Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Christ Community Chapel is a church in Hudson, OH, that invites people to reimagine life because of Jesus. Learn more about us at ccchapel.com.
Genesis
chapter 11, verses one through nine.
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 have brick for stone, and bitumen
for mortar.
Then 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 see the city
and the tower
which the children of man had built.
And the Lord said, behold,
there are one people.
And they have all 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, let us go down
in their confuse their language,
so that they may not understand
one another. Speech.
So the
Lord dispersed them from there
over the face of all the earth.
And they left off building the city.
Therefore its name was called Babel.
Because they are the Lord confused
the language of all the earth.
And from there
the Lord dispersed them over the face
of all the earth.
Genesis chapter
12, verses one through three.
Now the Lord said to Abraham,
go from your country
and your kindred, and your father's house,
to the land that I will show you.
And I will make of you a great nation.
And I will bless you
and make your name great.
So that you will be a blessing.
And I will bless those who bless you
and him who dishonors you I will curse.
And in you all the families of
the earth shall be blessed.
Everybody, good
morning and welcome to Christ Community
Chapel.
We're really,
really glad that you're here.
Thanks for coming and being a part.
Are we kick off our new sermon series.
This week
we're going to spend the next ten weeks
in the Old Testament
looking at the life of Abraham.
And we're calling this series
promises Made
and Promises Kept.
In 2010, a movie
came out, called Night and Day.
It was a comedy,
starring Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz.
It's a cute movie.
I in the movie, Tom cruise plays
a CIA agent, as usual.
And then, Cameron
Diaz is an unsuspecting kind
of civilian
who gets roped into the adventure.
And when she realizes the danger she's in,
she wants out.
But Tom cruise is trying to explain to her
that she would actually
be in more danger if she tried to get out
than if she stayed in,
and what he was saying to her.
Annie, there's one scene where
he's trying to explain attorney saying,
listen, you need to know
that your chances of survival
are higher with me than without me.
With me, without me, with me, without me.
That's what
these two passages of scripture are about,
that we just had read to us,
about being with God or without God.
It's actually the theme of the Bible.
It's the theme of your life and mine.
So if you have your Bibles, you can go
ahead and turn to Genesis chapter 11.
Genesis chapter 11.
If you're going to use
one of our Bibles in the pews,
and I can tell you it's on page
seven, it's really early on.
And then, Genesis chapter
12 will also be looking at that.
That's on page eight. Right.
And here are the three points that I want
to pull out of these two passages.
I want to talk about the rebellion
of the call and the promise.
The rebellion is really life without God.
The the call is an invitation
to be with God.
And then the promise is what life is like
when we're with God,
when we surrender to him.
At first the rebellion, this is
what it says in Genesis chapter 11.
Let me read it again.
So it's fresh in your mind.
It says, 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.
And they said to one another, come, let
us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.
And they had breakfast,
stone and vitamin for mortar.
And they said, come,
let us build ourselves a city and a tower
with this 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
see the city and the tower
which the children of man had built.
And the Lord said, behold,
they are one people,
and they all 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, let us go down.
And they're confused their language, so
that they may not understand one another.
Speech.
So the Lord dispersed them
from there over the face of the earth,
and they left off building the city.
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.
The building of the Tower of Babel
is kind of the the last chapter
of a rebellion that started in chapter
three.
In Genesis chapter three, Adam
and Eve come into contact with Satan,
and Satan tempts them
to break relationship with God,
and he does that by kind of selling them
on the idea that true freedom,
true flourishing, will only happen
if they take control of their own lives
and of their world.
And so Adam and Eve, they
they buy into that lie,
they break away from God,
and they take control of their own lives
and of their world.
And then chapter three to chapter 11
is kind of chronicling the slow
spiral into darkness,
into greater and greater
oppression, greater and greater
corruption, greater
and greater
violence, deeper and deeper brokenness.
There's a law in physics that is commonly
referred to as the law of entropy.
The law of entropy is basically
that things
in the physical universe
go from order to disorder, that
everything disintegrates over time
unless there's an intervention.
I used to do, marriage seminars, and
sometimes I would use, a cup of coffee.
I'd have a cup of coffee up
here, and I would tell the couples,
when I poured the coffee in there
40 minutes ago, it was hot.
Now it's cold.
That's the law of entropy.
It's not just for the physical world.
It's for our relationships
that over time, relationships grow cold.
And that's why
married couples who have a good marriage
talk about working on their marriage.
What they're saying is
we we add energy back into the system,
otherwise
it will slowly deteriorate over time.
The law of entropy is a
law that cuts across physically,
emotionally, spiritually,
and what we see in chapter 11
or chapters three through 11
is the further people get away from God,
the more they descend
the civilization disintegrates.
So God decides to intervene,
and he does so by,
confusing their language.
And that stops the project.
And the reason that stops
the project is because
if the language is confused,
you ask your buddy for a hammer
and he looks at you all of a sudden
confused and hands you a washcloth,
you're not going to get much done.
And that's what happens.
And then the people find other people
that understand them.
They understand they form little tribes
and they disperse throughout the earth.
So it's a weird story
for a number of reasons.
But one of the reasons is that it
seems like God is kind of threatened
by the idea of human beings
forming a civilization
and leaving him out.
I don't think that's the case.
I don't think God was threatened.
There's an author named William Golding
who wrote a book in 1954
that became a classic.
The title is Lord of the flies.
You might have read it
when you were a student.
The story is about some school age
boys who get
on a on a deserted island,
and they're shipwrecked
on a deserted island with no adults.
And the story is really how things just
devolve into greater and greater darkness,
greater and greater
violence, greater and greater brokenness.
And at the end of the book,
there is a rescue.
A ship comes and rescues the boys.
And you, you kind of realize that if
if there had not been a rescue,
then there was no.
And no bottom to the violence
and the darkness that was going to happen.
That's what God's doing.
God is initiating a rescue
because there is this slow
devolving into greater and greater
corruption, greater and greater violence.
And he begins this rescue
with a man named Abraham.
And that brings me to the second point,
which is the call.
So into the darkness, into this spiral,
into confusion of a world
that is moving away from him.
God speaks.
And this is what God says.
Now the Lord said to Abram,
go from your country
and your kindred in your father's house,
to the land that I will show you,
and I will make you a great nation,
and I will bless you
and make your name great,
so that you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you and him
who dishonors you I will curse, and in you
all the families of
the earth shall be blessed.
All right,
so God calls to Abraham.
Now I call him Abraham.
Later on
his name will be changed to Abraham.
In chapter 17. God changes it.
Abraham means father,
Abraham means father of many.
And that's a promise made and a promise
kept that will cover in a few weeks.
But Abraham is actually introduced
at the end of chapter 11.
His father's name is Terah,
which means moon,
and they come from a
his family comes from a place called
ur of called Dia,
which is a center of lunar worship.
So Abraham,
belongs to a family that worships
the moon.
They're idol worshipers,
and God calls to Abraham.
Okay, there are three things that I want
to point out about the call of God.
First, God initiates the call.
God initiates the call.
The call of God always changes you
in responding to the call of God
will always involve surrender.
I first God initiates the call,
right?
There is nothing about Abraham that is
particularly impressive or outstanding.
You know his family worships
the moon and his dad was named after that.
God, there is nothing in Abraham's life
that makes you think that he is special.
You know, there's a commercial
that's running right now.
It's, about financial planners,
and a woman is in a doctor's office,
and she's becoming increasingly alarmed
at the doctor's cavalier attitude
and his obvious lack of medical knowledge.
And finally she says to him,
are you even an orthopedist?
And he looks up
and he says, no, I'm a Sagittarius.
Okay.
And the point of the commercial is,
if you don't
trust your money to somebody
who's not qualified, right.
That was that's
the exact opposite of the call of God.
God never
calls somebody because he needs them,
because they are so qualified that he
he wants them
to be a part of what he's doing.
If you're here, that means that God
has called you
or is calling you, whether you realize it
or not, and God has initiated that call.
It's much more like when when I was a kid
and we'd go out in the schoolyard
for recess and we we're going to play
kickball or football, whatever.
The two best athletes would be captains,
and then they would
begin to pick their team,
and they would pick the next best person
each time until everybody was picked.
They were always be a couple of kids
that were never picked.
It's much more like God being a captain
and looking at the kids
that were never picked and said saying,
I choose you, I pick you,
I will carry this team.
I don't need you on this team.
Listen,
you are here because God initiated
a call to you,
not because you're particularly qualified,
but because he says, I want you,
I call you.
That's the first thing.
The second thing is that the call of God
changes you.
In chapter 11,
we find out that that Abraham's family
was moving from earth called Dia.
They were on their way to Canaan.
They stop at a place called heron,
and they just.
And the rest of the family
says this is good enough.
We're going to settle here.
And God says to Abraham, not you,
not you, you, you keep going, right?
The call of God is very personal.
He calls Abraham
my point is, it's not enough
to be a part of a family that believes in
Jesus is strong enough
to be a part of a church
that believes in Jesus.
You have to hear the call yourself.
My. My kids grew up in this church.
My kids grew up in a Christian home.
They know Christian morals.
They're good people.
That does not make them Christians.
They are not Christians
unless they have heard God's call to them
personally and responded in the calls.
God always changes you.
The very first word
that God says to Abraham is go,
you go.
This is that.
If you say that you've become
a follower of Jesus,
but there's no real change in you
from when you were not to when you are,
you probably are not a Christian.
Christianity, always being a Christian,
always changes you.
God comes to Abraham where he is,
but he doesn't leave him where he is.
He says go.
The final thing
is that the call of God response
to the call of God
always, always involves surrender.
Trust.
But if you're going to trust someone,
that means you surrender control to them.
Oh, for my 10th anniversary
with my wife many years ago,
I decided to surprise her.
I took her to dinner down in canton.
That was not the surprise.
But during dinner at the end of dinner,
I said, hey, I have a surprise for you.
I'm going to take you away
for a long weekend.
I've arranged for the kids
to be taken care of.
I packed a bag for you.
Our flight leaves in an hour,
and she said, where are we going?
And what did you pack?
Right.
Now, I was like, don't worry about it.
It's going to be great,
trust me. Right?
But just say, no, I'm not an idiot.
I had her her sister pack the bag.
I had no idea.
But the fact.
My gift to her was this.
Hey, I have plans for you.
They're great plans.
Her gift to me was to say,
okay,
okay, I will trust you, I will surrender.
It's not an uncommon for somebody
who's thinking about becoming a Christian
to ask questions like, okay,
if I become a Christian,
what will have to stop doing?
What will I have to start doing?
Do I have to quit living
with my boyfriend?
Do I have to start going to church?
You have to start reading my Bible.
Do I start giving whatever it is?
And those are the wrong questions.
But because
God is saying, I'm calling you,
it's like he's reaching out his hand
and he's saying,
I, I want you to trust me.
To really follow
Jesus means to say to Jesus,
okay, okay,
whatever you want me to do,
I'm in whatever you want me to stop doing,
I'm in.
I surrender to you.
And Jesus.
Then, of course, says,
I have great plans for you.
And that brings me to my third point,
which is the promise.
This is what God says to Abraham.
Now the Lord said to Abraham,
go from your country and your kindred,
and your father's house to the land
I will show you,
and I will make of you a great nation,
and I will bless you
and make your name great,
so that you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you and him
who dishonors you I will curse, and in you
all the families of
the earth shall be blessed.
God says,
Abraham, if you will hear my call,
if you will respond,
if you will surrender to me,
this is my promise to you.
I will make your name great.
It's interesting to me
that you're in this story, that
the Tower of Babel
is about a group of people
that get together and they say,
let's make a name for ourselves.
What they're saying
is, let's make our name great.
We don't know a single one of their names.
No one does.
But everybody knows Abraham.
Every Jewish person knows Abraham.
Every Muslim knows Abraham.
Every Christian knows the name
Abraham.
Because God said to Abraham,
if you will trust me, surrender to me.
I will make your name great.
But in the Bible it's no way.
He's not only saying, I'm going to make
your name famous or renowned in the Bible.
Whenever it talks
about name, it's talking about character.
Like when it says
the name of the Lord shall be praise.
That's talking about the strength
of his character.
What what God was telling Abraham is this
if you trust me, surrender to me,
then I will make you
the very best version of yourself,
and the very best version of you
will be a blessing
to the people around you
and to the whole world.
And then in Matthew
chapter one, verse one,
this is where it begins.
The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ,
the Son of David,
the son of Abraham.
God uses Abraham to bring Jesus
to the whole world.
That's the blessing.
Do you see?
Do you see the same invitation
God makes to each one of us,
to you and to me?
God says, and that continue them of you
being in control of your life, in
you surrendering to me.
The closer you get to surrendering to me,
the better version of yourself
I will make your name great,
and the best version of you
will be a blessing to everyone around you,
but can also be a blessing
to the whole world.
Henry David Thoreau has a famous quote.
The famous quote is the mass of men
live lives of quiet desperation.
What he's saying is that the the vast
majority of humanity
have no idea, no purpose.
And that is just not true.
If you are a follower of G, it's not true.
If you are part of this church.
If you want to know why
we are so passionate in this church about
what happens outside of these walls,
why we are passionate about 10,000 people
within a ten mile radius coming to know
Jesus in the next 30 years.
While we are passionate
about planting churches all over Northeast
Ohio, about participating
in global missions around the world,
this is why.
Because we are people
that want to be passionate
about moving on that continuum.
I want to trust God.
I want you to trust God more.
This week than you did last week.
To surrender more next week
than you did this week.
And each time we take a step
to that side of the continuum,
we become a better version of ourselves.
And the very best version of you
will be a blessing to everyone
you're sitting around
will be a blessing to your family,
but we'll also be a blessing
to the whole world
because God will use you.
Use us
to bring Jesus
to the world.
Do you see?
With God,
without God,
with him, without him.
That's the promise
God makes to you with me.
I will make your name great,
and I will make you a blessing
to all the world.
Promises made, promises kept.
Would you pray with me?
Father in heaven.
Thank you that you did not,
just allow us on a free fall into darkness
and just
decay.
But instead,
you decided to intervene to rescue us.
And you did it
by bringing Jesus into the world.
But you also did it
by calling us to yourself.
Initiating a call.
I pray for every person here.
I pray for those who are hearing the call
for the first time, that
this could be the day
that they surrender and say,
I want to be with you, not without you.
And for those of us that know you,
I pray that this would be a day
we will take a step closer
to you, surrender more to you
so you can fulfill your promise
to us, to make our name great,
to make us a blessing
that the whole world
may be blessed through us.
Thank you.
Thanks for your grace. Thanks for Jesus.
We pray this in his name. Amen.