Welcome to the Valley Baptist Church sermon podcast.
We're so glad you're here,
and we hope this message inspires you,
builds your faith,
and moves you toward a deep relationship with God.
Today, you'll find great insight into the Bible
and learn how you can apply it straight to your life.
So welcome and enjoy the message.
If you have your Bibles this morning,
open them to Genesis chapter 10.
We're going to be covering a lot of verses this morning, and it'll be helpful to have
your Bible open so that you can follow along.
We're continuing our series of messages through the book of Genesis.
Genesis is the book of beginnings.
It helps us to understand where we came from and why the world is the way that it is.
Now there are four major events in the book of Genesis chapter 1 through 11.
The first is creation, which answers the question, why is there something rather than nothing?
And the answer is that God created everything and everyone.
The second great event is what we call the fall.
And it answers the question, if God is good
and created a good creation, why is everything so messed up?
What is wrong with us and the universe?
And the Bible answers that question
by describing mankind's rebellion and sin against God,
which corrupted the goodness of God's creation.
The third great event is what we call the great flood.
And it answers the question, what is God's response to evil and to sin?
And the answer is judgment and grace.
And as you look at the major stories of the Bible,
you see both of those themes and responses to evil and injustice,
that God is a God of judgment and justice towards sin and evil,
and he is a God of grace towards those who have sinned.
The fourth major event we're going to look at today is the Tower of Babel,
and it answers the question,
If we are all of common descent from Adam and Eve and then from Noah, why do we have
all of these different languages and different peoples on earth?
And so let's jump in, in chapter 10, beginning in verse number 1.
Now this is the genealogy of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and sons were born
to them after the flood.
The sons of Japheth were Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tyrus.
The sons of Gomer were Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Gogomah.
The sons of Javan were Elisha, Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim.
From these the coastland peoples of the Gentiles were separated into their lands,
everyone according to his language, according to their families, into their nations.
Now we see here God's blessing of procreation
and dominion over the earth is being carried out
by the descendants of Noah.
And the first thing I want you to see
is that the Bible teaches the unity
and the equality of all humanity.
The Bible teaches that all of us are descendants of Adam, and then ultimately we are descendants
of Noah and one of Noah's three sons, all of us.
And so all of humanity shares a common descent.
And so we are one and we are equal.
Now this eliminates any basis for racism because the human race all descended from one couple
and so we're all related.
We are all related as brothers and sisters by creation.
Now Darwinianism argues that there is no common descent from one couple.
There's no equality in survival of the fittest.
It's kind of a dog-eat-dog world.
And so in fact, it's based on inequality.
Some are fitter than others.
And so if a person does not believe the Bible,
then there is not an absolute basis
for human unity and for human equality.
And so in the Bible, the unity and the equality of humanity
is not based upon language, it's not based upon culture,
it's not based upon geography
or some other arbitrary declaration of equality.
It is based on the fact that God created each one of us
from one man, he created us in his image,
and that he blesses all the peoples of the earth
through the Lord Jesus Christ.
Our unity is based on creation.
It is based on how God created us,
and it is based upon God's love for all of us in the Lord Jesus Christ.
And so as a result, we all possess equal dignity,
equal value, and equal worth.
When you see someone...
What you are to see is a bearer of God's image.
Now, sin has tainted that image, but that image is still there.
And so all of human life is valuable.
Let's continue reading in verse 6.
We've got a lot to cover, so listen fast, all right?
The sons of Ham were Cush, Mizraim, Put, and Canaan.
Sons of Cush were Seba, Havilah,
Sabta, Rehama, and Saptaka.
And the sons of Rehama were Sheba and Dedan.
Cush begot Nimrod.
He began to be a mighty one on the earth.
He was a mighty hunter before the Lord.
Therefore it is said, like Nimrod, the mighty hunter before the Lord.
And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, Akkad, and Calneh,
in the land of Shinar.
And from that land he went to Assyria and built Nineveh, Rehoboth-er,
Calah, and Rizin, between Nineveh and Calah, which is the principal city."
Mizraim begot Ludum, Annamim, Lehabim,
Naphtahim, Patharizim, and Kazluhim,
from whom came the Philistines and Kaphtarim.
Canaan begot Sidon, his firstborn, and Heth,
the Jebusite, the Amorite, the Gishite, or Girgashite,
the Hivite, the Arkite, and the Sinite,
the Arvadite, the Zemrite, and the Hamathite.
Afterward, the families of the Canaanites were dispersed.
And the border of the Canaanites was from Sidon
as you go towards Gerar as far as Gaza,
then as you go towards Sodom, Gomorrah,
Adma, and Zeboam as far as Lasha.
These were the sons of Ham, according to their families,
according to their languages,
in their lands and in their nations."
Whew, all right.
I think I got one wrong, but I'm not going to tell you which one, all right?
What we see here is we see clans, tribes, nations, and peoples.
And I think the big idea of this chapter is that we worship
and serve one global God.
We do not worship a tribal deity.
We worship the creator of all things
and the creator of all peoples.
And so we are committed to a global vision
because our vision is to be as big as our God.
Now we see in this passage that mankind
very quickly begins to rebel against our creator
just as it was before the flood.
There's a man by the name of Nimrod
and his name means let's rebel.
He was the first and certainly not the last man
who sought to dominate and to rule the world
and to lead the world in rebellion against God.
Now the essence of rebellion is I wanna do it my way.
The essence of faith is I wanna do it
God's way.
Did you know that every decision that you make
within your life is a decision between those two things?
Every area of your life is a decision
between those two things.
Do I want to do it my way,
or by faith do I want to do it God's way?
What we see is that God is the God
of everyone through creation.
but not everyone yet realizes it, recognizes it,
and has repented.
And so God is sending us as his people
to tell every person and every people
in every place about him.
Now let's continue in verse 21
because we gotta get to chapter 11.
And the children were born also to Shem,
the father of all the children of Eber,
the brother of Japheth, the elder.
The sons of Shem were Elam, Asher,
Arphaxad, Lud, and Aram.
The sons of Aram were Uz, Hul, Gether, and Mash.
Arphaxad begot Selah, and Selah begot Eber.
By the way, that's where we get our word Hebrew from.
To Eber were born two sons.
The name of one was Peleg, and in his days the earth was divided,
and his brother's name was Joktan.
Joktan begot Almadad, Shalef, Hazarmaveth,
I told my daughter last night,
please don't name your kid Hazarmaveth.
If she does, I'm going to call him Bubba.
But Jera, Hadaram, Uzal, Dikla, Obal,
Abimele, Sheba, Ophir, Havilah, and Jobab.
All these were the sons of Joktan.
And their dwelling place was from Misha as you go towards Sephar, the mountain of the east.
These were the sons of Shem, according to their families, according to their languages, in their lands, according to their nations.
These were the families of the sons of Noah, according to their generations, in their nations.
And from these the nations were divided on the earth after the flood.
All right. Three times is a charm, all right? Now, Shem was the oldest, and yet he's mentioned last,
and there's significance to that because it's through Shem that ultimately the Messiah will come
who will save the world from our sin and restore creation back to God.
But one of the descendants we're going to see of Shem is a man by the name of Abraham.
And by the way, Shem is where we get the word Semite from.
And so Abraham was a descendant of Shem, and a descendant of Abraham was a man by the name
of David, who was the son of Abraham.
And a descendant of David was a man by the name of Jesus, who was the son of David.
And so this entire chapter, connected to the rest of biblical theology, is showing us the
theology of the seed that will come from woman, that will come to crush the head of Satan,
defeat sin, and restore everything back to the rule and the reign of God.
And so it's showing us that the Son of Man, who is the Son of God, is going to redeem
all of humanity.
And so here's the principle.
God has one plan of salvation
for all peoples and all persons.
The Bible teaches that there is one God,
there is one humanity,
and therefore there is one plan of salvation.
We see this play itself out in the book of Acts.
In Acts chapter eight through chapter 10,
we find the conversion of three very important people.
In Acts chapter 8, we find the conversion of the Ethiopian eunuch
who was a son of Ham.
In Acts chapter 9, we find the conversion of a man by the name of Saul, who later went
by the apostle Paul, who was a son of Shem.
In Acts chapter 10, we find a man by the name of Cornelius, who is brought to faith in the
Lord Jesus Christ, who was a centurion of the Italian regiment, who was a son of Japheth.
And what the Bible is telling us is that God is the God of the Hamites, the Semites, and the Jephthites through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
You see, it doesn't matter what ethnicity we are, what color we are, what language we speak, or what nation we come from.
The God of heaven and earth is the God of every tribe, every tongue, every nation, and every people on earth.
And if you...
will turn in faith and embrace his son,
the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Bible says that God will adopt you into his family
because Jesus is the one that he sent
to be the savior of mankind.
Notice what it says in chapter 11 and verse one.
Now as we prepare to read these chapters or these verses,
I want you to recognize that Genesis chapter 10 tells us what happens, and Genesis chapter
11 goes back in time and tells us how it happened.
Now sometimes we see this in movies, don't we?
The beginning of the movie sometimes is the end of the story, and then the rest of the
movie is telling us how the story got to that point.
And so verse number 1.
Now the whole earth had one language and one speech.
And it came to pass as they journeyed from the east
that they found a plain in the land of Shinar
and they dwelt there.
Then they said to one another,
come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly.
They had brick for stone and they had asphalt for mortar.
and they said come let us build ourselves a city and a
tower whose top is in the heaven let us make a name for ourselves
lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth
but the Lord came down
to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built
and the Lord said indeed
the people are one and they all have one language
And this is what they begin to do.
Now, nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them.
Now, the essence of sin is our desire to displace God with self.
It's to say that my life is about me
and I'm trying to build something in my life
to make my name great.
I am trying to promote myself and to preserve myself
and to live for myself.
Now we look at this tower that they built
and was a monument of a false religion and a false unity
and we think, well, we're more sophisticated than that now,
but the truth is we still do this today.
In many of the cities of our nation,
the highest or the most prominent building
is about the God of that city.
What are the highest buildings in New York City?
Well, they're the financial buildings.
Because the God of New York City is money.
What do you go to see when you go to Boston?
You go to see MIT and Harvard
because the God of Boston is intellect.
When you go to Washington, D.C.,
you go to see the government buildings,
the White House and so forth
because the God of Washington, D.C. is power.
When people visit California, they wanna see Hollywood.
Why?
Because the God of California is fame.
You see, we're not more sophisticated.
We just find different ways to articulate old problems.
And so we see all of this in our own cities, but we also see it in our own hearts, don't we?
We are tempted to build towers that are all about us and what we want.
We are trying to build a life not for God's glory sometimes,
but we're trying to build a life for our own glory
because we want to be great.
Sometimes the tower is called career.
Sometimes the tower is called kids.
Sometimes it's a relationship that we think
is gonna bring us significance and meaning within life.
Sometimes it's talent or achievement.
But the problem is when it becomes all about us.
Now you can understand sin solely by looking
at the middle letter, the letter I.
What I want, not what God wants.
My strength, not his strength.
My glory, not his glory.
The Bible teaches that pride is at the root of all sin.
C.S. Lewis said that there's a telltale sign
that you have pride and that is that you struggle
with jealousy and envy towards other people.
Do you ever get to the point where you go,
man, I'm gonna see how high other people's towers are
compared to my tower, you know?
Pride by its very nature is competitive
and it is comparative.
And so C.S. Lewis says the quickest way to tell that you have pride is that some other person's pride really bothers you because suddenly that ups the competition.
Now there's a comparison and their towers of something might make our towers of something look less great and less significant.
And they might make our towers look less grandeur and a little smaller.
You see, when you have pride, it really doesn't matter how smart you are, just that you're
a little smarter than everybody else around you.
It doesn't matter how beautiful you are.
Maybe you're completely content with what you look like until you're around some other
people that are more beautiful than you.
It doesn't matter how much money you have.
Maybe you're content until everybody else around you has more things
and more money and more resources and more options
because of the wealth that they have accumulated.
And so pride is manifested by a sense of comparison
and competition with other people.
Now, what the Babylonians wanted...
was safety and security.
And so instead of obeying God and spreading and filling the earth,
they tried to stay in one place in order to have greater security and greater safety.
They also wanted significance and they wanted greatness.
And by the way, those are things that we want.
We want security.
We want safety.
We want security.
We want a sense of significance.
We wanna be a part of greatness.
And there's nothing wrong with any of those things
in and of themselves, as long as we understand
that God gives us all of those things
through a relationship with him in Jesus Christ.
You see, when we pursue security apart from God,
all it does is creates insecurity.
comparison, jealousy, and envy, and a sense of the universe not being right, of us not being right.
When we seek greatness apart from God, it always leads to a sense of futility and emptiness
because we weren't made to live for ourselves. We were made to live for God. God created us to
enjoy Him and His glory and to live for His glory within our life.
I want you to notice three things that they had and that they used for their self-promotion
that the Bible says we are to use for God's glory.
First, it says that they had unity.
They were one.
Second, they had one language.
They had a common language.
And third, they had creativity.
Instead of using stone to build.
They used brick, was a more efficient
and effective way to build.
And so first of all, they united,
not for the purpose of glorifying God,
but for the purpose of sin.
But the Bible tells us that God unites us in Christ
for the purpose of his glory and our good.
Now I wanna share with you four types of unity
that we want to have as a church that we wanna use
for the glory of God and the spread of the gospel.
First, we want theological unity,
which means that we believe the same things
about the most important teachings in the Bible.
We're not gonna agree on every interpretation
of every passage, but it's important that we have unity
and agreement on the fundamentals of the faith.
that we agree on that which is most essential
and most clear to what it means to be saved
and to have a relationship with God.
Secondly, we want relational unity,
which is the idea that we are a spiritual family.
In fact, the Bible describes us as being brothers and sisters in Christ,
that we are a family, the family of God,
and we are to relate to one another as if we're family.
And so our challenge is that you be intentionally moving toward the people in this church,
that you seek to build meaningful and significant relationships
with people who love God and love you,
and that together you move closer
in your relationship with the Lord.
I mean, what would it look like to show up early
and to leave late and invest in relationships?
That's one of the reasons that we have life groups.
so that we can be a community and we can live out our relationship with one another in fellowship with each other.
Third, we want to have missional unity, which means that we have the same goal as a church.
We want to help people go from spiritually lost to spiritually leading.
We have one mission, and that is to make disciples
of Jesus Christ who make disciples of Jesus Christ.
And so we are not on any political mission.
We don't think that the hope of the world
flies on Air Force One.
We believe that the hope of the world
died on the cross 2,000 years ago, rose from the dead,
and is gonna rule and reign for all eternity.
We don't believe that the hope of the world
resides in the White House,
but resides on the throne of heaven.
Now we're not on a social mission.
We're not just trying to be a great place
to meet people and to hang out,
although that's true,
we are a great place to meet people and hang out,
and that's part of our unity,
but that's not our mission.
We're not trying just to be a safe and great place for you to live out your family values,
although we believe in family values.
We have one mission, and that is to help people meet Jesus, know Jesus, and follow Jesus.
Our mission is all about Jesus.
Finally, we are to have not only theological unity and relational unity and missional unity,
but we want to have practical unity as well, which is how we carry out our mission.
And that's why the Lord Jesus gave us the local church.
He put in place leaders that can lead and a structure to follow so that we can be united,
not only in what we believe, but in how we live it out and we carry it out together.
They had unity, but they also had a common language.
But what we see is that they used their language
for self-promotion, which is different
than God calls us to use language.
God uses language to bless us, to save us,
and to sanctify us.
And God has given us a common language in the Bible.
We call it the word of God.
Language creates culture,
and words create the worlds that we live in.
And so we want our thinking, our speech, and our lives
to be formed and to be shaped by God's word.
You see, God's word is powerful when it's spoken,
and when it's embodied by the people who say it.
And so we need to embrace God's word as our language.
And we need to articulate it well
and we need to live it out well within our life.
The third thing that they used for sin was creativity.
Creativity is discovering, building and developing,
which is one of the things God created us to do.
The creative God of the universe created creatures
who are creative in order to have dominion over the earth.
But the problem was they were using their creativity
against God to rebel against God
instead of to honor and to follow God.
And so as a church, we want our unity, our language, and our creativity to be used so that people would meet Jesus and become disciples of him.
Notice what it says in verse 7.
It says, "'Come, let us go down there and confuse their language.'"
Notice God's being just a little bit funny here.
He uses condescending language.
They thought their tower was so big.
They thought they were so bad and awesome.
And God says, "'I've got to go down there to see this puny thing down there.'"
And so, "'Let us go down.'"
And they're confused, their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.
So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city.
Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth.
And from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all of the earth.
Now they were trying to make their name great.
And they were trying to be safe and secure and not leave where they were.
And those were the exact opposite two things that God had told them to do and that God desires for his people to do.
You see, God always leads his people to have a multiplication mindset.
Because God has a multiplication mindset.
When he created us, he blesses and he said, I want you to be fruitful and I want you to multiply.
Chapter 10 is Genesis 1 being carried out as mankind is fruitful and multiplies over the face of the earth.
You see, sinful man is always looking inward toward his security and his glory,
but God is always leading his people to look outward and to multiply for his greater glory and for our greater good.
You see, the whole reason that we as God's people gather like we are today is so that we can scatter.
We gather in order to be equipped, to be encouraged, to be empowered, so that we can be sent out well.
At the end of our service, we say, remember, God is sending you to someone somewhere.
That God is equipping you now.
He's encouraging you now.
He's empowering you now so that you can go out and be a blessing and a beacon of light in a dark world
so that you can be someone who spreads his glory and grace so that others may know him,
so that his fame may be multiplied and his joy may be experienced by others.
You see, our vision as a church is to multiply disciples, leaders, and churches for the glory
of God and the spread of the gospel.
It's not about us building up.
It's about us building out.
We want to plant churches all over Bakersfield and the Central Valley and around the world
so that the glory of God may spread.
Amen.
so that the greatness of God may be more fully known.
We wanna spread his glory.
And so today we gather,
and we gather in order to scatter,
so that God may be known by all people.
Now, the name Babel means gate to God.
But if you change the accents,
then it has a different meaning, which means confusion.
And so there's kind of a play on words here.
What they thought was a gate to God
was actually a door of disaster.
The towers that we often build for our greatness
and for our security often bring confusion
and disappointment.
Notice that God doesn't tear the tower down.
He just leaves it there to rot.
Let me ask you, do you have any rotting or broken towers in your life?
Maybe unmet expectations for your life?
Maybe unrealized dreams?
maybe broken relationships,
maybe things that you hoped for
that didn't come to fruition within your life.
And if your life is about you,
often God will allow those things that you're pursuing
to end in confusion and frustration.
And that's a matter of God's grace
because your life being about you
destroys you and the people around you.
Because you and I were not made for our life to be about us.
We were made for something greater than ourselves.
We were made for a relationship with God
and we were not made to self-promote.
We were made to love God and love people.
And that's not about pride.
That's about humility.
That's about love.
That's about giving of ourselves for the good of other people.
And so often, God uses every broken tower in our life
to teach us that Jesus is the only one who can truly satisfy our hearts.
I want you to think of every broken tower in your life as a monument that declares to
turn back to the God who made you, the God who saved you, and the God who loves you.
You see, God is the only one who can truly and fully satisfy the deepest longings of
the human soul.
The problem with the people of Babel, and our problem is not that we want too much,
is that so often we settle for too little. We settle for the puny, temporary,
fleeting things of this life that won't matter and won't last in eternity.
instead of the satisfying, glorious,
and eternal goodness and grace of God
that will last forever and ever.
Let's bow in an attitude of prayer.
Here in a few moments,
We're going to have a time of invitation, a time of worship, and we want to invite you
to come and to give your life to Jesus.
The Bible says that God sent his only begotten son because he so loved the world.
Jesus died on the cross to pay for our sin, and then he rose from the dead and he's coming
back.
The Bible says if you'll turn from your sin and put your trust in Jesus, you can and you
will be saved.
What does it mean to make Jesus your Lord?
Does it mean you'll never sin again?
No.
The Bible is very clear that we're sinners in need of grace.
What it means is you say, you know, I want Jesus to be in charge of my life.
I'm tired of living for myself.
I want to live for him.
What does it mean to make Jesus Savior?
It means that you're not trusting in your own righteousness,
but you're trusting in the righteousness of Jesus Christ,
what he did on the cross to pay for your sin.
You're trusting in the grace of God
that he extends to all of us in his Son, the Lord Jesus.
And so we wanna invite you this morning to come
and to trust Jesus as your Lord and Savior.
Maybe you've trusted Jesus as your Savior,
but you've never gone public with your faith
through believers baptism.
Baptism doesn't save us.
It doesn't wash away our sin.
Only Jesus can wash away our sin.
But what it is is a public profession of our faith in Jesus.
We are identifying with him that he died on the cross, was buried, and rose again to pay for our sins.
And because of that, we can have a relationship with God.
Because he rose from the dead, someday we too will rise from the dead as well.
Next Sunday is our 40th anniversary as a church,
and it would be a wonderful day.
I think you would always remember to get baptized,
to go public with your faith next Sunday.
And so if you want to be baptized, come forward.
Let us know, and we can schedule that and set that up for next Sunday
or whatever Sunday that works for you.
Maybe the Lord's leading you to join this church, to be a part of this family, to say,
I have theological unity.
I have relational unity.
I have missional unity.
I have practical unity.
I want to be a part of God's people working together to pursue Christ and to spread his
glory and grace.
You come.
Make it official, become a part and a member of our family
here at Valley.
But maybe God's doing something else in your heart
and your life and you would say,
you know, there's some towers of disappointment in my life.
I've been pursuing all kinds of things thinking
that that's gonna give me a sense of significance
and greatness, but I just keep hitting a wall
Now I'm confused and disappointed.
I want to encourage you
to surrender all of those broken towers to the Lord
and ask Him to use them to point you to Him
and His love and His grace in your life.
Instead of pursuing significance without Him,
that you would pursue significance in Him, through Him, and for Him.
You can come and pray at these steps right where you are
and ask the Lord to do something in your life that only He can do,
by His grace, for His glory, and for your good.
Our Heavenly Father,
We thank you for this time of worship.
We thank you for your word
as it reveals to us who you are.
You are the creator of all peoples and all persons.
You are the savior of all people.
And God, your plan is to save a people from every tribe,
tongue, language, and nation on earth
so that we might know and enjoy your greatness, your glory, and your grace for all eternity.
God, I pray that you would tear down the towers that we have tried to build for ourselves.
And God, you would build an eternal glory that does not fade away in Jesus Christ within our life.
Lord, may you be our greatest pursuit.
May you be our greatest love.
May you be our greatest desire.
And may you satisfy us in all things
because God, you alone are enough
to satisfy our souls.
God, work in this invitation.
Draw hearts to you.
Magnify and glorify your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
May the Holy Spirit move upon our hearts
that we may know you and enjoy you more
as a result of your word and your grace.
Bless this time of invitation, Lord.
In Christ's name we pray, amen.
Thanks for listening today.
We hope you enjoyed this message.
And if you did, we would be so grateful if you left us a review.
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If you feel the Lord calling you to take the next step in faith
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reach out to us by texting podcast to 88988.
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to find even more great resources.
No matter where you are in your journey,
know that we love you.
We're praying for you
and we can't wait to see what God will do in your life.