Church Life: Bad Religion: Genesis 4:1-8

Introduction

Let me begin with a discipleship question: will we trust and obey Jesus in the real decisions of everyday life? Christ forms us through truth received, repentance practiced, and obedience lived out.

Main Points

Grace and Justification

we are going to as was the goal continue to allow wednesday and sunday to have kind of a living relationship together and wednesday uh tom velasco took us through the story of cain and abel as given to us in genesis chapter four and as i was listening to his teaching and then also just reading through this i realized that this is such an incredible moment in human history for us to learn from genesis the book of the beginnings the book of firsts and we get some more of those unfolding first interactions that man will have with god in a way and with each other that we need to learn from and surprisingly as fun as it is to look forward to what god is unfolding for his future plans to return and redeem the world man you learn a lot by looking back don't you and genesis chapter 4 has such a surprising lesson i believe for the day and age that we live in now so we're going to read this story we're going to only read the first eight or so verses and then we're going to look at a moment that jesus actually teaches on this story of cain and abel and i hope in a way will share something for us from the gospel of matthew so we start in genesis chapter 4 and we're going to read verse 1 through 8 so it says now adam knew eve his wife of course that's the biblical way of saying they came together to conceive uh to have the commandment fulfilled be fruitful and multiply and she conceived and bore kane and said i have acquired a man from the lord so now we have the first birth of a woman giving birth to a child and i can tell you all these thousands of years later what a moment that is to the mothers in the sanctuary you maybe can relate to eve as she says wow i've acquired a man from the lord this is incredible i was there for i've been i've seen four births and i guess i was there for my own and it is quite the moment it is quite the moment that we have when we realize miraculously god does bring life from woman and this is a moment that eve has for the first time in human history where she must be holding baby kane in her arms and say look what the lord has done for me and from this will unfold now a story between brothers it says that she bore again this time his brother abel and now abel was a keeper of sheep but cain was a tiller of the ground uh note those distinctions note those professions one gone one is being drawn to agriculture through the tilling of the ground that's cain and one will be drawn to shepherding to a flock and that will be able those distinctions will matter because of something that is about to happen between man and god for the first time again the book of beginnings you can learn a lot about first impressions and what happens to set into motion things that we still do and to this day it says that in verse 3 and in a process of time came to pass that cain brought an offering of the fruit of the lord or the fruit of the ground to the lord we have again an interaction between man and god creator god that will be first there is an offering that cain will bring to the lord and as will follow abel may be seeing the example of cain it says in verse 4 abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat and the lord respected abel and his offering another translation may say and he received the offering from abel and in verse 5 we get a contrast because it says but he did not respect he did not receive or approve of cain and his offering and because of this cain was very angry and his countenance fell other translations will say he has a long face he's disappointed he's burdened by the lack of relationship that is being formed between him and the lord and it says in verse 6 the lord said to cain why are you angry and why has your countenance fell why are you in this mood why are you so heavy-hearted verse 7 the lord is going to give cain some counsel that we can all listen to this morning he says to cain if you do well will you not be accepted and if you do not do well sin lies at the door and its desire is for you but you should rule over it in other words the lord says there is a right way to make right with me and you can do that you can do well and there's also going to be a temptation in the life of cain in the life of all of us that is not the right way this would be the precursor to the word righteousness if you live righteously you will be accepted by god and if you don't you will be drawn into what the bible calls sin or the violation of god's right way and that is a problem that is waiting for cain it's going to be a fork in the road for his life and in fact it is a problem the problem of sin the problem of unrighteousness is something that we all can relate to in this fork in the road of cain's life it says the lord says it's waiting for you like it's crouching at your doorstep so we get the picture again of a an animal a lion or a tiger waiting for its prey and so it is something that we can learn from the first interactions that man has in the offering to the lord we can learn this morning there is a fork in the road of your life there is a way that god has created you to live there is a way that god will call righteous and there is a way that god will call sin or unrighteousness and it's a fork in the road that all of us have to walk down all of us this morning have that tendency to lean one way or the other typically leaning towards sin in our lives in fact you can just think back seven days ago when you were listening to the word be preached you were worshiping if you came to church and you were given the opportunity to live out your life to do well by the lord the word was preached hopefully it landed on the soft soil of your heart that it would bear fruit and you would know what is acceptable by god that you would do well by it and how many of us all hands would go up if this were a real survey as many commitments that we make to the lord on sunday to do well to worship to pray to put him at the center of our life to live in the center of his will how many of us from monday to now felt that well that didn't go very well for moments maybe for the whole week you can relate to romans chapter 7 when paul says why do i do what i don't want to do why do i live in this body of death that is continually pulling at me towards something that is not going to do well for my life and how it plays out in cain's life is he experiences this he does not heed the counsel of the lord to change his heart to change his attitude and to do well by the lord and he falls into the temptation of the sin that lays at his door in verse eight it says now 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 he killed him verses 9 through the end of the chapter will be god's response to the first murder between humanity and it didn't take long did it we have first family adam and eve creating the first children cain and abel and now one generation we have the first murder we have the first violation of god's good intention for man to be his reflection and glorify his perfect image and within one generation there's murder on the scene uh the rest of the chapter tom beautifully covered in our wednesday night theology class so i'll point you that again and while you're listening to that if you weren't there you're gonna hear the end of the class there was a q a which i don't think there's anyone better at doing q and a's than tom velasco so do come to that class and bring your questions and i'm going to keep reminding tom to repeat the question something he's struggled with i found one question particularly interesting i think it was the very last question so tom didn't have as much time to answer it but i'm going to restate it for you because someone raised their hand and i don't know who you were but it was a good question and they said how did cain even know how to murder this is the first murder that we find where does that come from where did he even get the idea and i appreciated tom gave a twofold answer one there were reference points to death by this time in the creation account we know that abel killed a sheep the first of his flock he offered to the lord and he offered it to the lord in a consuming fire most likely which means that the sheep died and you can get a reference point to a death that potentially cain can say okay so you can't end a life and now i'm going to end yours and i like the second answer that tom gave as well he said also it's kind of just in us you don't really have to have a lot of reference points for sin to know how to sin uh you the parents in the audience always know this lesson the best because you could scratch your head at the little canes in our household all the time and try to ask how did you figure out how to lie like that was really good it was really bad but it was a good lie how did you figure out how to steal and be so selfish and have murder in your heart for the other members of this household it's kind of just in there and i bring that up because i think there's a second question that is begged to ask which is this not only did the question of how did cain learn how to murder come up but we should also be asking another question how did cain know to make an offering that's in there too this is the first interaction that man has with god that you could put into the category of some sort of remblance or the example of a seed of organized religion and where did it come from because we don't get any blueprint for it between the lord and cain and yet cain comes to the lord first in fact as someone who's often villainized in the story because he becomes a murderer but he does make the first attempt in all of human history to make an offering to the lord and the question should be asked where does that come from and we can give a same two-fold answer for this question one you can get reference points for the idea that making a sacrifice now will have dividends paid off later and so even in kane's profession you can find an answer in nature that would reward sacrifice how did cain make his offering he made an offering because he was able to grow vegetables out of the ground why because he had seeds that he threw into the ground he was holding seeds and potentially edible seeds and yet he realized by the theology that's written into creation that when a seed is buried and you let go of that seed and you put dirt over it and you wait and you put water on it and you toil the ground and you spend time on it that seed will bring forth fruit it will bring forth produce it will bring forth life out of the ground and so there is a reference point to creation that sacrifice does in fact have reward and again parents you know this and that's why you are so forgiving for the canes in your household you sacrifice for them now with the idea that someday they will be a benefit to your life for the joy that they bring you and ultimately by god's design the service that they offer us while we're older in life and so we have a reference point for nature but the second answer holds true and is better it's kind of just in there why do we come here this morning why do we desire to know god to sing his praise to sit for 40 minutes to an hour hopefully more 40 than an hour you're all like an hour that's not the sacrifice i'm making to listen to the word preached and to hope that the word that would be planted in your hearts like a seed in the ground would produce fruit in your life it's in there and it always has been in fact the last time i'll reference tom velasco at least for this sunday while we were in winter camp there was another q a session because he's amazing at them and they're fun and in fact we got all the questions from the students and tom and the leaders and i came together and tom said let's you know should we go through these and review them and i was like tom you know what's going to be asked you're going to get a question about culture probably some sexuality you're gonna get a question about world views why do we believe in our god and not the other gods or atheism and you're gonna get a question about dinosaurs it's just how these q as work always and of course those three came in those categories so cultural question a question about world view and a question about dinosaurs and so the question about worldview is what i'm going to reference because someone asked the question why are you someone who believes in god instead of an atheist what can you look around and why do you have the conviction that god is real and tom gave a brilliant answer first of all in the answer i give to you now 99.9999 of human history has always had something inside of them that pointed them towards worship all of them and even now until this day in the day of modern science and the day where science is going to disprove all faith and we should be able to reason and logic our way into every answer under the universe 98 of the world believes in a god it's just a reality and even if you fall into that small two percent where you have a world view that says you can somehow explain how something came from nothing and why there's purpose and exchange in intrinsic objective morality you still have moments in your life where you cry out to a higher power now you may not call it god but you're going to cry out to the universe or you're going to cry out to the higher power as you know it or you're going to offer up something to the deity that is above you because it's in there and why is it in there bible students of genesis is in there because the very first temptation was to have the knowledge of good and evil and that's why cain has it cain has knowledge of what good is and he knows somehow the intrinsic person inside of cain knows that there is a god that is good that he should make an offering to you have it i have it we are here because it exists inside of it no matter what your journey is with the faith there's something inside of you that longs to know the reality of your maker and we also have the knowledge of good and evil we have it we have a propensity towards murder in the heart we have a propensity towards selfishness we have a propensity towards things that we should not be doing but we do anyway and somehow we all realize that there's reconciling that needs to happen in our soul and i share all of this full well knowing something that you all know and that is that this message may fall on the ears of a culture that is no longer spiritual at all and you may think if you're in that category of people who thinks that church and faith and religion is going the way of the buffalo in our country let me remind you that although our country is far less spiritual and less awakened in its soul than it ever has been and we used to spend a lot of time on that point i remember when i first became a preacher 10 years ago it'd be like okay the polls say this analytically 85 percent of the people in the united states say they're a christian but if you look at church growth versus population growth the lines are skewed and actually we're decreasing in size and it's like i don't need to do any of that anymore you all know look around this is not a jesus believing god-fearing country right that point should be easy this country is not have a moral center that is pointing us all towards god it just doesn't exist anymore but this country is more religious than ever this country seems to be losing its spirituality and increasing its religious regulations and so this to me is worth studying because what this says in the very book of the beginnings we're four chapters in and they're small chapters my bible says seven pages in and we're already getting an interaction with the lord where he says i don't want what you're offering me i don't want your religion in other words we have a propensity towards good but our first attempt usually is to offer something god that does not please him and we all should be listening very clearly because whether your religion is evangelical christianity or southern baptist convention or protestant or catholic or one of the many churches that exists outside of theism in our day the church of politics the church of hollywood the church of science the church of academia whatever it is there is a propensity towards increasing the religious regulation and what the lord says early on is he says to cain i don't want that now there's something i do want but it's not that and so for all of this i want to look at this story in a way to revive what it means to make an offering to god something that god would accept we should all be listening because we're right here making an offering of time some of you made an offering of money some of you are going to make an offering of the commitments that you make with your life are we sure that we're making an offering that god says now that is something that i approve of we need this message now more than ever because we are living in a world in a culture and in a generation where people are being drawn into burdensome and heavy religion that god will not accept in the church and out and this is why we're going to look at matthew chapter 23 so turn there with me now we are going to get jesus teaching in reference point to genesis 4 and abel to two audiences and as we look at the book of beginnings it's important that we remember that first impressions matter it's also interesting to note the last thing you talk about the first thing you talk about will pretty well will kind of reveal your heart and the last thing you talk about reveal your heart and this is by many commentators review the last sermon of jesus this is during what we would call holy week or some church calendar is called holy week he's entering into jerusalem for the final passover feast and he's going to have his final showdown with the religious leaders of his day and what does he say he's going to give a small lesson on abel it's going to take him all the way back to the beginning and this is what he says in matthew chapter 23 verse 29 woe to you scribes and pharisees your hypocrites because you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous and then you say if we lived in the days of our fathers we would never have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets in other words there is a history of god sending people as messengers as proclaimers of truth and as examples of the righteous way and the history says that people always reject that they reject it with blood on their hands and then jesus calls them out as i believe he'll call out our culture that does the same thing because what do these pharisees and scribes say wow we would never have done it if that was if we lived in those times we would never have done those things sound familiar people sit in seats of authority condemning the sins of forefathers condemning the sins of church leaders and church fathers saying now that we're here we're going to put everything to order and shame on the previous people because they're the problem and we're here to fix it and what does jesus say to them and he says to us now therefore your witnesses against yourselves you're the sons of those who murdered the prophets same bloodline like father like son your people did it you did it you would have done the exact same thing don't stand on your moral high ground and blame everything on the sins of your father and say if we lived in those times if i was in genesis chapter four i would have looked at cain and abel and i would have stepped in and stopped cain i would never have allowed it to happen jesus is saying you are cain he says your witness is against yourselves fill up then the measure of your father's guilt serpents brood of vipers how can you escape the condemnation of hell therefore indeed i send you prophets i send you wise men and scribes some of them you will kill and you will crucify and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city and then he says this verse 35 that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth from the blood of righteous abel to the blood of zechariah from the blood of a to z it's on you reject the ones that i send as the righteous way and you stand and you in your stubborn commitment to the offering that you think that the lord wants and he doesn't righteous abel had it right and jesus now speaks to the religious leaders to say you are the problem you're not the solution you're part of the problem and so i hope this message can be heard by the religious leaders of our day and i certainly take it into my own heart and my own mind when we think about what this world needs we do not need religious leaders to be the moral high ground of our country and churches so do we need so in one sense jesus talks to the scribes and the pharisees the leaders that's the second half that's what i just read that's the point to that we get to reference matthew 23 in regards to genesis 4. but in the beginning of the chapter he speaks to his disciples so it says in chapter 23 verse 1 then jesus spoke to the multitude and to his disciples this is the part of jesus warning in his final sermon as he himself is about to be rejected he gives a warning to those who desire to follow him to those who desire to be his disciples and he tells them what he has for them and what to watch out for so now we read this i hope with hearts to say lord we want to offer you something right we want to be set free from the burden and the guilt of blood on our hands for rejecting the message of the good news gospel so by your word now plant the truth in our hearts so that we would not be people who make offerings to the lord in all of the religion that can be represented here this morning i mean is this not a religious service you come here every sunday that's religious we usually sing three or four songs then we get into the word that's some liturgy that's happening and so how can we be sure that we are not offering to the lord something that he disapproves of well let's listen to the warnings now that jesus has for those who desire to follow him spoke to his disciples now in verse two he says the scribes and the pharisees sit in moses seat therefore whatever they tell you to observe that observe and do but not according to their works for they say one thing and they do another they say and they do not do if this message had a title and maybe it will by the time it hits the internet it would be bad religion and one of the marks of bad religion may be the best mark of it not only as we give the high ground view onto other world views of that are offered by our culture and the different religions of the times but also as we think about our own life as we think about the offering that we make to the lord trusting that when we bring things to the lord it increases our life trusting that we when we lay down things at the lord's feet he blesses our life one of the marks that we have to walk out for watch out for is saying one thing and doing another preaching and not practicing saying and not obeying look out for it in the people that you follow because this says they do actually sit in moses seat so jesus says for that reason actually you have to listen to them because moses seat is the law it's good they sit there do listen to them but don't listen to don't listen to their lives listen to their words because you can't follow their lives you can't actually watch what they're doing because they don't practice what they preach and that's an offering that as much as you can preach good things as much as you can proclaim the oracles of god by an exposition of his word if your life doesn't match your lips it will not matter to the lord this is a warning against even the practice of preaching a

Conclusion

We return to the opening teaching: discipleship is not just information, it is transformation through faith and obedience to Jesus. If we receive His Word and walk it out, He will shape us into people who endure and bear fruit.

Lord Jesus, help me hear Your Word, obey it with faith, and grow as Your disciple. Amen.

Conclusion

We return to the opening teaching: discipleship is not just information, it is transformation through faith and obedience to Jesus. If we receive His Word and walk it out, He will shape us into people who endure and bear fruit.

Closing Prayer

Lord Jesus, help me hear Your Word, obey it with faith, and grow as Your disciple. Amen.