Fannin Terrace Baptist Church
Jan, 11,2025
  • We Praise You
  • Ancient Gates
  • The Blood
  • Living Hope

      • Genesis 11:1-3CSB

      • Genesis 11:4-5CSB

      • Genesis 11:6-7CSB

      • Genesis 11:8-9CSB

  • I want to begin this morning with a simple observation.
    Most of us don’t wake up trying to rebel against God. We wake up trying to build a life that makes sense.
    We want our lives to count. We want to know that what we’re pouring ourselves into actually matters.
    And in a place like Midland, that desire is not discouraged. It’s reinforced. We value initiative. We admire drive. We celebrate results. We tell our kids—sometimes explicitly, sometimes quietly—that success opens doors and security keeps them open.
    The desire to build is not the problem.
    But here’s what I’ve learned—both in my own life and in pastoral ministry: that good desire can quietly shift into something heavier. Something more demanding.
    I experienced this in a very personal way not long ago.
    When I began to sense that God was releasing me from my previous church, a trusted mentor encouraged me to prepare my résumé. That seemed wise. Responsible. Faithful, even. So I did. I shared a draft with him—someone who knew the church well, who had watched what God had done there over the years. And as he read it, he said something that stuck with me.
    He said, “You need to include the growth. And not just include it—you need to lead with it.”
    I understood what he meant. He wasn’t being cynical. He was being realistic.
    Even in Christian ministry settings, success is what sells. Numbers matter. Growth matters. Results matter. Faithfulness is assumed—but achievement is what gets attention. And if that’s true in ministry, it’s certainly true everywhere else.
    And what surprised me wasn’t that he said it. What surprised me was how quickly my heart agreed.
    There was something in me that wanted those metrics to speak for me. To justify me. To say, “See? This matters. I matter.”
    And that’s when I realized: the pressure to build isn’t just out there. It’s in here.
    Most of us would never say out loud, “I’m trying to make a name for myself.” That sounds arrogant. Unspiritual.
    But we do say things like:
    “I just want to make sure my kids have every opportunity.
    “I just want to be financially secure.”
    “I just want to make good use of what God’s given me.”
    And those are good things. But here’s the tension we need to sit with this morning:
    What happens when building quietly becomes a way of securing ourselves instead of trusting God?
    What happens when achievement starts carrying the weight of identity?
    When success becomes proof that we’re okay?
    When being seen replaces being faithful?
    When fear—fear of being scattered, overlooked, or left behind—starts driving what we build?
    That question isn’t new. It’s ancient. And it’s exactly the question Genesis 11 places before us.
    The story of Babel is not about bricks and towers. It’s about what happens when we build something to give us a name—and slowly lose something of ourselves in the process. It’s about the human impulse to secure significance apart from God. To build something that will hold us together. To make a name that will last.
    And if we’re honest, we recognize that impulse—not as strangers looking in, but as participants.
    So before we rush to judge the builders of Babel, Genesis invites us to ask a more uncomfortable question:
    Where might we be building towers of our own? And what are we hoping they’ll give us?
    (brief pause)
    Let’s listen to this story carefully—because it’s not just about what they built. It’s about what happens when we build for our name… and slowly lose ourselves.

    Babel reveals our desire to secure significance apart from God

    Genesis 11 begins with a picture that sounds, at first, remarkably positive. Genesis 11:1 “The whole earth had the same language and vocabulary.”
    There is unity here. Shared understanding. Common purpose. This is not chaos. This is coordination.
    As people migrate east, they settle together in the plain of Shinar, and what happens next is intentional, thoughtful, and—by any ancient standard—impressive.
    Genesis 11:3 “They said to each other, ‘Come, let’s make oven-fired bricks.’”
    This is innovation. Brick instead of stone. Asphalt instead of mortar. This is technological progress—human creativity at work. Then comes the plan: Genesis 11:4 “Come, let’s build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the sky…”
    Notice what Genesis is showing us: Babel is not the product of laziness or rebellion in the obvious sense. It is the product of ambition, cooperation, and competence.
    The problem is not that they are building. The problem is why they are building.
    The key phrase comes next:
    Genesis 11:4 CSB
    “…Let’s make a name for ourselves…”
    This is the heart of Babel.
    They are not trying to storm heaven. They are trying to secure significance.
    They want a name—an identity that will last. They want a city—stability, permanence, protection. They want a tower—visibility, recognition, assurance.
    And underlying all of it is fear: “Lest we be dispersed.”
    They are afraid of scattering. Afraid of vulnerability. Afraid of dependence.
    What Genesis exposes here is something deeply human: the desire to build something strong enough to hold us together when trust feels risky.
    This is where Babel becomes uncomfortably familiar. Because we do the same thing.
    We build carefully structured lives—not always out of pride, but often out of fear.
    Fear that our children won’t be okay if we don’t manage every opportunity.
    Fear that financial security might slip away if we don’t stay ahead.
    Fear that if we aren’t visible, productive, or impressive, we might not matter.
    And so we build.
    We build schedules.
    We build savings.
    We build reputations.
    We build curated versions of ourselves.
    And none of that is inherently sinful.
    But Genesis 11 presses us to ask a deeper question: What are we asking our building to give us?
    Because when building becomes the way we secure identity, it quietly replaces trust.
    It’s important to notice something else here. God had already given humanity a purpose back in Genesis 1: to fill the earth. Scattering was not a threat to God’s design—it was part of it.
    But to the builders of Babel, dispersion feels dangerous. So instead of trusting God’s intention, they try to control the outcome.
    That’s what makes Babel idolatrous—not arrogance alone, but autonomy—the decision to secure meaning on our own terms rather than receive it as a gift.
    And this is where Babel speaks directly into our lives.
    When we build primarily to avoid fear…
    When we build to prove worth…
    When we build so we won’t have to trust…
    We may still be doing good things—but we are doing them for a dangerous reason.
    Genesis 11 shows us that self-made significance always asks too much of us. It demands constant effort. It requires constant maintenance. And it never quite delivers the security it promises.
    Babel begins with unity and ambition. But underneath it all is a question many of us feel every day: If I stop building, will I still matter?
    And Genesis doesn’t answer that question yet. But it does tell us this much:
    When we try to secure our significance apart from God, even our best building projects begin to cost us more than we realize.
    (brief pause)
    That’s the first truth Babel forces us to face.
    And it prepares us to see the next one.

    Babel exposes false unity built on fear rather than faith

    There’s a line in Genesis 11 that’s easy to overlook, but it may be the most revealing line in the whole story.
    Genesis 11:4b “otherwise, we will be scattered throughout the earth.”
    That single phrase tells us what’s really driving the building of Babel.
    Yes, they want a name. Yes, they want permanence. But underneath it all is fear.
    They are afraid of being scattered. And that fear shapes everything they build.
    At first glance, Babel looks like unity at its best. One language. One plan. One project. Everyone pulling in the same direction.
    But Genesis invites us to see that not all unity is healthy unity.
    This is unity forged by anxiety. Togetherness motivated by self-preservation. Community built around the fear of losing control.
    In other words, this is false unity—unity that depends on everyone staying close, thinking the same, building the same thing, for the same reason.
    And that kind of unity always comes at a cost.
    Because when fear is the glue, people become means to an end. Diversity becomes a threat. Dependence on God becomes unnecessary—or worse, inconvenient.
    What’s striking here is that God’s command for humanity had already been clear: fill the earth. Scattering was not failure. It was obedience. But obedience requires trust.
    And trust feels dangerous when security is the goal.
    So instead of trusting God’s purposes, the people of Babel decide to protect themselves from dispersion. They build upward and inward, closing ranks against uncertainty.
    That’s how fear quietly reshapes community. And again, this is where Babel becomes uncomfortably familiar.
    Because fear still builds powerful communities.
    Fear builds families where success becomes the bond.
    Fear can even build churches where growth slowly becomes the measure of faithfulness.
    Fear builds cultures where everyone knows the expectations—and no one wants to be the one who falls behind.
    In those systems, unity is maintained—but at a price.
    There’s pressure to conform. Pressure to perform. Pressure to keep building, even when the building begins to cost us our souls.
    And the irony is that fear-based unity feels strong—until it isn’t.
    Because when unity is built on fear, it cannot survive disruption. It cannot tolerate difference. And it cannot endure when control slips.
    That’s why Babel is ultimately fragile.
    They believe staying together will keep them safe. But safety achieved without trust in God always turns brittle.
    Genesis is showing us that unity without faith eventually becomes self-protective rather than life-giving.
    This has real weight for us. Some of us feel enormous pressure to keep everything held together:
    A family image that must not crack
    A financial plan that must not fail
    A reputation that must not slip
    A church that must not lose momentum
    And the fear underneath all of it sounds like this: If this falls apart, what happens to me?
    (brief pause)
    Babel teaches us that fear-driven unity always asks the same question—and always offers the same answer: Build bigger. Build faster. Build stronger.
    But Scripture tells a different story.
    God’s people are never meant to be held together by fear of dispersion. They are meant to be held together by trust in God’s presence.
    That’s the quiet warning embedded in Babel.
    When fear becomes the reason we stay united, we may look strong—but we are already unstable. And that prepares us for what happens next.
    Because the God who sees Babel does not mistake fear-based unity for faith. And the God who comes down to inspect the tower is about to show us that sometimes, what feels like disruption is actually mercy.
    (brief pause)
    That’s the second truth Genesis places before us.
    And it leads us directly to the third.

    God’s disruption of Babel is an act of mercy, not insecurity

    If we’re honest, the turning point of this story can feel unsettling.
    Genesis 11:5 “Then the Lord came down to look over the city and the tower that the humans were building.”
    That phrase—“the LORD came down”—is rich with irony. This tower, meant to reach the heavens, still requires God to come down to inspect it.
    God is not threatened by human achievement. He is not scrambling to protect his authority. He is not reacting out of insecurity. He comes down because he sees clearly what is happening.
    And what he sees is not just a tower—but a trajectory.
    Genesis 11:6 “If they have begun to do this as one people … then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.”
    That line is often misunderstood.
    God is not afraid that humanity will become too powerful. He is concerned that humanity, left unchecked, will become self-destructive.
    This is not panic. This is discernment.
    God recognizes that when people organize their lives around self-made significance—when they pursue unity without trust and achievement without submission—the result is not freedom. It is bondage.
    Unchecked autonomy does not lead to flourishing—it leads to systems where people are used, measured, and exhausted.
    So God intervenes.
    Genesis 11:7 “Come, let’s go down there and confuse their language so that they will not understand one another’s speech.”
    At first glance, this feels like judgment—and it is. But it is also something else.
    It is mercy.
    God limits what humanity is trying to do—not because ambition is evil, but because ambition divorced from trust always turns inward and consumes.
    By confusing their language, God disrupts their project.
    By scattering them, God dismantles their illusion of control.
    By stopping the tower, God prevents a false god from demanding even more.
    Sometimes the most gracious thing God can do is interrupt what we are building.
    That’s hard for us to hear—especially in a culture that equates blessing with success and opposition with failure.
    But Genesis 11 tells us something essential about the heart of God: God loves us too much to let our Babels stand forever.
    Left alone, Babel would not have produced peace. It would have produced pressure. It would have demanded constant maintenance. And it would have slowly hollowed out the people it claimed to protect.
    So God scatters them.
    And the text is clear: Genesis 11:8 “So from there the Lord scattered them throughout the earth...”
    The very thing they feared—dispersion—is the thing God allows.
    Not as punishment for punishment’s sake. But as release. God refuses to let fear be the organizing principle of their lives.
    And here’s where this truth presses on us personally. Some of the most painful disruptions in our lives are not signs of God’s absence—they are signs of his mercy.
    Plans fall apart.
    Careers stall.
    Reputations wobble.
    Systems we trusted fail us.
    And our instinct is to assume something has gone wrong.
    But Genesis invites us to consider another possibility: What if God is interrupting not because we’ve failed—but because we were asking too much from what we were building?
    What if the thing that feels like loss is actually God loosening our grip on a false source of security?
    That doesn’t make disruption easy. And it doesn’t mean every hardship is a direct correction.
    But it does mean this: God is not committed to preserving our towers. He is committed to preserving us.
    And when achievement begins to replace trust…
    When fear begins to drive unity…
    When significance is being manufactured instead of received…
    God’s mercy may arrive disguised as interruption.
    Genesis 11 does not end with resolution. It ends with scattering.
    And that unsettles us—because we prefer neat endings.
    But the story leaves us here intentionally. Because before we can receive a name from God, we must let go of the ones we are trying to make for ourselves.
    And that brings us to the heart of Babel’s warning—and its invitation.
    When we build for our name, we don’t just risk offending God. We risk losing ourselves.
    (brief pause)
    That’s the third truth.
    And it prepares us to ask what we will do with what we’ve heard.
    By this point, Genesis 11 has done its work if we feel a little exposed—not accused, but uncovered.
    Because the point of this story is not to shame us for building. It’s to help us tell the truth about why we build.
    Babel forces us to ask uncomfortable but necessary questions—not about other people’s towers, but our own.
    Where have I tied my sense of worth to what I produce?
    Where has fear—fear of falling behind, being overlooked, or losing control—begun to shape what I’m building?
    Where have I quietly believed that if this one thing holds together, then I’ll finally be okay?
    For some of us, that Babel looks like our children’s success. Not love for them—but pressure on them. Pressure that says, “Your achievements are carrying more than they should.”
    For others, it’s financial security. Not stewardship—but safety. A sense that if the numbers line up just right, we won’t have to feel so vulnerable.
    For others, it’s curated identity. The image we project. The story we tell about ourselves. The quiet fear of being unseen or unimpressive.
    And here’s the subtle danger: Babel doesn’t announce itself as rebellion. It often disguises itself as responsibility.
    But Genesis tells us that when we build to secure significance—when our building becomes a substitute for trust—we slowly lose something in the process.
    And this is where we need to hear the bottom line clearly:

    When we build our name, we lose ourselves.

    That’s not condemnation. That’s diagnosis.
    Because Babel always asks for more than it promises. More effort. More control. More anxiety. And it never quite gives us the peace we were hoping for.
    So the application today is not to tear anything down yet. It’s simply to name the tower.
    To tell the truth—before God—about what you’ve been asking to hold you together.
    At this point, it would be easy to read Genesis 11 and walk away thinking the story is bleak.
    But it’s not.
    It’s merciful.
    Because God does not step in at Babel to humiliate humanity. He steps in to rescue them from themselves.
    God sees where their building is headed. He sees what fear-driven unity will cost them. And in love, he refuses to let their tower become their prison.
    That matters for us.
    Because many of us interpret disruption as failure. We assume that if something collapses, stalls, or scatters, then God must be distant—or displeased.
    But Genesis invites us to consider another possibility.
    What if some of the most painful interruptions in our lives were not signs of God’s absence—but signs of his mercy?
    What if God was loosening our grip on something that could never give us life?
    This is not a promise that disruption is easy. And it’s not a claim that every hardship is corrective.
    But it is a reminder that God is far more committed to us than he is to our towers.
    He is not threatened by our ambition. But he will not allow our ambition to replace trust.
    And when God interrupts Babel, he is not taking something away without purpose—he is creating space for something better.
    Not yet revealed. Not yet resolved. But real.
    So how do we respond to a sermon like this?
    Not with vows. Not with promises. Not with quick fixes. But with confession.
    The posture Genesis 11 invites is quiet honesty before God.
    So here is the action I want to invite you into this week:
    Resist the urge to fix the tension too quickly.
    Instead, sit with these questions:
    What am I building right now?
    What am I afraid would happen if it fell apart?
    Where have I been asking success, security, or recognition to give me something only God can give?
    When those questions surface discomfort, don’t numb it. Don’t spiritualize it. And don’t rush past it.
    Bring it to God.
    Because confession is not about punishment—it’s about freedom. It’s about releasing the burden of self-made significance.
    Let me say the bottom line one more time, because this is what we carry with us:

    When we build our name, we lose ourselves.

    And the grace of God is this: He loves us too much to let that loss be permanent.
    So as we respond in song, let this be a moment of quiet honesty. No pressure to sing loudly. No pressure to feel resolved. No pressure to leave with answers.
    Just space to admit, before God:
    “I’ve been building.” (brief pause)
    “I’ve been afraid.” (brief pause)
    “I’ve been trying to secure myself.” (brief pause)
    And to trust—perhaps for the first time in a while—that the God who disrupts Babel is the same God who is faithful to meet us in the scattering.
    (transition to music)

      • Genesis 11:1–9CSB

      • Genesis 11:4CSB

Fannin Terrace Baptist Church
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