September 6, 2026 | Jon Brown

The Lord be with you.

Thank you so much.

What a gift to be with you on this stunningly beautiful Sunday morning amidst a very soggy weekend.

A bunch of people sitting on the lawn, and I'd love to hear a shout from our friends on the lawn.

So weak.

That was bad out there.

Isn't this an amazing moment with Gladriel?

I mean, my goodness, we get to be a part of this.

I don't know what you thought was going on when you showed up to church on Sunday.

But there was someone here, Christ the King Sunday last November, that experienced something new and changed her life.

I wonder what's happening here now.

I wonder what's happening with you today.

It's amazing.

She talks about the king who is the Lamb.

The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Lamb who takes on the shame and the hurt and the sin and the brokenness and the shattered realities of all of our lives.

He takes it on himself, dies to forgive, and rises in resurrection, the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, who takes away the sin of the world.

It's amazing.

I want you to keep that moment in mind as we journey through the rest of the morning.

You are going to need it.

This is a sermon on sin.

I told someone before the 9 o'clock service, I said, hey, I'm preaching on sin.

And he said, Oh, good.

I've been, I've been, for reasons I won't bore you with, I've been trying to memorize a poem by Walt Whitman.

Anybody know this name?

Let's see if I can get it.

O me, O Life.

Do you know this poem?

O me, O life, the questions of these recurring, of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities filled with the foolish, of myself ever reproaching myself.

For who more faithless than I, and who more foolish?

Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of objects mean the struggle ever renewed, of the poor results of all, the plotting of the crowd I see all around me, of the endless, useless years of the rest with the rest, me intertwine, the question so sad, recurring, what good amid these, O me, O life?

Answer that you are here.

That life exists and identity.

That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

How did I do?

Don't you love that line?

The powerful play goes on.

And you may contribute a verse.

The powerful play, love, joy, peace, the play, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, the play, faith and hope and goodness and generosity.

The play goes on and you may contribute a verse.

I don't know what you thought about you, but you participate in something much bigger than you ever imagined.

The drama of salvation, the ark of redemption, all things being made new, you may contribute a verse.

My goodness.

That's Whitman's answer.

That's Whitman's answer to Whitman's question.

What good amid these?

Anybody ever found themselves?

What's the good?

What's the good?

Pain.

Wreckage of fractured relationships strewn across the landscape of our lives, wars and rumors of war, bombs explode and people die.

Real people die.

What good amid these?

Wealth and worth, they've become so intertwined, we can't separate the two.

But economies fluctuate and then people suffer.

What good amid these?

Whitman's wondering, and now I am too.

Good people do bad things.

And bad people do too.

What good?

The ancients call it sin.

Don't mean to be offensive.

But what would you call it?

G.K.

Chesterton has this great line.

Sin is the only major Christian doctrine that is empirically verifiable.

It's just everywhere.

The good I would, I don't do, and that I hate is the very thing I do.

That's the Apostle Paul.

David, the you know, the prayer.

I was born guilty.

How's that for a shot in the arm?

Go get them, guys.

You're gonna do great this week.

What good amid these?

Eugene Peterson, he pushes it even farther.

It's worse than you thought.

This failure to take with full seriousness the nature and presence of sin, a great deal of caring, is simply collaboration and selfishness, in self-pity, in self-destruction, in self-indulgence, all the seemingly endless hyphenations that the self is able to engineer.

In other words, we can't even care right.

We don't even care well.

Oh me, oh life, what good amid these?

The question so sad recurring.

Are you with me or am I just being, did I wake up on the wrong side of the bed?

Amen.

It's not even the Michigan football game last night either.

So sad recurring.

Man, it didn't start with me.

I uh you know, it's not just September 6th.

It's all of us.

It's just us.

It's just us.

It's just us.

It's been this way.

It's been this way for a really long time.

I want you to listen with me to a story.

I'm not trying to be mean, by the way, I'm just trying to invite us into a little honesty.

It's been this way for a long time.

Like since we were.

Listen to this.

This is from the Bible.

If it gets to be too much, just hang, hang on.

Now that the man knew his wife, Eve.

And she conceived and bore Cain, saying, I've produced a man with the help of the Lord.

Next she bore his brother, Abel.

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

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

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

And Cain became angry, and his countenance fell.

And the Lord said to Cain, Why are you angry?

And why is your countenance fallen?

If you do well, will you not be accepted?

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

Its desire is for you.

And you must master it.

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

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

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

And Cain said, I do not know.

Am I my brother's keeper?

And the Lord said, What have you done?

Listen, your brother's blood is crying out to me from the ground.

Cursed are you because of the ground which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood.

It will no longer yield to you its strength.

You'll be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.

And Cain said, My punishment is greater than I can bear.

Today you've driven me away from the soil.

I'll be hidden from your face.

I'll be a fugitive and a wanderer.

And anyone who comes upon me may kill me.

And the Lord said, Not so.

Whoever kills Cain will suffer a sevenfold vengeance.

And the Lord marked Cain so that no one who came upon him would kill him.

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

This is the word of the Lord.

If you'd like.

If you dare.

I read the story, I come across the story, and I'm like, no, no, don't do it.

Don't do it.

Sin's lurking at the door.

It's desires for you.

You must master it.

And he takes his brother out into the field and he rises up against his brother and he kills him.

No, okay, no.

The shrapnel of your decision has been blowing up all of our lives.

Lies and half truths and no truths at all.

What good amid these?

Fractured relationships and violence and anger.

It's just the way it is.

We're just so used to it.

What good amid these?

Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him.

Do you feel the weight of it?

It's not like he didn't have a warning.

It's not like God didn't tell him.

Sin is lurking at the door.

Its desire is for you, but you must master it.

Poignant, precise.

Predictive still of our lives.

Sin is lurking at the door.

Its desire is for you.

But you must master it.

If you're here on Labor Day weekend hoping to enjoy a little time in West Michigan, I apologize.

It's a part of our story.

But what else would you call it anyway, right?

I mean, come on.

Did you think it was is it going the way you had hoped?

Are things the way you wanted them to be?

You know, it's just honest.

We use the word sin like a shaming word, heavy-handed, judging word.

But what if what if you take away the blaming for just a second?

What would you call it?

The ancients call it sin.

Things are not the way they're supposed to be.

It's not the way it ought to be.

It's not the way it ought to be with me.

I don't even like me.

Some of the time.

I do things I shouldn't do, and I don't do things I ought to do.

So I find it to be a war within myself.

I'm quoting the Bible, by the way.

Sin is lurking at the door.

It's internal and it's generational.

You know, Cain.

Abel didn't do anything.

I mean, at least the Bible doesn't tell us he did anything that would have been mean.

Like he didn't tease Cain, you know, like just they brought the one brought the offering of the of the firstlings of the flock, and the other brought the offerings from the fruit of the ground and didn't go the way Cain wanted it to, and right in here.

Right in here.

You ever felt that right in here?

Nobody's moving at all.

Am I the only one who feels it right in here?

It's internal.

And it's generated.

It's not like Cain woke up and the world was just going great and he just decided to ruin everything.

His mom and dad, you know, Genesis 3, she took of its fruit and she ate and she gave some, and everything started spiraling.

And it got passed down.

My eyes are blue, my hair is blonde, and I'm a sinner.

You know?

Thanks, Dad.

It just gets passed down.

It's internal and it's generational.

So, how about a little humility?

That's, I guess that's what I'm not trying to be mean, we're not trying to like be heavy-handed and make everybody feel bad about themselves.

We're just trying to be honest about the way it is.

So maybe we could walk around with a little more humility.

You know the phrase, you do you?

It's such bad advice.

Really?

Or how about how about one of my least favorites of all time, right alongside of Living the Dream, speak your truth.

What?

How about your truth?

Listen a little bit longer.

So much internal of the authority resides in you.

You are not the way you're supposed to be.

It's called sin.

It is the only empirically verifiable doctrine of the Christian faith.

And you know it.

You know it as well as I do.

Let's, it's not, we're not trying to shame or hurt or be mean or I'm not mad.

It's just honest.

So how about a little humility?

Just a little humility.

Cain, you know, he kills his brother Abel, and God said, Where's your brother?

And Cain's like, I don't know.

God's like, what have you done?

And then he just names the reality now.

This is the reality now.

There's consequences, you know.

This is the reality now.

And Cain says, My punishment is greater than I can bear.

Which we have taken and turned into a prayer.

We pray all the time, our sins are too heavy to carry.

Humility.

It's internal and it's generational.

So, how about a little humility?

It's also external and insidious.

Sin is lurking at the door.

Its desire is for you.

It wants you.

It wants you.

It's external, like the the author of Genesis, it personifies sin as a crouching lion, an animal waiting to devour, an animal, a predator waiting to devour its prey.

Its desire is for you.

It wants you.

Those who battle addiction know this so much better than the rest of us.

They have a leg up on us.

They know that it wants you to have another drink.

It wants you to click the link on the browser.

It wants you to hold on to the past pain until it turns into some kind of bitterness so that it gets exacted in revenge.

It wants that.

Its desire is for you.

It's external and it's insidious.

So, how about a little compassion?

Compassion for yourself.

It's not just you waking up doing all sorts of terrible things all the time.

There's this thing at play in our lives and in the world that's wreaking havoc on us.

And so, how about a little compassion on yourself when the voices start telling you you're so bad?

You're so bad, and compassion on your neighbor.

You don't even know the battle your neighbor's fighting.

How about a little compassion?

Isn't that the story?

Cain says, I can't take it.

And the Lord marks Cain.

He marks so that no one will harm him.

Compassion.

It's our story, it's the way of our God.

Sin is lurking at the door, its desire is for you, but you must master it.

Oh no.

No, don't say that.

How about sin is looking at the door, its desires for you, and you must try a little harder.

Sin is looking at the door, its desire is for you.

You ought to give it your best shot.

Sin is looking at the door, it's desire is for you.

You must master it.

I can't even stop biting my fingernails.

Master it?

No.

The New Testament would pick up on the same idea.

Put to death, therefore.

Whatever in you is earthly.

The way the church has invited us to pursue mastering the things that wreak havoc on us that we call sin, first you gotta name it.

You gotta name it for what it is.

Not a little mistake, you know.

Oh, bummer.

Just name it.

Like again, like what else would you call it?

You name it and then you confess it.

You confess it before God to a community of safe people who can hold the pain, the dysfunction, the brokenness with you.

If you think I'm treading on thin ice, Kurt Thompson, he's a therapist.

We push against the inertia of, this is a book titled The Soul of Shame.

We push against the inertia of systemic shame through the weight of a body of people who are collectively engaging in trusting confession.

You name it for what it is and you confess it.

And then you repent, you change, you don't, it's not just enough to say, hey, I'm sorry.

You don't say I'm sorry, and then do it again.

Like what?

You stop it.

You don't do it.

You name it, you confess it, you repent, and then you pursue something else.

This is why Jesus would say things like, You've heard that it said, don't murder.

I say, don't even be angry.

Pursue a different way, a different life.

This is how the church has invited us to do what Genesis 4 is calling for from us.

And then after you've done all of that, you still don't master it.

You still can't beat it.

It reminds me of anybody seen the movie Rocky IV?

Uh Ivan Drago.

This is the moment of levity and the otherwise uh Rocky IV, you know.

Uh Ivan Drago, uh that scene when Adrian is talking to Rocky.

You know the scene.

Here, here's let's see if this.

Do you need to know how strong he is?

You can't win.

That's that's the funny part.

Can't win.

You can't win.

You can't master it.

Sin is lurking at the door, it's desires for you, but you must master.

You can't win.

I work so hard right over here to clean up this part of my life, and I oh my goodness, it's over here now.

And then I work real, and then it's over here now, and I I can't win.

I can't win.

It hounds me like a dog.

It berates me in the middle of the night.

It's just unrelenting.

Anybody know what I'm talking about?

It's super fascinating to me this story, this Cain and Abel story.

There's a lot going on.

I just want to wonder with you.

Cain is a tiller of the ground.

If you've ever read Genesis 3 after the fall, the ground is cursed.

Cursed is the ground.

Because if Cain's a tiller of the ground, and Abel, Abel is a keeper of the sheep.

See where I'm going here?

Cain tills the curse.

Abel keeps the lamb, sacrifices the lamb to offer to the living God, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Could this at the from the very beginning of our shattered lives God point to the one who's going to do something about it?

What we can't do for ourselves.

Pointing even in Genesis 4 to the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, Jesus Christ.

Think about it.

They pin him to a cross.

He rose up against his brother.

We rise up against him and they killed him.

And while he's dying, he says, Forgive them.

They don't know what they're doing.

And they bury him in the ground.

Your brother's blood is crying out to me from the ground.

They bury him in the ground and he goes face to face with death and he defeats it and rises up in resurrection so that we can have life full, whole, thriving, redeemed, forgiven, saved, restored life in Jesus Christ.

The reality you know better than I do, as well as I do.

Whatever version of I do, you do.

Jesus Christ is the only way.

He's the only one who can take the agony of our lives and the sin of our actions and our hearts and our minds.

He takes it on himself and he redeems us all.

This is what Gladriel's talking about.

She showed up on a Sunday because she loved a guy.

I don't care why you're here.

Just show up.

And she hears the story of a king who has authority and power to rule and reign, and that king is the Lamb who rewrites the scripts of our lives to give us back our lives.

So stay close to Jesus.

Sin is lurking at the door.

It's desires for you, and Christ has mastered it.

Anyone who is in Christ is a new creation.

The old is gone.

Over, finished, done with.

Whatever you carry into this place, it is over now.

You're new in Jesus Christ.

Believe it and be at peace.

Amen.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.