Random thoughts from a man who only knows in part until the Perfect comes

The world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, opened on January 4th of 2010. It has 160 floors and is an astounding 2,717 feet tall. It uses as much electricity as a small city and it requires and intricate and powerful pump system that can run the water to its upper floors. This impressive building in Dubai is the just the latest structure in man’s attempt to build higher and higher.

For much of recorded history the Great Pyramid in Giza, Egypt, was the tallest structure known to man. Amazingly, it was not surpassed until the Lincoln Cathedral was built in England in 1311. That structure would stand as the tallest accomplishment of man’s ingenuity for nearly 600 years. Other churches would eventually surpass it, and in 1884 the Washington Monument took the title of tallest man-made structure. It was surpassed a few years later by the Eiffel Tower which kept the crown until 1930 when the Chrysler Building in New York City reigned for only a year until the famous Empire State Building was completed. It stood as the tallest for 46 years. Several spires, towers, space needles and skyscrapers would take over as the tallest structures until man built the Sear Tower in Chicago, which held the title from 1974 to 1998. Since then new buildings in 1998, 2004 and lastly 2010 have proven than men can continue to scrape the sky with structures that almost defy belief.

Each new structure has also marked important social, economic and political power shifts. The shift from European churches to the US skyscrapers coincided with the rise of American power in the world and the decline of the European empires. It also marked the decline of the church as the centerpiece of cultural influence as it gave way to capitalism. This also explains why terrorists targeted the World Trade Center (briefly the world’s tallest building from 1973-74). The towers symbolized American and capitalistic dominance. The newest super skyscrapers have been situated in areas of new economic and political power such as China, Malaysia, and the Persian Gulf. America may no longer be on top, literally.

As we enter a new decade, we are witnessing societal changes not seen in four generations; a global shift in power and economics that has already proven to create much anxiety for many Americans. And just what might these shifts mean for the American church?

Well, not too much if the church will keep it’s focus on God. Man, after all, has always been trying to exert his dominance and demonstrate his power by building buildings. It’s exactly what happened at Babel. Man tried to defy God’s Word and make a name for himself by building a tower that could reach up to heaven. This tower was more than a building, it was a pagan temple designed to help man reach God on his own terms instead of on God’s. Thousands of years later man is the same and doing the same things. He defies God’s Word, he tries to make a name for himself instead of trying to exalt God, and he tries to get to heaven on his own terms. God didn’t like it then and He will have nothing to do with it today.

Let me clarify a bit. I’m not saying that all of man’s tallest structures are in and of themselves sinful or are pagan temples, but I do believe that what drives man is build is often times power. We like to have power over other men, and even power over God, and if we can build bigger and badder structures we may be able to demonstrate our power. Even churches have fallen, and continue to fall, into the trap of demonstrating our “greatness” through what we build. Big buildings with big steeples show everyone just how many members we have and just how powerful we are. Surely church buildings can exalt God, but usually they exalt the architects, the builders, or even a super-pastor and his flock.

At his core man is sinful and in rebellion against God and we want to made much of ourselves instead of doing what we were designed to do, which is to make much of God. That’s why I find it very interesting that at the time when the latest “world’s tallest building” was inaugurated in 2010 it was named after a Arab political figure and the ceremony marking it’s opening was eerily similar to a pagan worship celebration. Man still worships himself instead of the Creator.

But it doesn’t take a big building to fall into these sins. All of us are guilty of building our own towers of Babel when we refuse to submit to God’s Word and instead try to do things our way. We all commit the sins of the Babylonians when we seek our name and our fame over God’s. We all fall into the sin of the line of Cain when we set up “religious” structures and try to impress God or work our way into God’s favor instead of trusting in God alone.

Ultimately there is only One who has been lifted up and deserves to made much of. There is only One who perfectly kept God’s Word and who exalted the Father in all He did. There is only One who made a way, who is the Way, for men to come to God. The One is Jesus.

“And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” (John 12:32).