It is Father's Day if you, in case you forgot, it is Father's
Day. And as on Mother's Day, I, I
will say then what I say today, what I said then.
This may not look like a Father's Day message, but it is
a Father's Day message and just be patient and we'll, we'll get
there. We'll get there.
But it's not a message, of course, just for fathers, but
for anyone and for everyone. But we are talking continuing
this story as we're working our way through the Bible and and
still in the early parts of Genesis and looking at Genesis
chapter 4 today, which is the 1st chapter in the first place
in the Bible where the word sin is mentioned.
And although we often talk about, and rightly so, the fall
of Adam and Eve where they eat of the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil, which God commanded them not to eat as the
original sin. Sin is first mentioned in
chapter 4 in connection with Cain, their son.
And we're going to take a look at that today.
Shame, sin, and the mercy of God.
I want to just walk through the story again, though, before we
really kind of jump into any details, because again, this is
one of those stories in which if we've heard it a lot, we can
miss some of the details and some of the nuance.
And because of the cultural differences, it's also easy to
miss some of the very important shades of meaning that are here
in the story. So again we see Adam and Eve
coming together, having two children, first Cain and then
Abel. And then we hear how their
occupations differ and, and Cain is a tiller of the soil.
He grows crops, he grows grains, he grows wheat, barley, whatever
else they might have been growing in that time and in that
place. And, and Abel 10s flocks.
He's a shepherd caring for goats and sheep most likely.
And they bring their offerings to God.
Now God looks with favor on Abel's offering and he doesn't
look favorite with favor upon Cain's offering.
And this makes Cain angry and ashamed.
And we know he's ashamed. We know he's angry because the
Bible says he was angry. We know he's ashamed because the
Bible says his face was downcast.
And in contemporary American culture, a downcast face is a
way of talking about sadness, maybe a way of talking about
anger or resentment. But in ancient Middle Eastern
culture, almost everything having to do with face had to do
with honor and with shame. So when God looked with favor on
Abel's offering and did not look with favor, did not turn his
face toward Cain's offering, God, by turning his face toward
Abel's offering, was honoring Abel and his offering, and he
was dishonouring. He was shaming Cain and his
offering. And now Cain's face is downcast.
His face is turned down. And this is a symbol and a sign
in that culture of deep shame, of being deeply dishonored.
And so this is the context. This is the context of what's
happening now. One of the questions that so
often comes up in my mind and the minds of others when they
look at This is why, Why did God honor Abel and his offering,
look with favor upon them, but dishonor and reject Cain and his
offering? And we're not sure to be
perfectly honest. There are a lot of different
theories. I think the most plausible is
this. If you go back and and look at
that text, it's about the offerings.
It says in the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits
of the soil as an offering to the Lord.
In the course of time it just so happened eventually Cain brought
some of the stuff that he had grown as an offering to the
Lord. But it says of Abel's offering,
Abel also brought an offering, the fat portions from some of
the first born of his flock. We get the sense here there is
at least a hint that that Cain's offering is 1/2 hearted offering
of whatever he had, kind of whenever he thought to bring it.
There was no sense of urgency. There was no sense of priority.
We know that eventually, when God gave His law to the
Israelites through Moses, offerings given to God were
always of the first fruits. You bring the 1st.
And not only do you bring the first, you bring the best, the
fat portions and the first born. Now the law hadn't been given
yet, but Abel brought the best that he could bring in his
offering to God, Some of the first born of his flocks and the
fat portions of those. Whereas it seems that Cain,
whether he was acting out of duty or simply a lackadaisical
who really cares kind of attitude, seems to have just
brought something of what he had grown.
The fact that one was an animal offering and one was a grain
offering doesn't really matter. God later on, again through the
law of Moses reveal he he called for both animal offerings and
grain offerings, but it was always first fruits, it was
always the best. The animals that you brought,
you were to bring the fat portions and you were to bring
unblemished animals. So what is possibly going on
here is that God accepted Abel's offering because Abel gave the
best of what he had. It was a sense of urgency and
priority and what he was giving to God, whereas Cain seemed to
either not care, not be interested, be indifferent about
it. Of all of the theories that are
out there, I think that's the most likely.
But the there's another theory that's out there that I think is
worth considering is that God intentionally doesn't tell us
the reason why God rejected. Is it made known to us?
Because we don't really need to know it.
Because God is God and and what matters is not why God accepted
1 and rejected the other, but simply that God accepted 1 and
rejected the other. That Cain was mad because God
didn't do what God what he wanted God to do.
God didn't give him the honor that he wanted, instead he
honored his younger brother and shamed him.
And why God did it, we don't know.
And Cain doesn't even seem to ask.
God makes it clear, Look, if you do what is right, things will go
well for you too. But if you don't do what is
right, and we don't see Cain going God what is right, There's
no he's not seeking God. He's not looking for
clarification. He's not looking for
understanding. He's not looking for wisdom.
What we ultimately see that Cain is looking for is Cain is
looking for revenge and a means by which he can regain his own
honor. The murdering of Abel, The
killing of Abel seems to be a a an attempt by Cain to establish
and gain his own honor and his own respect.
That might seem an odd thing, but you don't think of it this
way. If you're in a sports team and
you're out practicing and scrimmaging and doing what you
do, and you, you, you keep getting beaten by the person
opposite you. It's on the same team, but
they're playing the other side. Whether it's basketball,
volleyball, you know, football, whatever, they keep you.
They keep getting the best of you.
You're going to get angry, you're going to get frustrated.
You're going to be shamed. How do you gain honor?
How do you regain respect on the team?
By defeating your opponent, By getting the best of them the
next time, by standing up and showing them who's better.
That mindset is not, you know, Cain's mindset here is not
alien, and most of us would not go so far as to kill our
opponent in order to regain our honor.
But on the other hand, you remember Tonya Harding, remember
Nancy Kerrigan, right? For those of you who you know, I
was, you know, someone told me today that my shirt looked like
laugh in. I said I've never seen laugh in
and they were shaking their heads because they're all I
know. There's a lot of folks here that
don't know who Tonya Harding is and don't know who Nancy
Kerrigan is. Back in, I think it was in the
90s and they were both American figure Figure skaters.
They were both very good. They both had Olympic
aspirations and and Nancy Kerrigan seemed to be doing a
little better than Tonya Harding, Tonya Harding's
ex-husband and Tonya Harding's trainer hired essentially a hit
man to ambush Nancy Kerrigan after practice one day and whack
her in the leg with a baton whack and and injure her enough.
It was done right before the American Championships as a way
of keeping her out. Nancy, out of the championships
and therefore out of the Olympics.
Removing a competitor from Tonya Harding's path to Olympic glory.
Gaining honor by doing violence against your opponent.
We do this as human beings. Seek respect, seek honor, seek
glory by stomping on and climbing over and standing on
the backs of those who are weaker or more vulnerable in
some way or another. And that's what Cain did.
That's what Cain did. He killed his brother Abel.
And then we'll get to the rest of the story in a minute.
But I want to talk about Cain's way here, Cain's way of
regaining honor, Cain's way of dealing with God's rejection of
him and his offering. Cain's way of dealing with his
shame was to lift himself up by standing on the back of someone
who was weaker than him, someone who was less than him.
We don't know much about Cain. We know even less about Abel.
We do know that Abel's name means nothing.
Now, let me be clear. His name means something, but
what it means is nothing. All right, that's kind of fun,
isn't it? Yeah.
There you go. You remember in in Ecclesiastes
where the the writer of Ecclesiastes begins.
Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.
And that word vanity there means it's, it's something similar to
soap bubble. It's something, there's no
substance to it. There's nothing to it.
That's vanity. That's Abel's name, the same
word. Why his parents gave him that
name, we have no idea. Cain was hailed and celebrated
by Eve. I have made with God's help, I
have made a human, I have made a man.
And they were proud of Cain, that Abel, Abel was nothing to
them. Cain had all of the honor from
the beginning. As the eldest child, he had all
of the glory. He had all of position.
And when he was pushed off that pedestal, he saw the way to get
back on that pedestal was to attack his rival, attack another
human being. I'll gain my own honor, I'll
gain my own respect. I'll gain my own glory by
besting my rival, by being the best and showing that I'm the
best, I'm the strongest. I'm the most able to achieve in
this world. That was Kane's way, and Cain's
way is the way of death. That way of gaining honor, that
way of gaining respect doesn't lead to life, it leads to death.
And what did we see in the previous chapter?
In the Garden of Eden there were two trees that were named by
name, the Tree of Life, the Tree of Life and the Tree of the
Knowledge of Good and Evil. And God had told Adam and Eve,
don't eat for fruit from the tree of the Knowledge of Good
and evil or you will surely die. They ate of that and they
brought death into the world. And so God cast them out of the
garden and cut them off from life.
And now they have passed this legacy of death onto their
children. Cain once again choosing the way
of death once again instead of turning to God and saying to
God, God, what can I do to regain your favor?
What can I do to regain the honor that I can only get from
you? He said, how can I get my own
honor? How can I get my own glory?
Not content with the glory of God, not desiring to seek God's
glory in his life and to share in God's glory in his life, He
was determined to get glory and honor on his own.
And when we do of that as human beings, when we make that our
goal, when we make that our mission to give glory and honor
to ourselves and achieve that on our own, that is the way of
death in one way or another. It always leads to death,
whether it's sibling rivalry or ice skater rivalry or the
rivalry in schools or at work or in politics.
When the goal is to achieve for ourselves honor and glory, we
end up standing on the backs of others to get it.
And we're simply living out that legacy of the Garden of Eden
that we know ourselves the best way to get honor and glory and
position and status and respect for ourselves.
Cain's way is the way of death. Cain's way is the way of death.
What is God's way? What is God's way?
He said to Cain, If you do what is right, let me just read it
again. The Lord said to Cain, Why are
you angry? Why is your face downcast?
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. Do what is right, God says.
And this is simply more than just doing the right thing.
It's it's, it's more than just follow the rules.
God is not saying to Cain, if you just follow the rules, there
was no rules at this point. God had only given one rule that
we know of to this point, which was don't eat from the fruit of
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that had already
been done. The law hadn't been given.
There were no commandments that have been given about offerings
to give to God. No commands.
It's even to bring offerings to God, but God says to Cain do
what is right. That word there in in older
translations is is sometimes translated as righteous do
righteousness and righteousness is much more than just following
a moral code or ethical rules or religious rules.
Righteousness has to do with living and right relationship.
In the Old Testament it was a covenant of with God and
covenant relationship with God and with other people that was
based on the justice and the peace of God.
Treat each other rightly, honor me rightly and I will give you
and all that are around you peace.
You will share in my honor and my glory.
God says I will give you all the honor.
I will give you all the glory as my people that anyone could ever
want or need. You will share in my honor and
My glory if you live in right relationship with Me and right
relationship with each other. That's what righteousness was.
That's what doing what right doing right meant to God.
Humble yourself before me. Seek my honor and My glory as
your Creator and your Sustainer and your Redeemer, and you will
share in my glory. If you try to get it on your
own, you're only going to create more death.
And so when God asked Cain where is your brother, he wasn't
looking for information. God knows everything.
He wasn't looking for information.
He was, He was helping, still trying to help Cain see the
importance of relationship. Cain was having none of it.
His answer am I? My brother's keeper?
Gets to the heart of what's wrong in Cain's life is that he
sees himself as the top. He sees himself as the standard,
and he has no responsibility whatsoever for his brother.
Why should I care about my brother?
Why should I care about him? He's nothing to me.
And that was the problem. That was the problem.
Jesus clarified the ancient notion of righteousness when he
says things like this. The law and the prophets are
summed up in this. Love God.
Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love
your neighbor as yourself. You have a responsibility to
love your neighbor, to love your and, and he didn't.
He didn't water it down, he expanded it and made it even
more profound. Because it isn't just love your
brother as yourself. It's not just your family, it's
your neighbor. It's anyone you encounter.
Love them as you are supposed to be loving your brother and your
sister. Love them as your own family,
and you'll fulfill all the law and all the prophets.
A new commandment, a new covenant.
Jesus said I give to you the night before he died, a new
covenant. Love one another as I have loved
you. We have a responsibility toward
our sisters and our brothers, our family and our neighbors to
love them, not to use them, to gain glory and honor and respect
for ourselves. Cain's way, Cain's way, the way
of death is far too prevalent in our world.
In all corners of our world. We say people see people living
by the rule. My dad used to tell us when we
were at a family reunion and there was food out or at a
church gathering, it was food out.
It was like, you'll get it. Root hog or die was his was his
phrase. Our root hog was fun.
He didn't expect us to actually kill anyone to get the food.
Just a fun saying. But we got way too many people
living like that's the rule in the law of the land.
Rude hog or die. Get all you can living by some
sort of bizarre notion of Darwinian social theory that
that that the fit the survival of the fittest.
Fight for what you get and it's better for everyone if we stomp
on the weak to strengthen the strong because that will make
the species stronger. Funny how it's always the people
on the top that seem to be living by that creed.
God said that's not my way, that's the way of death.
God's way is the way of life. Love each other is I have loved
you. Love your neighbor is I?
Who's your neighbor? You remember that story?
Jesus told that story because they asked him.
I said, well, who's my neighbor? I'm supposed to follow this
rule. Who's my neighbor?
Jesus told about the man traveling from Jericho to
Jerusalem. He was attacked by bandits.
He was robbed, beaten, and left for dead on the side of the
road. And the priest and the rabbi
went by, and they did nothing to help.
And then the Samaritan came. The hated Samaritan, the
ethnically, culturally, religiously, politically
different Samaritan came by and he got down from his animal and
he tended the man's wounds and he poured wine on them to
disinfect medicine of the day. And he put him on his own animal
and he took him to an end and he paid for his care.
And he told the innkeeper, do whatever it takes to take care
of this man. When I come back, I'll pay
whatever else is owed. And Jesus said, who was the
neighbor to that man? And they got that.
That other guy, the guy that asked him, he couldn't bring
himself to say the word Samaritan.
He despised the Samaritans and all he could say was the one who
showed mercy. And Jesus said you do the same.
That's how to live. Not asking who is my neighbor
that I must love, but living with the responsibility of being
a neighbor to everyone we encounter who is in need.
Whatever their need, whatever their politics, whatever their
philosophy, whatever their lifestyle, whatever their
background, whatever their gender, whatever their skin
color, be a neighbor and love them in the name of Jesus.
This is the righteousness. This is the right thing that
Cain couldn't see, because Cain was obsessed with achieving his
own righteousness, his own glory, his own status at the
expense of anyone who stood in his way.
But even in the end, even in the end, God's way, God's way of
mercy, God's way of compassionate love for those
around us, even even after Cain spilled his brother's blood and
God cast him out and cut him off, God still showed him mercy.
Cain said. I'll be an outcast.
Everyone I see will try to kill me.
This would be a great spot to remind ourselves that we can see
this historically. We can see this as as a, as a
parable, as an allegory and, and, and you know, you're going
to see it historically. The challenge is, is where we're
all of these other people that we're going to kill Cain.
And when he goes and starts to join and moves into a city,
which we see in a few verses later, where'd the city come
from? We don't want to get caught up
in those kind of details. However you see it.
Cain was afraid to be cast out of God's presence, mean to be
removed, meant to be removed from God's protection.
And so God put his protection upon Cain, a mark.
We have no idea what the mark was, but it wasn't a curse.
It was a sign that even though this man is no longer in my
presence, he's still under my protection.
God's still extending mercy, still extending grace, even to
the first murderer who killed his own brother.
God's way is the way of life. God shamed Cain in the
beginning, but God didn't shame Cain to punish Cain.
God shamed Cain to restore Cain so that Cain would come back to
him and say, God, how can I restore my honor?
What can I do? How can I do rightly?
How can I be? The function of shame in the
Bible is not punitive. That's one of the worst things
about our culture right now is the way shame is used 100%
punitively. And if someone ever does any
wrong, they get shamed and cut off and cast out and removed,
and there's no hope no matter what they do from that point on,
can they be restored? That's how cancel culture
functions, and people were playing the cancel culture game
long before social media. There were things that people
could do that would so shame their family and their friends
and their community that they could never be restored.
But that's never how God used shame.
The purpose of turning away from Cain and his offering was to
restore Cain so that Cain would know he had done wrong.
That he was going down to the wrong path.
That pushing God to the back burner and making him a low
priority and being unconcerned with God's honor and God's glory
was putting Cain on the way to death that would control him for
the rest of his life if he didn't course correct.
And to the very end, God was trying to bring Cain back, to
show him mercy, to give him opportunity for repentance.
We don't know for sure, but I don't think Cain ever took God
up on that. We do know that several
generations later, 1 of Cain's I did the counting before and now
I can't remember it was a great great great grandson or great
great great great grandson is a few generations down.
Lamech, a descendant of Cain had taken 2 wives, Ada and Zilla.
And Lamech said to his wives, Listen to me, wives of Lamech,
hear my words. I have killed a man for wounding
me, a young man for injuring me. If Cain is avenged 7 times,
Lamech is avenged 77 times. God said to Cain, you need to
deal with your behavior, need to deal with this unrighteousness,
this wrongness in your relationship with me and with
others. If you don't, sin will rule over
you, but you need to master it. It appears that sin ruled over
Cain was now ruling over Cain's descendants.
There is an amazing passage in the Bible at the beginning of
the 10 commandments, did I not? Oh, I thought I copied and
pasted that. Doggone it, I got to go.
I got to change apps. I'm sorry, because I got to read
this. I stop being difficult
technology. OK, I could have sworn I copied
and pasted that into my notes and I did not.
I would say smoke them if you got them, but that would be
inappropriate. Exodus 20.
All right, And we'll just start at verse one.
The 10 Commandments You shall have no other God before me.
God said you should not make for yourself an image in the form of
anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the
waters below. You shall not bow down to them
or worship them. For I, the Lord your God, am a
jealous God. God is saying I created you,
I've sustained you. I, I, I brought you out of
slavery in Egypt. I shamed and defeated the most
powerful Kingdom on earth just to redeem you.
I brought you through the wilderness.
I'm taking you to a promised land, a land flowing with milk
and honey to give to you as your inheritance, as my children.
I am honoring you and glorifying you.
Honor and glorify me. Surrender to me, serve me, bow
down to me, give your allegiance to me, and I will give you all
of the honor and glory you need. Don't turn to other sources for
that. That's what idolatry was about,
to turn to other sources for salvation, for hope, for relief,
for honor, for glory. God said get that from me.
And God then says this curious thing.
I am a jealous God punishing the children for the sin of the
parents to the 3rd and the 4th generation of those who hate me.
I don't think God is saying that He's just going to take
retributive justice against grandchildren and great
grandchildren because of the sins of their parents.
What God is saying is as parents, what we do not only
effects those around us now, it is part of the legacy that we
leave to our children and to our grandchildren and to our great
grandchildren. As fathers on Father's Day in
particular, me, talk to the dads.
This is for moms too. And, and, and for anybody, talk
to the fathers. We're going to leave a legacy to
our children, a right or wrong. They will inherit some sinful
patterns and sinful ways of thinking and mindsets and
behaviors from us. And you can go back and look at
your own family history and your own see different kinds of
dysfunction and brokenness that have repeated themselves across
generations in your family. We have a responsibility and our
right relationship with God and others includes our descendants
who have not yet even been born and won't be born until well
after we've died. The life that we live and the
legacy that we leave behind will affect children who aren't a
twinkle in their grandparents eyes yet.
And that's part of our responsibility to to establish
this righteousness in our lives so that we can pass that on.
And God says that. God says that, says punishing
children for the sins of the parents to the third and 4th
generation of those who hate me, but showing love to 1000
generations of those who love me and keep my commandments,
showing love to 1000 generations.
When you live righteously and right relationship with me and
the people around you, that's the legacy.
That's the legacy that endures. That thousand generations could
be a literal 1000 generations. It could be a a figurative 1000
generations in the sense of it'll just go on and on and on
for a long time. But there's sometimes when that
thousands, that #1000 is used as an equivalent to forever, for
all eternity, that the goodness and righteousness that we do as
fathers, as mothers, as as as parents, grandparents, that
that's a legacy that lasts and endures forever and ever.
That's God's way, that way of life.
And it begins, it begins with honoring God.
That's why the first of the 10 commandments, the first 4-5 of
them I should know that are all about how we honor God before we
get to the commandments about honoring other people and loving
and serving and caring for other people.
The first are all about our relationship with God because
that's the priority. We get that relationship right.
We get that relationship right so that we're, we're trusting in
God for all the honor and glory and respect and dignity that we
need, all that we need coming from God.
Now we're free to live and love and and and humility and peace
with our neighbors, with our family, with our friends, and
even with our enemies. And that's God's way.
It's the way of life. Which way will you choose?
The other thing that's clear in the story is that Cain had a
choice. Cain had a choice.
We all have that same choice, every single one of us.
Which way will we choose? We will we choose Cain's way,
where we make our own way no matter what the cost to others?
Or will we choose God's way and which we make God a priority,
receive all that we need from Him, and live in humility and
peace and love and service with those around us.
Shame, sin and the mercy of God. We all have to do.
We all have to deal with shame. We all have to deal with sin.
Thank God we can all receive the mercy of God.
Let's choose to receive it and choose to live it with others in
Jesus name, Amen. Amen.