Sermon Tone Analysis

! JEALOUSY AND WORSHIP

Our contemporaries do not know how to regard human weakness and failure.

Without clear convictions of right and wrong and humble awareness of the universality of human sin, silly commentary proliferates on every side.

Public scandal is greeted with astonishment (“Who would do such a thing?”) or voyeuristic interest (“Tell me more!”) or cavalier dismissal (“Private immorality is of no consequence”).

One healthy response to such failure is to recall Jesus’ words in John 8: “I will deal with this woman and her sin.

You folks with stones examine yourselves.”

So we might ask how have we fared in the task of self-examination amidst the celebrity sinfulness of the last month or so, the contradiction of good intentions and failed performance, the white-washed exteriors covering up corruption.

I want to invite you to consider the all-time great celebrity sinner, the individual who is probably most identified with stiff-necked sin of anyone in history: Cain the son of Adam and Eve.

We’ll find the story in Genesis 4:1-15.

It is appropriate for us to focus on Cain’s sin, to look at his failure, to listen to his conversations with God, to observe his rebellion-precisely so we can learn about ourselves.

Genesis 1-3 is about never-to-be-repeated beginnings: the creation of energy, matter, the stars and planets, the plant and animal life, the first two people.

They began with an innocence that no human will ever experience again.

In chapters 4-11, however, we have powerful insight into facets of human nature that are expressed over and over again: Cain’s killing his brother, the formation of family and dysfunctionality in the family, the creation of a civilization and judgment of a civilization, the beginning of nations and disharmony among nations, and the breakdown of communication among human beings.

These are the sorts of things that make up the world as we know it today.

So we will do well to examine the life of the celebrity sinner Cain, the ancient first murderer, liar, and stiff-necked rebel.

We can learn from him what it’s like to be us.

And if we learn the lessons that Cain’s life teaches us, hopefully we will learn to repent, be changed, and cling to God as he did not.

Let’s read (Genesis 4:1-15)

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EVERY REASON FOR SELF-CONFIDENCE

We’re going to look carefully at the interaction between Cain and God.

That’s the heart of this story.

But first, it’s worthwhile to look at Cain himself in the context of his family.

What was Cain like before the fateful day on which God refused his offering?

We can surmise a little bit about Cain’s problem when we realize, to begin with, that his mother thought he was the Lord.

Literally, her words in verse 1 are, “I have gotten a man, the LORD.”

Now, I’m the oldest of four children, and my mother has always thought I was terrific, but she never cast me in messianic terms.

That’s really what Eve’s declaration in verse 1 says.

She knew God had foretold (see Genesis 3:15) that some human child would be born who would save the race, and she thought it was this boy, her first baby.

Eve (and presumably Adam) regarded Cain as the savior, the central focus of God’s saving power in the world.

Notice verse 2 by way of contrast: “Later she gave birth to his brother Abel.”

No fanfare for Abel.

Abel was likely his brother’s physical equal, but with less favor and lower expectations.

The record says nothing of God’s role in his birth, nor of his parents’ hopes for him.

Abel had his identity in being Cain’s brother.

So Cain started out with his mother thinking he was the Lord.

That was his first problem.

But in addition, let’s imagine the life Cain lived.

Although the creation had suffered judgment because Adam and Eve had been judged, the earth was still an extraordinary place, not yet polluted or defiled.

Cain’s surroundings must have been beautiful and responsive-not the degraded environment that we live in.

Additionally, he was raised by parents who didn’t have a history of brokenness.

Cain’s parents had walked with God, and although they had sinned, they still had the memory of innocence in their past to bring to bear on his parenting.

Sin took time to do its work across generations.

Human beings lived to a great age in that early era, partly because the functioning of their bodies was much closer to the created order than the functioning of ours is.

Try to imagine Cain walking through the world he lived in.

We can see him pausing to appreciate the remarkable face and body he finds reflected in still waters.

He is struck by the profundity of his thoughts.

He is overcome by the impressive feats of strength and speed and agility that come so naturally to him.

We’ve been watching the winter Olympics, and have seen people do extraordinary things on snow and ice.

But none could even come near the physical ability that this first son of the race would have had.

I can imagine that at times Cain was moved to tears at the genius of his artistic accomplishments.

Cain’s sensitivity to spiritual things impressed him, and he surely expected them to impress God.

At an appointed time, verse 3 tells us, Cain brought an offering to the Lord.

His offering was the bountiful produce of the earth.

It was, I imagine, made up of the most gorgeous fruits and vegetables and grain, beautifully arranged, fragrant-an extraordinary display to place before God.

Along with Cain, his younger brother Abel also brought an offering.

Leslie and I have three children.

The first two were born with the ordinary range of both capabilities and shortcomings.

But the youngest of the three was born with extra handicaps and difficulties.

He is the second of our two sons, and he has always wished he could be just like his big brother.

Perhaps Abel wished for something similar.

We have already noted that Abel was born and raised in magnificent Cain’s shadow.

Later, verse 8 records Abel’s murder with no mention of struggle.

Perhaps Abel regarded himself as no match for Cain even when his life was at stake.

Such observations make the actions of God all the more remarkable.

Cain offered a magnificent array of the produce of the earth to God.

Abel’s gift, a bloody thing, was, as expected, no match for his brother’s offering.

God’s response overturned all expectations.

To me this story is a wonderful illustration of Jesus’ observation that it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God (Matthew 19:24).

Cain was a very rich man in terms of capability and accomplishment.

He had everything.

Yet his brother, who had less, was the one who found favor with God.

It was Cain’s very riches in ability and strength that masked the problems he had inside.

So God accepted the offering of Abel and rejected the offering of Cain.

And the Bible is silent about all kinds of things we want to know at this point.

Why did it happen this way?

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WHEN GOD DISAPPOINTS US

The way verses 4 and 5 are written is worth noting: “The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering...But on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor.”

The statement made twice is that God looked at the man and then at his offering.

We can infer that God started with the heart of the one bringing the offering, and on that basis made a decision about the offering.

But again, the Bible doesn’t exactly teach that.

We don’t know precisely why God accepted Abel’s offering and not Cain’s.

And we’re not supposed to know.

“[Aslan] is not a Tame Lion,”1 C.S. Lewis wrote.

Christ (who is portrayed as Aslan in Lewis’ children’s stories) doesn’t do what we expect him to do all the time.

There will be any number of times when you, and the best Christians you know, will find God inscrutable.

The very thing he did for years in a row, he stops doing for no reason that he feels required to explain to us.

He has the right to disappoint us without having to defend it.

The warm fellowship that we might have experienced with people we love and care about gets broken up.

Folks move away.

Someone falls ill.

Jobs change.

Why would God do that?

So much good was happening in our fellowship.

Or you may have joyfully had God answer prayer after prayer in your life, and then he doesn’t appear to answer them anymore, and he doesn’t tell you why.

He is not required to do what we expect him to do.

That is exactly the lesson that Cain received here.

God was saying to him, “What are you going to do now that I’ve disappointed you?

How will you respond when you don’t get what you want?”

This was very hard for Cain, because he had always gotten what he wanted.

He was a golden boy, someone who could do it all.