Genesis 11:1-9

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 confused the language of all the earth. And from there the Lord dispersed them over the face of all the earth.

Sermon Recap

Over the past three weeks, we’ve taken an in-depth look at the “introduction” to the Bible in Genesis 1-11. Like a good piece of jazz music, this introduction establishes the melody, and the rest of the Bible from this point forward is only going to riff and expand on that melody.

This week, we’re looking at the final story in the introduction: the story of the Tower of Babel (or Babylon, as the rest of the Bible will refer to it). On the surface, this story seems pretty straightforward: the people of Babylon try to build a city and a tower, God doesn’t approve, so he scatters them and puts an end to their building project.

But we need to ask the question: what’s the big deal? Why does God take such an issue with what the people are trying to do? There are a few hints in the story that help us understand the seriousness of it (if you were there on Sunday, you can talk about those), but the bottom line is that their goal is not to get to God - their goal is to be god. They want to build an overlapping space between heaven and earth, like the garden of Genesis 1-2, but with themselves on the throne.

So what is God’s response? The story tells us that he descends into the middle of Babylon and disperses the people to protect them from themselves and to protect the world he created from what an empire like that might do. And here’s what we know based on the rest of the story of the Bible: this is not the last time that God would “descend into Babylon.” Jesus, God in the flesh, descended into the middle of a world that looks like Babylon and turned it upside down by choosing to serve rather than be served, by choosing to humble himself rather than live for his own glory, by refusing to give in to love of self but choosing to give himself in selfless, sacrificial love for others, and by choosing not to make a name for himself but by surrendering his will to God’s will and trusting him to exalt him whenever and however he sees fit.

This matters for people in Austin, Texas, in 2025 because even if we don’t live in Babylon geographically, the spirit of Babylon is alive and well in our culture. But be careful - the worst part is not that you live in Babylon. It’s that Babylon lives in you. But the good news of Jesus is that he came down, he descended, into Babylon to get the Babylon out of you, and when you surrender to him you can live in Babylon without living like Babylon. You can be a part of building a different city and a different culture by being a part of a different community - the community of Jesus’ people in his church - where self-giving love becomes the norm, where Jesus’ name is the one we’re trying to make famous, and where we get to partner with him in bring his blessing into the middle of the city where we live.

Application Questions