The Nations

Here's another question for us. Looking around this room, looking at the world, we see a lot of different nations, ethnicities, language, peoples represented.

! And looking out our windows, reading the news, we see nations in conflict. Where do all the nations come from? What is God's purpose for the nations, for all these different people groups?

So today, we've been going through the book of Genesis recently, and we read how in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. It was good.

There was the Garden of Eden, paradise. But we sinned. Adam and Eve, they ate the fruit of the tree. And sin just got worse and worse and worse, to the point that God decided to wipe out, destroy the earth with a flood.

But yet, he preserved humanity through Noah, his family in an ark. The flood destroyed the earth, but the flood didn't destroy sin. Just as the ark preserved Noah and his family, sin was preserved in their hearts.

Their hearts was an ark for sin. Sin survived the flood because the human heart survived. And we know that reading that strange story at the end of chapter 9, where Noah ended up drunk and naked, and his son humiliated him, disrespected him.

That was a weird story. But we see that God wiped out the earth with a flood, but the flood didn't eliminate sin. And yet, after the flood, God made a covenant. He puts his bow in the sky, the rainbow, and promised never again to destroy the earth.

And he repeats his blessing from Genesis 1 to humanity. Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth. Even though God knows we are still sinners, sin reigns in our hearts.

We're still loved by God. We're people made in his image, and he still has that mandate to us. Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth. That's where we left off in Genesis chapter 9.

There's Noah's family, eight people, Noah, his three sons, and their wives, with God's blessing to fill the earth. Now, fast forward today to 2026. It's not just eight people, but over eight billion people spread across all seven continents.

Over 10,000 different ethnic groups, people groups, speaking over 7,000 different languages. One family turned into a multitude of nations.

And today, we're going to look at Genesis chapters 10 and 11. And we'll see today, where did all these nations come from? Where did all these different people groups come from? And what is God's plan for the nations?

Today, we'll read from that famous story of the Tower of Babel. When mankind came together in rebellion against God. They wanted to build a tower, so that they could stick together to make a name for themselves. But God frustrated their plans, confused their languages, and scattered them.

And that's when all these nations split off. Also, the Tower of Babel is sandwiched between two genealogies. Several weeks ago, we went through one genealogy in Genesis chapter 5.

We're in luck today, because we got two genealogies to go through. We got a genealogy sandwich. Sometimes, even if the bread is dry, you need it for the sandwich. And we believe that the word of God has something to speak to us today, through these genealogies.

And we'll see that God has a good purpose for the nations, for us. We are part of the nations. Even though we all sin, and we turn our backs against God, he is sovereign.

He has a good plan. And he will accomplish, he will surely accomplish that purpose. To redeem all people from every tribe, nation, and tongue, through Jesus Christ.

For the praise of his glory. That's what we'll see today. And so let's stand as we read the word of God together. We won't read all of it. I'll read a bit from the end of chapter 10, and some verses from chapter 11 also.

I'll start from Genesis chapter 10, verse 32. These are the clans of the sons of Noah, according to their genealogies in their nations.

And from these, the nations spread abroad on the earth after the flood. Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And as the people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.

And they said to one another, come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, 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. And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. And the Lord said, behold, they are 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 will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down there and confuse their language so that they may not understand one another's speech.

So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth. And they left off building the city. Therefore, its name was called Babel because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth.

And from there, the Lord dispersed them over the face of all the earth. Skip to verse 27. Now these are the generations of Tara. Tara fathered Abram, Nahor and Haran and Haran fathered Lot.

Haran died in the presence of his father, Tara, in the land of his kindred in Ur of the Chaldeans. And Abram and Nahor took wives. The name of Abram's wife was Sarai and the name of Nahor's wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father Milcah and Iscah.

Now, Sarah was barren. She had no child. Tara took Abram, his son, and Lot, the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarah, his daughter-in-law, and his son, Abram's wife.

And they went forth together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan. But when they came to Haran, they settled there. The days of Tara were 205 years and Tara died in Haran.

This is the word of the Lord. Please take a seat. We'll start today from chapter 10. This chapter is sometimes called the table of nations.

The table of nations. It's a genealogy. It's a list of the families and all the nations descended from Noah's sons. There's a lot of names, 70 of them. And actually, it's not all the nations, but 70 of them representing all the nations descended from Noah.

And there's a lot of historical and archeological context that we could look into. There's a lot of names we can look into. But today, rather than zooming in and looking into every single detail, we'll take a step back and look at one overarching point that this table shows us.

And that is that God shows mercy to rebellious nations. God shows mercy to sinners. He is good to sinners. In the table of nations, we see that the nations, everybody in the whole world is in rebellion towards God.

Yet, he is merciful and he has a good plan to redeem us all. And to clarify, when I say nations, and also in the New Testament, when we read that word nations, for example, in the Great Commission, go and make disciples of all nations.

That word nations, when we say that, it's more than just countries. We know the UN recognizes 195 countries. That number may be disputed, but we're not talking about countries, nations in that term.

In the table of nations, it describes in verse five, for example, peoples, the coastland peoples, spread in their lands, each with his own language, by their clans in their nations.

By nations referring to this association by their lands, by location, sharing a common language and ethnic background. That's what we're describing. And point is that God has a good purpose for people from every nation, tribe and tongue.

And first, we see this in the order of events in Genesis. The order of events in Genesis chapter 10 and 11, it's pretty interesting. Because here in the table of nations, we see people spreading out.

We just read that in their own lands, each with their own language, by their clans in their nations in verse five. In chapter 10, the nations are already scattered with divided languages and ethnicities.

But if you look forward to chapter 11, verse one, when they were building the Tower of Babel, it says, Now the whole earth had one language and the same words.

They were united at that point. So these two chapters are out of order. The table nations is pulled forward ahead of what happened at Babel. The Tower of Babel is a flashback showing when the nation spread, how that happened.

And that must be intentional. If Moses went out of his way to change the order, there must be a reason. It's like how Titanic starts with the scene of hundred year old bros. And then there's a flashback to how she met Jack.

Christopher Nolan did that for a reason. That wasn't an accident. And the reason that many commentators say I agree is that because we pull forward the table of nations, it's because God wants us to see his good purposes for the nation scattering and dispersing over all the face of the earth.

At Babel, we'll read later, God confused their language and scattered the nations in judgment because they rebelled against him and tried to build a tower united in rebellion against him.

So if the table of nations came after that, we would see this dispersion as God's judgment and the consequence of their sin. But in pulling this forward, the scattering of the nations is linked not to God's judgment, but to God's blessing.

The nation scattered because of God's blessing to Noah in chapter nine, verse one, be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth. The fact that mankind was fruitful. And today we have over 8 billion people in all corners of the earth, over seven continents.

That's God's blessing to us. He has a good plan for the nations, even when they're rebelling against him. It's not just in the order. But last week we read that strange story at the end of chapter nine where Noah passed out.

He was naked and drunk and his one son Ham came and disgraced him, mocked him. And as a result, Noah curses Ham's son Canaan. And that's in chapter nine, verse 25.

Curse be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers. And at the same time, Noah blesses the other two sons, Shem and Japheth, but has nothing good to say about that son Ham.

Yet, when we look in chapter 10 in this table of nations, if you take account, Ham has more descendants mentioned than either of his other two brothers.

Even though Noah didn't bless Ham, even though Noah cursed Canaan, Ham has more descendants mentioned here in this table. And also Canaan, who was specifically cursed by Noah, he has 11 descendants mentioned.

That's the second most out of anybody in this list. So we see despite his sin, despite Ham's sin, despite Noah's curse, God's blessing is upon Ham, upon the nations, upon a rebellious people.

And to top it off, Ham has a grandson called Nimrod. In the genealogy before the flood that we read a few weeks ago in chapter five, it said, At that time, people began to call on the name of the Lord.

And in that list, we read that Enoch walked with God. It was Enoch who walked with God. Looking here, nobody walked with God. Actually, the only mention of the Lord here is in describing Nimrod in verse nine.

He's described as this mighty man, a mighty hunter before the Lord, which I think is said sarcastically. What we know about Nimrod is that in verse 10, it says here that the beginning of his kingdom was Babel.

That city of rebellion. Also later known as Babylon in the Bible. The city of rebellion against God. That's what Nimrod's kingdom is founded upon. Nimrod also built Nineveh, the capital city of Assyria, which was one of the most brutal, violent civilizations of all time in history.

And they were ones that oppressed Israel. There's no Enoch here in this list who walked with God. There's only brutal, violent Nimrod. And yet God blesses these rebellious people.

Why does he do that? Can you see God's mercy and grace here to undeserving sinners? Sin survived the flood, but God still decides to bless sinners.

Sometimes we like to ask, why does God allow bad things to happen to good people? Like I'm not too bad. Why did God allow me to lose that job? I'm a nice guy.

Why did God allow that sickness? But in reading this, I find myself asking instead, why does God do good things to bad people? Why does God bless sinners to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth just so that we can fill the earth, his creation with our sin?

Why did he hang the bow in his, his bow in the sky rather than just shooting us again? That's the real question. And we know God will judge sin. One day he will bring punishment and wrath for sin.

But God doesn't choose to characterize himself by his wrath. What he says instead is he is the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

God loves his enemies. He makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good. He sends rain on the just and on the unjust. He's patient towards us, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

That's our God. He's slow to anger, but quick to love. And so the nations, rebellious nations were fruitful, multiplied, filled the earth.

God has a good plan for the nations. And now let's, let's see how that happened. Let's look at the Tower of Babel. So this again, Tower of Babel is a backstory to what we just read.

If chapter 10 were a fight scene in a movie, Babel is that childhood flashback of the hero. This is the backstory of how the nations got dispersed. And as with most flashbacks, there's this problem going on.

Let's see that in chapter 11, verse one, it says the whole earth had one language and the same words. And as people migrated from the east, they found a plane in the land of Shinar and settled there. And again, we see there in the east, just as Adam and Eve were driven east of Eden and Cain went further east.

East of Eden, these people, they repeat Adam's sin from Genesis three. There's that same mistrust of God, the same rebellion against God. The flood didn't wipe away our sin.

It remained in our hearts, including our hearts today. And at the Tower of Babel and building the Tower of Babel, we'll see they were rebelling against God, wanting to stick together.

They built this tower to unite themselves, to stick together, rather than to take hold of that blessing God gave them and fill the earth, to be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth.

And as we read this, we can also reflect on how we share that heart. We turn our backs to God. But also in that, we can rest on the fact that God is sovereign, even over our sin, and He redeems it all for a good purpose.

In verse three, they say to one another, Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly. In verse four, come, let us build ourselves a city. Let us make a name for ourselves.

Let us do this. Let us do that. It doesn't matter what God says. It doesn't matter what God wants. They say, let's do what we want. Just as Eve saw that the fruit was good to eat and she ate it.

Let's do what we want. That desire for autonomy, self-determination. Don't we have that for ourselves also? That when it feels right, if it gives me pleasure, come, let us do this for ourselves, regardless of what God says.

And notice their motivations. First, it's out of pride. Let us make a name for ourselves. They want fame, recognition, honor. The first thing that Noah did when he stepped out of the ark was build an altar.

That's not what they're building here. They want to build a monument, not for God, but to their own greatness. It's for their name, to make their name great. I think of world leaders today obsessed with building monuments or stamping their name on things.

I think also of our desire for recognition, maybe to be known as executive director, managing director. Have that board seat. To be making more money than the person next to you.

Do we crave the approval of others? Do we want to make a name for ourselves in the eyes of others? To be hardworking, to be funny, to be relatable, to fit in along with them?

Do we still have that same desire for recognition, for fame? And secondly, they act out of defiant fear. In verse four, they say, let's do all this lest we be dispersed over the face of the earth.

Let us build so that we won't be dispersed across the face of the earth. Remember what God said to them. Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth. They're acting in defiance of that.

They're rebelling not just against God's command, but against his blessing. They're not taking hold of that blessing God gave them to fill the earth. And instead of receiving God's blessing, they'd rather work for their own security.

They'd rather work to take care of their fears. They think that if we have this tower, then we will be safe. We will be secure. If we work hard and build this, we won't have to fear anymore. For us, where do we look for that security?

Maybe if I land this job, then I'll be taken care of. If I save up enough, I can secure my future. I can work and build this tower and secure a future for myself. If I can find someone, get married, have a family, then I will be happy.

When God says to us, I will never leave you or forsake you. Do we also turn away from the promises of God and instead look to work and build towers so that we won't have to fear and so that we can be secure?

And so because of that, they build. They work hard only to shoot themselves in the foot because everything that they do, all their efforts, it actually backfires on them. We see in verse five, the Lord came down to see the tower, the city and the tower, which the children of man had built.

The Lord came down. But remember the ambition. It said earlier, let's build a tower with the top in the heavens, with its top in the heavens. We're going to be the greatest in the world.

We're going to build a tower with the top in the heavens. But to God, their greatest efforts were so small, so minuscule, he had to come down just to see it.

Imagine the toddlers we just sent off to Crest. They decide in their class to build a tower. They take some toy blocks. They stack them up as high as they can. They get up on their little tippy toes.

They do a big stretch to put that last block on top. Good job, kids. Their tallest tower is going to be this high to us.

This high in Admiralty Center. We have to come down, crouch down just to see it, to admire it. If you read too loud, it's all falling down. That's the same thing.

God, the Lord, had to come down to see what the children of man built, to see their tower. And that's what God sees when he looks at humanity's greatest accomplishments. The foolishness of God is wiser than men.

The weakness of God is stronger than men. Our latest, greatest breakthroughs, our most advanced technology, they are just a speck of dust in his hands. If we think we can build a tower that reaches up to the heavens and makes ourselves God, we're delusional.

The Lord stoops down to see what we've built. And so in verse seven, God also says, come, let us go down and there confuse their language so that they may not understand one another's speech.

So while these guys are building a tower, like, hey, Larry, can you give me the hammer? Okay, sure, Carl. Here you go. Oh, Larry, can you give me that brick? What? What? What?

What? What? What? What? What? What? That's what happens. God confused their language as they are in this middle of their building project.

That's going to reach up to the heavens. God confused their language. And just like that, all their plans fell apart. Remember that desire for recognition also?

Let us make a name for ourselves. Let's make a name for ourselves. We are going to be great. To that, God says, okay, sure. You can have a name. Your name is confusion.

Your name is Babel. That's in verse nine. Therefore, its name was called Babel because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth. The word, the name Babel is related to the word for confused confusion.

These people, they wanted a legacy. They got one. The name they made for themselves, their legacy. The only thing they're remembered for in the Bible is the day that the Lord came down, confused them, put them to shame and glorified his name.

That's the name they made for themselves. Babel, confusion. Remember also that desire for safety. Let us build so that we won't be dispersed, so that we won't be dispersed in the face of all the earth.

At the end, what happens? Their very efforts are what caused God to step in, confuse their language and disperse them over the face of the earth. They wanted to reach the heavens.

God had to come down. They wanted a name. They got a name of shame. They wanted to stick together and they got dispersed. And that's what happens when we turn our backs to God and build our own towers. Every brick we put up falls down.

That's the backstory behind the creation of the nations. How different tribes, languages, nations came to be. God saw the rebellion of Babel and scattered them. But I want us to see this also.

Even in judgment, God had a good purpose. God had a reason for why he confused them. We see in verse six, behold, there are one people and they have all one. And they have all one language.

And this is only the beginning of what they will do. Nothing they propose to do now will be impossible for them. That's why God stepped in to confuse them. In saying that, God wasn't threatened by their rebellion.

He wasn't scared that they would build a tower that would reach up to him and take over his kingdom. What God was concerned about is that they would keep running down the same path further and further from him.

This is only the beginning. If God left them alone, unchecked, humanity would have continued even more united in arrogance, in self-confidence, in pride, in self-reliance, continuing to think that they didn't need God and could rely on the work of their hands.

That they could reach up to the heavens and reach God. And so God stepped in to restrain sin. God wasn't just punishing them, judging them. He was saving them from themselves.

Forcing them to fulfill his blessing to fill the earth. Even in judgment, God has a good plan for the nations. And to see what that is, let's move on to that last genealogy for today.

In second half of chapter 11. So for 11 chapters of Genesis, we've been looking at Genesis. These 11 chapters, Genesis has been using a really wide-angled lens.

It's zoomed out, showing us the whole world from creation to the fall to the flood. These universal events affecting the whole world. Nations filling the whole earth. But at this end of the chapter, at the end of this chapter, at the end of chapter 11, we're going to transition to a new section of Genesis.

Where from this wide-angled view, we're going to zoom in on just one family. We're going to zoom in, slow down, and focus on one family. We spent 11 chapters in Genesis going over 20 generations.

The rest of Genesis now, 39 chapters, will slow down and focus on just three generations. Out of 70 nations, Genesis, God focuses his efforts on one nation, one family.

And in the genealogy, we see Shem, Father Sheila, who fathered Apakshad, who fathered Eber. Eber, by the way, is where we get that word Hebrew from.

Shem is where we get the words Semitic, the Semitic peoples and languages from. Eber, the Hebrew people. Who fathered Peleg, who fathered Reu, who fathered Searug, who fathered Nahor, who fathered Terah, who fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

And reading this genealogy, imagine the camera zooming in from all the nations of the world onto one family, one man, Abram.

And you may be more familiar with the name that God gives him later, which is Abraham. The God's blessing for all nations will come through, passed down through one man, Abram, Abraham.

And if you jump ahead with me to chapter 12, verse three, God promises Abraham, Abram, I will make of you a great nation. And I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing.

And this blessing isn't just for Abram, but God says to him, in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Through you, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed through Abraham.

Now look who God chooses. God chooses the least likely. We think of Abraham as a giant of faith. Someone who really trusted God, believed in God.

A giant of the faith. And that is true. He becomes that. But here he's not the strongest and mightiest of the nations God created. Look at Abram's situation. He's actually in a pretty dire spot.

In verse 28, Abram's brother, Haran, died and left two daughters orphaned. He has his brother who died, orphaned nieces.

And on top of that, verse 30 says that Abram's wife, Sarai, was barren. She had no child. Even today, being barren, that can be heartbreaking today. That's especially true in Abram's time, where having children is so important for your survival, for your legacy.

So Sarai being barren was a really big deal to Abram and his family. And we talk about Abram being the father of faith. But Abram here, at this point, wasn't especially righteous. In Joshua chapter 24, verse 2, he said to Israel, He said to Israel, God says to Israel, Your ancestors, including Terah, the father of Abraham, worshipped other gods.

The Bible says that Abram came from a family that worshipped other gods. The place that they lived, Ur of the Chaldeans, was known for worshipping the moon. And some commentators say that the names of Abram's family is related to the worship of the moon.

So probably, likely, Abram's family worshipped the moon, if not other gods. They definitely worshipped other gods. Out of all the nations of the earth, God chooses this wandering, old, childless couple from a family of pagan moon worshippers.

God didn't choose Abram because he was the most holy. He prayed and read the Bible more than everyone else. God chose someone who didn't earn his grace, who didn't deserve his grace, for his good purposes.

And that's also true for how God would save the nations. Because of course, the story doesn't end at Abram. If we keep moving on past Noah, past Shem, past Abram, we eventually find our way to Jesus.

Jesus is the offspring of Abram, through whom all the families of the earth will be blessed. And that's good for us, because I think not many of us here are descended from Abraham. But through Jesus, we are blessed.

At Babel, they wanted to build a tower with the tops in the heavens, to reach their way up to God, to work their way up to him. But in Christ, God came down to us.

He humbled himself, took the form of a servant, and was born as man. The way to God isn't by our efforts to build up, but through the cross. We don't work our way to heaven. But simply, God says, if we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believed in our hearts that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Just like how Abram didn't deserve it, we are saved by grace through faith apart from works. God doesn't choose the most holy, the strongest people. We are saved just by faith.

At Babel, they wanted to make their name great. But just as God said to Abram, I will make your name great. In Christ, the Father, he calls us sons of God.

We're raised with Christ, seated with him in the heavenly places. We are co-heirs with Christ. Given, and he is given the name above every name. At Babel, the nations were confused and dispersed.

But after Jesus rose from the dead and ascended to heaven, God reversed the curse. In Acts 2 at Pentecost, God poured out his spirit on all flesh in the crowds of Jerusalem.

Everyone hears the good news in their own native languages, in their own native tongue. And in that, we see God's plan for the nations. God's purpose for the nations.

God's purpose for Babel. Jesus doesn't reverse Babel and make us all the same. Unite us that way. Rather, God redeems Babel and turns our rebellion for good.

The judgment of God in confusing and scattering the nations was for good. To contribute to the praise of his glory by people from every tribe, nation, and tongue. That's what we see when we turn to the end of our Bibles to Revelation 7, verse 9.

We see, it says this, Behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.

That's God's plan for Babel. God is gathering for himself worshipers from different walks of life, different ethnicities, speaking different languages from different backgrounds, from all places of the world.

Jesus doesn't just erase our cultures or languages. God's plan for the nations is not to unite us because we're all the same, but his plan is to take a diverse people and unite them in one body with one shared mission, and that is the praise of his glory, redeemed in one spirit, in one body.

If we were all the same without Babel, it's like listening to maybe a hundred violins all playing the same note. It's still music. It might still sound good, but it's one dimensional.

God's design for Babel is to create for himself this orchestra that every culture has something unique, has a unique perspective from our different walks of life, different cultures playing different instruments, all in one rich harmony of different languages, singing one united song of praise to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, that despite everywhere we've been, all the corners of the earth, there's one universal truth, and that salvation belongs to our God. We all rebelled and Christ redeemed us all.

God scattered the nations to fill the earth and build these unique cultures, unique languages, because only then can we even come close to adequately singing his praises.

I mean, try with our own experiences in our own languages, with our own culture. I can't fully, I can't find myself to have the words to fully express the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God.

When we think of the glory of God, he is so much bigger than that. I find that I don't have the words to fully sing his praises. I don't have the perspective to fully understand every facet of his glory.

God is greater than that. And that's why he's gathering for himself diverse nations, each culture, with something different. Each culture, with something unique. I'm not going to list things out at risk of stereotyping, but each culture has something unique, a different perspective of God's multifaceted glory.

And so he says in Psalm chapter, Psalm 67 verse 4, Let the nations be glad and sing for joy. Let the nations, all nations, every nation, tribe and tongue, let them be glad and sing for joy.

Because he is God of all the earth. He's God of the nations. That's God's plan. All the nations of the earth are redeemed through the one man, Jesus Christ.

And so, how should we respond today? Or something is, how should we respond today? First, to think of Babel. Don't trust in our efforts. Don't trust in Babel.

Let's stop trying to build our own towers. We don't need to exhaust ourselves. Trying to reach heaven on our own merit. To make a name for ourselves. To find security in our finances, our career, our status and recognition.

God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Let's put down our bricks and just trust the finished work of Christ on the cross. And second, if God's heart is for the nations, let ours be also. Jesus gave us the great commission.

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations. Baptizing them, teaching them all I've commanded you. And I'm with you to the end of the age.

Our church leadership team, we got together recently and discussed next season for our church. It's time to think about more what it means to scatter here in Hong Kong and to the ends of the earth. We'll share more about this in the summer. But for now, I want to feel in our hearts that the glory of God must fill the Lord.

God must fill the whole earth. Every tribe, nation and tongue must worship him. People in Hong Kong and to the ends of the earth must worship him. He deserves the praise of the nations. And let us look forward to the day when we see that happen in fullness.

When we see that happen face to face. And lastly, remember that we are the nations. We are the rebellious ones that God redeemed back to him. We are the ones who are far off without hope, without God in this world.

Strangers to the covenants of promise. But we've been brought near through the blood of Christ. So let the nations, let us be glad and sing for joy. Salvation belongs to our God.

Let everything that has breath, let us praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Let's do that. I'm going to invite the worship team to come up and we'll pray together.

God, we praise you. You are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, bounding in steadfast love and mercy.

It's only because of your mercy and grace that we are here today. We don't deserve to know you. We turned our backs to you.

Thank you that we are your children in Christ. That we have been justified by faith. Peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

And yeah, we pray that we would just respond in worship to you. See that you deserve the praise. You deserve the glory. To look forward to that day when you return.

And we will be able to worship you with people from every tribe, nation and tongue. A thousand generations falling down in worship. Worship of your name. Not our name.

Not the name that we make for ourselves. But for your name. You make a name for ourselves. We are children of God. Thank you, Jesus. We pray in his name. Amen. Amen.

So Lord, we go in your power. We go in your might. Lord, we know that you are with us. So we carry that with us as we go into this week, Lord.

Continue to speak to us. Show your face to us, Lord. May we never want to wander or leave your presence, Lord. But God, would we relish it?

Would we hold it dear to us, Lord? So Holy Spirit, go before us this week. Help us to bear the fruits of the Spirit in all things that we do.

Help us to be your people. A fallen people, but lifted back up to life because of you, Jesus. So we go in that truth and in your goodness, Lord.

We pray this all in your name, Jesus. Amen.