What Kingdom Are You Building This Morning

Moses places Babel between Noah’s failure and Abram’s calling because sin is still escalating, and the question hangs in the air: what will God do now? The people of Shinar move east, away from the presence of God, settle where God commanded them to fill the earth, and become a national version of Cain building a city for their own name. Their unity is real, but it is unity aimed at rebellion. Their high-quality bricks, bitumen, city, and tower reveal a people giving their best effort to comfort, control, security, and self-salvation.

The tower reaching toward heaven becomes an anti-gospel. The people believe hard work, wise planning, and enough strength can get them to God, make their name great, and keep them from being dispersed. God, however, comes down just to see their tiny tower. His coming down is not driven by fear of humanity but by mercy toward humanity. God knows that sin left unchecked will become more catastrophic, so the confusion of language is both judgment and protection.

Babel receives the name its builders feared most. The people want to make a name for themselves, but Babel becomes a picture of chaos, confusion, and disorientation. God disrupts their plans, scatters them across the earth, and still accomplishes the very purpose they resisted. God’s faithfulness is not tied to human plans going smoothly. His faithfulness is tied to his own good purposes, even when disruption feels painful, confusing, or unwanted.

The genealogy from Shem to Abram shows God’s common grace after rebellion. God continues to bless generations, preserve families, and move his promise forward through ordinary faithfulness. The decreasing lifespans also show the deepening effects of sin in a world further from Eden. God can build his kingdom through people living, working, raising children, mowing lawns, waving at neighbors, and faithfully doing the next ordinary thing.

Terah’s family also shows that God’s story moves through real grief. Haran dies before his father. Sarai is barren. Terah’s household carries loss, uncertainty, and pain even as God prepares to call Abram. Christ becomes the greater answer to Babel because humanity cannot climb its way to heaven. Jesus comes down, humbles himself, takes the form of a servant, dies on the cross, and rescues people from the kingdoms they keep trying to build.

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Key Takeaways

• 1. Babel builds comfort, control, and self-salvation [16:53] Babel reveals how easily good desires for safety and stability become ruling desires. Control promises peace, but it cannot rescue anyone from sin, suffering, or death. The kingdom of self always requires more bricks, more effort, and a taller tower. Christ offers a better refuge because he comes down rather than demanding that broken people climb up. [16:53]
• 2. God disrupts plans to protect people [20:33] God’s confusion of language is not random cruelty or divine insecurity. God interrupts Babel because united rebellion would carry humanity further into destruction. Disruption can therefore become a severe mercy when it exposes a kingdom built on false security. God remains faithful even when his faithfulness does not look like a smooth path forward. [20:33]
• 3. Ordinary faithfulness moves God’s story forward [27:18] The genealogy refuses to treat ordinary lives as wasted lives. God preserves names, families, and generations while advancing promises that reach all the way to Abram and ultimately to Christ. Faithfulness often looks less dramatic than Babel’s tower, but it lasts far longer. God works through daily obedience in the places where he has planted his people. [27:18]
• 4. Grief can coexist with God’s faithfulness [32:49] Terah’s family carries death, barrenness, relocation, and unanswered pain. God does not deny the horror of loss or require people to pretend that suffering does not hurt. Grief becomes honest when it names what is broken while still bringing that brokenness before God. God’s faithfulness remains true even when life does not resemble the life someone expected.
  
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Youtube Chapters

• [00:00] - Welcome
• [05:17] - Genesis and the Escalation of Sin
• [08:21] - What Kingdom Are You Building?
• [12:55] - Babel’s Unified Rebellion
• [14:37] - Building a City for Our Name
• [18:30] - God Comes Down to Babel
• [22:55] - God Disrupts Human Kingdoms
• [25:54] - Ordinary Faithfulness in the Genealogy
• [29:52] - Terah’s Family and Real Grief
• [37:21] - Four Questions for the Heart
• [38:45] - Prayer, Communion, and God’s Kingdom

1. Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. [01:21]
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. [01:43]
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, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.” [02:02]
7. “Come, let us go down, and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.” [02:14] [02:15]
8. So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. [02:26]
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.

1. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,
2. who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,
3. but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. [23:45]
4. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

1. These are the generations of Shem. When Shem was 100 years old, he fathered Arpachshad two years after the flood.
2. And Shem lived after he fathered Arpachshad 500 years and had other sons and daughters.
3. When Arpachshad had lived 35 years, he fathered Shelah.
4. And Arpachshad lived after he fathered Shelah 403 years and had other sons and daughters.
5. When Shelah had lived 30 years, he fathered Eber.
6. And Shelah lived after he fathered Eber 403 years and had other sons and daughters.
7. When Eber had lived 34 years, he fathered Peleg.
8. And Eber lived after he fathered Peleg 430 years and had other sons and daughters.
9. When Peleg had lived 30 years, he fathered Reu.
10. And Peleg lived after he fathered Reu 209 years and had other sons and daughters.
11. When Reu had lived 32 years, he fathered Serug.
12. And Reu lived after he fathered Serug 207 years and had other sons and daughters.
13. When Serug had lived 30 years, he fathered Nahor.
14. And Serug lived after he fathered Nahor 200 years and had other sons and daughters.
15. When Nahor had lived 29 years, he fathered Terah.
16. And Nahor lived after he fathered Terah 119 years and had other sons and daughters. [04:07]
17. When Terah had lived 70 years, he fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran. [04:08]
18. Now these are the generations of Terah. Terah fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran fathered Lot.
19. Haran died in the presence of his father Terah in the land of his kindred, in Ur of the Chaldeans. [30:26]
20. And Abram and Nahor took wives. The name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor’s wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran the father of Milcah and Iscah. [31:37]
21. Now Sarai was barren; she had no child. [31:15]
22. Terah took Abram his son and Lot the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife, and they went forth together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan, but when they came to Haran, they settled there. [32:12]
23. The days of Terah were 205 years, and Terah died in Haran.

1. What reasons do the people give for building a city and tower, and what do those reasons reveal about what they fear? [16:18]
2. What repeated actions in Genesis 11:1–9 show that the people are acting together, and how does God respond to their unity?
3. What details in the passage show the difference between humanity trying to reach heaven and the Lord coming down to see their work? [18:30]
4. What losses and hardships are named in Terah’s family before Abram’s calling in the next chapter? [30:31]

1. The people of Babel wanted safety, a great name, and protection from being scattered. When do good desires for security and stability become an attempt to live apart from God’s rule? [16:53]
2. God’s confusion of language was both judgment for rebellion and protection from further destruction. How can a painful interruption expose a false source of safety or control? [20:33]
3. Philippians 2 shows that Jesus did not climb higher for his own glory but came down in humility to serve and die. How does Jesus’ humility answer Babel’s attempt to work its way to heaven? [23:45]
4. Genesis 11 moves from Babel’s unfinished city to a long genealogy and a grieving family. What does that contrast show about the way God advances his purposes through ordinary and painful lives? [26:29]

1. What “tower” might you be building right now for comfort, control, security, or a name for yourself? It may involve work, money, family, reputation, health, or a carefully managed future. How can you tell whether it is serving God’s kingdom or replacing it? [17:31]
2. Think of a plan that has been disrupted recently—or a plan you fear could be disrupted. What makes it difficult to trust that God is still good and at work when your path does not go as expected? [24:37]
3. Where has God planted you right now—at home, work, school, in your neighborhood, or among friends? What is one ordinary, faithful step you could take this week to love someone and point beyond yourself to God’s kingdom? [27:31]
4. Is there a grief, disappointment, or unanswered longing that you have been trying to minimize, hide, or quickly fix? What could it look like to name that loss honestly before God while still holding onto his faithfulness? [32:49]
5. Babel’s builders worked hard because they believed their own effort could save and secure them. Where are you tempted to depend on your effort rather than receive Christ’s grace and rescue?
6. Jesus came down, took the form of a servant, and gave himself on the cross. How might his humility change the way you respond when you feel overlooked, uncertain, or unable to control the outcome? [23:45]
7. The people at Babel wanted to make their own name great, while God’s kingdom calls his people to live for his name and glory. In one relationship or responsibility this week, what would it look like to seek God’s name rather than your own? [37:21]