INTRODUCTION
When I was in ninth grade, I vividly remember getting my first report card back. I slowly worked my eyes down the paper. A, A, A, and A. I had got a 4.0 Grade Point Average! I was pretty excited, but as soon as the excitement hit me, another thought crept into my mind. I thought to myself, “What if I kept this up? What if I got a 4.0 next time too?” Sometime after Christmas, we got our second report card, and sure enough, I got another 4.0. At this point, I began to wonder… “What if I kept this up all the way through high school and became the valedictorian!” And like that, my addiction began…
Our passage for today is from Genesis chapter 11, verses 1-9. It is about the Tower of Babel. Before the Tower of Babel, humanity’s history had certainly not been spotless. There was that whole fiasco in the garden, and things eventually got bad enough for God to flood the whole world and only save eight people. Sometime in between the flood and the introduction of Abraham, we find ourselves at the Tower of Babel. Let’s read together:
1 Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. 2 As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.
3 They said to each other, "Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. 4 Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth."
5 But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that they were building. 6 The LORD said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other."
8 So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. 9 That is why it was called Babel —because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth. – TNIV.
FEAR OF ANONYMITY LEADS TO DISOBEDIENCE
Many times in our lives we are disobedient because of fear. For instance, elementary students will often do another student’s homework if that student happens to be the school bully. Many adults jump into the wrong relationships out of a fear that they will be alone all of their lives. Many Christians are disobedient in sharing their faith simply because of fear. Or out of fear of not being noticed, in a weird psychological twist, we act out, and we sin. The people of Babylon were no different.
God had told Noah in Genesis 9:1, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth.” However, the people of the earth were afraid. They were afraid to spread out and venture off on their own, so they decided to stick together in one place. They decided NOT to fill the earth. In fear, they were disobedient.
DESIRE TO BE KNOWN LEADS US TO BUILD TOWERS
There is an even deeper fear than the fear of being somewhat alone. It is the fear of being anonymous. The fear of being not known by anyone. Perhaps one of the deepest needs of all of humankind is to be known. The need to be known, to be recognized, to be noticed, starts early on. When children are asked what they want to be when they grow up, they often respond with careers such as the president, or an NBA player, or a doctor. Few respond saying that they want to work in a large office with 10,000 others where they will have a small 4 by 4 cubicle.
As we grow older, if this need to be known is not met in Christ, we will do anything to fill that void, to be known. For some, it starts in middle school or high school. It is the quest to be popular. The quest for popularity really is simply a search to be recognized. We feel that if we can make a name for ourselves we will be happy. I often have to remind my high school students that almost all of them have to deal with the desire to be popular. It doesn’t necessarily look like the homecoming king or queen for every student. For some, being popular is to be the kid who isn’t popular. But either way, it is still a search to be recognized.
As we leave high school, the search for recognition often intensifies. Many people continue on in the educational field. The mere absurdity of our educational pursuits brings out the desperation we all have to be noticed. I mean, why is it that we subject ourselves to four long years of laborious studies and dedication just so we can be auditors and accountants? Now, no offense to the auditors and accountants, but the majority of them aren’t recklessly passionate about auditing companies. There are other things that draw us to these fields. And here is where we begin to build our towers in our careers. We live to size each other up. At a party, when asked what we do, all we often are doing is sizing up the tower of someone else. Yet somehow, so many of us feel inadequate. We don’t really feel known and we don’t feel recognized, so we try and build our towers up even higher so others will notice. Somehow telling other people that you are an administrative assistant and make copies for the boss isn’t enough, so we are determined to the climb the latter higher.
However, the frequency of when we get asked what we do isn’t enough to feed our raging flame to be known and recognized, so we find other ways to cover up our fear of not being known. We buy fancy cars and large homes. Even though we know perfectly well that we could probably get by on a cheaper car and the rest of the world does just fine in smaller houses (Now, don’t get me wrong. God uses nice cars and big houses for his glory too. I spent all summer doing ministry from a house that was practically a mansion, but the size of it allowed us to have 70 students in one place. There are those who use what God has given us for his glory). Yet, I don’t think that’s always the majority. Many of us simply buy the nice things so that our towers look a little taller and our names will be a little more widely known. What are you building in your life to be known? How are you trying to make a name for yourself?
The people in Babylon desperately wanted to be known, too. They wanted to be recognized by the whole world. They built a tower that stretched towards the heavens in hopes of finding the recognition and security they so desperately sought. Much like our athletes, celebrities, and business entrepreneurs of our day who have an insatiable desire to be known and recognized. It is so strong that it often is blatantly apparent and labeled as even childlike. It can be said that those who suffer from the biggest insecurities often attempt to build the biggest towers in order to distract others from the plague of their own insecurity.
On Thursday night I was watching the Apprentice with my wife. If you don’t know what the Apprentice is, it is the show where Donald Trump looks for a new Apprentice and fires a candidate every week. Typically on the Apprentice, when a team wins the weekly contest, they get a reward. So far this year, the rewards have been fairly good. The teams have gotten such rewards as playing hockey with the New York Islanders and recording a song with Wyclef Jean. However, I thought that this week’s reward was rather lame at first glance. The Donald took the winning team up in his helicopter and pointed out to them each and every tower he had built in the city of New York. He then spent all of the next half hour telling them how he had built his towers and what made them so special. In an ironic and somewhat sad twist on the Tower of Babel, I felt really sad for Donald. In the midst of all of his power and all of his wealth, the insecure child within him was screaming through on national television. He so desperately wanted his towers to be noticed. He so desperately wanted to be recognized, to be known.
GOD WILL KNOCK DOWN OUR TOWERS
After I got my second report card, I began to exceedingly focus on my goal of becoming valedictorian. I was determined never to get an A- and to accomplish my goal. As I got older, it only become harder to keep my 4.0, so I worked at my goal even more intensely. Finally, graduation approached, and I had accomplished my goal. The school announced that I would be the valedictorian. I was thrilled and was feeding off of all of the complements I was receiving. When the day of graduation came, I was nervous, but excited for my speech. When the time came, I arose, gave my speech, and returned to my chair. However, something was wrong. This wasn’t how I was supposed to feel! I sat down and asked myself, “What that it?” For four years, I had poured my life into this endeavor, and it was over. I didn’t feel very known at all. By the next week, no one really cared anymore. Before my life started to crash down, I was convinced that I had the highest tower and was very proud of it. I was still unaware at that time of the old phrase from Proverbs, “Pride cometh before the fall.” The folks of Babylon were soon about to learn the same thing.
No matter how many people like you in life, no matter how great your family turns out, no matter how far you go in your career, and no matter how big your house is, no tower built by human hands can ever stand before God. God knocks down many towers throughout our lives, but even those whose towers appear to be standing in the end will not last. The ones who have seemed to have built magnificently tall towers on earth (Hitler, Stalin, Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, and others who achieved near world domination. Or perhaps the world dominators of our day: Folks like Donald Trump and Bill Gates) still will rise and fall from ashes to ashes like the rest of us. And when they stand in the very presence of God, standing is one thing they won’t be able to do because as the Bible says, “Every knee will bow.” Every tower will crumble in light of the awesomeness of God.
However, even though so many of us are well aware of this end result, we still build our towers. We still try to make a name for ourselves. Jesus lets us clearly know the consequences. Luke 14:11 says, “For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled.” Where are you exalting yourself instead of God? Where are you trying to build your kingdom instead of God’s kingdom? Let yourselves be recognized and be known by Jesus Christ. As you walk through your life this week, take some time to stop and think that the God of the universe is madly in love with you. You don’t have to impress anyone. The Creator of all is already enamored with you. Awesome.
When we truly realize that the God of all has recognized you and knows you, we let the bricks fall out of our hands. There’s no need to build up towers anymore for everyone else to notice. We don’t have to live off of their words of praise anymore because Jesus also said, “Those who humble themselves will be exalted." And when we humble ourselves and stop building our own towers, He exalts us. Not in the sense of building another building, but we are exalted in that we get to be enraptured in His magnificent love and unconditional acceptance.
CONCLUSION
After I gave my speech, I was humbled. My tower that I had spent four years building had crumbled to the ground. However, when I was humbled, a funny thing happened. Now that my tower had fallen to the ground, I was able to see more clearly. It was two weeks after my graduation that I accepted Jesus Christ into my life. It had been a journey that was a long time coming, but the crumbling of my tower revealed to me the futility of human recognition. How glorious is it that even in God’s destruction of our man made towers (like the one in my life, the one at Babel, and maybe the ones in yours) He still has a wonderful plan. Pray with me that God would knock down our towers so that after the dust clears, we would see Him more clearly and rest in the fact we will forever be known by Him.
