Sunday AM—7/17/05
SERIES: Genesis—The First Soap Opera
MESSAGE 3: A Tale of Two Brothers
Felt Need Intro:
Do me a favor and help me out for a second as we open our message this morning…tell me something that you just can’t live without. Not like your kids, your spouse, or something like that, but what is something you own or something you often do that is so much fun or is so enjoyable that you just can’t imagine living without it?
• Get responses.
I can’t imagine living without a…
• Hot shower
• Air conditioning
• Television—The fact that I mention TV makes me think maybe I need to turn it off.
There’s lots of things we enjoy in life, lots of things we couldn’t imagine living without. I want to talk to you this morning about something that we all love. In fact we love it so much that we allow it to control every aspect of our lives. We love it more than our friends. We love it more than our family. Most of us love it more than anything. In fact, sometimes we even love it more than God. It is something that each of us enjoys every single day. So, what is so great? What is it that we can’t live without? What is it that we put first and foremost more than anything else?
The answer is ourselves. Yup, you and me. If we’d be totally honest, the one thing that we can’t live without, the one thing that we put first, above everything else, is not actually a thing. It’s us. We just love ourselves don’t we? Often, you put yourself first and I put myself first.
Everybody say this together, “I love me.” Come on, admit it, doesn’t that make you feel good? If we’d all admit it, we think we’re pretty good. In fact, we may just be pretty great. I’m a good person, I’m a nice guy, I deserve good things in life. I love me.
Though this is a common way of life for a lot of people in our world, and I think we could safely say is something that you and I struggle with too. Who is most important in your life? If the answer is you, then you have the wrong answer. The only problem is we are bombarded with so many messages each and every day that teach us to put ourselves first and to look out for ourselves first. Landon makes fun of me because I guess in my sermons I say, “Here’s the problem a lot.” Well, here’s the problem…The Bible boldly proclaims a different message. One that says the real way to be great is to put yourself at the bottom, not the top.
Let’s take a little test…who do you think is more beautiful? Who do you think is more attractive? Which one of these two groups do you most want to be like?
Group Number 1:
• Nick Leshea and Jessica Simpson
• Eva Longoria from Desperate Housewives
• Ty Pennington
Group Number 2:
• Mother Theresa
• Billy Graham
• Rick Warren
You know I’m kind of setting you up here. But, most Christians think about being like the first group, wishing they had money like this person, power like this person, fame like this person, looks like this person. We dream and chase after those kind of things instead of saying I wish I had the servant’s heart of Mother Theresa, I wish I had the evangelistic passion of Billy Graham, I wish I had the leadership influence of Rick Warren. We chase after all the wrong things and the reason is because we want ourselves to look and feel better.
I really believe we have bought into a lie. And this morning, I would like for us to take a look at what can happen when we put ourselves, our own agenda first.
Would you open your Bibles with me to Genesis 4.
• Put up Genesis Series logo.
We are in a message series called “Genesis—The First Soap Opera.” Genesis really is the beginning of the story of God interacting with mankind. The book has a lot of interesting stories. They are in fact more than stories. They are actual events that happened as recorded in Scripture. A lot that happens in Genesis is Soap Opera like. Sex, families fighting, deception, greed, murder, all that and more is found in the book of Genesis. And this morning is our third message in the series and today’s we’re talking about “A Tale of Two Brothers.”
Let’s read Genesis 4, starting with verse 1 and together learn about the first murder that ever occurred in the world. It was between two brothers named Cain and Abel.
Read Verses 1-16 and then skip to 25-26.
Genesis 4:1-26—“1 Adam [a] made love to his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. [b] She said, "With the help of the LORD I have brought forth [c] a man." 2 Later she gave birth to his brother Abel.
Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. 3 In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the LORD. 4 But Abel also brought an offering—fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, 5 but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.
6 Then the LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? 7 If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it."
8 Now Cain said to his brother Abel, "Let’s go out to the field." [d] While they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.
9 Then the LORD said to Cain, "Where is your brother Abel?"
"I don’t know," he replied. "Am I my brother’s keeper?"
10 The LORD said, "What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground. 11 Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. 12 When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth."
13 Cain said to the LORD, "My punishment is more than I can bear. 14 Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me."
15 But the LORD said to him, "Not so [e]; anyone who kills Cain will suffer vengeance seven times over." Then the LORD put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him. 16 So Cain went out from the LORD’s presence and lived in the land of Nod, [f] east of Eden.
17 Cain made love to his wife, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch. Cain was then building a city, and he named it after his son Enoch. 18 To Enoch was born Irad, and Irad was the father of Mehujael, and Mehujael was the father of Methushael, and Methushael was the father of Lamech.
19 Lamech married two women, one named Adah and the other Zillah. 20 Adah gave birth to Jabal; he was the father of those who live in tents and raise livestock. 21 His brother’s name was Jubal; he was the father of all who play stringed instruments and pipes. 22 Zillah also had a son, Tubal-Cain, who forged all kinds of tools out of [g] bronze and iron. Tubal-Cain’s sister was Naamah.
23 Lamech said to his wives,
"Adah and Zillah, listen to me;
wives of Lamech, hear my words.
I have killed a man for wounding me,
a young man for injuring me.
24 If Cain is avenged seven times,
then Lamech seventy-seven times."
25 Adam made love to his wife again, and she gave birth to a son and named him Seth, [h] saying, "God has granted me another child in place of Abel, since Cain killed him." 26 Seth also had a son, and he named him Enosh.
At that time people began to call on [i] the name of the LORD.”
You know, this really is an interesting story. You think, what is the world made Cain so mad that he wanted to kill his own brother. This event leaves us with a lot of questions. In fact, there’s all sorts of unanswered questions. Here’s a list of some of the things that we are left wondering…
Things We Don’t Know About Cain and Abel:
• How did they know to give offerings to God? At this point, it doesn’t seem that God has instructed people about giving offerings.
• Why is it exactly that God accepted Abel’s offering and not Cain’s? How do I know this is an unanswered question??? Because of all the different opinions out there I read this week.
• They are living in a fallen world at this point and are not in the garden of Eden, but it appears that they are still taking to God face to face. At least the story makes it sound that way.
• How did Cain know to kill Abel? They had seen animals die at this point (after all, Abel sacrificed it), but no human had ever died. Did Cain really know what would happen if Abel was attacked?
• If they are the only people on the planet, then exactly who else out there is going to kill Cain?
• What exactly was this mark that God put on Cain? I flipped through the channels the other day and saw a documentary on the history channel about the KKK. It amazes me the hatred that people can have for others, especially just over the color of skin. Did you know there are people out there that believe the mark God gave Cain was that he made him black and all black people are descendants of Cain? We know that’s not true, but we aren’t sure what the mark is.
Listen, there are lots of questions yet to be answered. Some we can guess at, some we may think we know and some we just have no idea, but all of them unanswered. It would be easy to focus on what we do not know in this passage and try to figure it all out. But, in doing so, we may just go around and around in circles because perhaps we don’t need to know all of this. We can be confident that God has revealed to us in Scripture that which we do need to know. So, maybe we should focus on what we do now about the story of Cain and Abel.
Here’s Things We Do Know About Cain and Abel:
• Both Cain and Abel brought an offering to the Lord.
• God accepted Abel’s offering, but did not accept Cain’s.
• Cain’s reaction to God not accepting his offering is anger.
• God speaks to Cain and encourages him to do what is right and to avoid sin. Why? Because it is crouching at out door and desires to have us.
• Cain does not response to God’s instruction. Instead, he deceives his brother and murders him.
• God punishes Cain for his disobedience.
• The New Testament gives us some insight into Cain. Here’s what 1 John 3:11-12 says, “11 For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. 12 Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? (Ah, this is the question we’ve been wanting to know right? Why did Cain do this?) Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous.”
So, what are we supposed to learn from this story?
1. God Accepts Us On The Basis Of What’s In Our Hearts, Not What’s In Our Hands!
There are a lot of people that believe that the reason God accepted Abel’s offering and not Cain’s was because Abel’s offering included blood. He sacrificed an animal, therefore there was blood in the sacrifice, and Cain only gave some of his produce. Later on in the Bible, God required the Jews to sacrifice animals as a sign of their atonement for sins. The animal took their place. And the blood was a sign that the animal was dying in their place. We don’t do that anymore because later on Jesus died for our sins, once and for all, shedding his blood for us.
However, this event in history was prior to all that. What they brought to offer God in their hands had little to do with God’s response to them. What God saw was what was in their hearts. Perhaps what they brought was a reflection of what was in their hearts. It seems like Cain just brought whatever part of his produce that he could find, whereas Abel brought one of the best in his flock. But, the main point is not what they brought in their hands, it is the condition that they came with in their hearts.
We just read it out of 1 John 3. Abel was righteous, and Cain was evil. God wants you to give him all of your heart. Not just some of it. We believe it is normal for a believer to be fully devoted to God. We must give God our hearts in complete devotion to his Word. God accepts us when our hearts are focused on him, not on ourselves.
2. Even When We Choose Wrong, God Gives Us Another Chance To Choose Right!
After God doesn’t accept Cain’s offering and Cain gets mad and his face becomes downcast, what does God tell him? Don’t be mad? Don’t be sad? The reason things didn’t go well for you doesn’t have anything to do with me. It has everything to do with you. If you do what is right, I will accept you. Even after choosing evil, God still gives Cain the opportunity to do what is right. The same is true with us. No matter what mistake we make, no matter how often we focus ourselves on ourselves, God always gives us the opportunity to turn to him for forgiveness and to choose to begin doing what is right.
But, in the same way, we see that if we continue to choose wrong, sin is crouching at the door and that sin desires to have us. This probably means that “the power and tragic consequences of sin can master us if we open the door to temptation.”
I mentioned to you the Genesis is the first soap opera. Well, just look at what we find in this chapter.
• Greed—Cain keeps the best of his fruit and produce for himself.
• Jealousy—Cain is jealous that his offering is not accepted.
• Anger—Cain is so angry that it leads him to think and act irrationally and sinfully.
• Deception—He deceives his brother and lures him out into the field.
• Revenge—He wants revenge and to harm his brother for in his mind being the one that kept God from accepting his offering.
• Murder—Gain brutally murders his brother and lies to God about it when questioned.
• Evil intentions—1 John tells us that he was evil.
Talk about a soap opera. This brings us back to our original opening introduction. In Cain, we see…
• Selfishness—Basically, Cain didn’t get what he wanted. He was mad and intended to do whatever it took to get even. He tricked his brother, lured him out into the field, and murdered him and then tried to cover it up, all because he was angry that he didn’t get what he wanted. This is the height of selfishness. This is a classic example of looking out for myself, putting myself and what I want first, no matter what it costs my brother. Selfish, selfish, selfish.
This brings us to the third thing we can learn from this story. And I would like for this to be theme of our message, the one phrase that sticks in your mind this morning…
3. When we are driven by anger, greed, and selfishness, we are capable of anything.
We don’t like to hear that. We see stories on the news and think, “How could anyone do that? How could anyone stoop so low?” Do you know what we are really saying? We’re saying, “I am better than that. I could never do such a thing. It is beneath me.” When focused on Christ and his purposes for our lives, this may be true. But, with one selfish decision, we are capable of doing anything.
Closing:
• Mike and Chere, could you come back for me?
This story kind of takes us back to a couple of weeks ago when we talked about Creation Vs. Evolution and said you don’t have to be a monkey to believe in a creator. Maybe you’ve heard about the gorilla in a zoo holding a Bible in one hand & a book about evolution in the other. He was looking confused, so someone asked, “What are you doing?” The gorilla answered, “Well, I’m trying to figure out if I’m my brother’s keeper or my keeper’s brother.”
Our passage this morning teaches us that we are our brother’s keeper.
I remember Joseph Hartman teaching on the book of James on a Wednesday night several months ago. We did a series on James, studying it passage by passage. I asked Joseph to lead us in a discussion on the last passage in the book. He got to the very end and here’s the last two verses of the book…
James 5:19-20—“19My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring them back, 20 remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the way of error will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins.”
He talked about how James really deals with a lot of issues that are intended to be for the church as a whole. A lot of instructions are given for the community of believers living and serving God together. And one of those are these verses we just read. It said that if you see something straying away from God, wandering from the truth, you should go after them and do everything you can to bring them back. And if I remember correctly, one of the things Joseph said was this…In Genesis 4, we see Cain asking God, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” And clearly, the rest of the Bible teaches us that the answer to that question is a resounding YES!
It’s not all about you. We should live our lives with others in mind, instead of just ourselves. Do you know one good reason for that? Because when we live greedy, selfish lives, when we’re driven by anger we are capable of anything.
God, thank you for your grace and your Spirit that helps us and empowers us to live lives dedicated to you. Because without a relationship with Christ, without God’s help, without the Holy Spirit’s direction, we are capable of hurting others in order to benefit ourselves.
Altar Call:
1. Salvation—I see that I am living my life for myself and I need God to take over my life.
2. I sense selfishness and greed and anger in my life and I know now more than ever that I need God’s help to deal with it.
3. I find myself chasing the message of the world to put myself first and be beautiful in appearance rather than strong in character and faith.
• Close in prayer.
