11:1 Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. 2 And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. 3 And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. 4 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.” 5 And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. 6 And the LORD said, “Behold, they 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. 7 Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.” 8 So the LORD dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. 9 Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused1 the language of all the earth. And from there the LORD dispersed them over the face of all the earth.
[1] 11:9
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Genesis 11:1-9
11:1 Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. 2 And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. 3 And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. 4 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.” 5 And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. 6 And the LORD said, “Behold, they 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. 7 Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.” 8 So the LORD dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. 9 Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused1 the language of all the earth. And from there the LORD dispersed them over the face of all the earth.
[1] 11:9
(ESV)
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
If you would, turn in your bibles to Genesis chapter 11. Genesis chapter 11. It's good to be back in the US. Thank you for your prayers. For the last couple of weeks while I've been in Indonesia.
Joel Brooks:It was a long difficult trip. Thank you for those of you who took care of my family while I was gone. Lauren said it was amazing to see the body of Christ love her so much. And apparently I was I was gone for a while because today I came home for lunch, and my little girls, Caroline and Natalie, were upstairs playing with Fisher Price Little People. And I asked, I said, well, what are y'all playing?
Joel Brooks:They said, Little People. I said, I know, but what's going on? They said, well, this is the mama, and these are her children, and mama's a little upset, and the kids are a little cranky because dad decided to get on a plane and to go on the other side of the world. And so they're just a little upset about that. I was like, okay.
Joel Brooks:So that's what you're playing. Is this, you know, based on anything? You know, it's funny how reality takes shape in their little people lives there. I was in Indonesia, a place that has 300 different, people groups, 300 different languages. I spent most of my time there working with missionaries and some church planners from Indonesia, mostly in the Makassar region.
Joel Brooks:It's hard to actually get numbers really about anything in Indonesia because it's so populated. There's so many people. One of the main islands there, the island of Java, it's about the size of Tennessee and yet it has more people in it than in the US east of the Mississippi. More people than, you know, New York, Chicago, Boston, Atlanta, all that in this small little area there. So when I got off the plane, I pretty much smelled humanity.
Joel Brooks:There's a lot of people here. And I mostly worked on the island of Macassar where where there's about 2,000,000 people, they think. And of those 2,000,000 people, there are only 500 Christians at best. Anywhere between a 100 to 500 or a point 0 0 1 percent Christian population. 8 years ago, it was 0.
Joel Brooks:But they're beginning to see the Lord open up the hearts of some of the people there. It was a a huge blessing for me to spend days with church planners there, teaching them. I realized right off the bat that things were going to be somewhat difficult because my my first, message that prepared, I'm going over with the interpreter beforehand. And I was going to talk about the holiness of God, and what the divine name meant, and how that talked about his holiness. And, he said, we've got a problem.
Joel Brooks:I was like, what? I mean, I'm even giving you my my transcript here. He goes, the problem is that in the Macassar language, there is no verb for to be. There is no am, is, were, that does not exist in their vocabulary, which poses a problem when you're trying to preach the divine name, which is I am. God reveals himself as I am or I will be who I will be.
Joel Brooks:And so there was no way we could even communicate the name of God. So we just had to kind of scratch that one, and I just went to the next lecture. And, and it was interesting trying to get over that language barrier there, but also realizing that, English is limited in some of the ways that we could praise God as well. Neither one is greater or worse, but you really need all voices, every language, tongue, tribe, and nation to adequately express who the Lord is. It was a privilege being there on the front lines with these people.
Joel Brooks:These church planters who had given up pretty much everything to be in the region they were in. A lot of them had been severely persecuted, for their choice. My last day there, I went to a nearby island just off of Makassar that had about a 100 people. There were 17 families on this island. And I noticed a man out there fishing.
Joel Brooks:They fish by casting out nets, and he had caught some fish and he brought it, to shore. And so I went there with my my interpreter, and, I asked if I could buy some fish. If he would fix some fish for me for lunch. And he said, yes. He'd be happy to.
Joel Brooks:And and as he was fixing fish, I said, you know, I was watching you and what you were doing, and it reminded me of a story about a man named Jesus. Could I tell that to you? And he said, yes. I'd love to hear a story about Jesus. And I told him the story about how Peter was out casting nets, and he could catch no fish.
Joel Brooks:But Jesus, who, you know, said, no, cast your nets on the other side, and he did. And and and the nets were were began to break because so many fish were being pulled in. And this man was very intrigued by that. And then the call to prayer went off, and, and so he had to get up be because he was a Muslim. And he said, I I have to go, because he was actually in charge of the mosque that was on this island.
Joel Brooks:He's the spiritual leader for the island, and so he had to go there and read some of the prayers. And, so I thought that was the end of our discussion. And I was about to to head out, and he came running back out. He said, please, before you go, could you tell me some more stories about Jesus? I would love to hear more stories about him.
Joel Brooks:And so, for the next hour, I began just just tell him stories about Jesus. And this is the spiritual leader for this little island here. And, finally, at the end of our discussion, he said, so what you're saying is all the religions are the same. I was like, where did you where did you get this from? You know, what you're saying is, you know, all the roads lead to heaven.
Joel Brooks:I was like, no. No. Not at all. And, I said, you know what though? Actually, yes.
Joel Brooks:In that all religions are the same. I said, you know, Jesus would agree that all religions are the same. And that's why Jesus came to put an end to all religion. And so he asked, what do you mean by that? And I said, well, Jesus, you know, every religion says you need a holy place.
Joel Brooks:You need a temple that you must go to worship, but Jesus said, no. There is no more temple. I'm the temple. If you want to go to God, you come to me. And every other religion has, all these rituals and all these sacrifices that people must undergo to purify themselves, and Jesus said, no.
Joel Brooks:Put an end to all of that. I am the sacrifice and there is no more. Every other religion says that you've got to do these things in order to to reach heaven. And Jesus says, no, there's nothing you do. I have done it all.
Joel Brooks:And so Jesus came to put an end to all religions. And he just kind of sat there intrigued and Finally, I asked him. I said, would you be willing to read a new testament if I got it to you? He said, yes. I would.
Joel Brooks:I would. And and and for him to say that, this is a man who could be severely persecuted if found with the New Testament, as a leader of a mosque on this island. But he said, I would read it. And so the missionary that was with said that he was gonna go home, and he was gonna bring it to him. And so if you think about this man, pray for him this week.
Joel Brooks:He's probably getting his new testament, now. Pray that through God's spirit that the word would come open to him. If he was converted, I'm certain that whole island would follow in that path as well. And while I was in Indonesia, I had a lot of time to think because you're traveling forever. I spent my entire time either in a plane or in a taxi.
Joel Brooks:And so I thought a lot about the text we're looking at tonight, the Tower of Babel. I used to think that the story of the tower of Babel was a story about God punishing people for their pride. But actually, there's no punishment there at all. No one dies. No one is hurt.
Joel Brooks:The people are just dispersed. Read with me chapter 11 verse 1. 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 Shanar and settled there. And they said to one another, Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly.
Joel Brooks:And they had brick for stone 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 have all one language. And this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they purpose to do will now be impossible for them.
Joel Brooks:Let us go down and they're confused their language so that they may not understand one another's speech. And 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 the Lord confused the language of all the earth. And from there, the lord disperse them over the face of all the earth. Pray with me.
Joel Brooks:Holy Spirit, come now and open up your word. And make every person here good hearers of your word. May we listen as if our life depended upon it. Because it does. Your words are life.
Joel Brooks:Lord, my words are death. Your words are life, and we need to hear life, so speak. I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But Lord, may your words remain and may they hit their mark. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus.
Joel Brooks:Amen. I no longer believe that the story is about Jesus or or God punishing people, for their pride because there really isn't punishment going on here. He disperses them. He disperses them because God is best praised when he is praised through people of of every tongue, tribe, and nation. And the people need to fill the earth in order to praise him.
Joel Brooks:And so God is passionate about this. He does not want to see people congregating together like this. He wants to see people all over the world giving glory to his name. And I hope we'll become as passionate about this as he is. You know, when Jesus sent out the 70 missionaries in Luke chapter 10, we went through Luke for over a year.
Joel Brooks:And in Luke 10, he picked out 70 people and he sent them out to go proclaim the gospel. Now, the reason Jesus picked 70 people is because he had this text in mind. If you go back one chapter to Genesis 10, it's what we call the table of nations chapter. And what it is, it gives the 70 people or the 70 nations that were formed as a result of Babel. It just switches the order for effect.
Joel Brooks:But it's saying that these are the 70 nations that that have come forth from Babel. And Jesus has this in mind when He picks 70 people and he says, I want you to go out and to spread the gospel. And what he is saying is that, I am the king over every nation. I'm the king over the Hivites, the Zimorites, the Hamathites, the the Canaanites. I am king over all of them.
Joel Brooks:The gospel is for every people group. So Jesus, he's saying, I'm not content just with a small circle of 12 Jewish men. No. The whole world needs to know and to declare the glory of God. And so he calls these 70 people and he says, pack light and by light, I mean, pack very, very light.
Joel Brooks:Don't bring any food. Don't bring anything like that. Just just go to these cities and proclaim the gospel. Proclaim to them that I am King. I mean, if they welcome you, great.
Joel Brooks:Stay there. If they feed you, great. Eat with them. And if they reject you, then leave. Meaning, you don't get any shelter.
Joel Brooks:Meaning, you don't get any food. So it was a call at sometimes to to be accepted by people and other times to be rejected. A call sometimes to be homeless. He says that that that doesn't matter. Comfort, food, shelter, it doesn't matter in light of the greatness of this call.
Joel Brooks:I hope we get that here. I hope we understand that as a church. I hope we understand our calling. That the gospel is for, you know, the Afghanis. It's for the Iraqis.
Joel Brooks:It's for the Sudanese. It's it's for all the nations. That all of them need to know that Jesus is King, and whatever sacrifice or cost we have to make in order for the glory of Jesus to be known and for it to be spread and for it to be savored, we need to make those sacrifices. If it means giving up some of our comforts, we give up some of our comforts. Giving our money and giving our time, we give those things joyfully.
Joel Brooks:Let's dig a little bit deeper into this text, to see exactly what's going on. Let's read the first four verses again. 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.
Joel Brooks:And they have brick for stone and biddie men 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 what's happening here is after the flood, Noah was commanded to be fruitful and to multiply and to fill the earth. And so he and his sons, you know, they said, okay.
Joel Brooks:And the descendants said, okay. And they were, they were fruitful. They multiplied, But when it came to filling the earth, they said, uh-uh. No. Uh-uh.
Joel Brooks:They they grew in number, but then when they they saw this plain in the land of Shinar, which we know was a very bountiful land, a very plentiful place, they saw that and they thought, this is a great place to settle. Let's just, let's just, instead of that, you know, going around the globe thing, let's just land right here. It's comfortable here. It's secure here. We can really do something here.
Joel Brooks:And so they didn't want to keep migrating. They settled down into this very comfortable life. Much like, you know, when God calls people, maybe perhaps He has called you to go out, maybe to go to the mission field, maybe to go into some of the poor regions in Birmingham, has called you to do that. And you say, okay, I'm gonna do that. But then you settle in, you know, you you get a car, you have your car payments.
Joel Brooks:You get a house, you have your house payments. Then you have to get a good job to pay for those things and all of a sudden you're trapped in the land of Shinar. You're trapped there. You're no longer fulfilling your purpose of going out and spreading the gospel. These people decided that they needed to build a city.
Joel Brooks:Not just any city. They're gonna build a great city. A city with a tower that reaches to the heavens. Now this isn't the 1st city we've come across in the book of Genesis. The first city we see is in Genesis chapter 4.
Joel Brooks:If you remember after Cain killed Abel, he fled, and he went and he settled in the land of Nod. And the first thing he does is he builds a city. So, Cain builds the first city and and this city flourishes that Cain builds. It's here that you get your first musical instruments. They come up out of the city.
Joel Brooks:The the lyre and the pipe are invented. It's also in this city that the the first metallurgy just comes about and people begin making things out of bronze and making things out of iron. Because that's what cities do. That's what populated areas do. Cities, they have this unique way of releasing the potential in people.
Joel Brooks:You know, when you get a bunch of people living in close proximity together, these amazing things are going to start happening. People are going to start getting this synergy, and they're going to feed off one another, and push one another to do great things. The city does that. You know, businesses are born, the arts develop. That happens in cities and populated areas.
Joel Brooks:And you see that in Genesis 4 when Cain builds his city. But there is a problem in the city that he builds and there's a problem in the city of Babel. If you remember, Cain murdered his brother. God calls him out on it and says, Hey, Cain, where is your brother Abel? And he just kind of shoots back to God.
Joel Brooks:He goes, How should I know? Am I my brother's keeper? I could care less about my brother. And so, then Cain goes and he founds a city. And so now you have this community that that's birthed, this community that's growing, that's full of a people who are not their brother's keeper.
Joel Brooks:You've got this city where people don't look after one another. People don't care for one another. People are into the city to see what they could get out of it, How they can use the city for their purposes. And the results of that is, you know, you still have the same things develop. You you you have metallurgy develops, but they make instruments of war.
Joel Brooks:Music does develop, but the first song is a song of violence and revenge. Look back at Genesis 4, the first song, the song of Lamech, Listen to what I say. I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. If Cain's revenge is 7 fold, then Lamech's is 77 fold. Kinda hard to believe that, you know, you could write a song about revenge and death and it'd be so popular.
Joel Brooks:Things don't change. And so there's a problem with the city. Now that sin has hit it and you have a city formed of people who do not want to be their brother's keeper. So instead of striving for the glory of God, people begin using the city for their own selfish means. They go to the city to make a name for themselves.
Joel Brooks:And that's what you see here in Genesis 11. They've created the city. Why? Because we want to make a great name for ourselves. They're not forming a city to glorify God.
Joel Brooks:They're forming a city to make them great. They're not forming a city that would reflect God's love, god's character, god's attributes. They're they're building a city to to make an achieve, you know, a monument to their achievements, to their glory. The the city, you know, it's full of people who want to rise up the corporate ladder just so people will notice them. Just so people will look at them.
Joel Brooks:These are people in this city who want to write songs, not to the praise of God, but so that they can stand in front of crowds and people can praise them. People in this city, they likely wanted to pursue medicine. Not in order to help people, but so that so they would be rich and get the respect of people. They're using the city to make a name for themselves. They're building a tower to their own greatness.
Joel Brooks:And so they build this tower, likely in the shape of what we would call a ziggurat. You know, those kind of step towers, step pyramids that go up, supposedly reaching to the heavens. Actually the word Babylon means gateway to God, gateway to the heavens. And the the irony is in verse 5, and this story actually has a lot of irony. But verse 5, it says, and the Lord came down to see the city and the tower.
Joel Brooks:And so, this tower that supposedly reaches to the heavens says that God has to come down just to look at it. He has to he has to come down. He has to, you know, strain his eyes, if you will, just to even look at the highest achievement of man. And what he's saying here is, you know, you put all of the achievements of every nation, all the power, all the glory of every nations, and if you were to put them in a scale next to the glory of God, they are just a dust speck. And I think of all the ways we try to make a name for ourselves, all the thoughts that occupy our time of how we can do great things.
Joel Brooks:It's nothing but dust on the scales. God has to come down to see our mighty achievements. And babble, in all of its greatness, in all of its glory demands a mere 9 verses in our Bible. That's it. It's almost like it's dismissed.
Joel Brooks:Oh, greatest achievement of man, yes, you're worthy of 9 verses. You're nothing. So when God comes down and he sees it, he's not impressed. Look at verse 56. And the lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built.
Joel Brooks:And the lord said, and behold, they 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. Now verse 6 is a is a remarkable verse for a number of reasons. But what I find interesting is that God describes the people as 1. See, and it says they've, they've become one people.
Joel Brooks:They're perfectly unified, if you will, Which actually reminds me of a prayer of Jesus. 1 of Jesus's last prayers in John 17, his last prayer with his disciples before he was killed, in which he prays, God, make them 1. Here's my last request. Unify them God. Now turn to John 17.
Joel Brooks:John 17, and we'll look at verses 11 and 12. When you look at Babel, it's what they're doing is what most of the world prays for. Really, it's what most of the world prays for. That there would be that there would be this peace, that there would be this unity. You know, when you see church Marquise put up, you know, billboards to that effect.
Joel Brooks:You see bumper stickers coexist. You know, can't we all just hold hands and be 1? And you see that here. Unity. Verse 11, And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world.
Joel Brooks:And I'm coming to you, holy father. Keep them in your name, which you have given me that they may be 1, even as we are 1. While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them and not one of them has been lost except for the son of destruction, that the scripture might be fulfilled. When Jesus prays for his disciples to be 1, he's not praying for some kind of vague unity.
Joel Brooks:You know, he's in which people can believe whatever they wanna believe, worship however they want to worship, that, you know, just lay down all your differences, be tolerant one another, hold hands. You know, we can even have joint faith worship services, and we could call that unity. That's not unity. That's rebellion. That's that's not unity.
Joel Brooks:That's not what Jesus is praying for here. He says, holy father, keep them in your name. Your name, Keep them. That they may be 1. Not in the name that they want to build for themselves but Lord, keep them in your name.
Joel Brooks:May they be about your glory, your purposes, your calling, your worship. May they be a unified people called by your name. And then in verse 12, he says, I have kept them in your name. I have guarded them. God, they don't need cities, they don't need city walls to protect them.
Joel Brooks:I have guarded them. When they come to me, I keep them safe. I have preserved them. So Jesus is not praying for some kind of vague unity that that most of the world seeks. He's praying that God will guard, that God will keep, and that God will protect the people that he is called by his name.
Joel Brooks:And that they would be 1, and that they would glorify God. And Babel is an absolute rebellion against this. Now there's a number of places in the bible. I'm not sure how many how much we have time to go through, but there's a number of places in which we do see what unity under God's name is supposed to look like. What a good city is supposed to look like.
Joel Brooks:The first is found in Exodus 1920. And when God gives his people the law and God gives the 10 Commandments. I'm not sure if you've ever wondered why God, you know, he he parts the Red Sea. He's leading them by a, you know, fire and by a a cloud. And then he takes them straight to Mount Sinai.
Joel Brooks:The people takes them to Mount Sinai and he asked Moses to to walk up to the top of the mountain, to climb up to the top of the mountain, to meet with God. Have you ever wondered why why god asked Moses to do that? Why he had the people of Israel go to a mountain? Why not a plain? Why was it to go to a mountain?
Joel Brooks:Why did Moses have to climb up in order to meet with god? I mean before God had been down there, pillar of fire in a cloud. He'd always come to them, and now he's saying, Moses, you need to come up. He's not saying, you know, I'm up here, you're down here, so let's meet in the middle, you know, come on up. It's it's not that.
Joel Brooks:And this is usually lost on a modern culture, what's happening here. But what's happening is God's forming a city. He's forming a community, in which all of the earliest cities were shrine cities. All of the earliest cities were built around a mountain, in which they would put their temple on the mountain. All of the earliest cities, if they if they didn't weren't around a natural mountain, they would build a man made mountain, a ziggurat, a tower in which they could worship God.
Joel Brooks:And what God's doing is he's speaking their language. He says, Come here. Moses, come up the mountain. People, encamp exactly this way around the mountain, this structure here. And I will give you the new law for the new people because up to this point, you've just been a bunch of slaves.
Joel Brooks:You haven't had any identity. But I'm building a new community. I'm building a new city here. And so he gives them the law, and it's a radical law. You know, law with with with just radical views of of power and money and sex that were revolutionary for that time.
Joel Brooks:Things like giving away, you know, tithing 10% of your money or actually it really rounds out the 23.3 percent if you take away all the ways you're supposed to give. There's going to be a new community. The problem is they didn't live that out. It's interesting to compare Mount Sinai with Genesis 4 in the first city because once again, you get metallurgy. Let's see what we could build with our medals.
Joel Brooks:Ah, golden calf. Music. Let's see what we could do with our music. And they beat their drums to an idol. The cities failed before it even began.
Joel Brooks:Later in the Bible, Jesus begins to form a new community, a new city. In Matthew 5, when he does his sermon on the mount, you know, here we see once again, God goes to a mountain. God calls people to himself. He even calls them, you're a city on a hill. Let your light shine before men.
Joel Brooks:And then he gives them his new law, all over again. Saying this is a new community. This is a new people. This is a new city. And he tells them radical things about power and sex and money again.
Joel Brooks:He says, love your neighbor as yourself. And of course, to a large degree, the people didn't listen. Finally, we see this new community being formed at Pentecost in Acts chapter 2, which which in many ways, sometimes exaggerated ways, is a reversal of Babel. Here you see the Holy Spirit, he falls on his disciples. Peter rushes out of the room and he begins telling people about Jesus.
Joel Brooks:And then all the people hear this in their own language. And so now language is no longer a barrier. They they hear about the glory of Jesus in their own language. And then the, the Holy Spirit so unites that group of people that they're, they're always eating with one another. They're always giving to one another.
Joel Brooks:They can't out serve one another. If somebody's in need, they're gonna sell their possessions. They're gonna sell their home. Whatever it takes to provide for one another. And you get this radical new community.
Joel Brooks:That's our calling as a church, is to be like that. And our calling is also to take that to the nations. You know, the the prayer that Jesus prayed for, Lord, let them be 1, was largely answered at Pentecost. But I want you to notice what happens. That oneness doesn't mean proximity to one another.
Joel Brooks:Because the disciples then scattered all over the world. God make them 1 as they scatter, as they go. It's not make them 1 as they stay in their holy little huddle here. It's make them 1 as they take my name to the nations. That's what we gotta be about.
Joel Brooks:So whether does the disciples stayed, or whether they went, they were to love one another, to love the Lord their God, and to love their neighbor, and to take that to the world. And when I was talking, with the Muslim man that was on that island, in Indonesia, I brought up the Tower of Babel at the end. I guess it was on my mind. So I brought up the Tower of Babel, and I told him, you know, that every religion is just like that tower. I said, people are always trying to make a name for themselves.
Joel Brooks:People are always trying to do some great work, work their way up to heaven. So, but I don't believe that. I don't think we have to make a name for ourselves because God gives us a name. He calls us his own. And then we don't go up to God, but the amazing thing is God has come down to us.
Joel Brooks:He has met us where we're at. Jesus came down to me and he changed my life. And I told him this, Jesus is the very reason that I came on the other side of the world to talk to him. You can tell that just kind of hit him for a little bit. You never know how much.
Joel Brooks:I don't know if he's still thinking about that or not, but it was true. I pray that we become the city on a hill that Jesus was so passionate about. We're actually going to take time now, to pray as a church. A lot of times we break up into groups before the message. This time I wanted us to break up into groups after the message.
Joel Brooks:And these are some things I want us to pray for. I want us to pray for our church, that we would be a city on a hill, that we will love our neighbor and that we would love God. I want we to pray about our money and our time and our status. And I want us to lay all of those things before God and say they are yours, absolutely yours, to use however you see fit. If you want to stay, I will stay.
Joel Brooks:If you want me to go, I will go. I want you to pray for your own community. Some of you live around here. Some of you live in other parts of Birmingham. Pray for your community.
Joel Brooks:That you'd have opportunities to share the gospel. And finally, pray for the nations. Pray for my friend in Indonesia. Pray for the missionaries there. Pray that God, would stir up more people to go.
Joel Brooks:And if that's you, great. Say yes before you ever hear the command. Yes to whatever God calls you to do.