Services/Sermon in Rockford 10.08.2019

Let's begin our service this afternoon in opening prayer and thanksgiving. Dear Heavenly Father, we have come before you this afternoon, gathered as your children. We come with thankful hearts that we, yet today, are able to travel by grace through faith as children in your kingdom. And we are thankful that you saw it good, dear Father, to send your only begotten Son into the world as that perfect sacrifice and atonement for your sin-fallen mankind. And that by believing on Him, we who endeavor in your kingdom own that name of your child and travel here with that hope of one day seeing you there face to face in our heavenly home.

This afternoon, dear Father, remember those who have not gathered here into the hearing of your word. Maybe it's work, obligations, or health difficulties that prevent them from gathering. But draw nearer and close unto them. And dear Father, may it be that the grace doors of your kingdom would yet remain open and that the call and invitation would yet sound into the dark and evil world that surrounds us, calling all who hear.

Father, may it be that the grace of your kingdom... Lord, may it be that the grace of your kingdom Son has taught us.

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.

For a text this afternoon, I thought to read from the first book of the Bible, from Genesis, the 11th chapter, the first nine verses from that chapter. And we read these words in Jesus' name:

And the whole earth was of one language and of one speech. And it came to pass as they journeyed from the east that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there. And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone and slime had they for mortar. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven, and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.

And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the children of men built. And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do. And now nothing will be restrained from them which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.

So the Lord scattered them abroad from them upon the face of all the earth. And they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel, because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth. And from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth. Amen.

Before we begin to examine this text as God would allow, I want to bring your greetings of love and God's peace from the brothers and sisters there in my home congregation, one of the close sister congregations here in the southern Minnesota area from Elk River. It is a joy to be able to be here in your midst. And even though the congregations here are relatively close, it feels like the schedules are such and each congregation has its busy activity that it's not often that we see dear brothers and sisters from even the close neighboring congregations. So these types of special weekend services give that opportunity then when we can visit. It's a joy to be here with you. Many, many greetings of love from the brothers and sisters there in Elk River.

This Old Testament text records here a happening which took place after the time of Noah. And even for you boys and girls, I'm sure that familiar Bible story and that time of the flood where because of the evil that had come into the world, God destroyed the world and everything in it. God destroyed the world by causing the rain to come and entirely cover the world. But God saved there his faithful servant Noah and his family, those few remaining believers there in that evil world. God saved there his faithful servant people in the dark and evil world around him. And it was that none repented. So when God's time came, Noah and his family entered into the ark and there they were saved.

But already in the beginning of time in creation, sin came into the world. And that inherited sin went beyond the time of the flood. And here we see in our text how that corrupted human portion was there in the world also beyond the flood, just as it is even in our time.

When I was thinking about this text and considering it, I thought of two kind of topics that are presented here. One is the topic of language, and the other is the topic of building. And as God would allow, we'll maybe spend a little bit of time here looking at these two topics.

It tells us here in this text that God saw it necessary to confound or make it impossible for the people to understand each other. And he did this in a way with the languages. And then after that time, he scattered the people into the various parts of the earth. Before this time, there was one common language. Everyone spoke this same language. But after this time, and since this happening, there have been in the world many, many different languages.

But there was, and it's recorded for us, one time when the language was overcome in a miraculous way. And this happened during the time of Pentecost, when the disciples and the believers there of the early New Testament church were gathered after that time when Jesus had ascended into heaven. Before Jesus went into heaven, he reminded the disciples that one would be sent, a comforter that would be here among them. And this comforter, the Holy Spirit, would come. And before the comforter came, they were to stay there in Jerusalem until they received the further instructions from God as to how to proceed in the work would move forward.

And this happened in a miraculous way there during the time of Pentecost. We can read in the book of Acts how the disciples and the believers were gathered there. They were gathered in a home, and it came as if a mighty rushing wind. The sound of the wind came and blew. This wind was heard even in the streets around that home. And it came and swirled and blew in that house. And the Holy Spirit descended and was present in a visible form as a cloven tongue or a flame of fire that lighted upon the head of each of the believers there.

And when this happening took place and there were those that heard of it, those that maybe in some way experienced this wind that blew, it says that a multitude came together. And they were confounded or puzzled because every man heard them speak in his own language. And they were all amazed and marveled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galileans? And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?

So this was a happening that was recorded then, where I guess when I've thought of it how this happened, what I've been able to in some way conclude or what I've understood: It must have been in this way that when they spoke in the language that was familiar to them, without a translator, every listener there was able to hear as if the speech was in their own language. This was one time where translation was not needed. Everyone heard. They heard from the mouth of the Heavenly Father directly into their own ears without the translation.

But yet we know and we can see throughout time how this fact that God confounded or caused the many different languages to happen there in that Old Testament time did not prevent the work of God's kingdom from going forward. The prophet Isaiah in his time recorded, "So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it."

There, at that time of Pentecost, God sent the Holy Spirit to dwell among his own. And even today, the Holy Spirit yet dwells among God's own here on earth in his congregation. And it is this type of a spirit, as Jesus promised, it is that comforter. And Jesus went on there to explain that it is a comforter, but it is one that will teach us also in all things. And we, through faith, know and believe that when we travel as children in God's kingdom, the Holy Spirit also dwells in us. It is present in us as believers.

And then, when we know this, we know also that God's Spirit has a home here on earth. It is his congregation, his kingdom here on earth. So it must be, dear brothers and sisters, this way that it is not a different spirit that dwells in us and here in God's kingdom. It is the same spirit. And it is the spirit that teaches us as individual believers in the same way as it teaches in God's kingdom. It has to be this way because it is the same spirit. It is not a different spirit.

So what then would happen if we would start to be discontent, start to question or ponder in even an accusing way the message from God's kingdom? Dear brothers and sisters, may we be given this: to think and to pause there and consider, Where am I? What has happened to me that I don't feel that the message that has been spoken in God's kingdom agrees with me? We want to be obedient to God and his spirit here as God teaches and preaches in his congregation.

Our text also spoke of building, and it tells us here that the people of that time gathered there in the plain in the land of Shinar. They lived there and they built there a city, and then they had this thought and they decided and discussed and said, Let us make brick and burn them thoroughly, and they had brick for stone and slime they had for mortar. And they said, Let us build us a city and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven.

So they had this plan there in that time that they would begin to build a tower here on earth that would reach all the way into heaven.

When we think of how a building is visited about and talked about in the Bible, there are many different examples of building that happen. And in many of those examples it talks about the foundation. People are in the parables of Jesus it talks of a wise builder or it talks of two builders, a wise builder and a foolish builder, and it says that the wise builder built his house there on a rock but the foolish builder built a home there on the sand. And it then goes on to tell the results of this building, how when the winds came and the rain came and the floods came, that the house there that was built upon a rock stood and was solid, for it was built on a sure foundation. But that house there that was built on the sand was destroyed by the wind and the rain and the floods that came. And Jesus says that the man who built upon a rock was a wise man, and of the one who was foolish he said that anyone who heareth these sayings of mine—heard Jesus' teachings—and doesn't do them, he is like this foolish man who built his house upon the sand.

During the time of prophet Nehemiah, Nehemiah was one of the Old Testament prophets who went with the children of Israel there into captivity when they were taken into Babylon, and he was allowed to return then to the homeland, the promised land that the children of God had inhabited. And he was there during the rebuilding and helped in the rebuilding of the temple. And in the fourth book of the prophet Nehemiah we can read how they were working on the wall:

"So built we the wall; and the wall was joined together on the half thereof: for the people had a mind to work."

So it maybe wasn't a normal or a usual approach to building, it seems like in this way. But it says that they started on the corners of the wall and they built that wall starting on each end and worked together and met in the middle. How is it that they were able to meet there in the middle? They must have built on the old foundation, the foundation of the wall that was already there, a true foundation that when they built on this foundation the wall met there. It wasn't off at all but met there in the middle.

The writer to the letter of the Ephesians tells us then about this foundation that we build on, and this foundation even today, which is the work or the work of God's kingdom. And it tells that they are all built upon the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom all building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord, in whom ye also are built together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.

May it be, dear brothers and sisters, that our own foundation would be this chief cornerstone and foundation which is spoken of here—that work that Jesus has done on your behalf and completed on my behalf, that atonement work where he suffered and died there on the cross and was that perfect sacrifice for the sins of the entire world—and that by believing on this work which he has done, that we are yet counted and named among the children of God in his kingdom here.

In this letter to the Ephesians we see a description of the wall that was built, and it says, "In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord God." And this is a different type of building and a different wall than was spoken of in our text.

And when we think of it in this way, another part of God's word tells us that this wall is built of living stones. How these living stones are part of that wall, are part thereof God's kingdom, and these stones when they're put together to build this wall, they're not all exactly the same shape nor are they all exactly the same size. But the builder, the stonemason, even in a temporal sense building a wall of stone, considers these stones that he has to work with. And as it describes in our text, they're fitly framed together; they're put in that order and that manner that the wall would be a strong wall. And there is then the mortar as needed that is placed between those stones to hold them together.

And the old brothers in describing this picture of God's kingdom have fed in this way that that mortar is that first fruit of the Holy Spirit, that love that binds us one to another as God's children—love. And this isn't a love that we're able to in some way manufacture or create, but it is the fruit of the Spirit when the Spirit is the same. That love that we experience here in God's kingdom joins us one to another.

Our text here spoke of that time where they had taken and they had made these bricks, and it said they had burned them thoroughly. So they were bricks that were made of man; they were fashioned bricks. And I'm sure in that type of a process, and even today when we see a manufactured brick, they are consistent size and shape and fit together very nicely. And it says that they had slime, or it might have been some type of a tar or that type of a substance that they used then as mortar between these bricks.

But our text here speaks of this that it was their desire to build this tower that would reach all the way to heaven. And we read in our text how God came down and he visited the city and saw that tower. But this building wasn't pleasing to God, and he then confounded the languages of the people so they could no longer communicate and continue this building.

We can read here in the fourth verse when they were talking about building this tower, they said, "Let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth." They wanted to, by their own works, their own doing, make a name for themselves that they would be noticed and seen. But this work didn't please God.

This, dear brothers and sisters, is that type of a picture for us today—that there is nothing that we are able to do that can merit us salvation and merit us our heavenly home, but we are entirely dependent on the grace of God. But we do know that we yet today carry that sin-corrupt portion, and it's a question that is an important question to consider: Is there something in our life that would become this type of a tower or a building that would want to reach onto heaven?

We all carry our sinful and corrupt portion and the pride that is in each and every one of us that wants to be noticed. And there are even those types of false faiths in this world that would make it part of their salvation these types of works and activities, duties, things that they would perform that by this they would earn their way into heaven.

And I've also thought in connection with this text of the time that we live as God's children today, a time where it feels we are experiencing those battles and attacks of the enemy. And it has felt in this way that among some there is this tower that they are wishing to or trying to build, this tower of their own understanding, that by this way they would be able to attain heaven.

It feels sometimes in those discussions that gone is the humility, which I think Luther even reminded and encouraged in his time, that when we would study and consider the matter of God's word and we have through our study or through maybe even those visits that we might have in smaller circles, we might come to some understanding or conclusion. Luther encouraged in his time that what do we do with these understandings? We are to take them into the congregation and there listen: Is this understanding, are these thoughts in accordance to how the Holy Spirit leads and guides in God's congregation?

May we all be preserved in this simple childlike faith with the ears of children wanting to listen to what God through his Holy Spirit reveals and teaches in his congregation, that we wouldn't begin to, of our own self, make these types of towers or buildings that are not founded on that sure foundation, but that we could simply believe and remain as children in God's kingdom trusting in the guidance of God through his spirit as it leads and teaches and guides here in this kingdom.

And then when we can simply remain in this way, don't we see as the theme for our services that God's kingdom is a secure and a beautiful dwelling for us where we simply can be his children? Isn't it a precious matter, dear brothers and sisters, that yet today our understanding won't get us to heaven? It's faith that will one day change to see. We are not required to understand things, but it's a simple matter that we can day by day, each day that God gives, securely remain as a child in his kingdom gathering the blood drops of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

When sin comes, we desire and we wish to put sin away so faith would remain, that sin wouldn't consume our faith, that sin wouldn't lead us in its many different forms that are present in our corrupt flesh and in the evil world around us, that sin wouldn't take us away out of God's kingdom.

But how has it been for you, dear brother, dear sister? I'm sure for you it has been like for me that for each of us the enemy knows where the low spot in the fence is, and he comes there again and again. He comes, I think, which our text spoke of in that way with our tempting us with our pride and our understanding. But he doesn't just come in this one way or one spot; he also comes in this way often: that why don't you just give up? The endeavor's been poor, heaven's a long ways away, and how will you ever make it?

But isn't it secure yet today, dear brother and sister, that we can be reminded and we can tell the enemy that he again is coming with his lies to preach to us when we securely wish and desire to dwell as children in God's kingdom through God's grace? We will be preserved. We will one day close our eyes to this life believing and open them there on the beautiful shores of our home.

It pays to believe, dear brothers and sisters, simply not relying on our understanding. And as our dear brother even reminded last night, that if there are those times where the discussion feels that way, we can even simply say that I don't want to visit in this way because this discussion doesn't give food for my faith but just adds to my own doubts and worries. I want to simply be a believer and remain in this way traveling in God's kingdom.

This afternoon, dear brother and sister, just as you find yourself, you again today have permission to believe all sins, all doubts, all failings forgiven in Jesus' name and precious blood. And when we remain simply believing in this way, one day we will reach that glorious home in heaven.

It pays, dear brothers and sisters, to remain believing, for the reward in heaven is a great reward. I came here feeling my own sinfulness, poorness, and weakness, fears and doubts and assets. Can I also believe? Let's endeavor, dear brothers and sisters, remain believing in Jesus' name. Amen.