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Theme for 2022 is “Begin Again”
In this eight-part series we are looking at how God began everything and how God begins again.
We talked about how God created beauty from chaos and order from nothingness.
God created the world good and designed life to reproduce and to multiply His goodness throughout the earth.
But with the fall of mankind, there is now both good and bad seed that is reproducing, not only in the earth, but in humans as well.
God gave humanity a choice to know and decide for themselves what is good and evil or to simply eat from the tree of life and live in the presence of God in innocence.
One they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil they were banished from the garden, from the presence of God and from the tree of life.
But God did not give up on humanity.
He already had a plan to redeem mankind with the sacrifice of his own son.
But there would be some lessons to learn before that would happen.
Because we live in a sinful world, we are constantly making choices.
We need to recognize what is really good and what is evil and continually chose good and reject evil.
Because both good and evil are in our nature, it means sorting out our own desires to figure out what we really want.
It means resolving our wrong choices and managing our lives in such a way as to perpetuate the good and not the evil.
It is the choice between life and death, not only for ourselves but for the legacy that we leave behind.
Mastering your desires
Last week we talked about how sin twists our desires so that we live for ourselves instead of in relationship with God and others.
Because of that, there was disharmony between woman and man and between man and his environment.
We don’t know how many children Adam and Eve actually had, or if they had any children before the fall or only after.
What is clear is that all of humanity was impacted by the fall.
The Genesis account will go on to mention two sons who embody the choice between good and evil.
So for Eve, even though childbirth is now painful, there is redemption in it - she came from man but now she gives birth to men.
Even in many cultures today where women are undervalued, they achieve status in the family by giving birth, especially to sons.
I know that seems chauvinistic to our society, but to readers of the scripture down through the ages, Eve is getting what all of us want - affirmation.
Everyone has a desire for affirmation.
Adam and Eve are making the best of a bad situation.
They are doing what God originally gave them to do, multiply and fill the earth.
But now it is harder, because it is not just God’s goodness that is multiplying but also some bad stuff with it.
The first two sons mentioned in the Bible - Cain and Abel - represent the good and the bad.
Adam’s job was to care for the animals and to cultivate the soil.
It seems that Cain and Abel were each delegated different tasks.
Abel is domesticating animals and Cain is farming crops.
Those are both great jobs!
But then it came time to give God a portion from what they had grown as tribute.
Abel offers an animal and Cain offers grain.
There is precedent for both animal offerings and grain offerings in scripture - that’s not the problem.
But God somehow affirmed Abel’s offering in a way that Cain’s offering was not affirmed.
Maybe it rained on Cain’s offering or the fire went out.
Cain was offended that his offering was not received.
Bible scholars point out that a blood sacrifice was what was really needed here- because there was sin, there had to be death.
A life needed to be exchanged for life.
Sure, a grain offering is great for thanking God for an abundant harvest, but it does not atone for sin.
If God wants animal sacrifice, a simple solution would be to trade grain for an animal and offer it to God.
I’m sure Abel needs grain for his animals, they should be used to trading.
God is using this as a teaching moment, but Cain can’t get past the fact that God somehow rejected his offering.
It’s not about what God wants, its about what’s mine!
That’s the sinful nature, always craving affirmation.
Eve feels she needs sons to feel valued as a woman.
Cain feels he needs to offer his produce, not Abel’s.
Everybody wants affirmation, but when that desire comes from a place of insecurity and emptiness, we feel it as a need.
Sometimes we may feel the need for validation.
Validation is the desire to have someone else's approval or agreement with what you say, believe, or do.
It is more than just affirmation - “you did good!”
You need someone to tell you that that you are OK, that you are adequate and that you have value.
Why should those things even be a question for people who are created in God’s image?
Because now we are a mixture of good and evil, of God’s image and selfishness.
We have to sort it out, but we often expect others to do it for us.
Note what is happening here: God is still speaking to Cain!
God has not rejected him.
God still loves Cain.
God is trying to redeem the situation by getting Cain to see what he needs to do to obey.
God is always there, loving and seeking to redeem.
Why can’t Cain see it?
Because he is looking through the lens of his own selfish desire.
Cain wants to be right, more than he wants to be righteous.
He wants to be loved, more than he wants to love God or others.
He wants to be validated, proven worthy, more that he wants to reflect God’s image.
Cain has mixed feelings, but only Cain can decide which side will win.
God uses the same language that he uses of man and woman who were once one, now being separated and having differing desires from each other.
Cain has the same thing going on inside of him - like he is two persons who don’t get along and can’t decide what they want.
Just as God told Eve, that since they are now in conflict, the man is going to to assert rulership.
God is telling Cain that he needs to assert rulership over his own heart and mind - he needs to decide which side will dominate.
Why is this important?
Chaos and sin thrive in a vacuum- good requires order - rulership.
Failure to decide is a decision to let the sinful nature run it’s course.
Cowards take the path of least resistance and wonder why things don’t turn out right.
The Bible tells us what the ultimate end of the sinful nature will be.
Sinful desires lead to sinful actions which lead to death - which is separation from God.
Do you see how the sinful nature seeks to unravel God’s creation?
So what happens if evil is allowed to do what evil wants to do”
What happens if we don’t rule over our hearts and our selfish desires?
We respond to unmet needs or demands with violence.
How could Cain commit murder?
What was he doing that was so evil?
Cain was hating on his brother out of jealousy.
There was a solution to Cain’s problem - trade with your brother.
God had not rejected Cain, only his offering - but that’s not how Cain saw it.
Cain needed someone to validate him - he needed God’s approval as if he didn’t already have it -
And he saw his brother as an obstacle to getting what he wanted instead of the means by which he might be reconciled to God and others.
Sin leads to death and hatred leads to murder, it’s what happens when you don’t rule over your own heart.
People do not naturally gravitate to violence, but when their desires are so twisted that they thing the only way to get to good (approval, affirmation and validation) is to go through evil, they are calling evil good.
What about Abel?
Why should the good guy have to suffer?
Hebrews calls him a hero of faith.
Not because he did anything we might consider heroic, but because he was just faithful in offering his sacrifice.
And Cain thought he was killing his brother, shutting him up for good.
But the Bible says that Abel is alive and still speaking!
It makes you wonder, who is alive and who is really dead?
Resolving your past
Cain has to live with what he did, which may sometimes be worse than dying.
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