Communion of Cain or of Christ - Joel Schrock

Good morning. I also want to greet everyone this morning

in the name of Jesus, the name of the lamb

that Leland talked about. Appreciated that, appreciated the songs this morning.

Nothing but the Blood, and that's a second song was saying.

I forget exactly, but in there I believe it was

in the second verse it talked about the mercy, the

mercy of God, and we'll touch on that a little

bit this morning. Enjoyed the explanation of the the Passover

and how that relates to the communion and and how

we remember that. Now. It's a real privilege to be

here with with people this morning that are interested in

a communion service, interested with communing with each other and

with God. And so we say, this is a communion service,

and Jesus said, do this in remembrance of Me, and

so we believe, we believe it's an important part of

our life and connection with God and the brotherhood like

we heard about last Sunday there. But I got to thinking,

what about the six months between the communion service services

that we do. Do we commune with God then? And

do we commune with our brothers and sisters? And what

does that even mean, I'm going to read you can

turn it if you want to to first Corinthians ten.

I'm going to read just two verses from there, Verses

sixteen and seventeen. Paul here to the Corinthians, speaking of

the Last Supper. Here verse Corinthians ten, verse sixteen, the

cup of blessing which we bless? Is it not the

communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break?

Is it not the communion of the body of Christ?

For we, being many, are one bread and one body,

for we are all partakers of that one bread. Now,

other translations, there's a few interesting things here. We're not

going to spend much time here, but other translations use

instead of communion participation are sharing or fellowship. The word

Greek word co onea is often translated fellowship. But here

in in in speaking of the Lord's Supper, is it

not the communion of the blood of Christ, or the

fellowship of the blood of Christ, or the participation of

the Blood of Christ. So, without getting it getting into

a deep Greek word dive here, I think it's just

worth pointing out that the communion that Paul talks about

and describing the Lord's Supper has this idea of fellowship participation.

And as I thought about what to share this morning,

I was thinking about that word, that word that we

use communion, the action of communion, the service of communion.

When communion is broken, who broke it? And when and

how should we participate in communion? So this morning I'm

going to actually look more at the Old Testament. We

have an example from the Old Testament and an example

from the New Testament. And I kind of hate to

do this, but we're going to spend more time on

a negative example from the Old Testament, and then we

will contrast that with what's found at the Last Supper.

And so I'd like to spend a little bit more time.

We're going to touch on and I'm really glad Leland

touched on it, but we're going instead of the communion

service and everything with all that is symbolized or touch

on that, but more what I'd like to focus on

this morning is communion and fellowship with God and with

each other. Like was mentioned last Sunday, we say that

we have peace with God and our fellow man, and

what does that look like? So I guess I didn't

say a title for this message. I titled it the

communion of Cain or of Christ. And so I'd like

to look at Genesis four this morning. So the communion

of Cain, and that might be a funny way to

put it, but hopefully it'll make sense as we go

through this. I'm going to read the first sixteen verses

of Genesis four one through sixteen, and so in the

context here, Adam and Eve had been created in the garden,

the perfect garden. They sinned, they took the fruit they

weren't supposed to, blamed each other, blamed the serpent, and

they got kicked out of the garden of Eden, couldn't

get back into the tree of life there. So this

is after that verse one of Genesis four. And Adam

knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bare Cain

and said, I've gotten a man from the Lord. And

she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel as a

keeper of sheep. But Cain was a tiller of the ground.

And in the process of time of time, it came

to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground,

and offering unto the Lord and Abel. He also brought

of the firstlings of his flock, and of the fat thereof,

and the Lord had respect and to Abel and to

his offering, but unto Cain and to his offering, he

had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his

countenance fell. And the Lord said into Cain, why art

thou wroth? And why has thy countenance fallen? If thou

doest well, shalt thou not be accepted. And if thou

do to us not well, sin lieth at the door,

and unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt

rule over him. And King talked to Abel's brother, and

it came to pass when they were in the field,

that Cain rose up against Able his brother, and slew him.

And the Lord said, unto King, where is Able thy brother?

And he said, I know not, am I my brother's keeper?

And he said, what hast thou done? The voice of

thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground. And

now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened

her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand.

When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforthield unto

thee her strength. A fugitive and a vagabond, shalt thou

be in the earth. And King said unto the Lord,

my punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, thou

striven me out this day from the face of the earth,

and from thy face shall I be hid. And I

shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth.

And it shall come to pass that every one that

findeth me shall slay me. And the Lord said, unto him, Therefore,

whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.

And the Lord said, a mark upon Cain, lest any

finding him should kill him. And Cain went out from

the presence of the Lord and dwelt in the land

of Nod in the east of Eden. So like to

walk through this short familiar passage here about the first

children that least is recorded are born, and the first murder.

And as we do, I'd like us to ask ourselves,

am I partaking in the communion of Cain? And right

away it was a new Nope. You know this is

a murder story. But there may be a few other

things here for us. So Cain, as we see here,

was the pride and joy of Adam and Eve. As

far as we know, he was the first child born,

and so the first time the world saw an infant human.

Eve likely believing this young boy was the promise of

God to bruise the serpent's head, probably put a lot

of stock in his future. And she said, she said,

I have gotten a man from the Lord. And it's easy

to imagine that Cain is the apple of his parent's eye.

Could have been kind of spoiled. Now he didn't have

grandparents or uncles or aunts to do the job right,

but could have happened anyway. And then we see the

Abels born, and some suppose they were twins because of

the way it was written here, but we don't know

that for sure. But what must be the case is

that they were close enough in age for able to

be a threat to Kane's position in the world. And

we don't hear about what happened here in their lives sometimes,

especially the part kind of between Adam and Eve and

the fall there and Noah. We really don't hear a

lot as far as detail goes, not a lot of

detail what happened between when these boys were born and

when they were men farming, sacrificing. But I imagine that there

were many happy times. I imagine that they helped Adam

with the crops. Maybe they helped Eve in the garden

or picking fruit. I imagine they swam in the rivers,

ran in the grass, and did things that young boys

would do if they had the world at their disposal.

Cain had communion or fellowship directly with God, as we'll see,

God spoke to him. It appears audibly they had conversation.

He had fellowship with communion with Adam and Eve, who

were created by God perfectly in the beginning, and his

brother likely other siblings at this point, with whom he

must have had many good memories. But somehow and sometime

this communion that happened day after day cracked, and we

see as Cain and Abel came to adulthood there was

something different in their attitudes. Now, I would like to

note the ways that I believe reading through this, that

Cain broke his communion. There's fellowship with God and man,

this fellow man his brother specifically. So we see in

verse three that Cain brought an offering to God, and

the word offering here has the idea of a gift.

Brought a gift, and often this is a voluntary gift,

usually bloodless and grain offerings were common later in the

Old Testament. Here, so that sounds pretty good voluntary gift.

Nobody doesn't. We don't see God running after Cain saying, hey,

you need to bring me some of that seems to

be voluntary. However, there seems it seems that there's something

missing here, some aspect, something not quite, not quite right.

And if you look at verse four, we see an

able he also brought. Now, listen to the description of

ables sacrifice. He brought up the firstlings of the flock

and the fat thereof. Now, some would say that as

was mentioned about the blood this morning, Leland, I appreciated

that explanation. Some would argue that blood was required for

a sin offering, and that's what was wrong with the

picture here, and that could be part of it. But

the Bible says here, I don't think it was all

of it. The Bible says that the Lord had respect

unto Abel and his offering both, but unto Cain and

to his offering he had not respect. So Cain and

Abel both made a choice and sacrifice. Abel brought the firstlings,

says likely this was the prize firstborn in the flocks.

Not only that he brought the fat was especially prized sacrificial,

and Abel must have brought his sacrifice with thanksgiving and

worship because God had respect to the offering and to

able and Cain, by contrast, failed to gain the respect

of God, either for himself or for his sacrifice. And

nowhere in the description of Cain's sacrifice is there any

words like firstborn, or first slings, or fat or anything

that would give an indication to show the care that

he put into his gift and sacrifice he gave. Cain

did give, but he must not have given his best.

And he gave, but he must not have come with thanksgiving,

with gratitude, with humility and worship, because God did not

not have respect unto Kine or his offering. So I

believe the first breakdown here in the communion that he enjoyed,

I presume at some point with God with his brother

listed here is Cain's failure to give God his due,

to come to God with the very best, in humble,

grateful worship. His choice and sacrifice and worship led to

a rift, let's say, in his communion with God. Now

we don't know exactly how the sacrifice has worked here,

but we do know that somehow it was clear whether

or not God was pleased with the sacrifice. Maybe able

sacrifice was consumed by fire and Kines wasn't. We don't

know that. It doesn't like not a lot of detail here.

What we do know is that whether or not God

was pleased was clear. Then understood it, and with God's

will known, Cain now had a choice. He had another

choice to make. He could change his ways and he

could bring the best, and he could set his face

to God and he could humbly come before him with

thankful worship. Or he could continue on a foolish trajectory

and continue to break down his communion with God and man.

And in verse five we see which path he took. Cain,

it says, was very wroth. Now do I understand that

the word wroth here is not just like angry, blow

up and get angry, spout off some words. But it

was like a kindled fire that was in there, and

it was it was warm, and it was glowing, and

it was building. Think resentment. This was an anger that

I believe built up and burned inside a king. And

he began to resent his brother Abel, who had done

nothing wrong here, and he was likely angry at God

and told himself the lie that God was being partial. Now,

this type of lie is a very dangerous lie because

there's some truth to it, like God did have respect

to Abel and his offering, but not to Cain and

his offering. Right, And if you just stop there, Kane says,

it's not fair God, you're being partial. Right, that's a

really dangerous lie because it's not actually the truth. The

truth is that this is a natural result of the

decisions that Cain made. And as we go through here,

we'll see it. It comes back to Cain, not to

Able or to God. But his countenance fell. You could

see it on his face. You could see it in

his body language. You ever see somebody, there's some people

that you can just tell from the back if they're upset,

like you can just imagine sort of the smoke curling

from their ears, and you can't even see their face.

You could see it. His countenance fell. He was a

grown man pouting. The man that was supposed to bruise

the head of Satan was on a slippery path to

destruction here. So I believe the second breakdown in communion

listed here, and I could be missing some but is

Cain's anger and resentment toward his brother because of his

own shortcomings and God's response to that. It's not able shortcomings.

It wasn't God's partiality, it was his own shortcomings. So

he was resentful toward his brother and toward God, breaking

down that communion with God and man. But God, ever

merciful and ever interested in commune, in communing with his creation,

we see, spoke directly to Keane verses six and seven.

God says, King, Why are you angry? Why is your

countenance falling? Why are you pouting? If you do well,

won't you be accepted? And if you don't do well,

sin liath at the door? Now the word lieth here

is not this passive like poodle on the on the

on the doorstep right. This has the idea of something

crouching ready to bring and devour you. And what's interesting

about this is it's at the door. I believe that

it's something that voluntarily has to be let in here

like King's choices can let this write in and devour him.

And it comes back to his responsibility the king, James

version says, and unto these shall be his desire and

now shall rule over him. Now, reading through that I thought, well,

this must be if you do well, you know you're

the firstborn able, will you know, you'll kind of be

over able. And but it looks to me, at least

looking at some other translations, that God is talking about

sin here. The New Living Translation puts it like this.

You will be accepted if you do what is right.

But if you refuse to do what is right, then

watch out. Sin is crouching at the door, eager to

control you. But you must subdue it and be its master.

And so God, in his love and mercy, talks to Cain.

He gives him a way forward, a way out of

this mess. He talks to him about the nature of

sin and mastery over it. And so Cain faces another choice.

And I believe the third breakdown here in the communion

with God and Man, is Cain's disregard for the offered

for mercy, grace and admonition from God. We have no

record of Cain responding in this conversation, but all we

have is silence from him, and then action in his silence,

his resentment burned while communion with God and his brother scrumbling.

Then it is Cain talked with his brother Abel some

translations would say that Cain suggested to Able that we

go out in the field, setting up what is probably

a premeditated act. While they were out there, Kin turned

on his brother Abel, likely his one time best friend,

and killed him. And it doesn't seem like this was

some sudden, violent rage, but rather something premeditated. The fire

inside of Cain burned, the jealousy and the resentment in

their burn and although no man had ever died yet,

he knew that life could be extinguished, he wouldn't sacrifices,

and his life would be better without Able around. So

the fourth breakdown in communion here that I see with

God and his brother was a complete and final separation

from his brother, in this case a fatal separation. His anger, pride, jealousy,

and resentment had been taken to their logical and extreme conclusion.

Now I'd like to notice here that each time King

breaks his fellowship with God, it affects his fellowship with man,

and each time King breaks his fellowship with his brother,

it affects his fellowship with God. Now I believe the Lord,

in his mercy and grace, was not done with Cain.

Even now. Verse nine, God says, where is Able thy brother.

Now this would have been a chance for Cain to

come clean. But Cain's answer is so full of human nature.

He says, I know not. Am I My brother's keeper

threw the ball on the other court. Now how did

Cain think he could lie to God and pass off

this responsibility? I leave the fifth breakdown here in communion

with God and his fellow man. His brother's no longer living,

but his dad, his mom, I presume other siblings. Was

his failure to admit wrong, repent and change his ways.

I believe there was still a chance for repentance. Why

else should have God come to him and ask him

a question? Certainly there would have been consequences, but he

could have turned his face. Now God pronounced a curse

on Cain in verses ten to twelve, And he said,

what hast thou done? The voice of thy brother's blood

crieth unto me from the ground. And now art thou

curse from the earth which hath opened her mouth to receive.

Notice what it says here, thy brother's blood from thy hand.

This is Cain's responsibility. It comes back to Cain's choices

and actions. Here when thou tellest the ground, it shall

not henceforth yield unto thee her strength. A fugitive in

a vagabond shell that'll be in the earth. Now, Adam

had it kind of rough when he failed, when he sinned.

When God, now the plants are going to keep growing,

but there's going to be thorns and thistles. It's going

to be a lot harder. I'm gonna have to work,

but the ground's not even going to yield her strength.

Thorns and thistles are not right with kin. And I

believe that even now, in the continued conversation here, that

Cain could have fallen on his face and asked for forgiveness.

But look at his response. He never once acknowledged what

he did. God knew. God didn't argue with him, he

didn't acknowledge it, and he never said he was sorry.

Cain said, unto the Lord, my punishment is greater than

I can bear. Behold that driven me out this day

from the face of the earth, and from thy face

shall I be hid. And I shall be a few

fugitive and a vagabond in the earth. And it shall

come to pass that everyone that findeth me shall slay me.

If you notice in there there's a couple of words

that keep coming up in those verses, I and me,

and I believe that the sixth breakdown in communion with

God and man was once again being a victim and

feeling sorry for himself. Life wasn't fair, The punishment he

was given was too great. Cain still failed to come

to God with any kind of humility. Life for Cain

revolved around Cain. Never mind that he had just killed

his brother, never mind the heartbreak that he caused his parents,

and never mind and that he failed God in the

most blatant way by killing someone in his own image.

It was all about Cain. Now, God did give some

reprieve in his punishment, But then we see what is

a really sad statement verse sixteen that kind of tops

it off here, And Cain went out from the presence

of the Lord. So this man who was born in

the image of God, whose parents believed he would bruise

the head of the serpent, who likely played and worked

endless hours with his brother, had finalized a breakdown of

communion with God and his brother. So are we guilty

of the communion of Cain? And again we said, well,

we're not a murderer right. But what about failing to

come to God with humble, thankful worship. What about having

anger or resentment toward a brother or sister or God?

What about failing to accept the mercy and grace that

God offers us a way out? What about responding and

silent resentment when God does speak to us? What about

failing to admit that we're wrong and ask for forgiveness

and change our lives. What about feeling sorry for ourselves,

believing that life and telling ourself that life isn't fair,

placing ourself at the center of the universe, making it

all about us. Now, I'd like to switch gears pretty

rapidly here and compare this to the Communion of Christ. Now,

there's a lot of places we could look for this.

I'd like to look And a little bit of this

was mentioned this morning. But Luke twenty two. I'm going

to read verses fifteen to twenty two, Luke twenty two,

starting in verse fifteen, and this is for context here.

This is at the end of Jesus' life and ministry

the disciples. This is the last Supper Passover feast. The

disciples had a place prepared and they all came together together.

And this was just before Jesus capture, crucifixion, his torture

and death Verse fifteen, Chapter of Luke twenty two. And

he said unto them with desire, I have desired to

eat this passover with you before I suffer. For I

say d to you that I will not any more

eat thereof until it be fulfilled in the Kingdom of God.

And he took the cup and gave thanks, and said,

take this and divided among yourselves, for I send to

you I will not drink of the fruit of the

vine until the Kingdom of God shall come. And he

took bread and gave thanks, and break it and gave

unto them, saying, this is my body which is given

for you. This do in remembrance of me. Likewise, also

the cup, after saying, this cup is the New Testament

in my blood which is shed for you. But behold,

the hand of him that betrayeth me is with me

on the table. And truly the son of Man goeth

as it was determined. But woe unto that man by

whom he is betrayed. So I'd like to just look

at this account the Last Supper. Here, the communion of

man with God and man, and Jesus as both man

and God. And I'd looked like to look at the

example that Jesus gave us here again and this is

where where where we we take these passages for our

communion service. But I'd also like to think of it

just in the context of our daily communion with each other.

So after everything was set up and Jesus and his

disciples are gathered, Jesus says something that I've read different times,

Leland read it this morning really stood out to me,

this time with desire I have desired to eat this

passover with you, or with longing I have long this

is It's not just like I've desired to do this,

you know, I've really wanted to do this. It's deeper

than that. Jesus knew what was awaiting him, but his strong,

overpowering desire was to be with his brethren and to

fellowship with them. And this really impressed me this time

reading through here, because Jesus knew the failings of his disciples,

both past and future. All the men with him, they're

all going to really make some mistakes in the next

few hours, Yet he deeply longed to commune with them,

and I believe that today Jesus knows our past failings,

he knows our future failings, and yet he deeply longs

to have fellowship with us, and us with our brothers,

even though we're unworthy. That just that thought of it's

not just something we're doing to fellowship with with Jesus,

it's something he wants to fellowship with us despite our inconsistencies.

Jesus took the bread and break it to serve his disciples,

and he also took the cup and serve them. Now again,

he knew all of their faults, and he even let

them know that somebody that was at the table communing

with them was a traitor. Yet as a humble servant,

he still gave him bread and wine. And you go

on reading here and Luke and the disciples start discussing

who's going to be the greatest, and Jesus has to

chide them for that. Jesus tells Peter, Peter, you're going

to deny me not just once, but three times now.

In First Corinthians again in chapter eleven, you don't need

to turn to you can. But in twenty nine it

talks about that chapter we look at examining ourselves we

don't drink damnation to ourselves. It's pretty serious. But I'd

like to just point out here that I believe that

Judas did eat and drink damnation to himself because his

face was pointed clearly away from Jesus. He was in

the process of betraying Jesus. He was living a lie,

and his heart was full of sin. He had no

plans of changing or altering course. He was living a

life of sin. And I believe that the other disciples

were massively imperfect. They argued about things that was contrary

to the heart of Jesus. Peter was going to deny

him very shortly everyone else forsook him. But I believe

that their faces were towards Christ. They were weak and inconsistent,

but they were on a journey to full surrender and

faith in Jesus. And I believe that in their imperfection

they received a blessing as they commune with Christ and

each other. And I believe that that's the same with

us in many ways. I believe that if we are

living a lie with our face to the world, blatantly

living in sin, no real plans to change, if we're

honest with ourselves, then we take this verse really, really

seriously if we come to Jesus, however, with humility, with

their inconsistencies. But sincerely, I believe that if you look

at this passage, Jesus longs for communion with us. He

longs for us to commune with him and our brothers.

Not going to turn to John thirteen gives the account

then of Jesus washing the disciples feet, an act, a

true act of servanthood, and another ordinance will be observing

later on Lord willing this morning. So now I'd just

like to take these few things that Jesus did, Jesus

acted out, Jesus spoke, and just contrast them with what

we saw from Cain's going to be a little review

on Cain. So leave out seven things here. Number one Cain,

if you remember, Cain failed to come to God in true, humble,

thankful worship. But Christ, and we're not going to turn

to all these these are pretty familiar parts of the story.

Just like to mention them. Christ, in the garden of

thesemine that night bowed before the Father as the perfect

sacrifice and said, thy will be done communion with the Father.

Number two Kan became angry and resentful with his brother Abel,

even though the shortcomings were his own. Christ, on the

other hand, humbly broke bread, served wine, washed his disciples feet,

even though at the very least they would all forsaken

that night. Number three King in silence, disregard, in silent resentment,

disregarded God's mercy, grace and admonition. Christ commune with his disciples,

sang him with them, took them with him to the

garden to pray, and communicated with all humility and sincerity

with the Father, communion with God and man. Number four

Cain committed the ultimate act of separation in killing his brother,

who had favor that he coveted. Christ could have called

legions of angels when he was in distress, but he

rather chose to love, forgive, and ultimately give up his

own life. Number five Cain failed to admit he was

wrong and repent of his wicked ways. Christ was perfectly sinless.

It was the people he was with that needed to change.

Yet he was loving, patient, he was kind, and he

performed the ultimate act of forgiveness as he became that

perfect lamp. Well, he was the perfect lamb. He became

that sacrifice as he asked the Father to forgive the

people that were killing him. Christ, we can see longed

for communion with all of mankind as he wept over Jerusalem,

and he wanted to gather them in like a mother

hand with the chicks, even though many of them would

be the people that talked Pilot into killing him. Kin

felt number six felt sorry for himself. He thought life

wasn't fair, His punishment wasn't fair. Christ was sinless, He

didn't deserve any punishment. What happened to him was the

epitome of unfairness. Yet we don't see him raising his

voice or a hand in his own defense. Here number

seven Kin seemed to place himself at the center of

the universe. It was all about Kan But Christ is

the creator of the universe. Yet it was all about others. Again,

he broke bread, served the cup, and wash the feet

of imperfect men. He took the sins of the whole

world on his shoulders because it was all about the

Father and his brethren. So are you partaking in the

communion of King or the communion of Christ in your

daily life? Are we more concerned about ourselves or about

our brothers? Is our face set toward God or toward

the world and away from God. And are we coming

to this communion service with reverence, sincerity, gratitude, thankfulness and

bringing joyfully bringing our best. So in closing, I like

there are two things taken from First Corinthians eleven here

that I'd like us to think about as we come

to this communion service. And we partake of the bread

the grape juice Christ, and we think about Christ's suffering,

that perfect sacrifice. And as we fellowship with each other

wash each other's feet Verses twenty four and twenty five

of chapter eleven. It's quoting Jesus here. Paul's talking about

the words of Jesus, and Jesus said both about the

cup and the bread, do this in remembrance of me.

Do this number one, Do this? This is an action.

Do this, do it in remembrance of Me that was

mentioned earlier. And then verse thirty three, where forre, my brethren,

when you come together to eat terry one for another,

so remember Jesus and terry one for another. God bless

you