Ambition Was Never the Problem

Hey, it has been a minute since I've been up here with you, so if I haven't had the chance to meet you or connect, my name is Tyler. I'm the director of discipleship here. Since we're family, I wanted to share a little family update with you. I think we have a picture of my family. This is my crew up here. There they are. This is my family. We have a little addition, number four, that's coming. Thanks. I appreciate that.

Here's the thing. The due date is March 19. That's in nine days. So…surprise. Here's the thing about fourth babies, in case you don't know: they could come at any point. So, if at some point I just run out from here, you know what's going on. My wife is giving birth, hopefully. Hopefully that doesn't happen. (And no tornado.)

Hey, if you have a Bible, open your Bible to Genesis, chapter 11. We're walking through the book of Genesis this spring. There are so many great moments in the book of Genesis, but we're looking at 10 iconic moments. If you're reading the book, you don't want to miss these. We've looked at Adam and Eve. We've looked at Cain and Abel. We've looked at Noah and the flood. Tonight, we're looking at the Tower of Babel.

Now, the Tower of Babel is a story I bet many of us have heard. As this series has gone on, if you've been tracking with us, you've seen we've kind of taken a different approach to each story. I think, as we read this, you're going to see a little bit of a different approach that we're taking, and I hope it's going to be really applicable to your life. So, Genesis, chapter 11. We're going to start in verse 1. We're going to read it, pray, and then dig in. Here we go.

"Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. 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. 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.'

And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. And the Lord said, 'Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another's speech.'

So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. 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." Let's pray together.

Father, there are already so many exciting things that are happening tonight…amazing worship, the Awaken announcement…yet, God, as a people, we long to hear from you. So, Holy Spirit, you're here, but we just invite you to take over. Open our eyes to behold wondrous things from your Word. Lord, would we mine every bit of truth out of this text, and would all of us leave tonight changed after an encounter with God. That's what we want. Nothing less. So, come, Lord. Have your way. In Jesus' name, amen.

All right. I want to ask this question. I'm curious. How many runners are here? Just identify yourself. Come on. All right. I see you. Now, if you're sitting by someone who you know ran 10 miles this morning, but they didn't want to own it, just nudge them, like, "Yeah, you're a runner." Here's the thing. I grew up running track in high school, but I always aspired to be a runner. Like, a real one.

There have been two times in my life I've signed up for a half-marathon. The first time was in Nashville, April of 2020. I signed up for the half-marathon. So, I start training. I start increasing mileage. Everything is great. Then March of 2020, the world shuts down. They cancel the race. The second time I signed up for a half-marathon was this year, 2026, the Cowtown Half-Marathon in Fort Worth. Yep. I knew you people would come out of the woodwork.

So, I signed up, and I did it again. I start running. I start building up mileage. I'm like, "I feel good. I'm on Strava. I'm connecting with people. This is great." Then, about a month ago, ice hits Dallas. I'm playing out in the ice with my kids. We're throwing those little pellets. They weren't really snowballs, but we're throwing them at each other. It's great.

Then Sunday night, our neighbors invite us over. Now, our neighbors live not very far away, but down a little hill over to the side. I'm all nervous about my pregnant wife and my kids. I'm like, "You guys have to be safe. No falling on the ice. There are terrible things that can happen." So I'm watching. My wife is on the grass. My kids are on the grass. I'm on the sidewalk holding a salad bowl. I start walking down the hill and make about 10 steps, and it's like a cartoon. Feet in the air. Salad bowl goes flying. I land on my back, wind knocked out of me.

I just roll over, and my kids come over. I'm like, "I'm okay." You know, I'm trying to say something. They all think I've died, so they just start weeping, crying. Finally, we get inside. I kind of come to. A few days later, I go to the doctor. I broke a rib in my back. I didn't even know you had ribs in your back, but I broke one. At this point, I'm like, "I'm just not a runner. I tried, and I failed. That's it."

But I asked the doctor… We're looking at my X-ray, displaced all over. I say, "Hey, I've got this half-marathon coming up in March. Any chance I can do that?" She starts laughing. She goes, "You know, here's the thing about ribs. There's not much we can do to make it better for you, but there's not much you can do to make it worse." Then she said a line that has been living in my head ever since. She said, "If you plan to do this marathon, it's going to hurt, but you can do it." Some of you guys are like, "Oh, it's on!" Right?

I remember getting back and going, "Okay. I'm doing this thing. I don't care how much pain… This 26-year-old PA just told me it's going to hurt, but I can do it. I'm doing it." I remember getting home, and the first week it was like learning to breathe again. Like, "Oh, that hurt." You know, first week. Second week, I went for a walk. A few days later, I go for a power walk. Now I'm power walking in the morning with the Richardson moms. I'm like, "Janice, Denise, hello." You know, walking through.

Then I start lightly jogging one mile, then two miles, then four miles, then ten miles. Then, guys, last weekend, Cowtown, I ran the half-marathon with a broken rib. I felt like death the whole time, but… I think we have a picture. Yeah, my son and me right up here, hanging. The great thing is some of you guys were there. So, mile eight, I see one of our leaders, just fired up. It was great.

All right. Why do I spend all that time in that intro? First, because I've learned with runners, if you don't tell someone, it didn't happen. So, I posted on Strava. I have to tell my closest friends. A second, hopefully deeper, reason is throughout this process, I've been pondering this question, and I think it's applicable for where we're going tonight. This process made me think, "What does God think about our ambition?"

Like, what did God think when I heard from that PA, "It's going to hurt, but you can do it," and something in me was like, "Oh, it's on"? Is God in heaven going, "Here he goes again, moron"? Is that what's happening? Is God angry at you when you set goals and dreams for your life? Is he frustrated when, back-to-back weeks, you work 60 or 70 hours, grinding at work? Is he mad at you?

Is God frustrated when you set goals and dreams for your life and think about them 24/7, or you save up for that trip you've been wanting to go on to Europe or to Atlanta…wherever you're wanting to go? Is God mad at you? Is God angry when you run a half-marathon with a broken rib? I've been wondering, and I think that gets to the story we're looking at today.

We see in the Tower of Babel human ambition on display. You see incredible ingenuity, talent, ambition, and direction, and God is going to come and tear that down. So, many of us listen to this story and go, "Yeah. God is not really for our ambition. God kind of hates when we work hard, so we just need to rest and chill." Is that what this is about? That's what we're going to look at.

So, here's how it's going to go tonight. I'm going to quickly walk through the story line by line. Then we're going to have three takeaways, and we're out of here (before the tornado). Here we go. The beginning… We read it at the beginning. Right at the beginning, it says the whole earth is together, and they have one language. That sounds amazing. Right? Can you imagine if there weren't all of these languages and everywhere you went in the world, you knew the language?

The problem is God gave a clear command. We've talked about this in this series. He gave a clear command. He called it a cultural mandate in Genesis, chapter 1, and then reemphasized in Genesis, chapter 9, where he said, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth." "Disperse out. Go into the earth on a grand adventure." What are they doing in Genesis, chapter 11? Huddled together in one place. So, this isn't actually as good.

Not only that, but it says they're coming back from the east and settling in a land called Shinar. Now, what's interesting about settling in the east is that after the fall, they went east, east of Eden, and now they're coming back. They're getting in Shinar, this flat land, and they're going, "This is nice. This is great."

They're looking up Zillow, going, "Oh, we can afford this. This is awesome. Oh, there's a coffee shop here. It's walking distance to Target. This is amazing. Walking trail…" They start dating. They're like, "Well, I just got in community. I don't want to leave her." They're settled. They're settled in Shinar.

Then it says in verse 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." So, they gather up at the coffee shop, and they're having groupthink. They're like, "Guys, what do we do now? Like, we're just chilling. We're paying our mortgage. We're drinking our latte." They go, "Oh, there's that cutting-edge technology, brick," which is hardened clay, "and bitumen," which is like waterproof mortar. It's adhesive. They say, "If we put those together, we can build something great."

Then, look at what they build. Verse 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.'" So, they say, "Let's make a city and a tower to the heavens, and let's make a name for ourselves. That'll be awesome."

You wonder… We all know, like, "Guys, don't do that." But why? It's so interesting. When you think about what they're building, they're building a waterproof tower that goes into heaven. Now, think about what we talked about last week, Noah and the flood. What did God just do to the whole earth? He flooded it.

So, they're sitting around in Shinar, drinking their lattes, going, "Oh, I've got an idea. What if we build a waterproof tower straight up to God? We're not going to focus on the fact that he promised that would never happen again. We're not going to focus on the fact that it was actually due to the wickedness of man. No, no, no. We're going to build this tower so we don't need God. We don't need to focus on his promises. We don't need to freak out about his threats. We can be our own god." That's what this is about. They begin to build this tower up to heaven.

Now, I want us to think. Pause here for a second. Where are we doing this today? It's easy to think of things like AI. Right? AI is a great example, because AI is kind of this idea of "Oh, God, we don't really need you. We're just going to create you. We're just going to make somebody who can do everything you do."

This could be a sermon on AI, but I think God doesn't care so much about the tower. I don't think God cares so much about the technology. I think what God cares about is their mindset behind why they're building it. You see it in the second half of verse 4. "…and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth." This is the motivation that God goes, "I've got to deal with that."

So, what does he do next? Let's look at verse 5. "And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built." I love this. They build this tower. They're like, "We're going to build a tower. It's going to go into the heavens." Then verse 5 goes, "And God had to come down." It's like, "What's that ant pile down there? Oh, they're building a tower. Come, Michael, check it out. That's amazing." God sees everything. Is he saying he's blind? No. It's irony. They think they're getting to heaven. God has to come down to them.

Look at verse 6. It says, "And the Lord said, 'Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.'" God looks down, and he sees one people and one language. They're together, and they're ambitious, but they're building toward sin. Their motivation is anti-God, not for God.

It made me think of teenagers. I was a youth pastor for a number of years. It's amazing how creative teenagers are when it comes to sin. I was thinking back to when I was in high school. The laziest dude ever could be sitting in classes doing nothing. Then the teacher goes out, and he sees the answers on the table, and all of a sudden, he's Tom Cruise from Mission: Impossible, scaling walls, doing Morse code to his friends, like, "We've got to get those answers so I don't have to work." Right?

Some of us, in the midst of… You have no ambition in your life until it's hiding yourself in your sin. You become incredibly creative. You're amazing at working things behind the scenes to make sure no one catches you. This is like them. So, is God threatened by this? Is God going, "Oh no"? He's the teacher, walking back in. "How could you? You stole the answers. What's going on?" Is that what's happening? No. He's not threatened by their ambition. He recognizes the havoc it can wreak on them and society if left unchecked.

So, what does he do? Verse 7: "Come, let us…" A little nod to the Trinity, to the divine council. "'…let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another's speech.' So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city." So, God says, "Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they can't understand." This is divine judgment on human beings. "They're going to come together and do this against my name? I'm going to judge them."

Then it says, "So the Lord dispersed them over the earth." He did the very thing they feared in verse 4. Remember verse 4? They said, "Oh, let's build this to heaven and make a great name so that we don't have to be dispersed." God's judgment comes, and then the very thing they feared happens to them, but they are, for the first time in the story, actually obeying. They're actually obeying the cultural mandate when God said, "Go out into the earth. Disperse and fill the earth." Finally, they're obeying it, but it took the judgment of God. You realize God's judgment on them was actually his mercy to get them to obey, except it was the long way.

Then, in verse 9, the last verse, it says, "Therefore…" God changes Shinar's name. "…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." God changes the name of the city from Shinar to Babel, which means confusion. So, Shinar, the place of potential, the place of settling, the place of ingenuity, becomes Babel, the place of confusion, the place of wilderness, the place of restlessness and lack of calling.

I was thinking. Some of you tonight have moved from the land of Shinar to the land of Babel over the past few weeks, months, or years. You used to have ambition for your life. You used to have excitement for your life, but due to levels of failure and disappointment, you find yourself in the land of confusion. For many of you, young adult years are the land of confusion. You go to your mom's house… You go back to your parents, and they go, "What are you going to do with your life?" and you're like, "Babel. Confusion. I have no idea." Right?

Some of you had exciting things happen, and then you get beat up. Life beats you up a little bit. You go through a breakup. The job you wanted you end up getting let go from, or it turns out to be something different. The friend group that you were like, "Best friends for life; it's us," totally ditch you. All of the hopes and dreams you had crumble. It's in that place… I mean, think about it. This is where the people are at the end. It's the judgment of God, yet it's his supreme mercy to take them away from the very thing that was going to lead to their destruction to actually, for the first time in a long time, obeying God.

Some of you came in tonight… I don't know why you're here. I think some of you are here because you're in Babel. You're confused. You're hurt. You're disappointed. You're distracted. You're disillusioned with life. It's to you that I want to give three encouragements, takeaways. If you find yourself in Babel, these are going to go quickly, and then we're going to rock. Three encouragements. This is just from my heart. I was going to do two, and then I added a third because I had to, so we're going to go quickly. Here we go.

1. Write out a vision for your life. I talk to so many young adults these days who have no vision for their life. None at all. It sounds like humility. I talk to them and go, "Hey, man. What's your trajectory? Like, what are you on? What do you want to do with your life?" It's like, "Man, I don't know. I'm just kind of following God, you know. Like, who knows?" Then, when you drill down, you realize, "Wow! My life is full of chaos."

There are so many relationships you're juggling and work you're trying to figure out, and you're lying at night juggling all of these thoughts, sometimes having panic attacks because you don't know what to do with all of the things in your head, and you're just waiting for someone to give you vision.

You're looking to your boss, going, "Man, I wish he would just give me a direction. Like, what am I supposed to do? Give me something to do." You're looking for a boyfriend or a girlfriend or a spouse, a husband or a wife or a mentor to come into your life and just tell you what to do. I've literally had young adults say, "I wish someone would just tell me what to do." Yet, core to the book of Genesis is that God wants you to have a vision for your life.

I remember, right when I got out of college, I met with Matt Chandler. He's a pastor. He has spoken on this stage. I met with Matt, and I was like, "Matt, if you could give any advice to people in their 20s, what would it be?" Right off the dome, he was like, "Oh, man, I know. Figure out what you want. Ask yourself that question and be brutally honest with the answer." He said, "I'm not even talking spiritual stuff. Buy a journal, put on the top, 'What do I want?' and start writing stuff."

So, I took him up on it. I remember being 22 or 23, going out and buying a journal, and writing, "What do I want?" You know, "One, a wife. Two…" I just started writing out things. I remember writing about a hundred things of all of the things I want. I was like, "I just want to think." He said, "You have to do this because all frustration is rooted in unmet expectation." So many young adults walk around frustrated, and they don't even know why. "Why are you frustrated?" "I don't know." It's because you have these expectations for life that you've never articulated.

A few years after that, I found a wife. I got married. Right after we got married, I remember reading Psalm 90:12. It says, "Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom." I remember with Jen, my wife… We'd just found out two months in that we were pregnant, so we were like, "Whoa! What are we doing with life?"

I remember thinking, "All right. Based on Psalm 90:12, I want to create a vision, a plan for my life." I just wrote. New journal, 10-year plan. I wrote it in the first person as though 10 years from now had already happened. It was 2019 at the time. I said, "The year is 2029. I am 37 years old." I was 27. And I just started to write. I went back and found it, and I'm going to read it to you. This is very vulnerable, and I didn't even want to, but I was encouraged to, so I'm going to do it. You can judge me. That's totally fine. It's probably warranted. Here's what I wrote.

"The year is 2029. I'm 37 years old. Jen and I have been married for 10 years. I'm working in ministry and love what I get to do. Jen and I are able to give away a significant portion of our income and trust God to live completely dependent on him. Our house is known as the most fun house in the neighborhood. Our four kids…" Hello! Moffett the prophet. I'm just saying.

"Our four kids love Jesus, love each other, and are constantly encouraged to live on mission at school and with their friends. Our oldest, Emery Kay, is 9 and in fourth grade. She's a leader among our kiddos, and we go on a date often. At 37 years old, I've memorized 50 chapters worth of the Bible. I've discipled 50 guys. I do not live a life marked by fear but see fears and anxieties as a way of pressing into the power available through the Holy Spirit. I am known as a guy who's always five minutes early." Working on that one.

"I've run five marathons." See? I wanted to be a runner. I want it. "I've attempted a half-Ironman. I constantly get up at 4:45 to work out before my kids get up so I can pack their lunches and help them get ready for school. I love Jen with all my heart, been faithful to her alone these past 10 years of marriage. She knows she has all my love. Even among the craziness of ministry and raising kids, we go on a date regularly.

I love God more than I ever have in my life, and his will is able to flow through me unhindered. My prayer time is rich and prioritized daily, and I'm able to say with the apostle Paul, 'But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.'" (Acts 20:24.) I remember writing that and just thinking, "What's going to happen?"

Now, here's where we get jammed up. If I take that 10-year plan, and I go to God and say, "Okay. I'm in control; therefore, this is going to happen. It's going to happen. I'm going to have four kids. I'm going to get married to Jen. I'm going to do all of these things," then what I'm doing is what was happening in Babel. It's seizing autonomy and saying, "I want to be my own god." God says, "You cannot do that, because if you do that, you don't understand. There are so many things you could never plan."

Do you know what didn't make my 10-year journal? My second-born, my son, spending the first 10 days of his life in the NICU, not sure if he was going to make it. Do you know what didn't make it? Moving four times over the past seven years. Do you know what didn't make it? Conflict and difficulty and arguments I've had with people. Do you know what didn't make it? Breaking my rib on ice. That didn't make my 10-year journal.

Yet, we walk through life going, "God, you are God; I'm not God, but core to being human is you've given me agency, and I'm not going to bury that talent in the sand. I'm going to run." Some of you guys, because you want to be humble, I think, or because you're insecure or because life has beaten you up, just meander through life with no vision. None. I would say, get a vision for your life. Center it on the glorious realities in this book and run the race that's set before you with endurance.

Do you realize that if you're a Christian, you have the Holy Spirit of God inside of you, and God wants to do incredible things through your life? The issue with Babel is not that they built a tower, and it's not that they had ambition; it's that they wanted to build a tower to be their own god. That's why Psalm 31:14-15 needs to be your anthem in this season. "But I trust in you, O Lord; I say, 'You are my God.' My times are in your hand…"

You write your 10-year plan, and you say that verse and submit it to God. "God, here's what I want. You sanctify me. You take me where you want to go. You are God; I am not God." Then you get up and start living the life God has given you on this earth. It's so precious. That's the first encouragement: get a vision for your life.

2. Don't settle; live resolved. Look again at Genesis 11:2. It says, "And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there." What's so interesting about the land of Shinar is there's another group in the Bible that found themselves in the land of Shinar, 1,500 years later after the Tower of Babel. We see it in Daniel 1:1-2. Look at this.

"In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with some of the vessels of the house of God. And he brought them to the land of Shinar, to the house of his god, and placed the vessels in the treasury of his god."

It goes on, if we were to keep reading in Daniel, to say that what Babylon did is they ransacked Jerusalem, took some of the best and the brightest, some of the young adults from Jerusalem, and brought them to Shinar. They brought them to Babylon. We find out their names: Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They're young adults taken to Shinar right into the belly of Babylon.

It tells us in Daniel, chapter 1, that they learn a new language, which is interesting. They experience, they learn, they're engulfed in a new culture. While they're there, they're respectful, they're excellent, and they excel, but they never compromise. In Daniel 1:8, we meet Daniel, and it says, "But Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself with the king's food, or with the wine that he drank."

Do you see the difference between what's happening in Genesis 11 versus what's happening in Daniel, chapter 1? Two groups of people, both in the land of Shinar. Very different experiences. I love that Daniel in Shinar, in Babylon, refuses to compromise to fit into Babylon's way of life. Instead, he lives resolved in the midst of Babylon. It reminds me of Romans 12:2. Some of you have heard this. It says, "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect."

May your young adult years be known… Like, as you look back… You're old and wrinkly, and you look back and go, "My young adult years were when my convictions, when my resolutions were crystallized in my mind." Spend time alone with this book during these years and get to know what it says. Study it. Burn it into your brain. Memorize Scripture like you never have before. Read the whole thing before you get married, if God has marriage for you. How cool to go into marriage going, "I've read the whole thing."

I would tell young adults in my last job, "You guys have weird time, and you have weird money." You don't have a lot of time, and you don't have a lot of money, but you have weird money and weird time. You can take that last-minute weekend trip to Colorado and leave at 2:00 in the morning. You can just do it, and you do. Utilize your weird time and your weird money toward glorious, God-centered things that are going to explode your heart for what God is doing, like you were put on this earth to do.

So, study this book. Sign up for the Disciple class we have here that's starting at the end of the month. You'll hear about it in the button at the end. Just sign up. We're just going to lay out, "Here's what Christians believe, and here's how to be discipled unto Jesus." Man, Awaken, coming back after years. Just resolve tonight… Be like, "You know what? Not only am I going; I'm inviting everyone in my community to go. Can't afford it? We'll figure out a way for you to get there."

What if young adults here were going, "Man, we have to be at the things where God is moving. I have to be there, man. I am resolved, like Daniel in the midst of Babylon, not to be conformed to this world but to be transformed. I have a different mind. I am being used. I'm being transformed by God for renewed purpose"? Maybe you'd come to The Porch every Tuesday and just annoy the bejeebers out of your coworkers, where they're like, "Stop inviting me," and you're like, "You've got to come." What would it look like for you to not settle but be resolved in this age? That's the second one.

3. You don't have to make a name because you already have one. Look again at Genesis 11:4. It says, "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.'" Their motivation was "I want a great name for myself." There is so much confusion today of people, of young adults, of human beings, trying to figure out, "How do I make a name for myself?" Constantly wondering, "Am I enough? Have I done enough? Am I worth enough?"

I was just talking to someone yesterday who's a financial adviser and having to grow his client list. "I've got to make a name for myself to try to grow this thing." Right? Or maybe it's on social media. You're like, "Man, I have nobody on social media. I've got to get my platform pristine. I've got to spend hours curating my image so I can make a great name for myself."

Some of you, it's with popularity or reviews in your business or with your boss. It's like, earning influence and a name with your workplace or with your community or with a significant other. You're like, "She doesn't even know my name. I've got to get her, make a name for myself with her." Or maybe it's even at a place like this. Some of you walked in tonight, thinking, "Oh, a little Bible study," and then you saw this. You're like, "I'm a nobody here. How do I make a name for myself here?"

Built into our fallen nature is this desire to say, "Hey, am I enough? Am I worth it? Have I made a name for myself?" Here's the secret. In the world's eyes, it will never be enough. You'll never have made a name enough. There's always more you can do. If you're trying to find your name, your identity, in any source other than God…just hear me…you are building on sinking sand.

I just want to pitch a vision to you. What if your life was so secure in Christ it didn't matter what happened in your social media, in your job, or with your relationship; you were firmly planted in the ground? What would that be like? It reminds me of my dad. My dad, three years ago, almost to the day… Let me back up.

He worked at Microsoft for 27 years in corporate sales down in Houston, selling to oil companies…account manager. He did well. We, as a family, loved Microsoft. We were all in, man. They provided for us, and we were Microsoft people. So, while you guys were getting iPhones, we had our Windows phone. Okay? It doesn't exist anymore, but we did it. While people were getting iPods back in the day, we had a Zune. We were just Microsoft people.

Three years ago, almost to the day, my dad gets called into a Teams call with HR. They sit him down and say, "We're so sorry. Your job is eliminated. You have this much severance. You have this much time. Bye." I just think…27 years with a company like Microsoft, where he did well… I mean, what would that do to you?

I'll never forget the text he sent our family group text after. He said, "Looks like God has nudged me and Mom along in preparation of our next adventure together. My role at Microsoft was eliminated, so I was given a severance package, and we'll be transitioning out. March 17 is my last day on board." Then he said, "I had a great time there. No regrets. No bitterness. Excited about the future. God is good, and I am so glad to be his."

Man, isn't that good? I remember reading that text from my dad just being so proud. Like, "Yeah. Your world is shaking…" I mean, he was this close to retirement. Now everything is off. Now he's in his late 50s and has to find a new job. He's too old. It's all this. "I know who I am." I'm curious, for you… I want to end by asking this question: Can you say that? Can you say, "I am his"?

See, in Shinar, back at the Tower of Babel, God wasn't trying to destroy the people. He wasn't taking their ambition and going, "Oh, I'm threatened by you" or "I don't like you" or "That seems prideful, so I'm just going to tear you down." God was not trying to destroy them. He was watching them try to do something they could never do. God was watching them try to do something they didn't have the ability to do, which was to claw and earn and climb their way up to him. They're going, "We've got to get there. We've got to get to God," and they're working their way up to him, when he had already come down to them.

I mean, think about the gospel, the fullness of it fulfilled in Jesus, that we don't have to go up to heaven. We don't. Heaven has already come down. God made a way for us to have right relationship with him. Think about what the New Testament says. It says he has given us a new name. He has invited us into a heavenly city, and we've been invited into the throne room of God, all because of what Jesus did.

I believe some of you have been living in Shinar. Your whole life is "I've got to grind. I've got to go. I've got to be ambitious. I've got to build my client base. I've got to experiment with women or with men. I have to do all of these things because I have to make a great name for myself, because deep down, I have to be my own god so I can prove to the world and to God, 'See? I'm good enough. I did it.'" I'm telling you, it will always fail you. On the authority of God's Word, it will fail you. Some of you know that all too well.

For some of you, today needs to be the day of salvation. If you're anything like me, you're like, "All right. Salvation. Let's go. What do I have to do? What do I have to get? It's going to hurt, but I have to do it. All right. Let's go." Here's how salvation works in this kingdom: surrender. "God, I can't do it. I can't earn my way to you. I can't be good enough. I can't create a name that will finally satisfy all of my deepest longings." It's to that person God goes, "I know. You don't have to come up to heaven; I came down to you."

Right now, in here, wherever you're watching, in the midst of Shinar, in the midst of Babel, you can invite God in and say, "Jesus, I want to live for your kingdom, not mine. I repent for trying to be my own god. Instead, O God, I want to live for your kingdom. Fill me with your Spirit. Remind me of your love. Set me free to be ambitious your way, not mine." God says for that person, you're filled with the Spirit of God. Come on. Ready, set, go. Go! Stop with the frivolous dreams. Start living again.

I want to end with this that I've been praying over you. It's in Revelation, the last book. We've been in the first book of the Bible. I've been praying the last book of the Bible over you. Revelation 3:11-12. Jesus is writing to the church in Philadelphia, which is not in Pennsylvania; it's in Turkey. He says:

"I am coming soon. Hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize your crown. The one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God. Never shall he go out of it, and I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name."

Don't give up. Find your name in Jesus. For those of you who feel broken tonight and feel like, "Man, I don't know what to do," God can restore the land the locusts have eaten in your life. He can. He has done it in my life and many of ours. He can restore to you the joy of your salvation. Write a God-centered vision of your life, live resolved, and don't live to make a name; embrace your new name in Christ. Let me pray for us.

Father, I just thank you for the amazing reality that we don't have to earn our way to heaven. We don't have to build a tower up to you; you came down. Jesus, you didn't just come down to forgive us of sin and pat us on the head and say, "Okay, okay. Try not to mess this one up." You filled us with the very Spirit of God. You gave us gifts and talents and desires and abilities.

You not only have restored us to relationship with you; you've reignited a passion all the way back for what you created human beings to be…in the image of God, to do what God does, to take chaos in the created order and bring beauty and order and life. O God, would you do that again in each of our lives? Restore the land the locusts have eaten. May Jesus be magnified in our lives, both now and until you come or call us home. We love you. In Jesus' name, amen.