Genesis 4:1-16 – Being Human

Good afternoon.

My name is Mark.

I'm one of the leaders here at City.

If you're new or visiting, you're very welcome here with us as we continue in Genesis chapter four.

Let me pray for us as we consider this together.

Father, give us the grace of your Holy Spirit to see with fresh eyes our own hearts and our need of you.

Give us ears to hear that we might be challenged and encouraged according to your good pleasure for the glory of Jesus.

Amen.

Amen.

What are you capable of?

What are you capable of?

I'm sure you're capable of great acts of kindness and of love, of charity and compassion.

But when it comes to evil, what are you capable of?

In his book Ordinary Men, Christopher Browning tells the story of the 101st Reserve Police Battalion that was sent from Germany during the Second World War to take care of, manage the Warsaw Ghetto.

It's entitled Ordinary Men because these police officers were reserve police officers.

They weren't professionals, they were plumbers and electricians, they were carpenters and mechanics teachers.

During the war they were sent to manage the ghetto in Warsaw.

And this book, entitled Ordinary Men, outlines and chronicles the uh evil deeds that they carried out.

It's very, very convenient to see people who commit uh acts of evil, mass murder, whatever, as insane.

It would be very nice to see Hitler, Stalin, Mao, the interrahamway who carried out the genocide in Rwanda as all insane.

Because if they're sane, what does that say about the rest of us?

What does that say about what we're capable of?

It's worth taking a moment to reflect upon the fact that the first person, the first human being born into history is a murderer.

Not least of all, because when he is born, Eve, his mother, says, I have produced a man with the help of the Lord, or I have produced the man.

What did God promise in Genesis 3?

God promised the man who would come and crush the head of the serpent.

And Eve thinks, here I have him, the one of promise, the promised serpent crusher.

Only to find that he is the one who will slay his brother.

Genesis 1 and 2 shows us God's rule, God's rule as being good and bringing order and life to the world.

Well, if that is the case, then Genesis 3 and 4 shows us that when we reject that rule, it leads to deeper and deeper chaos and to death.

The inconvenient truth of this passage is that the story of Cain and Abel is a story at the very core of our humanity.

It's why we popularize it all the time.

This story just keeps on coming up time and time and time again.

What's Mufasa and Scar?

Mufasa and Scar are Cain and Abel.

So are the Batman, sorry, so are Batman and the Joker.

Superman and Lex Luther and Lex Luther, these hostile brothers warring against one another.

It's a story that is foundational to our thinking about ourselves, our thinking about human beings.

And so it is very important that we examine this text closely.

We're going to do so by asking a number of questions of it.

Four questions.

The first question that we're going to ask is why was Cain rejected?

Why was Cain rejected?

We see that uh in uh verse three and four.

And in the course of time, Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the food of the ground, and Abel also brought the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions.

And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, verse 5, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard.

Because at first glance it seems a little bit mean-spirited, a little bit arbitrary of God.

Abel was a shepherd, so he brought a sheep.

Cain was a farmer, so he brought some farm produce.

And God liked the sheep, and he didn't like the farm produce.

I mean, why?

God just not like his veggies?

Like is he just a he just likes barbecue, right?

I can get alongside a God like that, but I don't think that that that's what's going on.

In order to try and tease out why it was that Cain was rejected, we must consider what a sacrifice is.

What a sacrifice is designed to do.

A sacrifice has two aspects to it.

First, a sacrifice is an expression of devotion, and second, it's an act of dependence.

It's devotion and it's dependence.

Or it's an act of love and it's an act of faith or trust.

And I don't mean faith or trust in a super spiritual sense, I mean it very practically.

What a sacrifice is doing is taking something that you could have now and giving it up for the promise of future provision even though you don't see it yet.

Do you see?

Sacrifice is delayed gratification.

I'm not gonna do this now, I'm gonna give this up now, and I'm going to trust that even though I don't see it yet, there will be a future provision for me.

It's a very famous experiment.

You can watch it on YouTube that was done that illustrates this point.

Child, kind of three, four years old, was uh sat down in a room, and the camera is trained on the child, and the experimenter sets a marshmallow down in front of the child, right?

Sets a marshmallow down in front.

What does the experimenter say?

He says, if you don't eat it, by the time I come back, I'll give you a second marshmallow.

You'll get two.

The experimenter goes out of the room and the child sits there trying to entertain himself with anything else.

He smells the marshmallow.

One child even picks it up and gives it a lick and puts it back, right?

Many of the children just hoof the marshmallow into their mouth.

Because, you know, a marshmallow in the hand is worth two in the bush, as it were.

What is that experiment illustrating?

It's experiment, it's illustrating what sacrifice is.

Sacrifice is giving up the immediate present gratification and putting our faith, our trust, in the promise of future provision.

The child is putting its faith in the promise in the promise that the experimenter will provide a second marshmallow.

Do you see?

It's an expression of devotion and it's an expression of dependence, of faith, and of trust.

Let's come back to the sacrifices.

Abel's sacrifice is immensely costly.

Not just because it was an animal.

Some people thought, you know, God just prefers animal sacrifice, and so that's why he didn't really like the grain one.

That's not what's going on here.

No, it is costly not just because it is an animal, but what do we read?

The text kind of further describes Abel's sacrifice.

Abel brought one of the firstborn from his flock, and one of their fat portions, and of their fat portions.

It was one of his first lambs.

You think, you know, this is right at the start of creation.

There might not have been a whole lot of husbandry happening.

And yet he is trusting that by giving up this lamb, that the Lord will provide more.

And what's more, when there's a phrase about the fat portions, you know, why is God kind of obsessed about the fat portions?

Leviticus 3.16 is my life verse.

All of the fat belongs to the Lord.

Why, why is this thanks, thanks everyone.

Why does this matter?

Abel didn't bring one of the scrawny runts that was half dead, that he could have done without.

He brings his best breeder.

He brings the the one with the greatest potential to to provide for him on into the future.

Why?

As an expression of devotion and an expression of dependence, as an expression of love and an expression of faith, of trust.

This is further illuminated in the book of Hebrews.

The book of Hebrews, that great chapter on faith, says that in faith Abel offered a better sacrifice than that of his brother Cain.

He came with faith, he came with dependence.

What does Cain bring?

There is no sense in the text that Cain is bringing his best.

Because there is no further description.

And Cain brought some of his produce.

What Cain did is Cain made a gesture.

It's as though in coming to the altar, Cain throws a tip on the cosmic table.

Thanks for the service, God.

Here's your little bit back.

Here's your little just I'll just slip you a two euro coin.

Thanks so much.

And off he goes.

He offers a token, whereas Abel gives his best.

Cain gives out of his income, but Abel gives out of his capital.

Cain makes a gesture of thanks, but Abel in faith risks his future growth potential by giving God some of his breeding stock.

And so what's the difference between these two sacrifices?

It's the heart attitude with which they are brought.

The difference between these two men is tokenism versus love.

And God takes that seriously.

God rejected Cain because he knew that Cain was just going through the motions.

Just going through the religious observance motions.

And how do we know that he was just going through the motions?

We know because of his response.

When he is rejected, what happens to Cain?

He becomes angry.

I need to confess my sin.

I need to repent.

I need to come back.

I need to I need to change.

No, he becomes angry and resentful.

And what that does is it reveals what was already going on in his heart.

He was offering a quid quo quo with God.

If I give you a little bit of this, maybe you'll look after me.

I'll go through the motions, the religious observance motions, but my heart's not really in it.

And do you know what the really uncomfortable thing about that is?

Cain in doing that shows us our heart.

Have you ever come here and just gone through the motions?

I know I have, and I'm your pastor.

Come here, sing the songs.

Even take communion because you know everybody else is doing it, so I should do it.

You go through the motions.

Is your devotion to God a matter of going through the religious observance motions?

And what about your generosity?

This is about your money, but it's about more than that.

It's about your time, your time for other people.

Your regard for them, how you use the gifts that God has given you?

The home that you have?

Is your generosity simply a case is it as far as just throwing a tip on God's table saying, thanks for the service, God?

Does your lack of generosity reveal a lack of love for or trust in God's provision for the future?

That's why, and again, I say this is about your money, but it's not just about your money.

But in our giving guidelines at the back, uh, one of the things that we encourage people towards is towards giving sacrificially.

What we mean by that is you you give until you until you feel it.

Because it's supposed to be an act of dependence.

It's supposed to be saying, I my trust is not in my paycheck at the end of the month.

My trust primarily is in the Lord, and He will provide.

Right?

And it is up to you in your own conscience to work out what that looks like.

For the single mother, that's why we don't teach the 10% tithe.

Because for the single mother, 2% could be a sacrifice, right?

Whereas for some people, so much more than 10% is the place where you're starting to kind of get into dependence and trust territory.

Okay?

It's up to you to work out what that looks like.

You can pick up one of our guideline sheets to help you kind of pray through that if you if you so desire.

But it is also about how you use everything that God has given you.

If you are just going through the religious motions, why are you surprised when you're not happier?

If you're just throwing a tip on God's table, why are you surprised that you're not more joyful?

Miserly.

Ungenerous people don't tend to be the most joyful people in the world, do they?

Yeah, I've said it many times, but what the why is it that Charles Dickens describes Ebenezer Scrooge in a Christmas carol?

He was as cold and solitary as an oyster.

Imagine it this way.

Imagine if Jesus came to you and said, How much of me do you want?

How much of me do you want?

Whatever you sacrifice, I'll match it.

How much of me would you like?

You turn around to Jesus and say, I'll take five euro's worth, please.

I'll take five euro of Jesus.

Would you do that?

Or would you turn to Jesus and say, I want all of you?

I want it all.

I don't care what it costs.

I sacrifice anything, I sacrifice my comfort.

I sacrifice my my money, I sacrifice my time.

I don't care what it costs, I want you.

I want all of you.

I don't want five euros worth, I want all of it.

That's Jesus' point when he tells the parable of the kingdom that the kingdom is like a treasure buried in a field.

The man sells everything in order to acquire it.

And why?

What's the motivation for his selling?

In his joy, he sold everything that he had.

Jesus comes to you and says, How much of me do you want?

It should be joy-motivated sacrifice of you take everything that I have so that I might get all of you.

How much of Jesus do you want?

Cain's sacrifice was rejected because his heart wasn't in the right place.

He wasn't sacrificing in faith, he was going through the motions, and God takes that seriously.

Second question: What does God's warning to Cain mean?

Verses 6 and 7.

The Lord said to Cain, Why are you angry?

And why has your faith fallen?

If you do well, will you not be accepted?

And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door.

Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.

God comes to Cain and says, If you do well, God here is not saying, Come on, Cain, do better.

Better sacrifice next time, Cain, please.

More actions, more moral goodness, please, Cain.

That's not what he's saying.

No, he's coming to Cain and saying, The issue here, Cain, is where your heart's at, right?

And part of what it means for you to do well is you need to go to the core of the issue.

You need to deal with your heart by coming back to me in faith and repentance.

And just like his father Adam, he's trying to draw Cain to that repentance.

Why are you so angry?

The thing is, this is Cain's own fault, and he's angry.

And God is pointing that out.

He's saying, It's your fault, Cain, because your heart isn't trusting in me.

But then he gives a warning and says, Essentially, you need to be careful, Cain, because this could get so much worse.

This is what God means when he says that sin is crouching at the door and its desire is for him.

Essentially, it's like it's like God is saying, Sin is like a lion at the door of your house, Cain, and it's crouching down and it's ready to consume you.

It wants to dominate and envelop your heart.

It wants to devour you, Cain, and I'm warning you of that fact because you need to master it, and mastering it is faith and repentance.

It's acknowledging that his heart is in the right place and coming back to God.

And God warns him.

And we have this choice all the time.

Because here's the thing stuff.

Will happen to you that isn't good.

You will go through seasons of suffering.

Relationships will end, jobs will end, you will not be happy in your marriage, and you know what makes it worse?

Sometimes it's just your fault.

Okay?

Have a good day, everyone.

Right?

So, what do you do then?

What's your choice?

When you find sin crouching at the door, here's the thing: you can either heed the warning of God to Cain of examining your heart and coming back to God in faith and repentance, or you can ignore God's warning and make the difficult situation that you're in your very own private piece of hell.

And we do that all the time.

You find yourself in a relationship or in a marriage where you are unhappy, you have a choice.

You reach out for help, you can personally reflect upon where might I be at fault in a way that I need to apologize, confess, and ask for forgiveness.

What changes do I need to make?

Where do I need to forgive what has been done to me?

And can we come together to seek God and put right what is wrong?

Or you can dig in.

You can refuse to apologize for anything, you can offer no comfort or help to the other person, you can be sullen around the house, resentful, just a jackass.

You do that, congratulations.

You have made your own personal piece of hell right in your house.

You have taken a difficult situation and you have made it so much worse.

You can do it in your job.

Some of you work jobs that suck, and you know it, they suck so hard.

You have a choice.

You can be diligent, honest, excellent in your work, or you can be resentful, bitter at being underutilized.

You can do a half-ass job, steal from your employer, steal time from your employer, be rude to customers, be a terrible teammate.

Congratulations.

You have made your own personal slice of hell.

Because you haven't heeded the warning.

You've taken something that is admittedly difficult and made it worse.

I do this nearly every week.

Do you know where I do it?

I do it on a Saturday.

Because Saturday is my day off.

And I get to spend it with my wife and children.

My kids are small, they're three in 13 months, which means that they're very demanding and difficult.

Rather than taking that difficult situation and dealing with it with patience and grace, going to God and thanking him for all of the goodness that he is giving me, even in the fact that having a wife and children, I get sullen and grumpy because they've invaded my day off, and all I've done is gone from one job that's hard enough to working another job that's equally harder, and I become resentful and I become short with my children, and short with my wife, and I did this yesterday, and I turned a difficult day into my own personal slice of hell.

Sin crouches at the door so frequently, and you have a choice either to overcome it through repentance and faith, or you can make a difficult situation hellish.

Verse 9.

Verse 8 and 9.

Cain spoke to Abel, his brother, and when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him.

Then the Lord said to Cain, Where is your brother Abel?

He said, I do not know.

Am I my brother's keeper?

Eve had to be talked into sin by the serpent, but Cain couldn't be talked out of it.

But why did he kill him?

Was it because he hated Abel?

Maybe.

But I think that's too easy.

It shows premeditation.

It says, hey Abel, let's go for a walk.

Just gonna get my club, right?

Do you know?

It's premeditated, it's cold.

So why does he kill him?

What's going on?

Do you know those people in your life for whom it just always seems to go well?

They always get a good shake of it.

They've got dealt a good hand.

The chips have fallen well for them.

They get promoted before you do.

They succeed at everything that they do.

They're beautiful, they're intelligent, and just to make matters worse, they're actually really, really, really nice.

They just don't have they don't have the good grace to be an ass, you know.

You know those people?

If you don't, then might be you.

How do you feel about that person?

Good for them.

Well done, them.

God has really blessed their household.

I really hope that they continue to succeed and to go from strength to strength.

God bless them.

How do you feel when they fail?

Couldn't happen to a better person.

Good.

Good.

I'm glad they've got a taste of it.

Good to finally find out what life's really like.

How are you feeling at those towards that person?

Well, you're feeling a mixture of emotions, part admiration, part envy.

And when those emotions begin to take heart, when they begin to take hold of you, what do you want?

Please fail.

Please don't succeed at this.

Envy gives way to bitterness, and bitterness is fertile ground for anger.

Bitterness that God didn't give you a better lot in life.

Bitterness that God didn't give you what you wanted.

Bitterness and anger at them for just being so damn perfect.

Do you ever feel like Cain?

You see, Abel had what Cain wanted.

It's worse than that.

Abel was everything that Cain wanted to be.

Abel was Cain's ideal.

He was what he aspired to.

Here's the problem with having an ideal.

An ideal is also a judge.

If you don't live up to that person or people that you admire, what happens?

Their very existence becomes a judgment on your continued failure, doesn't it?

Their very being is an indictment upon your failings and limitations.

For Cain, that envy and that admiration turned rotten in his soul and became murderous.

Here's the thing.

You really need to be careful of envy.

We talk about it in our children.

We say, oh, you know, when they're sharing toys and they're kind of, you know, I want it, and I want it.

Ah it's a little bit of the green-eyed monster, is an English idiom.

The green-eyed monster comes out.

We say, oh, envy is just a green-eyed monster.

Why did the Pharisees kill Jesus?

Pilate perceives it.

Let me read to you, Matthew 27, verse 18.

Matthew 27:18

He's standing before Pilate.

Jesus is standing before Pilate.

Pilate speaks.

Verse 17, so when they had gathered, Pilate said to them, Whom do you want me to release for you, Barabbas or Jesus, who is called Christ?

Then Luke adds, for he knew that it was out of envy that they had delivered him up.

Why did the Pharisees kill Jesus?

It wasn't purely because they hated him.

It's because they envied him.

They wanted his power.

They wanted his popularity.

They wanted his persuasiveness.

He stood as an ideal.

Morally upright, morally flawless.

And isn't that the thing that the Pharisees wanted more than anything?

Was flawless perfection.

And Jesus stood there, and it just looks so easy for him.

And out of envy, they killed him.

Cain shows us what our humanity is capable of when sin in our hearts goes unchecked and unchallenged by God's grace.

When sin is allowed to run riot in our hearts, this is what we are capable of.

The crucifixion is what we are capable of.

Where Jesus, the perfect worshiper, the flawless son, the ideal and the judge, is murdered by bitter, resentful, envious humanity.

Be careful of envy.

There's a reason why it's one of the big seven.

It's murderous.

How does God respond?

Just as with Genesis 3, God needs to come and to bring the chaos, in a sense, back into order.

And so he comes to Cain.

And he comes in both judgment or justice and mercy.

He begins, he asks a question, verse 9, where is your brother?

Where is Abel, rather, your brother?

Again, this is designed to elicit repentance.

He's trying to draw Cain back to himself.

But Cain shows that he's hardening even further.

He responds to God with what?

With another question.

What's his movements got to do with me?

Am I my brother's keeper?

What's the answer to that question?

Yes.

Yes, Ken, you are.

Am I my brother's keeper?

Yes.

You're supposed to look out for your brother.

You're supposed to look out for one another.

You're supposed to be concerned for the good and well-being of the other.

Am I my brother's keeper?

Yes.

Yes, you are.

Abel loved God.

But Cain loved himself.

Even in his response to God's punishment, he turns to God and says, This is too great for me to bear.

He begs that he would receive mercy.

God is concerned, though, for justice.

He says, Abel's blood is crying to me from the grind.

Crying for what?

Crying for justice, crying for vengeance.

And God, because we believe in a God who is concerned for justice, he curses Cain.

Verse 11, and now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand.

When you work the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength.

Do you see what's happened there?

Who was Cain?

He's a guy who worked the ground.

And what did he do?

Tokenism worship.

Because he was relying on himself and on his own strength.

But what do we see in the curse?

The ground's not going to perform for you anymore, Cain.

This is what happens.

This is what happens when you are trusting in something, trusting in your own strength more than in God's provision.

The thing that you're trusting in begins to crumble.

The thing that you're trusting in begins to not work anymore.

You squeeze it so hard that it slips through your fingers.

It's why when you enter into a relationship and that person becomes your all, you place a weight on them that's too much for them to bear and it crushes the relationship.

Have you done that?

Abel, sorry, Cain loved his and trusted his ability to produce from the ground.

And God took it away from him.

That thing that you love more than him?

Why won't why won't he give it to me?

He's completely disinclined to giving you the idols of your heart.

Why?

Because he loves you.

Idols destroy.

Idols lead you away from God and into a place of death.

You think, but I want it! God loves you and isn't giving you the idol of your heart.

So he is cursed from the ground.

Moreover, he finds himself a restless wanderer.

Never satisfied, never at home, never happy.

You never find yourself at rest.

Constantly anxious, constantly wandering.

Why?

Because God is not your ultimate.

And even the curse, though displaying God's concern for justice, is mingled with mercy.

God marks Cain so that he cannot be killed in doing so.

He preserves Cain's life.

That's a mercy.

We have no idea what the mark of Cain is.

No idea what the mark of Cain is.

Some people have had some fairly abhorrent interpretations in order to determine what the mark of Cain is.

We don't know, we're not told.

We just know that it must have been visible because other people were able to see it.

Okay.

But the point is that the Lord is preserving Cain's life.

And this is amazing because what it shows us is that God's concern for justice is matched only by his mercy on the sinner.

And Cain doesn't even repent, doesn't even acknowledge his wrongdoing.

Yet God is still merciful.

Abel's blood cries out for justice, it cries out for vengeance.

Back in the book of Hebrews, where I referenced earlier, we are told that Jesus' blood also speaks.

We're told that Jesus' blood speaks a better word than that of the blood of Abel.

Abel's blood cried for vengeance, cries for justice.

What does Jesus' blood cry out for?

Mercy.

It pleads mercy for you.

It cries out for grace for the sinner, for the half-hearted worshiper, for the murderously envied, resentful, and bitter individual that you are.

So you scarcely admit it to yourself.

It cries for mercy.

It cries out for grace.

The perfect son, the slain worshiper, cries out to God to show us grace, though we are half-hearted, envious, bitter sons and daughters of Cain.

Cain really is a mirror, if only you would have the courage to look into it.

Don't you feel his half-hearted worship in your soul?

Don't you feel your reluctant giving and your token sacrifices?

Isn't Cain's struggle with sin your struggle?

Am I the only one in this room who takes difficult situations and makes them hellish?

Is Cain the only one that is wandering in restlessness?

Looking over his shoulder, resenting those who have and wishing we had it better.

His anger is our anger, his envy, our envy.

And as a result, we find ourselves never at peace.

Even when we're told that he went away and settled in the land of nod, do you know what nod means?

Wandering.

What was his home?

His home was restless anxiety.

And that's where he set his camp.

It's awful, isn't it?

It's awful.

What a dreadful place to find yourself in.

What a dreadful, tragic place to make your home.

And what's the answer?

Our only hope is the better blood.

Our only hope is the Blood that speaks a better word.

Jesus' blood pleads for you.

His sacrifice is the perfect sacrifice to end your restless wandering and to bring you back into the presence of God.

To bring you home.

Won't you come home?

We run to the perfect sacrifice, and in doing so, find ourselves at last at peace.