Making a Name for Yourself?
Genesis: Foundations of Our Faith • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Self-Seeking is the Path to Failure
Self-Seeking is the Path to Failure
The tower of Babel was a monument to human accomplishment when we are united. Or maybe a better way to put is, what humans can accomplish when there is uniformity. Everyone shared not only one language but the same words.
Now the whole earth had one language/lip and the same words.
When everyone is sharing one thought, they can be controlled by one powerful person, like Nimrod who we found out in chapter 10 built the city of Babel. Much can be accomplished. You can see this in the great monuments of the world: The Great Wall, The Pyramids, the Colosseum. The Indians even built a monument to unity (Sardar Patel), and it is the largest statue on earth, twice the size of the statue of liberty.
Add to their unity a new technology, the brick, and they could have built anything. Did they build houses for the poor or hospitals or schools for disadvantaged children? No. They built a city and a monument to make a name for themselves.
There are lots of hints in the text that this was a faithless rejection of God.
The first one comes in verse 2.
And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.
The people are coming “from the east”. Adam and Eve were exiled “to the east” of the garden. So the people of Babel are somehow trying to end their own exile from the garden.
They have a new technology, the AI of their day, the brick.
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.
The next is this act of defiance against God.
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.”
The tower is a message, “We can reach heaven on our own.” Babel, the name of their city, means “the gate of the gods.” There is so much arrogance in this project.
God had commanded humans to fill the earth and spread His dominion over it. Here they are gathering together in one place. They will save themselves. Their security is the work of their hands, a city and a tower. They will be flood-proof, dispersal-proof. As with many acts of arrogance, the underlying motivation is fear, “lest we be dispersed.” Be careful making decisions out of fear.
Also, they have returned to the sins of the mighty men of Genesis 6.
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men (gibborim) who were of old, the men of renown (“men of the name”).
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.”
This is where it hits home for me, and probably for many of us. If I am honest, I want to make a name for myself. I want people to remember me. But I want them to remember me in a certain way: for all my strengths and successes, without the reality of my weaknesses and failures. I want to make such an impact on the world that when people hear my name for generations to come, they will say, “our world needs people like him.” You don’t have to put my name on any buildings or institutions. I just want the next generation to tell their kids, “I wish you could have met him.” It’s self-absorbed and self-seeking, and it’s soul-destroying, but it’s there.
But this self-seeking leads to failure. We strive and work and wear ourselves thin trying to make a name for ourselves. And even if it succeeds, it lasts for a moment, and in a generation or two you’re forgotten, and what good has it done you after you’re gone? Don’t waste your life on a fleeting reward. We were made for amore eternal reward, to be glorified in Christ. So, if God has mercy for us, when self-seeking is our motive, He will allow us to fail. He might even cause it.
Genesis chapter 11 has become famous for the first four verses, the tower of Babel. But the true focus begins in verse 5. God causes their plans to fail. And it is intentionally comical.
And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built.
They had made this colossal thing, and God still had to come down to see it. Apparently they hadn’t made it to the heavens after all. These are just “children of Adam” playing with blocks.
In verse 6, YHWH says,
And the Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language/lip, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose (“scheme”) to do will now be impossible for them.
If you succeed with the wrong plan, it’s worse than failing at the right plan. If God lets them continue, they will continue to scheme their way through life, becoming more full of themselves. And when we are full of ourselves, there is no room for God and His mercy.
So, just to drive the point home that their schemes are childish and insubstantial and will not save them, Moses repeats, God goes down from heaven to act on their behalf.
Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech/lip.”
So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city.
The final joke in the passage is in verse 9.
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 name they were making, Babel, which means “gate of the gods”, in the end is nothing more than balal, “confusion”. And the one thing they were fearing, God causes anyway.
When God ruins our plan, when He humiliates us through failure, when He narrows our way to the one path we fear, what is our response? Do we continue to scheme another plan? Or do we humble ourselves, seek His face, and trust Him? Maybe He has a better plan. Maybe He can demonstrate His saving power in my place of fear.
Faith and Humility are the Path to Redemption
Faith and Humility are the Path to Redemption
Genesis 11 concludes with God’s plan. He will make a name for Himself.
These are the generations of Shem. When Shem was 100 years old, he fathered Arpachshad two years after the flood.
This line leads to Abram in verse 26.
When Terah had lived 70 years, he fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran.
“These are the generations” means this is another new beginning for the human race. And these are the generations of Shem, whose name means, “name”.
The joke is on Nimrod and the people of Babel and their childish plans to make a name for themselves. God has a different building plan. He is making a name for Himself by building a family that will walk with Him by faith and make Him known in the world. When we seek our glory only in God, the more glory for Him, the more glory for His people.
And “the seed of the woman” that was promised in Genesis 3:15, the snake crusher, will come through this family to redeem the world.
If we fast forward for a moment through the Bible, there are two new beginnings in the New Testament that make reference to Genesis 11.
The first is in the new beginning that comes at the birth of Jesus the Messiah. When the angel Gabriel announces to Mary that she is the woman whose seed will be the Messiah, there’s a lot of attention to His name.
And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.
And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”
Here’s Mary’s response.
And Mary said,
“My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.
For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for he who is mighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
And his mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;
he has brought down the mighty from their thrones
and exalted those of humble estate;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
as he spoke to our fathers,
to Abraham and to his offspring forever.”
Mary recognizes that God is intervening again during a time when the world is run by powerful, self-seeking people. They will be scattered, just as they were in Genesis 11. But God will demonstrate His strength by granting mercy to the humble and the seed of Abraham.
The other new beginning in the New Testament that connects to Genesis 11 is the beginning of the church.
Power and Unity Come from the Holy Spirit
Power and Unity Come from the Holy Spirit
Acts chapter 2 is both a replay of Genesis 11, but also a great reversal.
In Genesis 11, the people of the earth all seek unity in one language, one “tongue”,and gathering in one place. Then God intervenes. He confuses their language into the list of diverse languages we read about in Genesis 10, and He scatters the people across the earth.
In Acts chapter 2, we see an uncanny replay among the first followers of Jesus. Luke begins with the fact that they were all gathered together in one place.
When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place.
And as they meet, a mighty rushing wind fills the house, the power of the Holy Spirit.
And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them speech.
Instead of the Hebrew lip, we simply replace it with Greek, “tongue”, and the pattern is the same as Genesis 11. Then it continues, because this causes confusion among the people in Jerusalem.
Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language.
Then there is a long list of peoples and languages like in Genesis 10, ending with,
both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.”
And this is the great reversal in the plot. Peter explains to the crowd what is going on. God is using these diverse tongues to fulfill a promise.
“ ‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams;
even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy…
And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’
When the church, the gathered people who have experienced the saving power of God in Jesus glorify His name by scattering to all the earth, preaching the gospel in the power of the Spirit, everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. God’s intention was always a diverse people experiencing His saving power. The unity would come from His Spirit.
Are we seeking glory? Surrender to the Holy Spirit, who frees us from bondage to self-seeking to behold the glory of the Lord Jesus.
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
So, this is the reversal. In Genesis 11, self-seeking humans, talking, thinking, and acting as one, tried to get to heaven and save themselves through technological innovation, and make a name for themselves in the process. But the very thing they feared, the diversity and the dispersing, God has redeemed as He makes all things new in Christ by the power of His Spirit.
These days the new technology that will save us is AI or space travel, or recession proof financial systems, or trans-humanism. We can build cities and schools and hospitals and homes for the poor, and what are some of the smartest people doing? Making a name for themselves. Our kids are being formed in their worldview, beliefs, and values by “influencers”, many of whom have never built anything except their own brand, which is nothing more than their name. Whose glory am I seeking in my life?
When we scheme our own salvation, when we seek security in technology, or when we seek to make a name for ourselves here on earth, the most merciful thing God does is scatter the thoughts of our proud hearts and cause us to fail in our schemes, so we will, in humility, be ready to receive His salvation. You will sing for joy like Mary when you delight in God’s will and walk in His ways, to the glory of His name. When I stopped trying to make something of myself, and let Him make something of my life, I began to see how much more substantial we can become. We are strongest when we are weak, on our knees, surrendering our schemes and seeking God. The way up to heaven is the way down through humility and death to self in union with Jesus. We are at our most glorious when we are preaching the glory of Jesus Christ, the Savior for all people.
We begin by preaching this gospel to ourselves and one another. We have been crucified with Christ and raised with Him to new life. His table is a celebration of union with Christ, who,
And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
Communion
Questions for Discussion
What was your greatest joy this Christmas or what are you looking forward to in the New Year? What is difficult about the holidays for you?
What are some schemes we use to make a name for ourselves or to create more security for ourselves?
What do we learn about ourselves or humans in general in Genesis 11?
Where did their plan go wrong?
What do we learn about God in Genesis 11?
Was God unjust or unfair in His intervention? Why or why not?
How does Genesis 11 move God’s plan of redemption forward?
Two of the New Testament references to Genesis 11 are in Luke 1:46-56 and Acts 2:1-21. How do those passages help us see the gospel fulfillment of Genesis 11?
How will you respond to this passage this week?
With whom can you share this passage with this week?
