of Isaiah 43:1, and I’d like to leave us with just a snippet of that.

“Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.”
Isaiah 43:1b

Friends, who do we think we are? The Lord tells us: “You are mine.” Amen. Amen.

(Edited for Reading)