back to indexBerean Community Church Sunday Service 1.29.2023
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I'd like to begin by reading Psalm 86, verses 11. 00:12:13.980 |
We may be surrounded by many distractions and temptations, 00:16:01.560 |
First one, our Bible Lab, if you signed up for it already, 00:16:06.560 |
meeting upstairs in the Sprouts Room with Pastor Mark, 00:16:25.560 |
and all the information is up there in your apps. 00:16:27.560 |
Thirdly, BAM is going to be having a winter retreat, 00:16:34.560 |
And then next week, we'll be having Communion Sunday, 00:16:43.560 |
Okay, well, yesterday, our India team touched down back home, 00:16:50.560 |
but we're going to be showing a video of their trip, 00:16:52.560 |
and then our brother Hubert's gonna be coming up 00:22:55.560 |
Thank you for this opportunity to share what I learned from this mission trip. 00:23:02.560 |
13 from Berean and 3 members from Cross Life Church. 00:23:06.560 |
We departed last Friday and after a total of 30 hours of travel, 00:23:11.560 |
we arrived at our final destination in India. 00:23:15.560 |
Over the next four days, we would visit a different village, 00:23:19.560 |
and at each village, one member of our team would share their testimony 00:23:38.560 |
they served diligently with joy and with unity of purpose. 00:23:42.560 |
Pastor Sake, who's one of the main pastors there, 00:23:46.560 |
shared with us that these medical camps had great impact in several ways. 00:23:51.560 |
Many Hindu people would not give any attention to Christianity, 00:23:56.560 |
but at the gathering, they're a captive audience 00:24:05.560 |
they're surprised that Christians would help Hindus, 00:24:13.560 |
the local pastors then would gain more credibility with the local people 00:24:23.560 |
"How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news." 00:24:27.560 |
And I began to understand that the long hours of travel 00:24:33.560 |
on the exact opposite side of the world, was well worth it. 00:24:40.560 |
but because of the valuable and precious message of Jesus Christ. 00:24:50.560 |
and each of them each go to about two to three villages. 00:24:57.560 |
but I saw that the opposition that they face is very great. 00:25:01.560 |
Not only is it the political climate becoming more difficult for them, 00:25:10.560 |
one of the main pastors, Pastor Isaac, passed away from COVID. 00:25:15.560 |
Not only that, there's another core pastor within them, within their midst, 00:25:20.560 |
one who has been with them for the past 20 years, 00:25:26.560 |
and is actively hindering and opposing their ministry there. 00:25:31.560 |
In actuality, on the first and third day of our medical camps, 00:25:42.560 |
and gathering opposition in the villages we were intending to go to. 00:25:46.560 |
Please pray that they can endure through these hardships, 00:25:53.560 |
Pray for the village leaders and Hindu people can turn to Christ. 00:25:57.560 |
Each village has a village leader who acts as the law of the village. 00:26:02.560 |
Pray that these leaders can soften their hearts to Christianity, 00:26:10.560 |
Pray for the Hindu people, a people with many gods, 00:26:13.560 |
that they can come to know and worship the one true God. 00:26:21.560 |
"When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, 00:26:24.560 |
because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 00:26:32.560 |
'The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.' 00:26:43.560 |
I hope this year that you would commit to pray for the pastors in India 00:26:58.560 |
We're going to spend this time now in offering. 00:27:02.560 |
We have instructions up there and then a box back there 00:27:07.560 |
But as we pray for offering, let's also pray for our team 00:27:09.560 |
that's come with the news that they've brought. 00:27:12.560 |
For us, these are such fleeting and passing things, 00:27:15.560 |
convictions and a video that might be lighthearted 00:27:21.560 |
But the work continues, and the enemy doesn't rest, 00:27:25.560 |
and prayers are needed. So let's continue in prayer. 00:27:28.560 |
I'll pray for offering, and then after the praise, 00:27:30.560 |
our brother Caleb's going to be coming up to be baptized this morning. 00:27:39.560 |
this would not be just a habitual thing we do every week 00:27:44.560 |
But Lord, this would be our heart and our desire. 00:27:49.560 |
Father, just as our team went, and just as the pastors there 00:27:52.560 |
are continuing to labor, here where we are, we are doing the same. 00:28:00.560 |
We want your kingdom to come and your will to be done. 00:28:03.560 |
And so, Father, I pray that it would be an offering up of our hearts. 00:38:55.560 |
Hello, Breanne. My name is Caleb, and this is my testimony. 00:39:09.560 |
I was born in the church, coming from a Presbyterian Christian background. 00:39:14.560 |
I was baptized at birth, and I spent my whole life going to church. 00:39:18.560 |
I went to Friday nights, retreats, revivals, Harvest Festival, concerts, 00:39:26.560 |
I cannot remember the last time I really remember missing church other than being sick. 00:39:30.560 |
My dad is a pastor, my older brother is a youth pastor. 00:39:34.560 |
I was so immersed in the Christian life so much as a young child that I thought my faith was solidified forever. 00:39:40.560 |
Even through different hardships and struggles, I stood firm in what I called faith. 00:39:45.560 |
However, in the fall of my junior year, I struggled with something that I could not really easily explain. 00:39:52.560 |
I thought about my faith and whether or not it was really real, 00:39:56.560 |
but at a typical time of healthy skepticism, I wasn't worried. 00:40:01.560 |
However, as I continuously scoured the Internet and I came upon different people, 00:40:06.560 |
I came to realize that there were so many doubts and questions that caused me to think my faith was very shallow. 00:40:12.560 |
I was so passionate about believing in Christ, but I realized there was no knowledgeable foundation. 00:40:18.560 |
I had no answers to any questions non-believers would posit about Christianity. 00:40:22.560 |
I felt like there was nowhere to look and that the questions I had were too specific and too complex for a pastor or any church member to really answer. 00:40:33.560 |
I even lost trust in my parents' guidance when it came to the teachings of Christianity, 00:40:39.560 |
thinking that the knowledge was too surface level and that they would never understand my confusion. 00:40:45.560 |
And I was then afraid because maybe I thought that I would be a disappointment to them 00:40:51.560 |
and that I failed them while causing them unnecessary suffering of doubting my faith. 00:40:57.560 |
And suddenly I felt so small and the world felt so big. 00:41:02.560 |
Why did so many of these non-believers seem to be so valid in their skepticism, in their militant opposition to theism, to Christianity altogether? 00:41:12.560 |
I could not dismiss it, and I let the doubt spread like a disease. 00:41:17.560 |
At some point I remember telling myself, "I don't care if my dad or if my older brother are pastors. 00:41:24.560 |
I don't care how many crosses we have in our house, the Bible that we have. 00:41:30.560 |
I don't care about the worship playlist that I collected. I didn't care that I was baptized or confirmed to high school. 00:41:36.560 |
If Christianity was wrong and if Jesus Christ is not the Son of God, whom I looked up to for so long, 00:41:43.560 |
if he had never died and truly rose again from the dead, if he was not divine, 00:41:49.560 |
then like Paul says in 1 Corinthians, our faith is in vain." 00:41:55.560 |
I had been a Christian for so long and I was ready to give up my faith, 00:41:59.560 |
but we're pursuing a different journey and then just kind of die and fade into nothingness. 00:42:05.560 |
The world will never remember me, so what would it matter now if I kept trying to maintain blind, false faith? 00:42:14.560 |
There is no God, and if there is no God, there is no hope, no purpose for humanity. 00:42:21.560 |
Science was right, atheists were right, and religion was wrong. 00:42:26.560 |
I quickly fell into depression and anxiety that I could not shake for many months. 00:42:36.560 |
I stopped doing things that I enjoyed, and even things like eating was very hard for me 00:42:41.560 |
because of how many questions and confusion that I had that I could not focus. 00:42:47.560 |
Sometimes I would walk out of the house and just go all the way out into the freeway 00:42:56.560 |
One day I sat upon, or I climbed up on one of the walls near the freeway 00:43:01.560 |
and just kind of told myself that maybe death would not be so bad 00:43:06.560 |
if I could just avoid all this unnecessary pain and suffering since there was no God, 00:43:12.560 |
there was no purpose, and the world would just die away and me along with it. 00:43:17.560 |
Maybe if I passed away I could just see God for myself without having to struggle here on earth. 00:43:23.560 |
Ironically, I remember verbally crying out to the Lord, asking Him to give me the answers. 00:43:30.560 |
I wanted to prove to myself that Jesus Christ was real, and His divinity was real as well. 00:43:38.560 |
I wanted to receive Christ back into my life. I wanted to bring Him glory. 00:43:43.560 |
But all the doubts were plaguing my mind, and it kind of enslaved me. 00:43:50.560 |
But as a well-educated student, I knew that I needed evidence before I just started lashing out and just leaving. 00:43:58.560 |
So for many months I spent countless hours every day, every night, 00:44:05.560 |
day after day, night after night, just looking for answers. 00:44:10.560 |
So many questions that I had, that plagued my mind, and they weighed very heavy on me every day. 00:44:19.560 |
And many of these things I realized, or made me realize that I never really read the Bible in depth for myself, 00:44:29.560 |
as much as I thought, even though I grew up learning about the Bible, 00:44:33.560 |
even though I tried to evangelize, I didn't really fully understand the true image of Jesus Christ and what He meant for me. 00:44:46.560 |
I never fully applied God's message in a way that gave value to me and humanity in general. 00:44:54.560 |
But I eventually figured that we were created in the image of God, 00:44:59.560 |
which gives us a direction of not just moral excellence, but patience and sacrifice, 00:45:04.560 |
which then gives us a destiny in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. 00:45:08.560 |
After many months, I realized that even after the many times I cried out to the Lord and asked Him, 00:45:16.560 |
"Why can't you reveal yourself? Why do I have to come looking for all these answers? 00:45:23.560 |
Why do I have to search for all these things that frustrated me? 00:45:26.560 |
Why do you make it so hard? Why can't you just come down right now? Wouldn't that be much easier?" 00:45:39.560 |
But I realized that He really had to reveal Himself. It's just that I was not looking in the right places. 00:45:53.560 |
After a long time, I really came to know that Jesus is the origin, He's the meaning, morality, and destiny of humankind. 00:46:07.560 |
No other worldview would be able to sustain those aspects sufficiently without contradicting reality. 00:46:13.560 |
At the end of it, it was simply undeniable for me. 00:46:16.560 |
After reading and after doing all this research, I saw that there was just truth after truth after truth. 00:46:23.560 |
I realized that once I knew that, I could find more joy in my life and a newfound sense of humility and purpose. 00:46:31.560 |
While it took me a while to apply it properly to my behavior in my life at home, 00:46:36.560 |
I had a deeper purpose in the way I demonstrated myself before others because of the truth that set me free. 00:46:48.560 |
One day, I was reading my devotions in Proverbs like I did every day. 00:46:52.560 |
I read chapter 2, verses 3 to 5, it stated that, "Indeed, if you call for insight and cry aloud for understanding, 00:46:59.560 |
and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, 00:47:03.560 |
then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God." 00:47:08.560 |
God had started a spiritual awakening as a wake-up call to shatter my worldview so hard 00:47:14.560 |
that I would turn to him, shake my arrogance, and really seek out his truth 00:47:18.560 |
and take whatever steps there were to make Christianity all the more real to me, 00:47:24.560 |
to make the glory and sovereignty of Christ more real to me. 00:47:28.560 |
Christ was simply the answer to everything that I was grappling with, 00:47:32.560 |
and that he didn't just preach the truth, but he embodied the truth. 00:47:36.560 |
He was the truth that I shunned for so long in my life. 00:47:48.560 |
The truth has set me free, and through God's grace, I'm a living testament to that. 00:47:53.560 |
And to this day, that's why I'm getting baptized. Thank you. 00:48:23.560 |
>> Caleb, do you understand by going into the water, you're uniting with Christ in his death, 00:48:27.560 |
and by coming up out of the water, in his newness of life? 00:48:32.560 |
I baptize you now in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. 00:48:56.560 |
>> Okay. Well, thank you, Caleb, for your testimony of faith. 00:49:00.560 |
And I feel like I could recognize maybe some of your family around here. 00:49:05.560 |
And to see the faithfulness, even a long suffering, and the faithfulness that needs to be exhibited, 00:49:12.560 |
it's very encouraging to see that God is so faithful. 00:49:16.560 |
Let me go ahead and just pray for us, and we'll go right into the sermon today. 00:49:24.560 |
Heavenly Father, we want to thank you for your great truth. 00:49:31.560 |
Father, just as Caleb said, it's not just the truth that is spoken, but it is the truth embodied. 00:49:38.560 |
Father, that you are God, and that you are good, and that there is nobody like you. 00:49:47.560 |
There are no other gods. There are no other things out there that compare. 00:49:53.560 |
Father, you are the creator, and we come before you, and we understand that the word we have in our hands comes from you. 00:50:02.560 |
And so I pray, Father, that every time we come before your word, it would be an exercise of humility, 00:50:08.560 |
one that desires to hear from our Father and God that it would be the very life in our bones. 00:50:17.560 |
Okay. Well, today we're going to be going through the Tower of Babel. 00:50:22.560 |
And before we start that, this is something that I've been thinking about a lot for the last couple years, 00:50:29.560 |
so it kind of comes in and out a lot for me as I've been trying to figure out what does God's will mean? 00:50:35.560 |
Not just to be able to define something like that, but we'll start by reading James 4, verse 13 through 16, 00:50:41.560 |
where it says, "Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city 00:50:45.560 |
and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.' 00:50:48.560 |
Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. 00:50:51.560 |
You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. 00:50:54.560 |
Instead, you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.' 00:50:58.560 |
But as it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil." 00:51:03.560 |
So we're very cognizant of this, that we are not in control of our lives, 00:51:09.560 |
and that God is in control of our lives, and that we want to live for God's will and not our will. 00:51:16.560 |
Here, he says something that we would all agree with, hopefully, 00:51:20.560 |
"If the Lord wills, then we will go about doing all these things." 00:51:23.560 |
Now, this is the disposition of a Christian that's being talked about, 00:51:27.560 |
because we know that God's will is going to come to pass, 00:51:32.560 |
but to surrender ourselves to His will is what we see here. 00:51:36.560 |
But this also doesn't mean that we're supposed to go around and before every comment that we make, 00:51:41.560 |
"Oh, if God wills, then I'm going to eat dinner tonight. 00:51:44.560 |
If God wills, then I'll be able to drive home." 00:51:47.560 |
It's not that, and yet, it's kind of all that. 00:51:51.560 |
Everything about our lives is swallowed up in this understanding of the Lord's will. 00:51:56.560 |
Now, we know that's hard, because how many things in our lives are we, today, living outside of His will? 00:52:04.560 |
We're not going to go into decreed and desired will. 00:52:07.560 |
There are different kinds of wills, but outside of what He wants for us, 00:52:15.560 |
And in verse 16, where it says, "But as it is, you boast in your arrogance," 00:52:19.560 |
and it talks about somebody who lives for his own will, not as just mistaken, 00:52:25.560 |
or a little bit off course, he says, "This kind of living is evil." 00:52:33.560 |
It's kind of boasting, self-will, thinking that I can wake up and do whatever it is that I want, 00:52:38.560 |
plan whatever it is that I want, go and accomplish whatever it is that I want, 00:52:48.560 |
So, this being the common disposition to the Christian, 00:52:52.560 |
we have to ask ourselves if we actually believe this. 00:52:56.560 |
Now, some of the wisdom texts that we're going to be looking at will point to God's sovereignty in our lives. 00:53:02.560 |
In Job 42, it says, "I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted." 00:53:10.560 |
In Psalm 115.3, "But our God is in the heavens. He does whatever he pleases." 00:53:16.560 |
Proverbs 69, "The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps." 00:53:21.560 |
Proverbs 19.21, "Many plans are in a man's heart, but the counsel of the Lord will stand." 00:53:28.560 |
So, what this means is that if we agree to these texts, if we look at this and we say, 00:53:32.560 |
"Yeah, I believe that," but we live outside of it, 00:53:39.560 |
that we are not subjecting ourselves to the truth of it. 00:53:45.560 |
It's not wisdom we're living in, because we're saying we believe it, and we say it with our mouths, 00:53:50.560 |
and perhaps that's how we would commonly display our lives to be, 00:53:53.560 |
and yet at the heart and at the core, whatever it is that we're living for, 00:54:01.560 |
And James goes on to say that that is boasting and arrogance or evil. 00:54:10.560 |
What we see in today's world is a world that's full of people who are daily, 00:54:14.560 |
minute by minute, heartbeat by heartbeat, living in defiance before God's will. 00:54:24.560 |
and we're going to be looking at the Tower of Babel to see it. 00:54:28.560 |
So the first point is going to be the context before the Tower of Babel. 00:54:31.560 |
We're going to go through Genesis 1-10 and do a quick overview. 00:54:35.560 |
And the context is basically it's all pointing towards death. 00:54:39.560 |
And so the idea of this is going to be that God's will, God's desire, 00:54:46.560 |
but human will is always going to be pointing towards destruction and death, 00:54:50.560 |
and that's what we see in the first 10 chapters of Genesis. 00:54:53.560 |
He says to Adam and Eve when they first come onto the scene in Genesis 1-28, 00:54:57.560 |
"Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth." 00:55:08.560 |
They live for their own will, their own desires. 00:55:11.560 |
Aside from all the deepening theology that we can go into this story, 00:55:18.560 |
they did not want what God wanted, and they wanted what they wanted. 00:55:24.560 |
and at that moment sin enters into the world because that's what that battle is. 00:55:30.560 |
When humanity comes up against God's will and fights and rebels, it's sin. 00:55:47.560 |
So in the genealogy that we see in Genesis 5, it's the common theme. 00:55:52.560 |
not only with just Cain and Abel and a single murder that happened right away. 00:55:59.560 |
"When Adam had lived 130 years, he became the father of a son in his own likeness, 00:56:05.560 |
Then the days of Adam after he became the father of Seth were 800 years, 00:56:10.560 |
So all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died." 00:56:16.560 |
It's very tempting to look at this and marvel. 00:56:26.560 |
He lived 930 years, and we sit there and go, "Wow, that's a lot of life." 00:56:30.560 |
But is that what this passage was meaning to convey? 00:56:35.560 |
No. What it was going to convey is that there is death. 00:56:41.560 |
We don't think it's remarkable that he lives 930 years. 00:56:53.560 |
Seth is made in Adam's image, in the image of a sinner, 00:57:02.560 |
who is pursuing the will of man and not God's. 00:57:04.560 |
I mean, this death that's introduced, it's not a slow devolution. 00:57:12.560 |
all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died. 00:57:15.560 |
All the days of Seth were 912 years, and he died. 00:57:18.560 |
All the days of Enosh were 905 years, and he died. 00:57:20.560 |
All the days of Kenan were 910 years, and he died. 00:57:23.560 |
All the days of Jared were 962 years, and he died. 00:57:26.560 |
All the days of Methuselah were 969 years, and he died. 00:57:29.560 |
All the days of Lamech were 777 years, and he died. 00:57:34.560 |
Different names, different ages, same result. 00:57:39.560 |
Whether someone lives 700 years, whether someone lives 900 years, 00:57:44.560 |
Death. And death is just not the finishing of a human, 00:57:49.560 |
We're talking about eternal punishment that they enter into. 00:58:00.560 |
of humans who pursue their own will, and not God's will. 00:58:14.560 |
During this time, we see that humans were living somewhere between 700 and 900 years. 00:58:24.560 |
And as death is introduced into the world, again, 00:58:27.560 |
the point is not that all these men lived that long. 00:58:36.560 |
Romans 5.12, "Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, 00:58:39.560 |
and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, 00:58:57.560 |
Sin is so much more than these things that we can accomplish. 00:59:01.560 |
Sin has everything to do with a sinful heart. 00:59:07.560 |
It's a heart that has completely gone into this place 00:59:10.560 |
where it is self-willed, self-desiring, selfish, 00:59:24.560 |
Their own lives always will make way to destruction. 00:59:33.560 |
if you look at Genesis 6.5, let's look at 6.5. 00:59:36.560 |
"And the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, 00:59:39.560 |
and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." 00:59:54.560 |
This passage is saying that this was the inclination of every heart. 00:59:57.560 |
That evil is not being defined by the greatest pictures of sin, 01:00:04.560 |
The entirety of what sin is is rebellion against God. 01:00:08.560 |
And therefore, the sins that we see are just fruits. 01:00:16.560 |
the aspects that come out as a result of the sin 01:00:26.560 |
To live for personal kingdom, not God's kingdom. 01:00:49.560 |
And so what we see is God proceeds then to wipe out everyone, 01:00:56.560 |
And we think that this is a terrible thing for God to do. 01:01:04.560 |
he executes what every human being already deserved. 01:01:36.560 |
The fact that the perished humans had that much time to live 01:01:41.560 |
ought to make us question God's goodness and justice. 01:01:50.560 |
God repeats the very same command he gave to Adam and Eve. 01:01:53.560 |
This thing, again, the same command that God gave to Adam and Eve, 01:01:58.560 |
He's made it so, you know, after the rain falls 01:02:02.560 |
everything looks beautiful, and the birds are chirping, 01:02:11.560 |
everything looked clean, it looked like a brand new slate. 01:02:17.560 |
"Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth." 01:02:23.560 |
to fill the earth with life, that gives life, 01:02:36.560 |
And just as the devolution was swift and immediate after Adam and Eve, 01:02:39.560 |
even though God gives renewed hope to humanity after the flood, 01:02:49.560 |
So all the days of Noah were 950 years, and he died. 01:02:58.560 |
And he actually started to outlive his children and his grandchildren 01:03:14.560 |
You see that Noah and his family got to see the firsthand result of sin. 01:03:18.560 |
They got to see what happens when human will takes over 01:03:26.560 |
Even though Noah's immediate family knew this, 01:03:32.560 |
that what is just in probably about a few hundred years, 01:03:35.560 |
we're trekking towards the story of the Tower of Babel in Chapter 11. 01:03:38.560 |
Humanity has already created their own false gods. 01:03:41.560 |
This is nearing the time in history called the Ancient Near East, 01:03:46.560 |
It was the dawn of civilization when nomads roamed the earth. 01:03:49.560 |
And according to James Boyce and historical record, 01:03:51.560 |
we know that essentially the identities of all the various gods and goddesses 01:04:03.560 |
It was from Babylon, and this Tower of Babel was the birthplace of Babylon. 01:04:07.560 |
The people during Babel were already beginning to create false gods 01:04:18.560 |
As they did that, they did it largely through astrology. 01:04:21.560 |
It's known in history that the Chaldeans, also known as the Babylonians, 01:04:24.560 |
began astrology, the Chaldeans being another name for the people of Babylon. 01:04:29.560 |
And from here originated all ancient world religions. 01:04:32.560 |
And remember, with Noah, because his own family, 01:04:36.560 |
the eight of them that were rescued from the flood, 01:04:38.560 |
were all that were left of humans, everyone that was a son or a daughter 01:04:49.560 |
When you have kids, they just start speaking the language that you speak. 01:04:54.560 |
But before Genesis 11, while everything is still Noah's family, 01:05:13.560 |
Like a savvy reader would look at that and be like, wait, what? 01:05:16.560 |
Out of one family, but why are there languages now? 01:05:32.560 |
And out of these, the nations were separated on the earth after the flood. 01:05:37.560 |
If there is only one family, how are there languages in chapter 10? 01:05:46.560 |
And so we come to the story of the Tower of Babel. 01:05:52.560 |
The Tower of Babel is actually a story of the people of the land of Israel. 01:05:56.560 |
And so we come to the story of the Tower of Babel. 01:06:00.560 |
The Tower of Babel is actually a story of God's intervening hand 01:06:09.560 |
Chapter 11 tells us two wills that are running side by side. 01:06:14.560 |
Man's will leading to immediate and obvious death, and God's will, 01:06:18.560 |
we're going to be seeing the redemption plan of life to save mankind. 01:06:21.560 |
Not to live to a ripe old age of 800 or 900 years old, 01:06:32.560 |
If you haven't yet turned there, you can turn there with me now. 01:06:41.560 |
Now the whole earth used the same language and the same words. 01:06:48.560 |
he's trying to make that link, just kind of the pin right there, right? 01:06:58.560 |
If there's one family, there should be one language. 01:07:05.560 |
He's trying to drive into us the tension that was built in Chapter 10, 01:07:11.560 |
and now he's going to tell us a story of why and how that happens. 01:07:18.560 |
God has always desired a filling of the earth to his glory. 01:07:25.560 |
He says to fill the earth because that's what image bearers do. 01:07:37.560 |
The point was that people would fill the earth with the image of God, 01:07:41.560 |
And these people would be one in mind, one in heart, because why? 01:07:48.560 |
Now, what we saw is that Seth was made in the image of Adam, 01:07:56.560 |
which wouldn't be a problem if Adam were still in the image of God, right? 01:08:00.560 |
Like something perverted, something changed here. 01:08:07.560 |
Verse 1 here continues to build tension into us in this. 01:08:11.560 |
Division has occurred in a place where God was always meaning to bring his 01:08:18.560 |
See, if this family, Noah's family, were the same family, 01:08:26.560 |
It's the intricacies, the intonations, the inflections. 01:08:34.560 |
And as they grew in size, they began to have to go outwards, 01:08:37.560 |
perhaps an uncle's flock of sheep got too big here, 01:08:44.560 |
And so that's what we see coming up to chapter 11, verse 1. 01:08:47.560 |
These men were moving eastward, and finally they found a plain in Shinar, 01:08:52.560 |
a place that was very fertile in between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. 01:08:59.560 |
They come up with something that is their will, their desires, 01:09:10.560 |
Not united to bring God's glory, but in Genesis 11, 2, 01:09:14.560 |
"It came about as they journeyed east that they found a plain in the land of Shinar 01:09:18.560 |
They said to one another, 'Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly.' 01:09:21.560 |
And they used brick for stone and they used tar for mortar. 01:09:24.560 |
They said, 'Come, let us build for ourselves a city and a tower 01:09:26.560 |
whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, 01:09:29.560 |
otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.' 01:09:32.560 |
And here they are questioning, going up against God's will. 01:09:41.560 |
Let's go inwards into a city, into a metropolis, a man to pursue his own glory 01:09:47.560 |
instead of uniting to God's glory, to fill the earth with it, 01:09:50.560 |
instead of accomplishing God's purposes, instead of trusting in their Lord, 01:09:56.560 |
the one who saved their entire family, by the way. 01:10:04.560 |
a story that seems to continue what we saw in Genesis 6, 5, 01:10:07.560 |
that the thoughts were evil always, continually, 01:10:11.560 |
not because they're going around murdering everyone in sight, 01:10:31.560 |
the core of sin is the same in every fallen human. 01:10:34.560 |
Though there ought to be unity in bringing God's glory together, 01:10:37.560 |
what we see in the world today, just as it was then, 01:10:56.560 |
We want to fulfill the Lord with our own glory. 01:10:59.560 |
Now that sounds so dramatic, but that's what's happening. 01:11:03.560 |
Not just in the world, but do you not sense it in your heart? 01:11:11.560 |
This is the same heart in every human born into sin, 01:11:20.560 |
otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth." 01:11:23.560 |
And so the problem isn't just trying to stop ourselves from committing major and overt sin, 01:11:33.560 |
In this time, man's sin is seen in bolder, more concentrated ways. 01:11:44.560 |
Do you know why? Because that's what God made it to be. 01:11:47.560 |
Except that unity was always meant to enhance his glory, 01:11:54.560 |
Unity will always enhance efficiency, strategy, strength, corporate resolve. 01:12:02.560 |
We'll root each other on in whatever accomplishment it is that we're trying to go for. 01:12:10.560 |
Now what happens if this unity is in the context of sin? 01:12:23.560 |
Maybe they remember all the animals that were released out of the ark, 01:12:26.560 |
and they were also proliferating into the world. 01:12:30.560 |
A bunch of lions are just having a bunch of babies everywhere. 01:12:34.560 |
Maybe they were afraid because the land masses are beginning to drift apart. 01:12:40.560 |
maybe they're afraid of the fact that they're getting spread apart like this. 01:12:44.560 |
Maybe they're afraid of the rapidly falling lifespan. 01:12:49.560 |
But it didn't change the fact that God said to fill the earth, 01:12:53.560 |
to go and to reach the ends of it, to his glory. 01:12:58.560 |
and perhaps they were afraid that God's plan would be against their best interests. 01:13:05.560 |
their will was for themselves, their kingdoms, their safety, their names, 01:13:10.560 |
to build up something that God, they were afraid. 01:13:13.560 |
Because if God's will did not align with their will, 01:13:19.560 |
Even though they were created to have their will aligned with God's will. 01:13:34.560 |
"Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly." 01:13:36.560 |
And they used brick for stone, and they used tar for mortar. 01:13:39.560 |
And so all the ingenuity that God had given them, 01:13:41.560 |
they're beginning to use this so that they can go after what they want. 01:13:44.560 |
So they burned together these bricks and began constructing upward into the sky, 01:13:50.560 |
And it probably resembled a ziggurat-like structure. 01:13:54.560 |
Interestingly, every ancient culture had some sort of ziggurat, 01:13:58.560 |
which corresponds to this biblical reality in history, 01:14:08.560 |
See, the ziggurats were towers with square bases, 01:14:10.560 |
and they could have different details to them, 01:14:12.560 |
but they were all common in that they were supposed to be structures 01:14:15.560 |
that at the pinnacle brought them closer to reach the gods in the skies. 01:14:29.560 |
And in this world where already false gods were running rampant, 01:14:37.560 |
Although there are many gods, the heart of man was the same 01:14:47.560 |
Uniting to create a world where the power of God could be harnessed 01:14:53.560 |
Have you ever thought of idolatry, what it is? 01:14:56.560 |
Idol worship? Isn't idol worship kind of strange? 01:15:00.560 |
If you think about it, idol worship has always been-- 01:15:03.560 |
idolatry has always been to harness the power of God, 01:15:08.560 |
You worship something so that they will give you what you want. 01:15:17.560 |
I'll worship you, but it's actually for you to worship me. 01:15:21.560 |
I'll serve you, but it's actually for you to serve me. 01:15:24.560 |
And so because humanity understands their weakness, 01:15:27.560 |
that they can't accomplish the things that they want to accomplish, 01:15:38.560 |
And so as they turn to God, they worship God because God is powerful, 01:15:42.560 |
but the image of what's going on there is not because they want to actually 01:15:46.560 |
give Him glory, it's because they want what He can offer. 01:15:53.560 |
This is so much scarier than outright rebellion. 01:16:00.560 |
We want to build up our own lives, our own kingdoms, and our own thrones. 01:16:04.560 |
We want our comfort and our reputation and our communities. 01:16:15.560 |
And we want God's plans to be a side point in our lives, not the center. 01:16:22.560 |
Sin is not just the individual actions that we can list out. 01:16:25.560 |
It's the individual thoughts that we can list out. 01:16:31.560 |
A single sin in the human life is not an isolated incident. 01:16:37.560 |
and they all seem to kind of come together at the same point, 01:16:40.560 |
the commonality of human pride, boasting, ego, arrogance, 01:17:03.560 |
a hardened unbelief in our hearts to His promises, 01:17:09.560 |
a refusal to let go in the will of our lives. 01:17:15.560 |
Does this not seem closer to us than we thought? 01:17:23.560 |
but how many professing believers are currently living like this? 01:17:26.560 |
On the outside, it might be a display of serving God, 01:17:29.560 |
but on the inside, the desire is to harness Him, 01:17:33.560 |
to put a bit in His mouth and to reign Him in 01:17:44.560 |
They didn't say, "Let's build a tower that has our faces emblazoned on it." 01:17:50.560 |
and then just put our name right on the top of it." 01:17:59.560 |
And so our prayers, and I've been so encouraged by our church. 01:18:01.560 |
I think there's been so much prayer going on. 01:18:07.560 |
but aren't we, because we're praying so much more often, 01:18:10.560 |
like, aren't you with me right now where it feels like, 01:18:12.560 |
"Wow, my prayers were so, so messed up at times." 01:18:19.560 |
Our prayers can be so wrought with this kind of fleshly and sinful thinking 01:18:24.560 |
We pray to God for our education, for our children, 01:18:27.560 |
our food, our comfort, our peace, our entertainment. 01:18:43.560 |
Not need Him because of Him, not need Him because of who He is, 01:18:48.560 |
but because I need somebody who can take control of a life that I can't take control of, 01:18:59.560 |
How many of us have been constructing a Tower of Babel reaching to the heavens 01:19:04.560 |
with the express purpose of making a name for self? 01:19:08.560 |
And frighteningly, how do we not know Bereanism being built like this? 01:19:15.560 |
Saying the right things about serving and worshiping God, 01:19:18.560 |
understanding in the mind and knowing the right things, 01:19:29.560 |
and in all that, building up our own kingdom. 01:19:34.560 |
We must see that the danger to this is always much closer than we think, 01:19:37.560 |
that the enemy works in much subtler, much more quiet, 01:19:45.560 |
He is not going to say, "Build this thing so that you can worship yourself." 01:19:53.560 |
He's going to be lurking, nudging, causing questions, challenging. 01:20:00.560 |
It was just nudging, like, "How do you know?" 01:20:22.560 |
is going to be the crossroads, whether we choose to follow God's will 01:20:25.560 |
or whether we decide we're going to take over. 01:20:30.560 |
We have to see the sinful tendency in us to say the right things 01:20:35.560 |
while being completely about our own will and desires and not God's. 01:20:39.560 |
You see, our desires are not only rebellious, but they're weak. 01:20:41.560 |
Our desires are to set up something temporary. 01:20:46.560 |
Our desires are for things that will harm us. 01:20:48.560 |
Our desires, when you think about it, it doesn't even make sense to us, 01:21:02.560 |
This isn't prosperity gospel. This is the truth. 01:21:08.560 |
God wants us to have life that we were meant for, 01:21:19.560 |
We must die to our personal ambitions and desires 01:21:22.560 |
and find what it is to find our desires in His desires, 01:21:26.560 |
trusting that His ways are higher, that His ways are loftier, 01:21:36.560 |
So much so that we would live in simple obedience, 01:21:48.560 |
So we live in a world that is filled with evil, rebellious people. 01:22:01.560 |
In an unbelieving world, that danger lurks even amongst us 01:22:04.560 |
because we are unaware many times of our current state, 01:22:11.560 |
It's just not trying to stop lusting or lying. 01:22:19.560 |
We see this unity happening in the globalized world we live in. 01:22:40.560 |
It's not just like atheism and just like, you know. 01:22:45.560 |
We don't have time. We don't have time to go into it. Never mind. 01:22:51.560 |
I've got to resist the temptation. Let's go to letter C. 01:22:57.560 |
Chapter 11, verse 5-9. So let's see how God responds to that. 01:23:24.560 |
Now this is a clear picture of how God responds to human will. 01:23:29.560 |
God, as it says in Galatians 6, will not be mocked. 01:23:34.560 |
He will not be scorned. He will not be ridiculed. 01:23:40.560 |
What we saw with Jesus walking to the cross and subjecting himself to the crucifixion 01:23:45.560 |
was not because he was powerless before humans and their will. 01:23:53.560 |
This was his purposeful, intentional decision to march to the cross. 01:24:04.560 |
It was him, his will, and his obedience to the Father's will. 01:24:12.560 |
That scorn, that contempt, that ridiculing that came from the hands of man? 01:24:21.560 |
That because we believe there is forgiveness, that's gone? 01:24:29.560 |
No one gets away with anything. Not a single thing. 01:24:34.560 |
And so you will either pay the judgment, the justice that needs to be paid, with your own life, 01:24:40.560 |
or you place your faith in the one who can take it. 01:24:56.560 |
We should be looking at this story and going, "What are they doing?" 01:25:00.560 |
This giant tower, the ones, these humans are putting all their energy into it. 01:25:04.560 |
They're trying so hard to build this thing up. 01:25:07.560 |
They're sweating as they're painstakingly shaping these bricks together 01:25:11.560 |
and they're burning it with mortar and they have to go in front of a fire. 01:25:14.560 |
Have you ever been really in front of a fire before? 01:25:17.560 |
You're sweating and you're getting all charred. 01:25:20.560 |
You lose your eyebrows. Everything is bad about this situation. 01:25:27.560 |
They're so feeble, only to get another layer of bricks up. 01:25:33.560 |
Some of them died as they're constructing this thing. 01:25:37.560 |
And even then, it's like, "Oh, we have a long way to go in this." 01:25:49.560 |
And then God, it says that He has to come down. 01:25:53.560 |
He comes down from the lofty heights that He resides. 01:25:56.560 |
He comes down to see these humans putting all their energy into this thing. 01:26:00.560 |
Because it was too small. He couldn't see it. 01:26:08.560 |
Because this is a God who chapters before just spoke the world into existence 01:26:17.560 |
The atoms, the molecules, the sun, the moon, the stars, the sky, water, fish, birds, animals, everything. 01:26:47.560 |
Remembers, there's a TV show called "Pinky and the Brain." Have you ever seen that? 01:26:55.560 |
If you read carefully at what's going on here, God simply reverses exactly what the people were doing. 01:27:00.560 |
They have one language and they've unified to make their name great. 01:27:05.560 |
It's almost as if it's simple. It's time to come and step down and confuse their language. 01:27:12.560 |
Humans said, "Come, let us go and build this." And God says, "Come, let us go and stop this." 01:27:17.560 |
Where man was trying to build this up, God just thinks and it's done. 01:27:24.560 |
These humans thought they could challenge the Almighty God. 01:27:31.560 |
See, we make our plans. We pour our sweat into studying and working and building day and night. 01:27:40.560 |
And we're going to go there and enjoy this and go there and accomplish this. 01:27:44.560 |
But who are we to work to personal ambition and will? 01:27:48.560 |
Blind to the fact that I exist for God's glory. 01:27:57.560 |
We work so hard and looking for what is best for ourselves. 01:28:00.560 |
And so we think, "If it so happens that following God is what is best for me, then I won't feel guilty all week. 01:28:05.560 |
I'll just do whatever it is. This is what I want. 01:28:09.560 |
And if God's will matches up with mine, then great. 01:28:11.560 |
I'll go to church. I'll serve. I'll do everything that needs to be done." 01:28:15.560 |
But if God's commands goes against what you really want, you typically just turn the other way. 01:28:26.560 |
We've defined things. We've created standards and rubrics of what Christianity is. 01:28:31.560 |
That I will give God these things, but really my life is still my own. 01:28:39.560 |
If you're a Christian in here today, you do not belong to yourself. 01:28:43.560 |
Your decisions are not to be made for yourself. 01:28:45.560 |
Your life is not meant to reflect your own glory. 01:28:49.560 |
You are not here for your own personal reputation. 01:28:51.560 |
You are not here for your personal enjoyment. 01:28:56.560 |
And only when it's found in God does all of that fall into place. 01:29:08.560 |
Even when we think, "Maybe, just maybe I can beat this system of God's. 01:29:12.560 |
Maybe, just maybe I can go against God's plans." 01:29:29.560 |
He doesn't even break a sweat in frustrating our plans if they are not in line with His. 01:29:33.560 |
God's plan is not that we would expand our own kingdom and names. 01:29:46.560 |
"The God of this 20th century no more resembles the supreme sovereign of Holy Writ 01:29:51.560 |
than does the dim flickering of a candle, the glory of the midday sun. 01:29:54.560 |
The God who is now talked about in the average pulpit, 01:29:59.560 |
mentioned in much of the religious literature of the day, 01:30:02.560 |
and preached in most of the so-called Bible conferences, 01:30:05.560 |
is the figment of human imagination, an invention of maudlin sentimentality. 01:30:10.560 |
The heathen outside of the pale of Christendom form gods out of wood and stone." 01:30:21.560 |
"While millions of heathen inside Christendom manufacture a god out of their own carnal mind. 01:30:36.560 |
For there is no other possible alternative between an absolutely supreme God and no God at all. 01:30:43.560 |
A God whose will is resisted, whose designs are frustrated, whose purpose is checkmated, 01:30:48.560 |
possesses not title to deity, and so far from being a fit object of worship merits not but contempt." 01:31:01.560 |
And we try to give a little bit more of our will and we feed it, we drip it into how we live day by day. 01:31:19.560 |
That is the entrance point to Christianity, not something we built to. 01:31:27.560 |
And this was the result of humanity assembling together in unity at Babel. 01:31:36.560 |
"And there the nations in an uproar, and the peoples devising a vain thing. 01:31:39.560 |
The kings of the earth take their stand, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed, 01:31:45.560 |
saying, 'Let us tear their fetters apart and cast away their cords from us.' 01:31:49.560 |
He who sits in the heavens laughs, the Lord scoffs at them. 01:31:52.560 |
Then He will speak to them in His anger and terrify them in His fury, saying, 01:31:56.560 |
'But as for me, I have installed my King upon Zion, my holy mountain.'" 01:32:00.560 |
There was a time when I thought that this was so petty of God. 01:32:03.560 |
That God would be so worried about humans uniting in this way, 01:32:06.560 |
that He would come down and confuse their language. 01:32:11.560 |
Until I had to do that, like a shake of the head, clear up my eyes to see what was actually going on. 01:32:21.560 |
Who is He to be afraid of humanity and what they can accomplish? 01:32:28.560 |
We're watching God's abounding grace in action. 01:32:33.560 |
This is God inserting Himself into the downward plummet of humanity. 01:32:41.560 |
Every human born barreling towards death because will leads them there. 01:32:48.560 |
We're seeing what humans do, how quickly humans devolve, how quickly humans will kill each other off and be destroyed. 01:32:57.560 |
That their efforts might be to unite, create, do good and great things with the perversion of sin. 01:33:02.560 |
It will always lead towards destruction and death. 01:33:06.560 |
The only unity that truly binds humanity together is sin. 01:33:12.560 |
The only unity that truly binds humanity together is personal ambition and desire to overthrow God. 01:33:18.560 |
So that we can take control of our own lives. 01:33:20.560 |
Creating a Godless society that has no ability to actively and actually love each other. 01:33:25.560 |
We've seen the results not only in the first chapters in Genesis but in society at large. 01:33:29.560 |
And so He so graciously scatters them because they're barreling towards death faster than they realize. 01:33:43.560 |
Because when they come together, there is a lot of human will that comes together. 01:33:50.560 |
Their strategy gets better, they get strengthened. 01:33:53.560 |
You know, like the unity, all that stuff happens. 01:34:02.560 |
In this passage, before I read a few others to conclude. 01:34:06.560 |
"Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of the whole earth. 01:34:10.560 |
And from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of the whole earth." 01:34:14.560 |
After this, right after this, you see the human age drop to under 200 years old. 01:34:27.560 |
What I was trying to show is that there is human will and God's will. 01:34:31.560 |
And this world is barreling down that thing of human will, personal will and ambition. 01:34:45.560 |
But it is actually the beginning, middle and end. 01:34:50.560 |
And he purposely, I think God purposely does this. 01:34:55.560 |
In one of the prophets, in Daniel 3, 4, he says, "Then the herald loudly proclaimed, 01:34:58.560 |
'To you the command is given, O peoples, nations and men of every language, 01:35:02.560 |
that at the moment you hear the sound of the horn, flute, lyre, trigon, psaltery, bagpipe and all kinds of music, 01:35:06.560 |
you are to fall down and worship the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king has set up.'" 01:35:10.560 |
So Babylon, remember that's the birthplace of Babel, the birthplace of Babylon. 01:35:16.560 |
That King Nebuchadnezzar comes up as a king and he tries to gather all the people of the world to unite, 01:35:22.560 |
ironically, to worship this image that was set up of Nebuchadnezzar. 01:35:31.560 |
This is a passage talking also about Babylon. 01:35:33.560 |
"And he said to me, 'The waters which you saw where the harlot," that's her, "sits, 01:35:37.560 |
are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues," you see that? 01:35:40.560 |
"The gathering and the unity of the people, and the ten horns which you saw, and the beast, 01:35:43.560 |
these will hate the harlot and will make her desolate and naked, 01:35:46.560 |
and will eat her flesh and will burn her up with fire. 01:35:48.560 |
For God has put it in their hearts to execute his purpose." 01:35:55.560 |
"By having a common purpose," this unified purpose against God, 01:36:00.560 |
"God has set that in their heart until the words of God will be fulfilled. 01:36:04.560 |
The woman whom you saw is a great city which reigns over the kings of the earth." 01:36:08.560 |
And then later on, it shows that Babylon is plunked into the ocean, 01:36:18.560 |
Human will is barreling towards this thing to come together. 01:36:21.560 |
And if you read the book of Revelation, you see the end. 01:36:30.560 |
In Acts 2, 5, "But now there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven. 01:36:36.560 |
And when this sound occurred, the crowd came together and were bewildered 01:36:39.560 |
because each one of them was hearing them speak in his own language." 01:36:47.560 |
These are Jews that were speaking different languages. 01:36:51.560 |
The same family speaking different languages. 01:36:54.560 |
"They were amazed and astonished, saying, 'Why are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 01:37:01.560 |
And how is it that we each hear them in our own language to which we were born? 01:37:05.560 |
Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, 01:37:09.560 |
Pontus and Asia, Phyrgia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya, 01:37:12.560 |
and Cyrene and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs, 01:37:16.560 |
we hear them in our own tongues speaking of the mighty deeds of God.' 01:37:19.560 |
And they all continued in amazement and great perplexity, 01:37:22.560 |
saying to one another, 'What does this mean?'" 01:37:27.560 |
This is the birth and the advent of the church. 01:37:30.560 |
The people of God coming together to preach God, to preach the gospel. 01:37:39.560 |
This is the beginning of evangelism of the church. 01:37:47.560 |
It was always to go to the ends of the earth. 01:37:53.560 |
To accomplish the will of God, His great commands, His desire, 01:37:56.560 |
which is that none should perish but all to come to repentance. 01:38:16.560 |
Or is it to be His people, to go out to the ends of the earth, 01:38:21.560 |
to share the gospel, His will for life to flow through the world and not death? 01:38:31.560 |
Revelation 7, 9, to conclude, "And after all these things I looked, 01:38:34.560 |
and behold, a great multitude which no one could count, 01:38:36.560 |
from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, 01:38:38.560 |
standing before the throne, and before the Lamb, 01:38:40.560 |
clothed in white robes and palm branches were in their hands, 01:38:43.560 |
and they cry out with a loud voice, saying, 'This is what He has always wanted, 01:38:48.560 |
salvation to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb.'" 01:39:04.560 |
Heavenly Father, we pray God that our will would break before Yours 01:39:13.560 |
And God, we would not do this with such a burden upon us, 01:39:22.560 |
that what we do is not so far apart from our hearts' wants. 01:39:27.560 |
There is no satisfaction anywhere else in this world 01:39:30.560 |
in the pursuits that might have distracted us. 01:40:05.560 |
♪ Though the nations rage, kingdoms rise and fall, ♪ 01:40:14.560 |
♪ there is still one King reigning over all. ♪ 01:40:24.560 |
♪ So I will not fear, for this truth remains, ♪ 01:40:43.560 |
♪ None above Him, none before Him, all of time in His hands. ♪ 01:40:52.560 |
♪ For His throne it shall remain and ever stand. ♪ 01:41:02.560 |
♪ Of the power, of the glory, I will trust in His name. ♪ 01:41:21.560 |
♪ Though the dread of night overwhelms my soul, ♪ 01:41:58.560 |
♪ None above Him, none before Him, all of time in His hands. ♪ 01:42:08.560 |
♪ For His throne it shall remain and ever stand. ♪ 01:42:17.560 |
♪ Of the power, of the glory, I will trust in His name. ♪ 01:42:51.560 |
♪ Though I may not see what the future brings, ♪ 01:43:00.560 |
♪ I will watch and wait for the Savior King. ♪ 01:43:10.560 |
♪ Then my joy complete, standing face to face, ♪ 01:43:29.560 |
♪ None above Him, none before Him, all of time in His hands. ♪ 01:43:38.560 |
♪ For His throne it shall remain and ever stand. ♪ 01:43:48.560 |
♪ Of the power, of the glory, I will trust in His name. ♪ 01:44:18.560 |
Father, we remember how big and great You are. 01:44:22.560 |
And Father, all things are accordance to Your plans. 01:44:29.560 |
Father, because as great as You are and as insignificant as we might be, 01:44:33.560 |
You have given Your very own Son to die on behalf of me. 01:44:43.560 |
So Lord, I pray that our will would be Yours because we live for You. 01:44:48.560 |
Now may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God our Father 01:44:51.560 |
and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all both now and forevermore. 01:45:30.560 |
♪ An empty grave is there to fill my Savior's hands. ♪ 01:46:14.560 |
♪ And life is worth the living just because He lives. ♪