Tower Building // Genesis 11

Join us as we wrap up our EDEN series by discussing the Tower of Babel!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:31):
Well, back in 2009, one of the craziest news stories
in a long time happened realtime in front of the whole
country.
In fact, we have a picture upon the screen of that news story
, and some of our adult leadersmight remember this.
It was called the Balloon BoySaga, and so what happened is
that a family in Colorado calledinto the police and said that

(00:52):
their six-year-old son, falcon,had climbed into this homemade
balloon.
Said that their six-year-oldson, falcon, had climbed into
this homemade balloon and thatit had launched, and it was
shaped like this flying saucerthat you can see.
And for the next 90 minutes,everybody's freaking out because
this boy is in this balloon andit got up to 7,000 feet in the
air.
It traveled nearly 50 miles,was in the air for 90 minutes,

(01:14):
and people were terrified thatthis little boy, his life, was
in danger.
And so, finally, a ballooncomes down in this field near
Denver, and so everybody rushesin like cameras rolling, and
when they opened it, there wasno boy, and so they're like oh
no, did he fall out?
And so they start to search andsearch and they finally get to
the family's house where he'sbeen in the attic the entire

(01:35):
time, and so that night thefamily went on CNN with Wolf
Blitzer, who was a guy that didCNN back then, and during the
interview that guy asked thisboy like hey, why did you hide?
And this little boy, in themost honest way that a
six-year-old could possiblyanswer, said well, he looked at
his parents.
He said you guys said that wedid this for the show.
To his parents he said you guyssaid that we did this for the

(01:58):
show.
And so the truth came out thatthose parents had orchestrated
this and used their son as ahoax to gain media attention in
hopes that they could land areality TV show.
And instead of a TV show, thedad ended up in jail.
And it was really a sad storybecause these parents were so
desperate to make a name forthemselves that they used their

(02:18):
son.
They made a terrible decisionand in the process they brought
incredible pain into theirfamily.
So why in the world am I tellingyou this story?
Well, because none of us areprobably going to tell a lie
about a kid in a balloon, but insome way all of us at some
point have struggled with adesire to make a name for
ourselves, whether it's throughsports, school or social media.

(02:41):
Personally, guys, this is oneof my struggles.
I was convicted of this earlierthis year that I realized on a
vacation, nonetheless, that Ihave a deep internal, sinful
desire to seem impressive topeople, and I really care about
what people think about me andwanting them to think that I'm
impressive or smart or good atpreaching.
And so I opened this sermontonight saying like I am the

(03:03):
chief offender of thesestruggles and so I want you to
hear me preach from that spot.
And the problem is thatthinking that way is going to
lead to all sorts of destructionin your lives, just like it did
that family with the balloonboy.
But thankfully, god's word hasanswers for us and we're going
to see them tonight as weactually wrap up our Eden series

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in Genesis, chapter 11.
So, if you have your Bible, goahead and flip open Genesis,
chapter 11, verse 1.
And as we've gone through thisEden series, we've looked at the
first 11 chapters of the Bibleand we've seen not only does how
you understand these 11chapters shape how you'll
understand the rest of yourBible, but how you understand
these 11 chapters will shape howyou view the entire world,

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because that's what God is doingthrough this part of Genesis is
.
He's answering these bigquestions of who are you?
What's this place that we livein?
Why are you here?
What's the problem, thesolution, who makes the rules
Like?
All of these big questions getanswered here, and so tonight
we're gonna finish with thestory of the Tower of Babel,
which actually marks the shiftfrom this part of Genesis to the
next one.
It's where we're gonna wrap upour series In this sermon.

(04:05):
In a sentence we're gonna seethis that when we try to build
our own name, like the people atBabel, it only leads to pride
and emptiness, but God and hismercy offers us a better name in
Jesus and offers us a place inthe family of God.
And so we're going to readchapter 11, verse one.
Now, the whole earth had onelanguage in the same words, and

(04:27):
as people migrated from the East, they found a plane in the land
of Shinar and settled there,and they said to one another
come, let us make bricks andburn them thoroughly.
And they had brick for stoneand bitumen bitumen, I don't
know how to pronounce that formortar.
And then they said come, let usbuild for ourselves a city and
a tower with its top in theheavens and come.
Let us make a name forourselves, lest we be dispersed

(04:47):
over the face of the whole earth.
And the Lord came down to seethe city and the tower which the
children of man have built.
Let's pray For a moment.
Would you pray for yourself,for your heart, for your eyes
and your ears to be open to thegospel, to God's word, that he
would meet you where you're at,even in the middle of the mess,

(05:07):
and that he would change you?
And then would you pray for methat I could stand behind his
word, that I could be helpful,that I could be a shepherd, that
everything I preach would betrue?

(05:28):
God, we thank you for your word.
Tonight we pray that we wouldbe shaped and formed by it and
that we would leave here andapply it to our lives and have
great conversation in smallgroup.
We pray these things in Jesus'name and everybody said amen.
So how many of you, when youread the story of the Tower of
Babel, let's be honest are kindof confused Like what's going on
here, like they're building atall tower and like God's all of
a sudden upset about it?
Eli Smith, you're honest, Iappreciate that brother story.

(05:51):
It just seems kind of weird,like why does God have a problem
with this?
Like it looks like humanity'sunited, we're all on the same
page, one language, and theyjust want to build a cute little
tower.
Like it's great.
But you have to understand that, just like everything else
we've read in this series,there's a lot more going on
beneath the surface, because thething is, god's issue isn't
with the unity of a language andthat they're all working

(06:13):
together, but it's what thatunity is directed at.
What do I mean?
Well, first you have to take alook at the first commands that
God gave humans.
What he told Adam and Eve inGenesis 1.28, be fruitful and
multiply.
Here's the point fill the earthand subdue it.
He tells Adam and Eve to spreadout, to have children, to have

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families, to go and fill theearth.
Eden was supposed to grow.
And then God says the samething in Genesis 9, after Noah
and his family leave the ark.
He says and God bless Noah,this is Genesis 9, 1, and his
sons.
And he said to them be fruitful, multiply.
And what?
Fill the earth?
9, 7, and you be fruitful andmultiply, increase greatly on
the earth and multiply in it.

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This command is reiteratedafter this.
We talked about how the floodwas like this de-creation,
starting over right To end humanviolence.
And he gives it again go,spread out, multiply.
But then what did we see in ourverses here today?
The people in Babylon said orBabel, which is Babylon, I you
know, we'll get to that laterbut they say come, let us build
ourselves a city in a tower withits top in the heavens, and let

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us make a name for ourselves.
Here's the point Lest we bedispersed over the face of the
whole earth.
So they're basically saying,hey, let's stay here and build a
tower so we don't have to gofill the earth.
God, we don't wanna, I don'twanna do what you're telling us
to do.
We want to.

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They hear it's rebellion.
It's the same thing that Adamand Eve, cain Lamech.
It's the same cycle.
The problem was that they wereunifying against God, saying I'm
going to do it my way.
But there's one more key issuein these verses that tells us
why this is such a big deal.
Look at their reasoning.
They say come, let us build acity with its top in the heavens
and let us make a name forourselves.
And their goal in building thistower wasn't that they thought

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they were going to reach up intoheaven, like they were going to
find God up there.
That's not the point.
They wanted to make a name forthemselves.
They wanted to build fame andinfluence.
They wanted to do it their wayand underneath that is this
pride and, whether they realizedit or not, they wanted to be
God.
It's the same old cycle andwe've always seen that that

(08:21):
leads to bad things.
I remember in middle school Iwanted nothing more than to make
a name for myself.
I've told you all this.
I transferred public school andI just wanted to be popular.
I wanted to be liked.
I wanted to be in all thefriend groups, like desperately.
There were two problems.
One, I was just an objectivelyweird kid, like honestly, like

(08:42):
carrying a conversation wasdifficult for me, just had some,
you know, I nerded out aboutthe things I nerded out about,
like middle school.
Garrett was going through it.
I did not peak in middle school.
But two, not only did I want tomake a name for myself, but so
did everyone else.
Right, everybody wanted to bepopular.

(09:02):
And you know what happens wheneverybody wants to be popular
and make a name for themselvesWar, and not like tanks and
missiles.
War, but, like gossip and liesand sarcasm, that's meant to
tear people down.
People would make fun of eachother's biggest insecurities
just to hide their own.
We would leave people out offriend groups just to feel
superior and hide our feelingsof never quite being enough

(09:25):
right.
We would just compare, tear oneanother down just to make
ourselves feel a little bittaller, a little bit better, all
for the same reason as thosepeople who tried to build that
tower, to make a name.
And we've all done it right.
In sports, you try to be betterthan everybody else, have the
best highlight reel, get thestarting spot, make it to

(09:46):
varsity.
In school, you try to be at thetop of your class, ace every
test, build a transcript and geta 4.0 to tell everybody hey
look, how smart I am.
With friends, we try to be theone that everybody texts first.
That never gets left out of thegroup chat or the party or the
hangout.
On social media we want theperfect story with the perfect
filter that gets all the likes,or we want the TikTok that goes

(10:07):
viral, even in church.
This is one thing that I didn'trealize, I struggled with until
I was out of it.
We can lead all the Biblestudies, you can serve, you can
go on mission trips, you can goon camps and still have this
motive that you would never sayit, but it's underneath
everything of hey, I want peopleto see how holy I am.
I want to see people, I wantpeople to see how much I love

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God, how I'm not like a sinner,like everybody else, just to
make a name for ourselves.
And at the end of the day, it'sall tower building and we've
all done it.
It might not be a physicaltower, but it comes from the
same place, this deep-seatedpride and a desire to be the
center of the universe.

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It's the human condition undersin.
And again, I don't want toshame you.
Like I said, this has been oneof my biggest struggles
throughout life and probablywill be.
And honestly it scares me as apastor, because in this position
and positions of leadership, ifyou guys are one time you find
yourself in a position ofleadership, it has this desire
that comes with it to be incharge of people and to look

(11:08):
impressive, and so you have toconstantly be on guard against
that.
You have to bring people intoyour life who can call it out
when they start to see thesymptoms right, and some
practical things.
If you realize that's, you dothat, acknowledge it, confess it
to someone, say, hey, I need toconfess my sin.
And this is going to soundweird, because normally when I
think about confessing sin Ithink about, like this addiction

(11:29):
or this thing I'm hiding.
But I need to confess that Ireally like the universe to
revolve around me.
Like I really like people tothink I'm smart.
Or I really like it when peoplethink I'm impressive or cool or
have nice stuff or come from agood family, and confess that
Just saying it sets you free insome way that I can't explain,
other than it's the truth ofJames that if we confess our
sins to one another and pray forone another, we would be healed

(11:52):
.
And then practical stepscelebrate others right when
someone does something good.
Fight that desire to be mad thatyou didn't do that thing and
celebrate them right.
Like if Rebecca does somethinggreat at school, be like Rebecca
, that's awesome.
Like you did amazing on thattest.
The rest of us bombed it andyou aced it, that's great.
Not how dare you?
Everybody else failed it.
Like, celebrate people whensomeone makes a good play, when

(12:17):
that person beats you out forthe spot that you wanted on the
team or on the squad or whatever.
Tell them, man, that is awesome, like I can tell.
You really worked hard for thatand I'm proud of you and I just
wanna celebrate you.
We can all admit that thatsounds weird.
You wanna know why that soundsweird?
Because no one does it, becausethat's not the world that we
live in.
But that's how you fight pride.
Serve in hidden ways, right.

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Serve in ways that no one willever see.
Don't post it on social media,right.
Go on a mission trip and don'tpost anything about it.
Right.
Show up to church and don'tfeel like you need to tell
anyone unless you're invitingthem to come here.
Right.
Even at home, when you pass atest, don't tell everybody the
grade you made and how good itwas.
Don't post all of your videoson social media.
Not that any of that's bad, butsometimes when you go without

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doing that, you'll realize justhow much you like it and it can
really put a finger on if that'san issue in your life or not.
Or another thing ask morequestions than you answer.
This is something I've tried topractice lately and maybe
you've seen it when you'vetalked to me.
I really hope so and if not,please tell me.
Like Garrett, you talk too muchabout yourself.
But ask more questions, right?
When you're having aconversation with someone, show

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a genuine interest in them.
Ask them hey, you know you playfootball.
What's your favorite thingabout football, right?
What did you do this week?
What's something that you wouldbe an influencer for?
The reason I like that questionis because it tells you what
someone's really excited aboutand pumped about.
And try to talk to people aboutthings that excite them.

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These are all just practicaltips, but the point is is it
takes the focus off of you andputs it onto other people, and
it's a very well-known sayingthat humility is not thinking
less about yourself, it'sthinking about yourself less.
It's putting the lens on otherpeople, it's not treating
yourself like you're second rateor garbage, but it's saying,
hey, I don't live for myself, Ilive for others.
I want to bless them, I want tobe there for them, and it sets

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you free.
God will heal you if you laythat down at his feet, that
pride, and he wants you to,because it never turns out well.
And that's what we see at theback half of Genesis in verse
six.
And the Lord said behold, theyare one people and they will
have all one language, and thisis only the beginning of what
they will do, talking about thetower, and nothing that they
propose to do now will beimpossible for them.

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Come, let us go down and thereconfuse their language so they
may not understand one another'sspeech.
And so the Lord dispersed themfrom there over all the face of
the earth and they left offbuilding the city.
Therefore its name was calledBabel or Babylon, because there
the Lord confused the languageof the earth and from there the
Lord dispersed them all over theface of the earth.
And I remember when I firstread this I was really confused

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because it almost sounds likeGod's afraid of humanity, like,
oh, if they can do this, imaginewhat else they can do.
But again, that's not the point.
In fact there's a very similarmirroring to something we read
in Genesis three, after Adam andEve ate the fruit.
In Genesis three, he says lookat human, lest they like we have
to kick them out.
Basically because if they eatof the tree of the knowledge, or

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they ate of the tree ofknowledge and good and evil, if
they eat of the tree of life,then things aren't gonna be good
.
Because God sees, hey, evilpeople, living forever is not a
good recipe for success.
It was his act of mercy to kickthem out, to remove them from
the tree of life.
They chose to remove themselvesfrom the tree of life, but to
actually send them out so thatthat evil wouldn't continue to

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just spiral.
And then here in Genesis 11, hesees, hey, these people have
their minds set on making a namefor themselves, not only
through this tower, but throughthe city that eventually becomes
called Babylon, which, if youknow your Bible and history,
babylon, ends up doing somereally not great things.
And they wanted unity throughtheir own name and their own

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empire.
And in that empire everybodyhad to be the same, they had to
talk the same, they had to lookthe same One culture, one
language, one way of doingthings.
And it wasn't God's way.
But here's the danger when onegroup decides their way is the
way, everyone else has to eitherget crushed into the mold or
left out.
When one group decides thatit's their way or the highway

(16:16):
and I'm not talking about, likewhat we say about scripture like
hey, this is the way, the truthand the life, that's truth.
But when one group decidessomething about other things
about how to look or how to talk, like these secondary level
things it doesn't go well.
I mean, think about it.
Think about fashion, right?
If you don't wear the rightkind of shoes or the hoodie or
the right socks, then you getleft out and suddenly you're
that kid.

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Or social media.
If you're not on the trend, ifyou don't have the right filter,
if you don't post the rightreel or whatever like, you get
left out and kind of looked at.
You don't exist.
In sports, right?
Whether we'd admit it or not,there's some sports that get
really celebrated and get allthe attention and then other
sports that don't get quite somuch.
In music, gaming, if you're notinto the biggest trend in music

(17:00):
or the biggest trend in thisgame is what everybody's playing
, you get left out and looked at.
Funny In school, if all therecognition goes to the AP and
the varsity, which are greatthings, all of a sudden it
becomes this is the way andeverybody who's not doing this
gets left out.
And that's what happens whenunity is built on the wrong

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foundation.
It's not real, it's false, itsqueezes people into this mold
and you see, with Babylon laterin Daniel they actually also
build a statue in the same placeas the Tower of Babylon, like
the same this.
I could go into the weeds, butjust take my word for it.
The statue that Nebuchadnezzarbuilds and makes everybody bow
down to is in the same spot asthe tower of Babylon, and it's
the same pattern Conform, obey,do what I say, or die.

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That's where it leads, and soGod sees where that's going and
he steps in to stop it.
And so, as an act of mercy, hespreads everyone out.
So they have to stop buildingthe tower.
And it was mercy.
But thankfully that's not theend of the story, because that
act of mercy would point to agreater mercy.
Because in Genesis 12, the storyzooms in on one man named

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Abraham and God meets Abrahamand God tells Abraham go from
your country and I'm gonna makea great nation of you and I'm
gonna bless you, and I am goingto make a great nation of you
and I'm going to bless you and Iam going to make your name
great so that you will be ablessing.
I will bless those who blessyou and in you, all the families
of the earth shall be blessed.
Notice the difference thereAbraham's not making a name for

(18:28):
himself.
God is giving Abraham a namethat is better than anything he
could have come up with on hisown and that continues to point
forward, because from there on,the Bible follows Abraham's
family that we call theIsraelites, the Jewish people.
They all descend from him andwe see this story unfold as God
goes to fulfill that promise.
And Israel, if you've read yourOld Testament, screws up a lot

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like over and over and overagain, in the same exact way.
But that promise keeps movingforward.
God doesn't forget, until oneday a son of Abraham is born,
named Jesus.
He was God in the flesh.
He lived a perfect life, heearned heaven, yet he died a
death on the cross at the handsof violent men.
And it wasn't an accident, itwasn't because he said the wrong

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words at the wrong time.
It's because he stepped into aviolent world to make a way for
you and I to come back to God.
That on that cross he becameour sin and that all of the
punishment we have earned fromevery lie we've told, from every
mistake we've made, from everytime that we've done something
we know we shouldn't have, hepaid it.
So when I say that God isforgiving you.

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He's not just sweeping it underthe rug, he sees all of it.
You are fully known by God.
Do you know how terrifying thatcan be?
That God knows everything we'veever thought, everything we've
ever said, everything we've everdone?
Guys, I got a lot of stuff thatI hope like man, like we I
don't want to tell people aboutthat Like I know I've been
forgiven, like there's a lot ofstuff in all of our lives that
we're like man.
If someone knew that theywouldn't want anything to do

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with me.
God knows all of it and lovesyou enough to die for you.
That in God, the invitation isto be fully known and fully
loved.
Which is our greatest fear isto be fully known and have
someone reject us for who wereally are.
That if they knew the true me,they would never want anything
to do with me.
That's why we hide, that's whywe put on a face, that's why we

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spend so much money and time andenergy trying to look different
physically, trying to actdifferent, trying to talk
different, because we're afraidif they ever knew the real me,
they wouldn't want it.
God says I know the real youand I want it bad enough to die
for you, that I want it badenough to die for you.
That is the gospel.
And he lived a perfect life.
He died the death we deserve sothat we could be forgiven.

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But he didn't stay dead becausehe was put in a borrowed grave.
But on that third day he got upand he rolled that stone away
and he walked right out of thereto signal that there is no
death, has no sting, it has nohold on us.
The victory is in him.
And so, where Babel, was mantrying to rebel against God?
Go up to God and take his spot.
God is coming down to the earthto take our spot on the cross
so that we could be free torescue us.

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Where Babel, was us making aname for ourselves?
Jesus was God coming down andsaying hey, you don't need to
make a name for yourself,because you can never make one
good enough, but I'm going togive you the name child of God,
I'm going to give you the nameadopted, I'm going to give you
the name redeemed, made new, newcreation, fully known and fully
loved.
And then, where Babel spreadeverybody out in Jesus, this

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thing called Pentecost happensafter he resurrects, and Jesus
has already ascended to heavenand all of his disciples are in
one spot and the Holy Spiritfalls down and people start to
hear the gospel being preachedin their own language by people
who don't know their ownlanguage.
And what is being done there?
It's a reverse Babylon.
It's God saying I'm here, Isent my son, jesus, and I made a

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way that you don't need to bespread out anymore.
You don't need to try and fightto make a name for yourself,
but I'm bringing you under onename, and that name is Jesus to
be the family of God.
Amen, that's the gospel, andnothing else in this life will

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matter as much as what I justtold you.
And so maybe tonight you justcame in here and you've been
building your own personal towerof Babel.
You've been doing everythingyou can to make a name for
yourself.
For some of you, it's sports,travel ball, personal training,
school sports.
For some of you it's grades AP,gpa, sat.
For some of you it's friends.

(22:33):
You'll say whatever you need tosay, post whatever you need to
post, just so you don't get leftout of the group.
Chat.
Do whatever you think you needto do with that guy or girl to
feel acceptance, just so youdon't get forgotten.
For some of you it's socialmedia likes, views, streaks,
tick, tocks, just trying to makea name for yourself.

(22:53):
For some of you it's looksspending hours on clothes,
makeup, gym time, filters.
And if that's you, I'm guessingyou came in here tonight
exhausted and anxious and wornout.
And I'm just here to tell youtonight that it doesn't have to
be that way, that you can stopthe tower building tonight, that
you can lay down the bricks andaccept the name that God is

(23:14):
offering of you, child of thetower building, tonight.
That you can lay down thebricks and accept the name that
God is offering of you, child ofthe one true King, fully known,
fully loved, because of whatJesus did for you on the cross.
Not by any work of your own,not by any merit, you can't earn
your way into heaven, but thatGod stepped down, put on flesh
and made a way for you.
And the first step is to acceptthe gift of salvation.

(23:34):
We've done gospel presentationlast few nights and we've seen a
response Praise the Lord forthat, amen and yeah, amen.
And that's the first step.
And so if that's you and you say, hey, I've never asked Jesus to
be my King, I've never placedmy faith in him.
I've never entered into arelation with him.
That's the first thing.
You got to get right rightthere.
But maybe for some of youyou've done that and tonight you

(23:58):
just need to confess and repent.
That first point I made.
You just need to repentancemeans you're walking in one
direction.
You stop, you turn around, yougo in the other direction.
There's grace, guys, there'sforgiveness.
Your sins are not just beingswept under the rug.
It's not like God's keeping alist and when you hit to an
imaginary point he's like nowI'm done with you.
No, he paid for all of them.
But we have to ask forforgiveness to repair that

(24:18):
closeness with him.
Or maybe tonight you just needencouragement from the Lord,
right?
Maybe you've been trying tomake a name in the right ways.
Maybe you've been trying tomake a name for yourself in
church and serving, and you'relike God.
I just feel like I'm so brokenand I'm so messed up and there's
no way that you could love me.
And maybe you just need to heartonight that he's already made

(24:38):
up his mind that he does, andit's not dependent on anything
you could do or say or feel.
It's not about how bad you feelfor your sin.
It's because he made you in hisimage, because he loves you,
and maybe you just need to hearthat and rest in that tonight.
And I don't know what it is foryou, but I do know that when

(24:59):
God's word is preached, we'recalled to respond, and so we're
about to go into small groupsand we'll have a practice that
you can do throughout the week.
But I just want to encourageyou, if that's you in any way,
shape or form, if you need tomake a decision to follow Jesus,
if you need to go confess andrepent tonight, if you need to
just rest and say, hey, can youpray for me?
I just need encouragement.
Whoever you are, whereveryou're at, find one of us, find

(25:21):
a leader and talk to them.
Don't go.
I know we're tempted to justrun into small groups and get
crazy and do all the stuff.
That'll be there, right, we'regoing to have fun another time.
Nine square.