Genesis 11.10-26
Messenger Dox
Call to worship:
OT:
pastor Mike champoux
Exodus 20.1-17
NT:
pastor zachary mcguire
Philippians 2.5-11
song:
Come praise & glorify
Historical reading:
pastor andrew loginow
Apostles’ Creed
song:
Christ is risen (come awake)
Verbic baby dedication - Dr. Brett eckel
Confession & Pardon:
dr. brett eckel
song:
See the destined day arise
Sermon:
dr. alex loginow
Genesis 11.10-26
Introduction
Last summer Bethany and I took a trip to LA to celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary. One thing we really wanted to see was Hollywood Blvd. – the Chinese Theatre, the Dolby Theatre, and of course, the Hollywood Walk of Fame. If you’re a fan of film, television, or music, at almost any level, you’d recognize many names that populate the star-studded sidewalks of Hollywood Blvd. From OG names like Charlie Chaplin, Cecil B. Demille, Alfred Hitchcock, Walt Disney, and Judy Garland to modern Megastars like Tom Cruise, Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hanks, Harrison Ford, the streets are literally lined with those who have made a name for themselves.
But Hollywood Blvd has another nickname as well – the boulevard of broken dreams. I’m fascinated by Hollywood because the peaks of wealth and fame are juxtaposed with the valleys of those chasing the dream of wealth and fame. When a new star is installed on the boulevard the rich and the famous are there barracked by police from paparazzi and fans pawing for autographs to sell. If you were on Hollywood Blvd the night of the Oscars you might catch a glance of some of the biggest stars from the silver screen, but visit Hollywood Blvd any other day and you’ll see vendors hocking cheap souvenirs, aspiring actors working for minimum wage, and a pretty substantial homeless population, possibly using the sidewalk as a restroom. The Walk of Fame is simultaneously the boulevard of broken dreams.
And while most of us may not have dreams of packing up and moving to the golden coast to make a name for ourselves in Hollywood, there’s something innate inside of each of us that desires to make a name for ourselves. In Eastern more tradition-based cultures there is a drive to honor the family name, but here in the West we are individualistic – we want to make a name for ourselves. We want to be remembered. We want to do something that lasts. We want to know that our lives matter.
This isn’t new either. Our Scripture passage here in Genesis 11 reveals that this desire is older than history. Last week Pastor Kevin preached the 1st 9 verses of Genesis 11 – the Tower of Babel. Now on the heels of the Babel pericope we find another genealogy. This genealogy is a continuation of the one we read in Genesis 10, but focused on the line of Shem and brings us to Abraham. This record of seemingly inconsequential names moves redemptive history forward to a very consequential name. But is this list inconsequential?
Another List of Names
Verse 10 begins; these are the generations of Shem. At first glance this might seem inconsequential, but if we pass over too quickly we might miss something significant. The word generations is the Hebrew תּוֹלְדֹת, which means, “offspring or family history.” This word shows up about 10 times in Genesis and each time it serves to shift the shape of the story. We’ve already seen תּוֹלְדֹת in Genesis 2.4, 5.1, 6.9, 10.1, now in 11.10, and we’ll see it again in 11.27.
This is significant because it trains us to read the Bible organically. Chapters and verses are helpful markers, but they are arbitrary. God didn’t inspire chapter and verse divisions. Chapters were added to Scripture about 500 years after Scripture was written and verses were added about 500 years ago. But textual markers and transitions like תּוֹלְדֹת are God-breathed. It is an organic marker in the text moving the narrative forward – narrating and narrowing Genesis for us.
And the תּוֹלְדֹת we have here, the generations or family line we have here is Shem. Shem literally means name. As he has often in Genesis Moses is contrasting the 2 lines – the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent (Gen 3.15). In Pastor Kevin’s Tower of Babel sermon last week from Genesis 11.1-9, we heard, in verse 4, the Babylonians say, “Let us build a city and a tower to make a name (שֵׁם) for ourselves.”
The Babylonians who yearn to make a name for themselves are distinguished with the line of Shem, the ones whom God will make a name for. This list is certainly populated with some noteworthy names: Abram, Shem, and Eber, where the term Hebrew comes from, but there are also names on this list that seem insignificant, names we know nothing else about. But don’t miss that we don’t know the names of any of the tower builders; their names have been lost. They did not make a name for themselves, but these names have been preserved for us in the eternal Word of God.
But also notice that while they’re legacy lives on in Scripture, after the flood their lifespans decrease. What’s interesting is the Bible isn’t the only ancient text to make such a claim. There is a clay tablet from the Mesopotamian city of Uruk called the Sumerian King List that was inscribed by a scribe during the reign of King Utukhegal around 2100 BC. The tablet describes kings, who reigned for an extremely long time, then a flood came, and subsequent kings reigned vastly shorter terms.
Some modern scholars have proposed that these lifespans should not be taken at face value, but that men like Adam and Noah and others were given inflated lifespans to honor them. No modern proposal seems convincing though. The most reasonable explanation is that these ancient patriarchs lived extremely long lives. Scientifically, did something change in the cosmology of the earth or the physiology of humans (or both) after the flood that progressively decreased the average human lifespan until it stabilized at the average of 70 or 80 years (Psalm 90.10)? We don’t know for sure, but it seems like it.
But that shouldn’t surprise us because God keeps His promises and He promised Adam that when Adam ate of the fruit of the tree, he would surely die (Gen 2.17). Death entered the world through one man and death spread to all men because all sinned (Rom 5.12). Death is the just penalty for sin. And as the story of humanity progresses it should not surprise us that death would take more and more – steal, kill, and destroy.
And for each and every one of us this isn’t mere theory it’s personal because we’re all guilty of sin. We have all inherited Adam’s original sin from conception and we all practice sin in thought, word, and deed, by the things we do and the things we leave undone. We do not love God with our whole heart and we do not love our neighbors as ourselves. Because of our sin we not only deserve and earn death, but we also justly deserve eternal conscious punishment in hell.
The Name Above Every Name
This is bad news. We need good news. Is there anything that can be done? Are we hopelessly enslaved to our sin, destined for death and hell? Genesis 11.10-26 says no.
Luke 3 shows us that this very list, this very genealogy, this very family line is the family line of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is through the line of Shem, the sons of Eber, the sons of Abram, that the eternal 2nd person of the Holy Trinity, the Son of God, would be conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. Because Jesus was conceived by the Spirit, He did not inherit Adam’s original sin. But don’t let that deceive you into believing the heresy that Jesus is not truly human because He was also born of Mary. Jesus is the seed of the woman, literally.
And St. Luke moves right from this genealogy, a genealogy with the very same names we see here in Genesis 11, Luke moves from his genealogy to the temptation of Christ in the wilderness. This reveals to us that Jesus is the righteous one. Jesus was tempted by the devil just like Adam, but Jesus didn’t fall; He didn’t sin. Jesus is without sin; He knew no sin. Jesus kept God’s Law in thought, word, and deed, by what He did and He never left anything undone. Jesus always loved God with His whole heart; He always loved His neighbor as Himself. Jesus always delighted in God’s will and walked in God’s ways to the glory of God’s name.
And because Jesus is righteous, He offered His sinless life as the penal substitutionary sacrifice in place of the church. That means Jesus was the substitute who paid the penalty by His sacrifice for the elect. On the cross Jesus endured the just wrath of God and the just penalty of death in the place of His people. And then Jesus lay dead in the tomb for 3 days in solidarity with His people.
But because Jesus was righteous, sinless, just, death had no power to hold Jesus. The sting of death is the Law, but Jesus kept the Law. Jesus could not be unjustly detained so on the 3rd day Jesus resurrected from the dead. And because Jesus rose from the dead, everything is different. There is now a man who cannot be held by death, a man who will never die again, a man who holds the keys of death and hades. Pastor Zack read from Philippians 2, which says that in the resurrection of Christ God has exalted Jesus and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Making Much of Jesus’ Name
That’s the good news! The good news is that death is defeated and Jesus reigns. The good news is that the curse has been reversed. The good news is that the seed of the woman has crushed the head of the serpent through His death and resurrection.
And so our only response is to bend our knee and confess with our tongue that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father – to place our faith in Christ alone. We must take this knowledge of the person and work of Christ, we must assent to it, and we must transfer our trust to Jesus alone. We must confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and we must believe in our heart that God raised Him from the dead in order to be saved from the just penalty of hell because of our sin. And the good news is that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
And the Bible says those who are saved repent of sin. We confess our sin; we do not say we have no sin. And then we turn from our sin. We turn away from self-righteousness, self-justification, and we look to Jesus alone for our justification. Jesus is the only one who can truly declare us righteous because He is the only one who is righteous. The only way to be declared righteous before God is faith in Jesus. Since we have been justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
What I hope and pray you’re not thinking right now is this – “he’s not talking to me right now. I’m already a Christian; I did that already. I’m gonna scroll my phone through this Gospel section of the sermon because I’m already saved.” That’s a dangerous spot to be because we never get past our need for the good news of Jesus.
Do you have this righteousness right now? Do you have faith right now? Do you repent of your sin? It doesn’t matter if you prayed some prayer in the past if you’re not repenting today. What good is your baptism if you don’t have faith right now? Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling every single week when the Word of God is preached. Do you trust Jesus? Do you repent of your sin?
And if you do, then take heart because Jesus changes everything. You don't have to worry about making a name for yourself, you’ve been freed from that, you can turn to making much of Jesus. The money you make, the money you’ve saved, the job title you hold, these things will not last and they’re not as important as the world deceives you into believing. Don’t gain the whole world and lose your soul.
When you’re freed from being consumed with making a name for yourself and turn to making a name for Jesus then every little act of faithfulness matters. Every diaper you change, every encouraging conversation you have, every kids’ Sunday school class you help in, every day of faithfulness to your spouse, every humble apology, every Sunday you show up at church, even when you don’t feel like it, these are the things that matter. When you’re dead your money will belong to someone else. When you’re dead someone else will hold your job title. When you’re dead someone else will live in your house. Don’t waste your life trying to make a name for yourself.
Conclusion
I have no doubt that none of us are interested in making a name for ourselves by recreating the Tower of Babel and I assume most of us don’t really care whether we end up on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, but are you consumed with making a name for yourself? Is your heart driven by making a name for yourself at work, or in your community with the house you own or the car you drive? Do you feel like your name is safe based on how much money you have in the bank or who’s sitting in the Oval Office? The world wants you to believe that all of these things are the stars that pave your own personal Walk of Fame where you will make a name for yourself but on the last day they will all be revealed to be the boulevard of broken dreams.