The 5 Masculine Instincts - Lesson 2

Genesis 4:1–9 KJV (WS)

1 And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord. 2 And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. 3 And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. 4 And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering: 5 But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell. 6 And the Lord said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? 7 If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him. 8 And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him. 9 And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper?

Introduction

How shifty was cain’s response?

His returned question was an answer without offering one.

Cain scoffed at the idea of taking responsibility.

Our english word “sarcasm” comes from an old greek word for tearing at flesh.

Sarcasm is the humor of our age.

It is often a cover for something far more complex.

It is a tactic of avoidance.

Studies show that people who use sarcasm are usually not kidding.

The joke is often a means of protection.

Sarcasm is a survival technique for the insecure.

Gene Forester said “I recognized sarcasm as the protest of people who are weak.”

Sarcasm is usually contempt.

Sarcasm usually begins when a child’s rudimentary lies develop a more refined approach to test the boundaries of the truth.

When Cain’s dad sinned he literally hid behind a bush.

When Cain sinned he though he could hide behind his own wit.

Tonight we want to look at the possibility that our sarcasm, as funny as it seems, may be holding us back from a divine lesson.

Our supposed wit may be preventing us from growing into something better.

Maturity and Growth Pains

Cultures of the world are filled with feats of bravery that signal the passage of a male from boyhood to manhood.

Men have long sought to prove themselves and mark this transition.

Today’s Jews observe the Bar Mitzvah ceremony.

It is at this time that a boy becomes a man.

The responsibility for him keeping the law is passed from the father to the son.

Even with this ceremony, the boy does not prove himself a man; instead he takes on the moral work of a man.

It is a task he submits himself to.

His transition into manhood is one of accountability and submission.

He takes on the work of self-awareness and attentiveness.

Why are men hesitant to take on this responsibility to know ourselves and who we are?

Why is it we prefer an external test of courage to the internal work of self-awareness?

Many men would rather jump off of towers than risk the vulnerability of introspection and honesty.

Flannery O’Conner said that “It’s easier to bleed than to sweat.”

We want desperately to be recognized as men, but we are slow and often unwilling to take on the hard work of knowing our own hearts.

There is always some excuse.

There is always something to blame.

Always a dismissive wisecrack.

We are experts at what is wrong with the world and amateurs at what is wrong with ourselves.

Maturity is not a natural masculine instinct.

You may wake up one morning to find that first hair on your upper lip, but you will never wake up to find that you grew wisdom overnight.

Maturity always hurts.

Growth requires pain.

Cain’s Invitation to Maturity

Cain was the firstborn of humanity.

We see this in Genesis 4:1 “1 And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord.”

His name is the basis for a Hebrew word for creating.

Not long after his birth, Adam and Eve welcomed their second son, Abel.

Childhood innocence is always gone far too quickly.

Soon the boys were men.

As they were taught, both men brought an offering to God.

God had no regard for Cain’s offering.

We aren’t told how Cain became aware of god’s rejection, but he knew.

Why was Cain’s offering rejected and his brother’s received?

You can find all kinds of theories, explanations, and hidden motives between the lines.

We aren’t told why God rejected Cain’s gift.

For all of our curiosity, “why” doesn’t seem to be a question that Cain asked.

Cain was given an opportunity by failure to be drawn into a deeper investigation of God’s ways; instead he turned his back on God in bitterness.

God came to the frustrated firstborn and initiated a conversation.

Genesis 4:6-7 “6 And the Lord said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? 7 If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.”

This is the first mention of sin in the Bible.

Adam and Eve had sinned but it had been the external temptation of the serpent.

Cain would face in internal enemy that had a bent towards sin.

He must learn to rule over it, recognize its threats, and take control of it before he was devoured from the inside out.

God’s rejection of Cain’s gift was an opportunity for Cain to inquire more about God’s ways and to understand the complexities of his own instincts and vulnerability to sin.

God sought to be Cain’s tutor toward a better way.

Cain was being offered divine instruction.

God was seeking to help Cain become more mature.

Exercise, drills, and practice are supposed to be hard and to hurt.

God wounded Cain for the sake of saving him.

To become a man in a broken and sinful world meant facing the reality of the forces at work within himself.

Vss 6-7 were meant to be Cain’s bar mitzvah.

It was supposed to be his passage into manhood and maturity.

It was supposed to be his moment of growth.

One of the clearest marks of sin is our almost innate desire to excuse ourselves and complain if we are judged in any way.

If we do not grasp our need, every divine gift will feel like condemnation, every divine help will feel like judgment.

Cain ignored his lesson and indulged the anger he felt.

HE opened the door to the sin that lay at his door.

It resulted in Cain murdering his own brother.

Do not underestimate the the stakes of God’s lessons nor the consequences of forging your own way.

Unfortunately, it is precisely this rejection of God’s instruction that men are being taught to indulge.

Men without Chests

In 1943, C.S. Lewis published The Abolition of Man.

Lewis was concerned that the educational trend of his day was to show that all moral conclusions were expressions of personal preference.

There was no right or wrong.

There was only the individuals feelings about what is right and wrong.

The indulgence of feelings as truth makes growing beyond what you feel unobtainable.

Lewis wrote “Aristotle says the aim of education is to make the pupil like and dislike what he is taught.”

Lewis agreed but he also saw how moral maturity could be lost through intentional manipulation or unintentional neglect.

He recognized that students would naturally extend this less to the highest authorities.

They would eventually trust only their own personal preferences and impulses.

We have lost the ancient ways by which we taught men to like and dislike what they ought.

We have demanded proper behavior while laughing at the idea of morality.

How naive and old fashioned to speak of ideas like virtue, character, and honor.

We teach boys to indulge what they feel, but then we expect them to rise above this when called on.

Men do not lack ideals.

Every man can imagine the possibility of something better.

Cain could imagine the possibility of true worship.

What he couldn’t bear was the pain necessary to understand what true worship required of him.

We hate the hunger and the unrealized hopes.

We are ignorant of how to change.

Jude warned about the dangers of remaining in this ignorance.

Jude 10 “10 But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves.”

Men who acted more like beasts than men.

Jude 11 “11 Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core.”

For Jude, the way of Cain was the refusal to learn and a trusting in what we instinctively feel.

Like animals we act without moral reason or clarity.

So, how do we develop a chest?

Recognize your weakness.

Isolate that muscle.

Begin your reps.

Admit you’re not as strong as you imagine.

Recognize it will require some pain to get you there.

In order to attain to true maturity, it will require humility and meekness.

Humility, the First Pain of Maturity.

Shortly after WWI, a British newspaper posed the question. “What is wrong with the world?”

G.K. Chesterton, a prolific thinker of his day responded with a short letter.

What was his answer to the question, “What is wrong with the world?”

Chesterton wrote...

Dear Sir:

I am.

Yours,

G.K. Chesterton

It’s hard to imagine a sarcastic man like Cain making such a statement.

Then again, it’s hard to imagine me making that statement either.

How did Jesus begin the beatitudes?

Blessed are the poor in spirit.

The kingdom of god belongs to those that embrace their own spiritual poverty.

Humility is more than acknowledged ignorance.

Humility senses opportunity beyond yourself.

It recognizes the value and need of an authority higher than yourself.

We often think of humility as the absence of pride.

Humility is not passive.

It takes work.

It takes an active suspicion of our own motives and desires.

Christians must embrace a unique form of self-suspicion.

We must learn that we can’t trust ourselves.

Your first thought is not always right.

Your self evaluations are often wrong.

Your instincts are prone to disaster.

The first pain of maturity is the pain of recognizing your own inadequacy.

You have to recognize your in need before you are willing to learn.

Cain could not grasp this need.

His emotions insisted that he had been wronged.

God’s rejection of his offering was not an opportunity to learn it was a threat to his well-being.

Everyone, but men especially, overestimate their aptitude.

You don’t know what you don’t know.

Ignorance feeds our confidence.

Our pride and self-confidence leverage the success of our good deeds to numb us to the sarcastic immaturity that lives in our soul.

There is a way to worship that keeps you in control and blocks the work of God.

As Cain made his offering, so we too worship and tithe.

The pride we feel at our proper participation blocking us from recognizing the need for anything more.

The moment we think we’re good, the moment we lose our sense of need, we have wandered off the path.

Humility is the key to seeing God work in your life.

He can do nothing in your life until you are willing to recognize your need.

It is man’s pride that keeps him from God.

God was not asking Cain for anything more than attention and the humility to wonder what might be going on.

He only wanted enough self-suspicion to free Cain from his own instincts and to turn his attention toward God and possibilities beyond himself.

God actually ask far less of us than we realize.

What he asks for is humble recognition of our need.

Meekness, the Second Pain of Maturity.

Have you ever that you don’t have to teach kids to react to perceived wrongs?

Newtons 3rd Law of motion: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

In humans. though, the reaction is not always equal to the action.

Adults become craftier than toddlers in their revenge.

The impulse is the same as what you witness in the nursery.

When we are punched, we punch back.

It is a sign of our immaturity and our slavery to our instincts.

We see it in Cain’s response.

Cain was driven to action by his instinct for reaction.

Offended by God he reacted, taking it out on his brother.

If you want to understand the logic by which you live, look no further than your reactions.

Humility sometimes seems abstract and theoretical.

Meekness is easier to see.

It is always a test of reaction.

If we fail to develop a foundation of humility and meekness then all other moral achievements will food for our pride.

German philosopher Nietzsche saw meekness as a Christian pollutant, hindering the progress of man.

From Nietzsche’s perspective, the constraint meekness imposed on man’s ambition held him back.

Meekness is something that weak men claim to justify their weakness.

Meekness is not weakness.

Meekness is disciplined strength, it is inner control.

Greek philosopher, Xenophon saw meekness in the best war horses. They would be tamed but not broken of their spirit. A horse prepared for battle would need to maintain a wild nature but be brought under the control of its rider. Its nature needed to be disciplined but not forfeited. A prized warhorse still possessed all of the traits that made it wild: strength, determination, and fearlessness. It would face canons, muskets, fire and smoke, cries and chaos. But it must also recognize and respond to the most subtle input from his rider.

Meekness doesn’t breed out the horse’s power; meekness matures it into something useful.

A meek person still feels the desire to for reaction, but they have learned that their real strength is being led by God not their emotions.

A fighter’s strength is not only seen in his ability to throw a punch, but also in his ability to take one.

Meekness is possessing strength without having to prove it.

Meekness is self-control without having to be in control to feel it.

The challenge is that no amount of self-determination or will can produce meekness.

It is something that comes from outside ourselves.

Like the horse and its master.

Meekness is a question of submission.

Jesus is the ultimate example of meekness.

1 Peter 2:23 “23 Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously:”

Philippians 2:8 “8 And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.”

Spurgeon said, “The Lord is slow to anger, because He is great in power. He is truly great in power who hat power over himself.When God’s power doth restrain himself, then it is power indeed: the power that binds omnipotence is omnipotence surpassed.”

Your strength is directly related to the strength of that authority to which you are willing to submit yourself to.

You are not the lone ranger, you are silver.

You are not Zorro, you are tornado.

Modern masculinity is too individualistic and independent.

It is too self absorbed.

Submission is the antithesis.

Submission is womanish and domestic.

Submission is rightfully a masculine ideal.

A submissive Cain would have saved himself and his brother.

The Land of Wandering.

How dumb and undisciplined Cain must have sounded in his sarcastic reply to God.

His sarcasm exposed his lack of humility and meekness.

He was a weak and immature man.

He hadn’t fooled God.

Gen 4:10 “10 And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground.”

Despite his sarcasm, he hadn’t gotten away with anything.

Gen 4:11-12 “11 And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand; 12 When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.”

This is less of a curse than simply a statement of how things will be.

There is always a consequence for refusing God’s lesson.

Cain would suffer isolation, loss of strength, and endless wandering because of his immaturity.

How many men are in the same condition?

Cain ended up in the Land of Nod (land of wandering)

He ended up adrift.

A grown up incapable of growing up.

So many men are the same as Cain.

They are not strong, but perpetually impulsive and weak.

They are not humble but proud.

They are not meek but foolhardy.

Their sarcasm is no longer funny.

Refusing discipline, they are cut off.

God has lessons for all of us.

There will be pain.

It will cost you.

It will feel like a threat.

It may seem unfair.

Never mistake God’s lesson for a curse.

it is your cure.

It is your cross.

To die to self is to gain something far better.

Jim Elliot said “He is no fool to give what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.

Your sarcasm will not cover you for long.

Take the lesson.

Mature into the man that God is leading you to be.