In the Beginning: Murderous Resentment & Merciful Rescue (Genesis 4:1-16)

Hello, friends.

This is Pastor Creighton.

Thank you for tuning in to Newsong Church's Sermon Podcast.

At Newsong Church, we want to see Jesus lifted high in Port Perry, Ontario, as we worship, grow, and serve.

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Our first lesson this morning is taken from the book of Genesis, chapter 4, verses 1 through 16.

Genesis 4:1–16

Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord.

And again she bore his brother Abel.

Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a worker of the ground.

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

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

So Cain was very angry, and his face fell.

The Lord said to Cain, Why are you angry?

And why has your face 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 contrary to you, but you must rule over it.

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 Abel your brother?

He said, I do not know.

Am I my brother's keeper?

And the Lord said, What have you done?

The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground.

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.

You shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.

Cain said to the Lord, My punishment is greater than I can bear.

Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground, and from your face I shall be hidden.

I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.

Then the Lord said to him, Not so.

If anyone kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.

And the Lord put a mark on Cain, lest any who found him should attack him.

Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

The word of the Lord.

Let's pray.

Gracious Heavenly Father, we come to you always needful of your mercy.

We need you to come to us, Lord, because we cannot make it on our own to you.

Wherever it is we're coming from this week, Lord, however low we may feel, we pray that you would speak to us, O Lord.

Renew us.

Open the scriptures to us and give us a glimpse of your amazing grace.

Lord, let the words of my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts be always pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer.

Amen.

Please be seated.

Well, friends, we're about four weeks into our journey through Genesis chapters one to eleven.

We spent our first two weeks looking at the first two chapters of Genesis, something like the God's blueprint for human flourishing.

We saw that God creates a good world.

He's designed a world for flourishing and for goodness.

He is, we've we've seen in Genesis chapter 1 how it is that humanity relates to a transcendent creator, God, who relates to the man and the woman by his word.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

And we've seen in Genesis chapter 2 how God desires our flourishing, not in accordance with our own self-determination, but in accordance with his design.

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

God desires the flourishing of humanity of creation.

Last week we looked at Genesis chapter 3, and we saw something of where it all went wrong.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

Where in our self-determination to determine what's good and evil for ourselves, we found humanity corrupted, alienated from God, and our relationship with God disintegrates.

But in our lowest moment, God's response is one of grace and mercy.

In Genesis 3.15, as God addresses the serpent who's deceived the man and the woman, he says this, God says this, I will put enmity between you, serpent, and the woman, between your offspring and her offspring.

He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.

What God's saying there is that he is refusing to abandon humanity.

No matter the fact that humanity has turned its back on God by transgressing his command, God is committed to our first parents.

He will not abandon them or forsake them.

Instead, he will raise up a promised offspring.

Someone who will come to finally defeat this serpent, crush the serpent's head, as it were, even while this offspring is dealt a lethal blow himself.

We're catching something of the first glimpse of the gospel, but this is how God moves the history of salvation forward by his promises to us.

So here we have Genesis chapter 4.

Genesis 4 · chapter mention

We find ourselves outside the garden and barred from re-entry.

Sin has completely disrupted, as it were, any possibility of us making it back into the garden, into that right relationship with God on our own.

And we meet Cain and we meet Abel, and we discover that sin doesn't just disrupt our relationship with God, it starts to disrupt our relationships with one another.

Even those closest relationships, like two brothers, we see what God intended for flourishing, what God intended for love and willing the good of the other is replaced by resentment and anger and rage.

We see Cain is bitterly indignant at having been treated unfairly, or maybe more accurately, he's indignant of having been perceived of being treated unfairly, but the result is the same.

His heart is full of resentment.

And it eats him alive.

And I think what Genesis chapter 4 wants to tell us, it's a warning to us readers, even in Christ, that resentment is a road to self-destruction.

Genesis 4 · chapter mention

But even in our lowest moment, we are rescued by God's offer of mercy.

And I do think it's mercy where we'll land this morning.

We see something of the rhythms of resentment in this passage.

Resentment begins with rejection or a perceived rejection.

We see resentment refuses personal responsibility, and we see that resentment finally becomes revenge and rage.

So let's have a look at Genesis chapter 4 this morning.

Genesis 4 · chapter mention

If it lands heavy, certainly lands heavy on my heart, it's probably because I know something of the resentment that's being addressed here.

Who among us doesn't?

This is living in a fallen world, isn't it?

But there's hope for us.

Resentment begins with rejection.

Let's look at the first couple of verses here.

Adam knew his wife Eve, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, I've gotten a man with the help of the Lord.

So Adam and Eve are going about their commission to be fruitful and multiply.

They are fulfilling their vocation, even in a fallen state outside of Eden.

And Eve credits this conception, giving birth to Cain as a gift from God.

He's come with the help of the Lord.

And again we read she bore his brother Abel.

And the proximity there makes us wonder if Cain and Abel weren't twin siblings.

Maybe that was the case, maybe not, but it's interesting to think.

My experience with twins is there is a there is just this unique bond that twins share, even as close as siblings are, it's like twins can read each other's thoughts.

It's like they have their own language.

I wonder if Cain and Abel grew up like that, always around one another, always relying on one another.

So she bore Abel, and Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a worker of the ground.

So even their children are starting to fulfill something of their calling, their vocation.

They're cultivating creation.

Abel is exercising dominion over the creatures that God has entrusted to them, and Cain is working the ground, he's cultivating the soil to bring forth a flourishing life.

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

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

So Cain was very angry, and his face fell.

And the million-dollar question for us is why was Cain's sacrifice rejected in a way that Abel's was accepted?

I don't think the conclusion we should draw here is that God prefers a meat offering to a grain offering.

I don't think, you know, God prefers Abel's burger patty to Cain's burger bun, so to speak.

But even if that was the case, even if God preferred Abel's blood sacrifice, it wouldn't be hard for Cain and for Abel to come to a mutually benefiting arrangement where Cain could procure one of Abel's cattle.

Even if that is the case, we read in Hebrews chapter 11, it becomes fully clear what I think Genesis 4 is suggesting to us with some glimpses, becomes fully clear as the author of Hebrews reflects on this episode in Salvation History.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

And what the author of Hebrews says is this by faith, Abel brought God a better offering than Cain did.

By faith he was commended as righteous when God spoke well of his offerings.

So what does the author of Hebrews understand was characteristic of Abel's offering?

It was faith.

Faith isn't about us mustering something within ourselves.

Faith is only as good as the object it reaches out and apprehends, the object of trust.

And Abel's faith was in the Lord and in his commandments.

Obviously, Cain and Abel know something of the importance of sacrifice.

They know something of the fact that what's gone wrong can only be rectified by a propitiatory sacrifice.

And so Abel's heart is full of trust in God's ability to deal with the situation in a way that Cain's heart, it becomes clearer and clearer, does not trust in God in that way.

I mean, we get a suggestion here when we read that Abel offered of the firstborn of his flock.

He was eager to give a sacrifice to the Lord in whom he trusted.

But Cain just gives an offering of grain.

Any old offering will do.

I wonder if Cain expects to relate himself to God like Abel does, but unlike his brother Abel, Cain expects to relate to God on Cain's terms and not on God's terms.

Does that make sense?

Cain expects to relate himself to God on his terms, and that's why the end result here is that Cain is angry and his face fell.

From time to time, I'm responsible for building a furniture.

Maybe it's an IKEA cabinet or some such.

And generally I'm good at following the instructions.

I just don't trust myself enough to go for it myself.

But those few times I do, the few times I look at this cabinet and think, I've done this before, it can't be that complicated, and I just decide to go for it.

Almost inevitably I get disproportionately frustrated.

And Rachel just kind of knows to let me blow off that steam and take it out on the cabinet.

But every time I think I expect to get this done, not in the instructions' terms, but on my terms, it almost inevitably goes awry.

The instructions are right there, but I refuse them.

And when my expectations aren't met, I get unreasonably angry.

I think this is something of a small example of what's going on in the dynamics of Cain's own heart.

Cain is refusing to relate to God in accordance with his command and his word.

I think Cain expects to relate himself to God on Cain's terms and not on God's terms.

One scholar named David Atkinson writes this: that Cain was not blamed for his mistake.

What is blameworthy is his angry reaction to the Lord's response.

The law of life outside the garden is the same as the law inside, trusting obedience to God.

But Cain is not willing for that.

And he gets angry.

And his anger towards God is then transferred into jealousy towards Abel.

How easily a failure to trust God leads to a failure to respect our brother.

So resentment begins with this feeling of rejection, this feeling like this isn't fair.

Whether that's true or not, that's what Cain perceives in this moment.

It's like the universe is conspiring against me, is what Cain's thinking.

My expectations have been rejected.

And resentment begins with something like this isn't fair.

Now we need to be careful here, I'm just going to make a side note.

We need to be careful not to weaponize Genesis chapter 4 against those who are facing harsh circumstances.

Genesis 4 · chapter mention

As though someone who suffers misfortune.

Well, take a moral inventory of your recent history and you'll discover why life is going like it is for you.

I mean, it's remarkable how often we sort of jump to that conclusion.

We need to be careful not to weaponize this passage, to equate difficult circumstances in life necessarily with our own moral performance or lack or thereof of faith.

But like this passage, if ongoing bitterness and hardness of heart is what characterizes us, what consumes us, then maybe we need to start having some self-examination.

No matter what our circumstances in life may be, maybe we need to ask some questions of our hearts.

What expectations have I elevated to the point where I refuse to accept anything else?

I want to relate to God and I want to get along in life on my terms and not on his.

This is where Cain's living.

And it's what gives away to what's next.

Resentment begins with a feeling of rejection, but resentment refuses responsibility.

Let's look at verses six and seven here.

The Lord said to Cain, Why are you angry?

Why is your face fallen?

If you do well, will you not be accepted?

If you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door and its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.

So I knew this fella who said to me once, my life was saved by a comma.

And it's not one of those let's eat grandma, let's eat comma grandma situations.

You know.

This was a fella who was a member of AA for many, many years, struggled to get sober, lost his job, saw his marriage fall apart.

And as all of this was happening around him, he was fuming with resentment.

It was like the universe was stacked against him.

He couldn't put this bitterness out of his mind.

And so he says, in the middle of going to these meetings and working with others, he says he pulled out A.A.'s big book, which is kind of the classic text for 12-step recovery, right?

And he's reading in step four, and step four requires a moral inventory of oneself and includes resentments.

And he's reading in step four, and he reads this one singular line that just jumps out at him with a comma in the middle.

The line is this putting out of our minds the wrongs others had done, we resolutely looked for our own mistakes.

Putting out of our minds the wrongs others had done, comma, we resolutely looked for our own mistakes.

And this fellow says to me, suddenly I realized I've been living on the former side of the comma, not the latter half of the comma.

I've been looking around at every wrong that everyone else in the universe has done by me.

I have refused to look for my own mistakes, to take responsibility for how I've responded to my circumstances.

And this fellow concludes that this comma saved his life.

Now, again, I'm not saying that you're responsible for your circumstances as if harm done to you was your fault.

That's not what I'm saying, and that's not what he was saying either.

But we always have moral agency in our circumstances.

We can choose how we respond to life around us.

Even Cain, consumed by resentment as he is, has a moral choice in front of him.

If you do well, Cain, will you not be accepted?

Cain, if you relate to me on the basis of trust and obedience, if you humble yourself in a way that you elevate your own expectations, you'll experience the acceptance that you're looking for.

But Cain, if you do not do well, if you refuse to humble yourself, if you refuse to consider your own moral agency and responsibility, then sin will eat you for lunch.

And the image here is as if a ravenous wolf or something were just crouched at the door, ready to gobble Cain up at its first opportunity.

And maybe some of us know what it's like to have a wolf at the door in that way.

Cain has a choice, and that choice has consequences.

Resentful as we may be, we are not without agency or responsibility in the situation that we're in.

But Cain in his resentment refuses that responsibility.

And so resentment gives way to revenge and rage.

Verses 8 to 12.

Cain said to his brother Abel, let's go out into the field.

You know, let's go for a hike.

Maybe that's something they did on a regular basis.

And while they're out in the field, no witnesses, no one to hear them shout, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.

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

And he said, I don't know.

Am I my brother's keeper?

The remarkable thing here is that Cain who has refused to, Cain who didn't bring the right sort of sacrifice, Abel who brought a blood sacrifice, well, now is being himself sacrificed only to Cain's rage and resentment.

It's come to full fruition, full rage against his brother.

Cain has made his choice to refuse his responsibility to will his brother's good, to will his brother's flourishing.

And that's the nature of this rhetorical question he says to God so flippantly Am I my brother's keeper?

I mean, I owe I owe my brother Abel nothing.

What's he done for me lately?

God offered.

Is his response.

Abel's blood cries out to me from the ground.

What is a cry out?

Injustice.

Cries out for Cain's condemnation.

Cain has polluted the ground that he once worked with his own brother's blood.

He has become consumed by his own resentment.

And now it's given birth to revenge.

One of the my favorite literary examples of resentment is Moby Dick.

It's a book that I often pretend I've read.

And if we know Moby Dick, we know it's the story of Captain Ahab, who's consumed by resentment and anger and hatred of this whale that's taken his leg, and I think that's destroyed the ship, his former ship.

And now he's on a single-minded pursuit to end this whale, to make it get what's coming to it.

And of course, as Captain Ahab deals a final blow to this whale, the whale takes him with him.

It's an illustration that the object of our resentment will often consume us in the end.

Take us with it.

And so Ahab's famous final line is this to the last I grapple with thee.

From hell's heart I stab at thee.

For hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee.

From hell's heart I stab at thee.

Isn't that the condition of resentment in our heart?

It's a condition of hell.

It's a condition of such ravenous hatred that it's expelled all love, all flourishing.

We are in utter bondage, enslaved to it.

Sin, when it is fully grown, gives birth to death.

And Cain knows this firsthand.

His resentment, when fully grown, gives way to revenge.

Maybe you and I know what it is to be resentful, but maybe you and I haven't taken the object of our resentment out to the field, if you know what I mean.

But maybe we have willed not the good of the object of our resentment, the person we resent.

But maybe we just will a thousand little slices.

Comments that cut against their reputation, hardness of heart that pushes the other person away or alienates them.

Maybe we know what it is to will not the good of the other, but will their destruction.

And that's a heart of resentment.

So resentment begins with a sense of rejection, it refuses its responsibility, and it ultimately leads to revenge.

Where does all this leave us?

In the Sermon of the Mount, Jesus says, You have heard it said to those of old, you shall not murder, and whoever murders will be liable to the judgment.

But I say to you that who anyone who is angry with his brother, with his brother, will be liable to judgment.

Whoever insults his brother will be liable to the counsel, and whoever says, You fool, will be liable to the hell of fire.

See, anger and resentment, that condition of hell in our hearts, gives way to being finally consumed by hell itself.

Resentment is the murderous posture of the heart, and it will ultimately be judged.

That's what Cain experiences in verses 13 and 14.

After God relays to Cain his punishment, Cain says this, verse 13, My punishment is greater than I can bear.

Behold, you've driven me away today from the ground, and from your face, and I shall be hidden.

I shall be a fugitive, a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.

And I kind of want to say, really, Cain?

What did you just do to Abel?

My punishment is too great for me to bear.

This may be a couple of things.

This may be just such oblivious self-centeredness on Cain's own part.

But I think this is an honest acknowledgement.

My punishment, the weight of this sin is too great for me to bear.

And don't we echo that in our own confession together?

Won't we echo that this Sunday?

When hell consumes our heart, its weight is too great for us to bear.

And so how does God respond?

He responds with protection and with promise.

Verse 15, 16 The Lord said to Cain, Not so, no one will kill you.

If anyone kills Cain, vengeance will be taken on him sevenfold, which is to say, Cain, I'm going to preserve your life in a way that you refused to preserve your brother Abel's life.

That is my mercy towards you.

And then the Lord put a mark on Cain, lest anyone who found him should attack him.

Don't really know what this mark's about.

I don't think it was a stamp that said hands off that God put on his forehead or something.

One commentator suggests maybe this mark is less of something physical, and maybe it's a mark of promise.

It's the word that God speaks to Cain.

And whether it's a physical mark or not, I think that's the bottom line here.

God is giving Cain his promise.

His promise is that God in his mercy will not leave Cain helpless.

Cain's story may end with a rejection of God's grace, but God will nevertheless extend that grace to Cain.

See, like Genesis 3.15, that promise, that first glimpse of the gospel, even here when we are at our lowest, at our most condemned, God shows himself merciful.

And ultimately, this mercy, this promise, points us towards the merciful one, Christ.

See where Cain was perceived his own circumstances unfair as a rejection, Christ came to his own, and his own did not receive him.

Christ is truly the rejected one.

And yet Christ came not to be served, but to serve.

His heart was for us and not against us.

And so Christ takes up his responsibility in a way that Cain and his resentment refused it.

In John chapter 3, verse 1, we read that having loved his own, he loved them to the end.

John 3:1

And that is in the shadow of the cross that that's being written.

Christ loves us to the end, in a way that Cain's murderous resentment was against his brother.

Christ is willing to endure whatever it takes for our sake to restore us to God.

So ultimately, Christ's action towards us does not result in revenge, but in our redemption.

That's why the author of Hebrews in chapter 12 can again reflect on Cain and Abel and write that you, church, have come to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

Christ's blood speaks a better word.

Cain's spilt blood speaks out condemnation against Cain.

Christ's blood speaks out forgiveness for our sake.

On Good Friday, don't we together yell, crucify him?

We're reminded which side of the table we sit on.

And yet, even as Cain refused to keep his brother's life, our brother Christ keeps our life in him.

He is the good brother that Cain failed to be.

And so Christ's spilt blood is our assurance.

We are rescued by God's mercy and brought to new life in him.

Resentment, friends, is a road to self-destruction, and Cain is a warning of a heart, of a heart hardened against this kind of grace.

But the good news of the gospel is that we can be released from this condition of a hellish heart.

That the gospel reassures us that God does not hold resentment against us, but rather God is for us through the cross.

His word towards us is love.

And being love, the gospel, can be an antidote to resentment.

1 John chapter 3, we're warned to not be like Cain.

1 John 3 · chapter mention

Cain held a murderous heart against his brother.

Instead, knowing the love of Christ, John writes to the church, put that love into practice.

If resentment has hardened our heart, we need to begin by looking at the cross and contemplating the love that we have so abundantly received in Christ, because only that love can start to loosen the hardness of resentment over time.

It's contemplating the love of Christ that will put our love into practice.

That's why Eugene Peterson can write, we learn how to love, not by being told to love, but by being loved.

This is who you are, he says, loved by God.

But being loved is not all there is to it.

Being loved creates a person who can love and who must love if that person is going to be fully human.

Getting loved is a launching pad into giving love.

So, friends, in our fallen condition, sin crouches at the door, ready to eat us for lunch.

And yet we have a mighty Savior, whose blood is a word for us and not against us.

Let us love one another with the love with which he loved us.

Amen.

Thank you for listening today.

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May God bless you and keep you today and every day.