Language An Expression of Community

Babel & the Gift of Language

Introduction: We are a people made to belong. Many are conscious of a desire to be a part of something larger, something embracing, something beyond oneself. When you “belong”, you can be said to be part of a community; the larger the community, the more a part of it you might feel. If you are not “in community”, the crowd highlights your separateness, that you are NOT a part of what’s going on.
Today, we look at HOW we experience community. TURN TO GENESIS 11

Review Last look, we drew out an underlying idea from the Story…God has a purpose for the city:
a. A place of refuge for Cain, a similar refuge today for the poor, the minority, all in need of protection.
b. A place to shine, to maximize one’s giftedness to the glory of God. [technology gains allowed Babel to be built higher with brick and mortar than could have been done with stones and tar]
c. A place to seek and find spiritual life.
i. Gen. 11:14—“…with its top in the heavens…”
ii. Acts 17:27—God places all people where they are most likely to seek Him.

Compels spiritual searching: Cities were places built around the highest tower, worshiping the god of that city.
Today: Toronto’s tallest temples are built by banks and brokerage houses;
it’s a place where money is venerated.
Ottawa’s landscape is dominated by the towers of Parliament:
it’s a city where power and influence is central.

We learned that the core difficulty of urban life is that we gather in the city to make names for ourselves. That weakness can be treated by resting in the fact that God names us himself, and by seeking to know the name which God has given us.

We experience true spiritual rest as we discover the name God has given us.

Today, we take a second look at the story of Babel and will learn that…
Language is a gift from God that enables TRUE community life.

Gen. 11:1 ¶ Now the whole earth used the same language and the same words.
Gen. 11:2 It came about as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.
Gen. 11:3 They said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly.” And they used brick for stone, and they used tar for mortar.
Gen. 11:4 They said, “Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”
Gen. 11:5 The LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built.
Gen. 11:6 The LORD said, “Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them.
Gen. 11:7 “Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.”
Gen. 11:8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of the whole earth; and they stopped building the city.
Gen. 11:9 Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of the whole earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of the whole earth.

This is a negative illustration of language as the means of community. Here the expression of our selfishness comes through our use of the gift of language.
We have all been victims of the selfish use of language. Our kids’ earliest words included the term: “MINE!”

I. We have Language because it is a gift from God and we are image bearers!
a. Language is a good gift from God.
b. Language marks us as made in the image of God.
i. This is one of those gifts that comes in the package.
ii. We speak, we understand, we think, we look to the future, we savour the present and the past, etc.
So then, how do we know that language is a gift from God?
Language comes from God:
he spoke and the world came into being; Gen 1
he spoke and gave a name to Adam Gen 2
Adam spoke and gave names to the animals Gen 2
he spoke and his people preserved his words for our benefit; Isa. 32
he names us and communicates his personal blessing by the act; Isa. 62; Rev.2
he gave us the gift of language as a means of reflecting his nature.
He names us/we name the animals and one another.
He speaks to us/we are to speak to Him and one another.
He speaks for all eternity/we speak and our words should endure through time.
Language comes from God.
We have Language because it is a gift from God as His image-bearers.

II. We best use Language when it glorifies God.
a. Our words express our thoughts.
i. Language gives us the ability to Express our thoughts.
ii. Our greatest thoughts concern the idea of God.

Without doubt, the mightiest thought the mind can entertain is the thought of God,
and the weightiest word in any language is its word for God.
The Knowledge of the Holy, A. W. Tozer.
b. God intends that language be used to highlight his glory.
1Pet. 4:11 Whoever speaks, is to do so as one who is speaking the utterances of God; whoever serves is to do so as one who is serving by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

APPLICATION: Read the Psalms! The Psalms use words to give praise to God in every imaginable circumstance—for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health.

We have Language because it is a gift from God, as His image-bearers.
We best use Language when it glorifies God.

III. Our Language glorifies God when it connects us.
a. When it connects us in true community.
i. True community begins in the Trinity.
1. John 17—as we are one.
2. John 17—may they be one.

From the Trinity, the exhortation of Paul derives its gravity…
ii. True community means we build one another up.
b. When it results in “building up one another.”

1Th. 5:11 Therefore encourage one another and build up one another, just as you also are doing.
Our words can be effective at weaving grace into another’s heart.
i. Mercy gifts transform a heart, convincing the hearer that God’s love transcends the pain of the moment.
ii. Exhortation gifts motivate a will to take action toward God and others where there is confusion and hesitation.
iii. Encouragement gifts move hands to obedience, where there is fear and paralysis.
iv. Admonishment gifts stimulate a mind to action, where temporal goals have overshadowed eternal good.

We have Language because it is a gift from God.
We best use Language when it glorifies God.
Our language glorifies God in true community.

IV. We misuse language when we seek to make a name for ourselves.
a. Thus, we are quite concerned that we not be misunderstood or that we appear blameworthy.
b. Thus, we think first about how our words might reflect on us.
c. We use language to glorify ourselves and to accumulate respect for ourselves.

V. Our problem.
a. Our problem is just like Isaiah’s.
b. We all need the divine solution given to Isaiah, who had seen the Holy One Whose Image Isaiah was to bear:
Isaiah 6:5 Then I said, “Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.”
6:6 ¶ Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with tongs.
6:7 He touched my mouth with it and said, “Behold, this has touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away and your sin is forgiven.”

a. 6:5 My lips are unclean
b. 6:7 this has touched your lips
c. 6:7 your guilt is atoned for.

COMMUNION: as the elements touch your lips, contemplate what they memorialize! You have been touched by the holiness of God’s own throne; you have been cleansed by the forgiveness of God through Christ’s death; you have been made new…your lips now release the very blessings of God.

Benediction:

Col. 4:6 Let your speech always be with grace, as though seasoned with salt, so that you will know how you should respond to each person.

LANGUAGE is a HIGH-IMPACT instrument.
May your conversation be motivated by grace, to develop the one with whom you speak.