SPEAKER_01: So I'm so excited you're here with us tomorrow.
SPEAKER_01: We're continuing through the book of Genesis.
SPEAKER_01: We've spent a few weeks in the book of Genesis.
SPEAKER_01: We're looking at these early stories in the Bible, and what we're going to see as we dive into this story is we're going to see what's clear in the passage, hopefully clear in the message, is that God is all about God.
SPEAKER_01: He is really about himself when it comes to glory.
SPEAKER_01: He is rightfully all about himself.
SPEAKER_01: Now he loves you and he loves me, and we talk a lot about how much he loves us, but he loves us as to bring himself glory.
SPEAKER_01: And he rightfully is this.
SPEAKER_01: It's not selfish, it's not self-centered.
SPEAKER_01: We talked about this before.
SPEAKER_01: As all-knowing God, he has no option except to be all about himself.
SPEAKER_01: Who else is he going to be about?
SPEAKER_01: Because if he's about something else, somebody else, if he is giving glory to somebody, some being, something else, then we should go and be about that and not about him.
SPEAKER_01: And it's just about him.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you're here this morning and on some level life is not working out for you.
SPEAKER_01: It's just not quite working.
SPEAKER_01: It's not adding up.
SPEAKER_01: The storyline of your life, you're not sensing that grand meaning inside of your life.
SPEAKER_01: On a day-to-day basis, you're not feeling impacted by some grand meaning in life.
SPEAKER_01: And what we see in Genesis is we see that there was a story started long before you and I were born.
SPEAKER_01: And that this story that was started in Genesis about God and his glory and him loving us and our sin and rescuing us, and this is all for his glory.
SPEAKER_01: This is the story for this world.
SPEAKER_01: This is the story for your life.
SPEAKER_01: And the Redeemer, he is still doing this.
SPEAKER_01: So there's this current, right?
SPEAKER_01: It's like a river.
SPEAKER_01: There's this current that exists in life.
SPEAKER_01: And it's sort of like when you're in the current, you have this sense of grand meaning.
SPEAKER_01: You have this sense that life is making sense, and this is for something in my work, even if it's great or it's horrible, it's for something.
SPEAKER_01: It's producing something in me or around me or my family, my relationships.
SPEAKER_01: It's for something.
SPEAKER_01: But when you get out of that current, you start paddling back upstream, or you're kind of off in an eddy, you're doing your own thing, all of a sudden you start to you don't quite feel like life is working out.
SPEAKER_01: Life starts to lose its meaning.
SPEAKER_01: And my prayer this morning is that we will get a deeper sense, a deeper, uh, a deeper connection with this redemptive story that God created, and we see it all the way back in Genesis.
SPEAKER_01: Can we I've been I've been in bumper stickers this week.
SPEAKER_01: I've saw a few bumper stickers, started thinking about bumper stickers, sermon started coming around bumper stickers.
SPEAKER_01: Um is anybody anybody kicking a bumper sticker outside on their car?
SPEAKER_01: Now let's just go ahead and rule out political bumper stickers.
SPEAKER_01: Not because I'm not political, you're not political, we just don't want to fight in the hallway afterwards.
SPEAKER_01: So we'll rule out political bumper stickers.
SPEAKER_01: That's not going to be fair game for this little contest.
SPEAKER_01: But uh anybody bumper sticker on your car, you'd like to share it?
SPEAKER_01: Well, you're you obviously you want to share it, it's on your car.
SPEAKER_01: Anyone willing to share it out loud?
SPEAKER_01: You say I have a bumper sticker.
SPEAKER_01: I felt so called to this bumper sticker, I put it on my car for everybody to see.
SPEAKER_01: We're bumper sticker free.
SPEAKER_01: I'll go check the parking lot right now.
SPEAKER_01: I will check.
SPEAKER_01: Anyone got a Christian bumper sticker?
SPEAKER_01: Sort of.
SPEAKER_01: What do y'all got?
SPEAKER_01: Young Light?
SPEAKER_01: Supporting something.
SPEAKER_01: Right.
SPEAKER_01: Anyone else?
SPEAKER_01: Bumper sticker?
SPEAKER_01: Nobody?
SPEAKER_01: You got one?
SPEAKER_01: You don't want to share yours?
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: So um, I started looking at different Christian bumper stickers.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, y'all know this one?
SPEAKER_01: And I'll I'll start you and see if you can finish it off, okay?
SPEAKER_01: No Jesus, no peace.
SPEAKER_01: In O Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: No, peace, right?
SPEAKER_01: No Jesus, no peace.
unknown: No Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: No Jesus, no peace, right?
SPEAKER_01: Like K-N-O-W.
SPEAKER_01: Y'all with me?
SPEAKER_01: Right, that's good.
SPEAKER_01: Alright, and then this one's sort of like like for the educated people.
SPEAKER_01: My boss is a Jewish carpenter, right?
SPEAKER_01: That's like under.
SPEAKER_01: I don't really want anybody to know I love Jesus, but just for educated people to know.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody else, it's not for you.
SPEAKER_00: Uh God is my God is my oh, that's a great one.
SPEAKER_01: I even, yeah, God is my co-pilot, right?
SPEAKER_01: We could argue that he should be your pilot, but you know, whatever.
SPEAKER_01: Uh history is his story.
SPEAKER_01: His story.
SPEAKER_01: Right.
SPEAKER_01: The space in between, his and story.
SPEAKER_01: It's great.
SPEAKER_01: I so we're kind of making fun of him, right?
SPEAKER_01: But but all actually all of those are really true, right?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we're kind of laugh at them, you see them, or whatever.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you have them on your car right now and you're feeling a little ashamed right now, you kind of want to leave early.
SPEAKER_01: Uh but it's they're good.
SPEAKER_01: Like, no Jesus, no peace, no Jesus, no peace.
SPEAKER_01: Like, yes.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: My boss is Jewish Carber, yes.
SPEAKER_01: Cosmo Copilot, maybe.
SPEAKER_01: History.
SPEAKER_01: History is his story.
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it is.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, Megan's still going.
SPEAKER_01: You're still I've started Megan off here.
SPEAKER_01: So let's focus on the history as his story right now.
SPEAKER_01: Brad's gonna get Megan under control.
SPEAKER_01: So history is his story, right?
SPEAKER_01: Like all these bumper streaks, we laugh and stuff, but we like we kind of laugh, but they're they're also very true.
SPEAKER_01: Uh really, often really good.
SPEAKER_01: Um and history is not our story, it's not America's story.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's not, God bless the USA story.
SPEAKER_01: All of history is not about America, all of history is not about Europe, European history, or southern history.
SPEAKER_01: All of history is not about Marietta.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe we have a history center, Marietta, I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: Um five people, if so, five people have been there, that's been it.
SPEAKER_01: Um, because all of history is not about Marietta.
SPEAKER_01: Um, history is about him.
SPEAKER_01: It is it is his story.
SPEAKER_01: And and maybe you can hear that and you go, man, you don't know me.
SPEAKER_01: Like, you don't, you don't know that there is no way I'm going to be invited into his story because you don't know my life, you don't know the way I think, you don't know what I do, you don't know my past.
SPEAKER_01: And you're right, I don't know you, but I know me, and I also know um I we just read about Adam and Eve.
SPEAKER_01: And Adam and Eve, I mean, they rebelled, they basically said, God, we don't need you, we just need us.
SPEAKER_01: God pursued them.
SPEAKER_01: We we read about um murderous Cain.
SPEAKER_01: God still used Cain.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we're gonna we're gonna read about faithless Abram, we're gonna read about stuttering uh Moses.
SPEAKER_01: We can read in the Bible about prostitutes and doubters and cowards, it's all used for God's story.
SPEAKER_01: So you're not out of it.
SPEAKER_01: You're not out of it at all.
SPEAKER_01: And when we're aligned with the reality that history is his story, that our lives are for his glory and our lives are meant to be lived for his glory, and that all of it matters, whether your life is extremely local and small, or whether your life is global and it's bigger, whether it's celebration or suffering, no matter what it is, it is playing out for his glory.
SPEAKER_01: So Sam read, getting to the text this morning, Sam read the Tower of Babel story.
SPEAKER_01: So in this story, the whole world has one language.
SPEAKER_01: And what that means is it doesn't necessarily mean everybody only had one language, but what it means is they at least had one common language that we could all communicate with.
SPEAKER_01: And so people are spreading and they're moving east.
SPEAKER_01: And Noah's great-grandson is out that way.
SPEAKER_01: His name's Nimrod.
SPEAKER_01: Not a great name today.
SPEAKER_01: Don't name your son Nimrod.
SPEAKER_01: Uh back then wasn't as big of a horrible thing at this point.
SPEAKER_01: And he was a great warrior, he's a great hunter, and he comes into power.
SPEAKER_01: Somehow he comes into power, not quite sure, probably by force, and he forms a monarchy.
SPEAKER_01: This becomes Babylon.
SPEAKER_01: This big, ruthless, great, ancient civilization.
SPEAKER_01: And Nimrod, he always wanted more.
SPEAKER_01: Always.
SPEAKER_01: He was super ambitious.
SPEAKER_01: He Nimrod was a Nimrod.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_01: I couldn't resist it.
SPEAKER_01: Even when I wrote it, I was like, I gotta say it.
SPEAKER_01: Nimrod was a, he was, he always, it was never enough.
SPEAKER_01: And so he forms his people, and he's the first king of Babylon, and this ancient civilization is there.
SPEAKER_01: And we even, throughout the whole Old Testament, all these Old Testament prophets, you'll read, these prophets just bashing Babylon, and it's always about their pride.
SPEAKER_01: It's always about their arrogance.
SPEAKER_01: And so here we see in this story their arrogance that they're gonna build a tower, right?
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
SPEAKER_01: They're gonna build a tower.
SPEAKER_01: They are gonna replace God.
SPEAKER_01: They are gonna receive all the glory and all the fame.
SPEAKER_01: They're gonna make a name for themselves.
SPEAKER_01: So let's reread a few verses that same read for us, Genesis 11, 3 and 4.
SPEAKER_01: So they said to each other, Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly.
SPEAKER_01: And they used brick instead of stone and tar for mortar.
SPEAKER_01: And they said, Come, let us build ourselves a city with a tower that reaches to the heavens so that we may make a name for ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.
SPEAKER_01: So I grew up playing basketball.
SPEAKER_01: I think some of y'all know that I've talked about this before.
SPEAKER_01: I played basketball in high school, the black nights, central net black nights.
SPEAKER_01: Uh it was a big deal for me.
SPEAKER_01: It was a big deal, right?
SPEAKER_01: Because you grew up in this small little town, and your whole I mean, I slept with my basketball.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that was the amount of infatuation going on.
SPEAKER_01: And so playing high school basketball on a Friday night to a pack gym.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, this was it.
SPEAKER_01: I had arrived.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Don't peak in high school, tip kids.
SPEAKER_01: Don't peak in high school.
SPEAKER_01: That's always a good rule for life.
SPEAKER_01: Um, I think that might have been going on for me for a little bit.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and it was, I loved it.
SPEAKER_01: You know, I'd be I mean, I can remember being on the basketball floor and had about a million things going around in my brain, right?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you'd be thinking, uh, how am I playing the you know, the plays and who's going to wear, and what am I doing, what's my role, and then who's oh, who's I then you look in the crowd, who's in the crowd?
SPEAKER_01: What friends are here?
SPEAKER_01: Who are, you know, is my girlfriend here?
SPEAKER_01: And then Christy Queen, right here, turning masters, who's cheering over on the side, look over to see her over there.
SPEAKER_01: It took me about 10 years to get her willing to marry me.
SPEAKER_01: You know, all this going on, right?
SPEAKER_01: And like, and I don't want to risk too much because then maybe coach is gonna pull me out.
SPEAKER_01: If he pulls me out, maybe he doesn't put me on the bench, if I'm on the bench, maybe he doesn't like remember me again, maybe I don't get back in, so I've got to play.
SPEAKER_01: Just you know, I'm gonna play well, but don't risk too much.
SPEAKER_01: And at the same time, uh at the same time, you're sort of like the whole thing for me at least, um, is also just like how am I doing?
SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm aware of the score and the time and all that.
SPEAKER_01: I'm being a team player, but like, how many points do I have?
SPEAKER_01: How am I doing?
SPEAKER_01: You know, and and how many shots did I miss, and how am I looking out here?
SPEAKER_01: Now, when we went to away games, uh, we all met at the gym to get on the bus, and we all we all wore, and maybe you all had one of these, and I brought it.
SPEAKER_01: I couldn't resist, I went and found it, right?
SPEAKER_01: Um, did you have one?
SPEAKER_01: Maybe yours wasn't this.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it wasn't black and gold like ours was right, it bear it it's just starting to fit, right?
SPEAKER_01: Imagine how big this was on me when I was a skinny senior, very skinny senior high school.
SPEAKER_01: So uh we all wore this, the whole team.
SPEAKER_01: You know, like 12 of us, right?
SPEAKER_01: And you go mark, you know, you go walking in another gym, threatening yourself black and gold.
SPEAKER_01: I didn't pick the colors.
SPEAKER_01: I didn't get to pick the colors.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: The colors have been picked like a hundred years before I ever came along into any of this.
SPEAKER_01: And I got big CG, Central Granette.
SPEAKER_01: Now my name made an on here, right?
SPEAKER_01: Like over on this side, real, real small.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: It's it's kind of the purpose.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: You I didn't get to pick colors.
SPEAKER_01: My name's not the biggest on the jacket.
SPEAKER_01: And and nobody is taking a letter jacket, well, maybe Kanye West, but nobody besides Kanye West is taking a letter jacket and ripping off the team and putting on their initials, big RM.
SPEAKER_01: Like nobody is doing that.
SPEAKER_01: Because you have you have entered a story bigger than you.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's what you have done.
SPEAKER_01: When you're in a school and you're playing on a team, you've entered a story bigger than yourself.
SPEAKER_01: And it becomes about the school, and it becomes about the team, and it's not about you, and making it about you and that self-glory, it starts to it starts to taint the whole thing.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, this is why self-glory, I'm gonna take this off, I'm sorry, I can only worry about two minutes at a time.
SPEAKER_01: Uh this is why self-glory projects never satisfy.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, this is why uh it's exhausting to try to build a great name for yourself.
SPEAKER_01: This is why looking for other people's approval doesn't ever quite bring you peace.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, because it's us brick by brick trying to build a tower to make ourselves bigger than we really are.
SPEAKER_01: And maybe you're maybe you're here, maybe you're hearing you're saying, I'm nothing like that.
SPEAKER_01: I'm passive, I'm reserved, I'm not ambitious, I'm quiet.
SPEAKER_01: But you know, I wonder, like, uh, you know, how often perhaps you could use your children for self-word projects with your address or a title, or how many likes you get on an Instagram post.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, it was only 15.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, it was 68.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, look, I mean, look at this great tower of value for myself I have built.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, if we use any gift, any talent, any opportunity to try to get other people's approval, this is an act of self-glory.
SPEAKER_01: Self-glorifying is the pursuit of making much of yourself with life and the people's approval.
SPEAKER_01: It's trying and maybe even perhaps thinking that the world can orbit around yourself.
SPEAKER_01: It's the sin of pride.
SPEAKER_01: It's a sin of self-reliance, it's a sin of self-consumption, is to say to God, we don't need you, and all of this is for my good.
SPEAKER_01: And it's from me.
SPEAKER_01: And God glorifying is the flip.
SPEAKER_01: It's to say, all of this is from you, and it's for you, and it's for me, little me, to make much of big you.
SPEAKER_01: Isaiah 42, verse 8, I am the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Not Russ is the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Not you, not Billy Bob, Cindy Joe.
SPEAKER_01: I am the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: That is my name.
SPEAKER_01: I will not yield my glory to another or my praise to idols.
SPEAKER_01: See, he's not going to share his glory.
SPEAKER_01: He's not going to.
SPEAKER_01: Not with you, not with the preacher, not with the church, not with a growing big, happening church, not with a musician, not with the, not with, not with Chick-fil-A.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, you made the chicken sandwich.
SPEAKER_01: Great.
SPEAKER_01: I made photosynthesis, right?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's what God's thinking.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: He comes into all this that we're always telling people we've created, and he's like, do you understand what I created?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you created the chicken sandwich.
SPEAKER_01: I created the chicken, okay?
SPEAKER_01: You wouldn't have had a sandwich.
SPEAKER_01: That was two pieces of bread and a piece of the chicken that I created.
SPEAKER_01: Not a big deal.
SPEAKER_01: He's the maker of the heavens and the earth.
SPEAKER_01: He created the way in which all things were created.
SPEAKER_01: He's holy, he's without blemish, he's good, he's perfectly pure.
SPEAKER_01: He is peace.
SPEAKER_01: He is utterly peace.
SPEAKER_01: He's the beginning of peace, he's the beginning of good.
SPEAKER_01: So the sermons sort of have one point.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and the first part's sort of depressing, and the second part starts to kind of lift us out.
SPEAKER_01: And that's this we are glory thieves.
SPEAKER_01: Yet he is glorious.
SPEAKER_01: And the good news is that the glorious one gloriously chooses to love us to bring glory to himself.
SPEAKER_01: And that's the really good news.
SPEAKER_01: That he chose to bring glory to himself by loving the glory thieves.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 5, it says this, but the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, the people were building.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I mean, think about this.
SPEAKER_01: People are building a tower up, he comes down, and what is he thinking, right?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, he's looking at this tower and he's going, like, I made the dirt.
SPEAKER_01: I made the dirt that makes the bricks, and the sun that heated up the bricks.
SPEAKER_01: And actually, the the hands, the bones, the muscles, the intellect to design the tower.
SPEAKER_01: I I actually created that.
SPEAKER_01: Those brains.
SPEAKER_01: I created your energy and the food that you eat to have the energy to make the bricks, to make the tower.
SPEAKER_01: I created all that.
SPEAKER_01: And even the gravity that's holding the tower down, it's not floating up.
SPEAKER_01: I created the gravity.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, what is he thinking?
SPEAKER_01: They are so proud of themselves in this little tower.
SPEAKER_01: And he's looking at it, he's going, Do you have any idea of what I have created?
SPEAKER_01: And that you're trying to bring glory to yourself.
SPEAKER_01: Just look up.
SPEAKER_01: Look at the sun.
SPEAKER_01: I was doing some little research this week about the sun and different stuff like that.
SPEAKER_01: So our sun is one million miles in diameter.
SPEAKER_01: Pretty big.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we're pretty impressed by the sun.
SPEAKER_01: About a million earths can fit inside of our sun.
SPEAKER_01: Now there's this other star out there.
SPEAKER_01: So the largest star we know about is the VY Conus Majoris.
SPEAKER_01: Anybody know about the VY Conus Majoris?
SPEAKER_01: Nobody?
SPEAKER_01: One person?
SPEAKER_01: Okay, great.
SPEAKER_01: Well, it's exciting.
SPEAKER_01: It's in the constellation Conus Majoris.
SPEAKER_01: It's about 3,900 light years away, which is not that far away, by the way, in terms of our universe, which is still growing.
SPEAKER_01: That should blow your mind a little bit.
SPEAKER_01: It's not that far away, although 3,900 light years, so as far as light can travel in a year times 3,900 years, that's how far away it is, which is not far, is what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_01: This thing is a billion times the size of our sun, which our earth can fit inside of our sun one million times.
SPEAKER_01: And God created that.
SPEAKER_01: And these guys have this little tower in Babylon.
SPEAKER_01: And that's self-glory.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, this passage is just like a punch in the face because you go, oh my gosh, we are babbling, literally, this is what the passage is saying from Babel.
SPEAKER_01: We are babbling nimrods, is what the passage is saying.
SPEAKER_01: When we seek self-glory.
SPEAKER_01: So in case you're getting depressed, let's keep reading.
SPEAKER_01: It gets better from this point on.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 6, the Lord said, If as one people speak the same language, they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do would be impossible for them.
SPEAKER_01: Come, let us go down and confuse their language, so they will not understand each other.
SPEAKER_01: So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city.
SPEAKER_01: That is why it is called Babel.
SPEAKER_01: Because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world.
SPEAKER_01: From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.
SPEAKER_01: And this is where this is good news.
SPEAKER_01: Because he topples their tower and he scatters them.
SPEAKER_01: And he does this to drive them to himself.
SPEAKER_01: He will scatter us as to draw us.
SPEAKER_01: This is the good news because we need this.
SPEAKER_01: Because on our own, apart from his gracious move toward us, we will build towers.
SPEAKER_01: And in his grace, he will scatter us as to draw us.
SPEAKER_01: Less of me, more of him.
SPEAKER_01: Just all week, as I prepared this and read this and thought about this, all week it was just, just forgive me.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's just the thing.
SPEAKER_01: As I read it and I was writing, it's forgive me, right?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, just because I love to build towers and I love people's approval, whether it be a friend or a neighbor or people I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, just anybody.
SPEAKER_01: Like if you approve of it, be like, sign me up for that mission, that tower.
SPEAKER_01: And it's just like, forgive me.
SPEAKER_01: And then slowly throughout the week, going, oh, thank you.
SPEAKER_01: You have forgiven me.
SPEAKER_01: Amazing.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you have, I do this, and you forgive me.
SPEAKER_01: See, God himself embraced a tower because we build towers, and his tower is built out of two beings.
SPEAKER_01: And he hung himself on it.
SPEAKER_01: And he took all of our sin, all of our propensity to build these towers that we build ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: He took all that sin, all that shame, and he hung himself on a cross, and then he gave us his righteousness.
SPEAKER_01: This is the act of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: The incarnation of love.
SPEAKER_01: The greatness of his glory, where justice is satisfied, the wrath of God is absorbed, and his righteousness is given to us, and the heavenly Father, who could have chosen to be glorified through his wrath, chose to be glorified in his love toward us that never ends and never fails, and it's secure because of the word of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Remember our big point?
SPEAKER_01: We are glory thieves, yet he is glory us.
SPEAKER_01: And the glorious one chose to glorify himself by loving us.
SPEAKER_01: Next to Jesus was a thief.
SPEAKER_01: Remember?
SPEAKER_01: And the thief says, Jesus, will you remember me?
SPEAKER_01: Will you remember me when you come into paradise?
SPEAKER_01: Will you remember me?
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus says, Yeah, I'll tell you the truth.
SPEAKER_01: Today you will be with me in paradise.
SPEAKER_01: Well, hold on a second.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, the guy didn't even have time to prove that he was sincere in his faith.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, he didn't even have time to do any good works.
SPEAKER_01: God, this is relieving, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01: That somebody could be secure in the love of God just based on what Jesus did for him and not what he goes on to do.
SPEAKER_01: The thief says the name and he comes into the grand redemptive story because of the word of Jesus, not because of his word.
SPEAKER_01: So this morning you may be building a tower, right?
SPEAKER_01: Like with your words, your job, or your friendship, or your praise, or what address you want, or I mean we can we can build it a million ways.
SPEAKER_01: And we do.
SPEAKER_01: And you may feel yourself sort of babbling on in this world instead of being a part of a redemptive story.
SPEAKER_01: And this is because you're seeking self-glory versus God's glory.
SPEAKER_01: With your gifts and your opportunities and your talents, your life, your marriage, and your exercise, and your pals, and your cleaning, your breathing, your walking.
SPEAKER_01: And you can stop that.
SPEAKER_01: That's the good news is you can stop having to do that.
SPEAKER_01: Because his tower was not for you.
SPEAKER_01: And so I just close with this question.
SPEAKER_01: Would you ask him this morning to topple your tower, engage your heart, and drive you to greater dependence on him?
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray to God.
SPEAKER_01: God, we thank you that though we love to build towers, that you come, you come down.
SPEAKER_01: You come toward us.
SPEAKER_01: And none of us, none of us are innocent of this.
SPEAKER_01: We all build towers.
SPEAKER_01: And we do it in different ways, and sometimes it looks religious, and sometimes it looks polished, or sometimes it looks dirty, and sometimes it looks worldly, or sometimes it looks ambitious, but we all build towers where we like to stand on top of them and receive approval from other people, receive glory.
SPEAKER_01: And we say we're sorry.
SPEAKER_01: Any gift, any opportunity, any talent, any celebration, any suffering is all for you and for your glory, for your name.
SPEAKER_01: We are glory thieves, and you are glorious.
SPEAKER_01: And we thank you this morning that in your glory, you chose to glorify yourself by loving us.