Towers of Disappointment

Today on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Let us build a tower for ourselves for the glory of our name. And it is from that attitude that all sinful corruptions are going to emanate. Sin's wickedness begins not with the immorality of the act, but with the heart of pride behind the act. Welcome to another week of solid biblical teaching here on Summit Life with Pastor J.D.

Greer. As always, I'm your host, Molly Vidovitch, and we're so glad that you've joined us today. Have you ever started something new like a marriage or a career or even a new friendship and felt that excitement of the honeymoon phase? Everything seems perfect, like all your dreams are coming true.

Nothing could ever go wrong. But over time, that initial thrill fades and you realize it's not as perfect as you'd hoped. How should we handle those moments of disappointment?

What do we do when our hopes and dreams don't fulfill us like we thought they would? Pastor J.D. tackles those questions in today's message that he titled, Towers of Disappointment. Remember, if you miss any of our programs here on your station, you can catch up anytime at jdgreer.com. Now grab your Bible and turn to Genesis 11.

Here's Pastor J.D. Let me just start by asking you, how many of you speak another language besides English? Raise your hand, okay?

All right. How many of you speak two or more languages besides English with some level of proficiency? I know you feel proud. I'm giving you permission to brag. Three or more besides English?

Anybody put their hand up? When I got my PhD, I had to be reading proficient in four research languages, Greek, Hebrew, German, and Latin. Do not be too impressed by that, because if you put sentences in all four languages now in front of me, I could probably identify which language was which, but that is about the extent of what I remember. The only language that I really know besides English is Indonesian, and that has gotten pretty rusty over the years. I lived in Indonesia for two years. I think I've told you before that I had right next to zero language training before they dropped me off in a place where I was 100 miles from the nearest English speaker. When I landed there, I had two afternoons. I kid you not of language training. Those two afternoons meant that I could say, hi, my name is J.D. Where's your bathroom?

My house is on fire. That was the extent of my knowledge of the language. The kids taught me the language, which was great because the kids were so patient, and they didn't make fun of me a lot, but it also meant that I made a lot of mistakes because the kids did not give me vocabulary quizzes. So it led to situations, for example, like I was in a restaurant, and I'd sneeze four times, and I was starting to make a mess, and so I needed a Kleenex. I didn't know the word for Kleenex in Indonesian. That's a rather technical word if you ask me. So I did know the word for sneeze, and so I said to the waitress, who was probably 20, 25 feet away from me, excuse me, I need to sneeze, but I said, which means fornicate.

So it's not good in any culture to yell at a waitress that across the restaurant, but it is especially not good in a Muslim context when you are an American. All that kind of confusion, all that frustration, all that, you know, humor. It goes back to Genesis 11. According to the Bible, the multiplicity of languages was God's response to one of mankind's most spectacularly sinful displays.

It's an event that occurred really relatively early in recorded human history on the plains of Shinar, or modern day Iraq. It was the building of the Tower of Babel. Now, on the surface, when you read Genesis 11, it doesn't look like they've done anything horrifically evil.

They just built a tower. What's wrong with that? But it's going to give you a glimpse into the root causes of sin, and it's going to show you what makes sin sinful. It's going to show you why sin has such power over you. You ever wonder that, by the way?

Why is it that sin seems to control you so much that even when you decide you don't want to do it anymore, it's like you can't stop doing it? This story will give you some of the answers to that question. I'm going to use my friend Matt Carter's title here and call this story Towers of Disappointment, because that's exactly what these towers are. They're towers of disappointment.

If you've ever felt like life was disappointing in any way, maybe it's your marriage that's been disappointing, or maybe it's your job, or this stage of life that you're in, retirement, you thought was going to look different. I think you'll find an explanation for why that is in this story. I hope you'll see that what God was doing here at the Tower of Babel, he continues to do today in your life, which is one of the reasons why Genesis 11 is in the Bible. Genesis 11, verse 1, let me walk you through it here. Now the whole earth had one language at the time and the same words. And as people migrated from the east, they found a plane in the land of Shinar, again, modern day Iraq, and they settled there. And they said to one another, come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.

Now, two comments I want to make here. First, the fact that they wanted to stay put in this one area and not go anywhere is itself an act of disobedience. God had commanded them three times in Genesis to be fruitful and multiply all over the earth for his glory. I read that and I think, who would not want to obey that? Be fruitful and multiply sounds like have sex and travel.

It sounds like an awesome plan to me. But here's a little throwaway lesson for you. God always pushes his people to look outward, to multiply towards sending and giving and generosity. Sinful man always looks inward toward gathering and building for his security and for his glory. That's kind of a throwaway lesson.

Here's the more important lesson. Second thing, all right, what is it specifically that they want? They want a city.

Think of a city as a home or a place to belong. They want a tower whose top reaches to the heavens. Think of that as significance. They want to do something that matters. They want some level of permanence in their lives like they're doing something that is going to endure.

A great name. They want to be connected to greatness. These are the three desires that they have. Now, if you've read the book of Genesis up to this point, you know that ironically, God had given them all those things in the Garden of Eden.

A city. God was to be their home. It was in fellowship with him as where we got our sense of belonging.

A tower. We got our significance from doing his will. We were sons and daughters. We were servants and emissaries of the King of Kings.

A great name. The greatness we sought was supposed to come from being connected to God. But now mankind has rejected God and so having rejected God, they feel this void, this vacuum where they're created for these things that they don't have them. The first emotion that man felt after having sinned, a sense of shame over their nakedness. You know, the irony is they were naked before they sinned but their nakedness didn't bother them.

Why not? Well, it's because they felt clothed in the love and the acceptance of God. But now having stripped themselves of that love and acceptance, their heart has this gigantic vacuum in it and so they begin to reach out for other things to replace what God had once played in their heart. Sin is an attempt to find in something or someone else something that you should have found in God. That's what sin is. That's why it says that this tower reached up toward the heavens.

They're trying to get back what they'd once had in God. They're going to call this tower Babel. Babel which means literally the gate of God. So there's your first point if you're writing things down. Number one, sin attempts to build towers to heaven.

Sin attempts, it begins as an attempt to build a tower to heaven. Their desires for belonging, for security, for greatness. Those desires are not wrong. It's where they're choosing to look for them is where it's wrong. Now here we are several thousand years later.

People haven't changed that much. We still desire these same things, do we not? We want a city.

We want a place that we really feel safe. We want a group that we really feel like we belong to where we're cherished and loved and respected. Isn't that why family's so important to many of us? Or maybe it's why you want so badly to be accepted by the right group at your school. Maybe it's your peers in your career. You really want their respect. Maybe it's the academic community whose respect that you want because you want to belong. You want to be accepted.

You want a city. We want security. We want something that guarantees our safety. Isn't that why insurance is a trillion dollar industry in our country? Now I'm not saying there's anything wrong with insurance. I have it, of course, but sometimes you get the idea that people are looking to insurance to remove any possible danger from their lives. I saw a while back that for $118 a year, $118 a year, you can get alien insurance. That's not a joke. You can look it up. Now, I mean, if you have alien insurance, I'm not trying to offend you more power to you, but you get the idea that we're trying to say through insurance, I can be totally secure.

Nothing bad can ever happen to me. We want security. We want our lives to matter. It's why some people stress out so much over their careers or the lack of progress in their career. We want to be connected to greatness. We want to be connected.

I don't care who you are. That's why you name drop whenever you've met somebody famous or you're in the same room with somebody famous. I'll give you one from my own life just to show you. Recently, a friend sent me this picture. You see this? That's me photobombing Jeb Bush. See that right there?

A friend snaps that picture, sends it to me. How long do you think it took from the time that landed on my phone to the time I tweeted it out for the entire world to see? Seconds is how long it took because I want to be connected to greatness. I want to be important. Now, there's nothing wrong with the desires for security and for belonging and significance and greatness.

It's where we chose to look for them primarily that became wrong. Y'all listen, one of the greatest and most liberating discoveries of my life was realizing that all my life, all my life, I've been reaching out for and yearning for God even when I didn't know what I was looking for. There was this yearning I experienced when I was a kid. I did not know how to articulate it then, but I yearn for something that I tasted in the security of my parents' home and that I tasted in the affections of their love for me.

It was why I was terrified at the thought of them dying or the thought that somehow I'd be taken away from them. I felt this kind of yearning again in my desire to meet that special somebody who would just think the world of me and would make me the center of their world, that would make them the center of mine. I sometimes experience that yearning in the adventure of foreign travel. You guys know that foreign travel is never as good as the excitement and anticipation leading up to it. Sometimes I feel that yearning when I'm at a church service and then we'll just be in here and they'll just be the worship and I'll just feel this yearning for something like I'm not quite there yet, like I'm not home, or when I see the sunset over the seemingly endless horizon of the beach. These experiences are all great. They're like my favorite things in life, but it's like they're calling out to me, reaching.

There's something beyond them that I'm just yearning for. As usual, C.S. Lewis says it much better than me, and you can make an argument that 90 percent of my sermons are rephrasing of what C.S. Lewis has said somewhere. Here it is. Here's what he said. Look at this.

The books of the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust in them. It was never in them. It was never in them. It only came through them.

You understand? That's a huge distinction. The beauty that we yearn for was never in the romance. It was never in the art.

It was never in the sunset. It just came through, and what came through them was longing. These things, the beauty, the memory of our own past, that cherished memory we have with our parents or one of our parents are good images of what we really desire, but if they are mistaken for the thing itself, they turn into dumb idols. Idol means replacement for God. Dumb means they can't even speak, breaking the hearts of their worshipers, for they are not the thing itself. They're only the scent of a flower we've not found yet.

They're the echo of a tune we've never heard. And that's just a fancy way of saying memorizing His Word. Scripture helps us stay in step with God, and it requires intentionality. That's why, once again, we've created a set of 52 memory verse cards to help you carry God's promises with you each day this next year.

Memorizing Scripture can be a powerful step toward not just knowing about God, but truly embracing His presence and promises in your life. With your gift of $45 to the ministry this month, we'll send you the set as our way of saying thanks. Your support is essential to the health of summit life, so thanks for joining with us in 2025.

To give, call 866-335-5220, or visit JDGrier.com. Now let's return for the conclusion of today's teaching. Once again, here's Pastor JD. Louis said that when you experience the blessing of something like romance or... He even said good food. He said it's like a ray of sunshine that's warming your face and you feel the warmth and you sense the light and you look back up along the ray to the sun from which it emanates. He said all these things that you love in life are messages to you of a God from whom they emanate.

They're like rays of the sun. He said marriage is the ray. God's love is the ocean. A good marriage, that is the stream. God's love is the fountain. A good marriage is a drop. God's love is the ocean.

A good marriage is the shadow. God's love is the substance. I'm telling you, it would absolutely revolutionize your life if you realize that every tower you've ever built in your life, whether your career or the romance, whether your self-image, was an attempt to regain something that God had designed to give you in himself. I recently read that even pornography is driven by this desire to take beauty into ourselves.

Yes, it's just lust, but it's more than that. I want to possess beauty. Sin attempts to build towers to heaven. That's number one.

Let's keep moving. Verse five. So the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the children of men have built. By the way, that's another, that's a play on words in Hebrew because came down, you know, they're trying to build the tower up. Came down is a very condescending kind of like, it's very like a, it's like a diminutive term. So it's like the Lord is saying, oh, they're trying to build a tower to heaven.

Let's go down and see what the little gerbils are up to. So he came way down to see what the children of man have built. Verse six. And the Lord said, behold, they're one people and they all have one language. And this is only the beginning of what they will do.

And nothing that they propose to do now will be impossible for them. What he's saying is from this, from this heart that is expressed in the building of this tower is going to come every kind of corruption, every kind of wickedness, every kind of evil is going to grow out of this. So there's your second point there. Number two, sins root. All sins, the root is by my will and my strength for my glory. And again, what they're looking for, security, significance and greatness is not wrong. It's just that they were supposed to get those things through depending on God. But now instead of depending on God for these things, they want to do it for themselves in their own way, by their own strength.

And so they get the glory. Let us build a tower for ourselves, for the glory of our name. And it is from that attitude that all sinful corruptions are going to emanate. Sins wickedness begins not with the immorality of the act, but with the heart of pride behind the act. That's why God says this tower is going to become the source of immeasurable amounts of sin. In the book of Revelation, Babylon and the going into the battle of Armageddon is going to be the symbol of man's united front against God. And after the battle's over, the angel stands up and says, fallen, fallen is Babylon or Babel, same word, the great. She's become a dwelling place for demons. For all the nations have drunk the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality. Now in Genesis 11, there's nothing about demons or sexual immorality, but these are things, these are demon influenced things, violence, oppression, sexual immorality are all fruits of sin, but it's this heart of pride that is the root of sin.

That goes back to Genesis 11. Listen, I know Revelation can be a wickedly confusing book. And some of you've tried to read it before and you got lost in all the locusts and the bowls of blood. I'm a professional, which means I can take you in safely and out so that you don't get left behind. Okay.

That's what I do. But what you got to know is that there's two cities being built in the book of Revelation. One's the city of man, Babylon, by my will, in my strength, for my glory. And the other is the city that is being built by God.

Okay. So the heart behind all sin goes back to this posture of pride. By the way, Satan himself. How did Satan become Satan?

Here's how Satan became Satan. Isaiah tells you, good question. You said in your heart, I will ascend to heaven.

Talking about Satan. Above the stars of God, I'll set my throne on high. I'll sit on the Mount of the assembly and the far reaches of the North. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will make myself like the most high. Now, what phrase do you hear repeated over and over and over again throughout there?

I will. Satan didn't become Satan because he, you know, chopped up baby puppy angels and, you know, drink their blood. Satan became Satan because he said, I want to do it by my will, in my strength, for my glory. So let me just ask you for a minute. What's in the core of your heart? I'm not asking if you're religious. I'm not asking if you're moral. That's what people always go to.

And it's totally the wrong question. Cause it is possible to be very religious and to be very moral and have a heart that is dominated by, by my will and my strength and for my glory. It is possible for you to get really good grades, but do it by your will and your strength and for your glory. And by the way, the straight A student who is very moral, who is doing it by his will and his strength and for his glory is closer to the heart of Satan than the guy that's knocking on the door of the prostitute. It is very possible for you to build a business, a good business, an equitable and fair business in your strength, by your will, for your glory. It's very possible to be religious in your strength, by your will, for your own glory. You want to know how you can know that you're dominated by that heart of I will and pride?

C.S. Lewis said that there is one tell tale sign for how you can know that there is one litmus test that will every single time tell you that you walk in pride, jealousy toward others, because you're always comparing your tower to their tower. Pride is, Lewis says, in its very essence, competitive. That's why he said, proud people can never get along. You ever noticed that people with other sins and vices like to hang around people who do the same sins? Drunks like to hang out together. Immoral people like to get together and swap stories.

Drug addicts like to hang out together. People who are proud, Lewis says, always hate each other because their pride is always in conflict with somebody else's pride. To pride, it does not matter that I'm smart, only that I'm smarter than you. It does not matter if I'm athletic or good looking. It only matters that I'm more athletic and better looking and richer than you are.

C.S. Lewis says the quickest way to tell that you have pride is that somebody else's pride bothers you because pride is always in competition. That's why their pride takes you on. It irks you when that person, that other person, gets the good grade or they get the new car or their kid goes to school on scholarship because, oh, now you know that they just think they're something and everybody else thinks they're something. And the fact that they think they're something means they're not thinking that you're something and you really want to be something.

But the fact that they're something means you're less of something and they've taken their something that's away from you and that takes you off. I really want it to be by my will, in my strength, for my glory. To get at really what's going on in your heart, do not ask how moral you are or how religious you are.

That's completely the wrong question. Whose will are you living by? Yours or God's? Whose strength do you attempt to meet each day with? Do you attempt to meet each day with your strength or God's strength? Whose glory are you more concerned about? Is it your glory or God's?

When I was in Sunday school, I was taught it this way. In every heart, there's a throne and a cross. If you're on the throne, Jesus is going to have to be on the cross. But if Jesus is going to be on the throne, you're going to be on the cross. In your heart, there's only one person that's calling the shots. There's only one person whose strength is making it happen. And only one person whose glory is being pursued.

And it's either yours or Jesus' which is it? Let's keep moving. Let's keep reading. Verse 7, come, let us go down and confuse their language so they may not understand one another's speech. I mean, imagine when this happened. What chaos? What kind of chaos?

I mean, the words all change their meanings. So verse 8, the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. Number 3, sin leaves rotting towers of disappointment in your life. It's interesting to me that God does not tear down their tower. That's what I would have done. I'd torn it down. But God leaves it there decaying, falling apart, rotting as a message. Now, let me ask you a question. This deal here where He scatters them and leaves their towers to decay, is that judgment or is that mercy?

Both. It's judgment, but it's an ounce of judgment with a pound of mercy. Because what God is doing is try to wake them up before they make decisions that they can never come back from and that are eternally too late. You understand that every judgment before the ultimate judgment is actually mercy. Because what God is trying to do is wake you up off of a path to get you to come back from it before you can't. That would change how you saw a lot of what happened in your life if you started to see that the towers of disappointment in your life were left there by God as monuments to tell you, don't go down that path. That's such an important shift, seeing towers of disappointment as monuments of warning. You're listening to Summit Life with Pastor J.D.

Greer. We're just over a week into our new study called The Whole Story, and there's so much more to come. Over the next few months, we'll journey all the way to revelation. So Pastor J.D., here at Summit Life, we are all about practical faith. What's one simple but foundational step we can take to grow in our faith and thrive in our day to day lives outside of Sunday church? Yeah, Molly, that's a great question. It's kind of the heart of Summit Life because obviously we're not a church and I hope that you are very involved in a church.

But through hearing messages like this, that's where your life really begins to change. And one of the reasons that we start off every year by offering these scripture memory cards is because this is a way that you can get God's Word into your heart. They're a little, you know, two and a half by three and a half inches. They're perfect for sticking on the fridge, tucking in your wallet. This is one of my favorite tools to use in my own life with my family for dinner devotions and just to have around. So we would love to be able to put these in your hands so that you can experience what we experience. So just reach out to us at jdgreer.com.

We'd love to get this started for you. We'd love for you to request our newest Summit Life resource when you give $45 or more today to support this ministry. Ask for your set of scripture memory cards by calling 866-335-5220.

That's 866-335-5220. Or request them when you give online or when you make your first gift as a monthly gospel partner at jdgreer.com. I'm Molly Vidovich inviting you to join us Tuesday. Pastor JD reveals why the good things in life never satisfy us the way we expected. Discover the only true source of security and significance. Tuesday on Summit Life with JD Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by JD Greer Ministries.