He was everything the rest of human history is actually contained in this book. There is nothing new in all of human history. After you get outside of the first few chapters of Genesis, it's just a playing out over time of these genes. So with that in my last week we began in the beginning.
We discovered what we were created for, the beauty and love, the peace, harmony, holiness, completeness, prosperity, well for tranquility of creation as it was described in the first two chapters of Genesis. Pre-the fall of man. How you were created to function. See, this is why reading Genesis 1 and under 2 and understanding how you were created.
This is why many times you go through life and you just have this intuitive feeling that things are not the way they should be. You know, if you've done that, if you've gone, if you've ever, something's happened, you've gone damn, it shouldn't be like this. I told you last week about my friend Dave who went to the doctor four weeks ago with a cough and was told he had cancer and he died within four weeks. And so my family and I went to his funeral this week.
It was a younger guy around my age. It was a younger guy. And the line was wrapped around the place. It was probably an hour and a half to get in.
And as I said there, I hugged his wife and I talked to his kids. I didn't know what to say other than there was something inside me that wanted to say it's not supposed to be like this. It's not supposed to be like this. Like we know it.
And we know it because we were created for something else. To live in this harmonious and eternal relationship with God and others itself in creation, Jewish writers referred to this harmony, this God-ordained web of relationships, this shalom. Talk about it last week. What our purpose was to be these image-bearers of God reflecting him back to one another and to the creation.
What's interesting is if you think about it, what undergirded this shalom is the same thing that undermined it. What permitted shalom was that it was God in our original creation who was determining for us what was good, what was bad, what was evil, what was right, what was wrong. But as we saw in the garden last week, there lay for us an enemy. Who uses the same schemes today?
The schemes never changed. An enemy that convinced that man and still convinces you and I, that God is restrictive, he's uncaring, he's unloving. Then we could just decide for ourselves how things should be. It would be better.
I mean, God, he seems old-fashioned, right? He doesn't understand things the way we do now. He's just kind of grumpy, he's capricious. We're much smarter, we care more.
And so because love demanded it, God permits in this story man the ability to decide, to live in a relationship where God has God and decides for all of us what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is evil. Or we could choose for ourselves and not to ruin the story, but most of you know how it went. We chose for ourselves. And thus lay the foundation of the fall, the root of all sin and pain and hurt and evil and death in the world.
And we just desire to be like God, to determine what is good, what is right and what is not. And we saw the results last week. How it all began to spiral very quickly. We began to hide from one another.
And from God, shame crept in, blame was the result. And we found ourselves at the end of last week out of the garden, mercifully. The punishment percent is death, but there's this merciful peace of God. We're going to talk about this again.
This merciful peace of God that does not permit us into the garden again, to eat of the tree of the fruit of life so that we are not eternal beings. We are no longer eternal beings so that we don't have to live this way. Things will not always be this way. And so we pick up the story out and find themselves.
Exactly, they went the way they wanted to be. At least in some sense, they wanted to be like God and they got their wishes. The story picks up. I love how this picks up.
This is so great. Genesis chapter 4, check this out. It says, a little bit of a PG rating here. Adam made loves to his wife.
This is why sometimes you can't read the Bible in church. And she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain, the firstborn son. And with the help of the Lord, she said, I have what for the man? This is great.
Okay, it is a pretty good scholarly debate about this translation. I have created a man just as the Lord did. I didn't make perfect sense. Look, I'm as good as he is.
I can do it too. Why would I need to trust God? I've created a man, but Adam and Eve, they also realize something's changed. If we're in clothes or hiding from God or hiding from one another, they tasted the sting, the shame, the blame of the fall.
They started to see just a glimpse of what choosing to be God means for their world and themselves. How that pathway begins to entangle and ensnare and expands. And so the scripture says, later she gave birth to Cain's brother Abel. Now Abel kept locked and Cain worked the soil.
So you have this older brother, Cain. Cain is essentially a farmer. And you have Abel's arranger. And their work, the scripture would say, is not easy.
They work hard. They're tasting the effects of the fall, the curse of the ground. And the scripture says, unlike in the garden where Shalom existed and the land produced for man with man, now the scripture says they're going to have to produce fruit through painful toil and sweat. And so the scripture goes on, in the course of time, Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord.
And Abel bought an offering, the fat portions from some of the first born of his flock, the Lord looked with favor on Abel and on his offering, but on Cain and in his offering, he did not look with favor. And so Cain, here's the understatement of eternity. Cain was very angry and his face was downcast. Now let me give you a little background on this because otherwise you might really know, but that seems kind of random.
It seems again kind of capricious. God just decides that he likes Abel, but he doesn't like Cain. But that's not what was going on. At first you look at it and you'd say, well, they both seem to be working hard.
Nobody seems to be just freeloading. Yeah, one's a farmer, one's a rancher. One brings an animal for sacrifice, which was the fruit of his labor. That makes sense.
And the other one brings fruit, which was the fruit of his labor. And they both come and they're both kind of religious. They're both doing God's will. They're both seeking God.
So what's the problem? Because all we're told is that God blessed and showed favor to Abel, probably meaning he cross-poured him and made him successful things, went well in his life, but Cain, not so much why. The first clue is this. It says, quote, Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering.
But Abel brought fat portions. Those were the best portions from some of the first born of his flock. Now, if you're a rancher, track with me here, if you're a rancher, every year your income is determined by how many more calves and lambs are being born. Now, if you want to play it safe, this is what we do.
Okay, this is our origins. Okay? If you want to play it safe, make sure you have enough, right? You got to make sure I got to provide for myself.
You wait and give to the Lord is offering after you see how many animals are being born. If you're going to have 12 animals, right? And it's like, oh sure, Lord, here's one or two. You know, here's my tide.
Heck, I'll give you three, right? And then you'll be even more pleased with me. But here's the danger though. What if you give to God the first one that's born?
And there's only two born that year. Well, that seems kind of a little bit interesting. You probably hold back and wait to see how things go. You need to take care of myself first.
You need to kind of make sure nothing bad is going to happen to me first. And then I'll give to God what I have left because this way I can, in a sense, see, being your own God is not just theoretical. It's practical in how we live. I need to take care of myself first so I can be my own God.
There's a different kind of person, an able kind of person who has this open-heartedness and this trust in God. There's a different kind of spirit and able, a different level of commitment and joy and freedom. You don't see it in Cain. You ever wondered why, in a sense, the exact same set of circumstances, able and Cain and Abel, the same parents, what allowed Abel to sacrifice the best and first of what he had?
And why did Cain hold back? What was under mind, what was undergurring back? Where did that story come from? How come Abel was able to do it?
Well, in the New Testament, the writer to the Hebrews, in a book called Hebrews, explains it to the Hebrews. He says this, by faith. We understand the universe was formed at God's command so that we're seen, wasn't made out of what was visible. In the sense, he says, by faith we believe Genesis wanted to.
Then he says, so by faith, Abel brought God a better offering than Cain did. By faith, Abel was commanded his righteous when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith, Abel still speaks. He still speaks.
Do you know how? Even though he's dead. Abel trusts in God, believes that God is going to take care of him. This is very simple.
Abel's faith still speaks to you and I today. It's strong enough in a very real sense that it restores what had been stolen from God and Abel steps up on the throne of his life, from his God access to being his God again. See, this is not a tithing talk or anything like that. But this is why we give in church and we give sacrificially our first, our best, not because God needs it, but because it honors him, restores him, puts him back in charge of our lives, and builds within us a trust and a faith that allows God to be God and helps us to let go of the control factor of scheming and believing that we know better.
We have to take care of ourselves. I've got to hold back from God. I've got to get ahead of others. I'm on my own.
No one is going to take care of me the way I can take care of myself. All of that comes when we start believing that God can't be trusted. So the story goes on. The Lord said that Cain, why are you doing?
Why is your face so downcast? Now here's interesting. If you do what is right, won't really not be accepted. If you do what is right.
If you do what is right, let me take you back to last week and let me ask you this question. Who determines what's right? Who gets to decide what's right? Because Cain was doing what he deemed to be right.
Cain was doing what makes perfect sense. Right? It makes perfect sense. Let me just wait and see.
The issue is always the same in our origin. God is saying to Cain, look, allow me to be God. Allow me to determine for you going forward from this moment. Right in the world.
Good and evil. Follow my ways and it will go well for you. There's a subtlety. The story I just want to introduce you to is we kind of just brush by it.
If you're here over Christmas, we talk about Isaiah's four-part prophecy where you talk about this Messiah that would come and he would be having these different characteristics. And one of them was that it would be a wonderful counselor and you begin to see God in that role. Maybe it's clear as ever right here in the first four chapters of Genesis. Maybe you grew up with an understanding of God that he's just out there waiting to get you up.
Just waiting for you to screw up. And then he's just going to, he's going to, he's going to, he's going to, you know, that's a big stick. And check this out. Look at Cain.
He screws up at what does God do? God doesn't stay up in heaven waiting for Cain to realize he messed up and come to him. No, he, he leaves and comes to Cain. He says the scripture says Cain was very angry in his face with his downcast.
That's a Semitic way of talking about depression. So you have this man here who is struggling all pent up in his sin and brokenness. But you don't have God up in heaven just tapping his foot. No, I wonder what he's going to do.
I wonder if he's going to listen. I wonder if he's going to come through. Now, he comes to Cain and he comes. He doesn't show up and say, how dare you question me over this?
Do you know who I am? That's the way I would come. And said he comes with questions and he says, what right do you have to be angry? He doesn't say, what right do you have to be angry?
He comes and he goes, why are you? Why are you, why are you quest for? Why are you downfall? He doesn't jump out and he goes, he doesn't jump and go, Cain, do right?
He said, before he gets the idea of doing right, he says, look, first of all, I want to get underneath with you. I want to look at the motives of your heart. Why are you angry? Why are you upset?
I want to get behind these things. And it's this beautiful first glimpse of who this wonderful counselor is. And he's more concerned, catch this. He's more concerned about the state of your heart than he is the state of your offering.
Now, I'm going to introduce you to one of the most prophetic statements in all of the Bible and perhaps the scariest. So scary. I don't really like preaching about it or talking about it because it keeps me awake and I don't like it. But if you live long enough, you start feeling about life even before you read the scripture.
And you know it. I know you know. You know how life is going good. Things are just kind of happening.
Everything's good, right? Jobs good, families good, health good. What's in the back of your mind? It's only a matter of time now.
It's only a matter of time now. Something's coming. She was going to drop. We've even come up with a name for it.
We didn't even call it a name. We're so sure about this. We call it a law. Murphy's law, right?
Imagine hanging out with Murphy, right? And he was the most miserable guy. It's not the guy you want to be at a party with. And Murphy's the guy that came up with the classic line, right?
Anything that can go wrong will go wrong. The classic example of Murphy's law, if you drop a piece of toast, it always falls buttered side, right? There. But here's what I want you to think about.
What is? There was a law at work in our lives. But it wasn't out there. It was in here about why things do, and our experience shows us this.
If you live long enough, you know this is true. Why do things seem to quickly move from bad to worse? There's a law. Something's going on.
It is outside of the world. But more importantly, there's something going on inside of us, the scripture says. Here's what God says to Cain. He comes and he goes, but if you do not do what is right, if you do not allow me to be God to determine for you and for your benefit and for your good and for your peace and for your prosperity, if you do not do what is right, as I call what is right, listen, sin is crouching at you door.
It desires to have. It desires to have. But you must rule over. The ESV translated it this way.
Sin is crouching at your door. It's desire is contrary to you. You think that doing whatever you want, being your own God, trusting in yourself, providing for yourself, you think that that's when to bring you everything you want, but it's not. I love how the scripture talks about sin here.
We think of sin as like I said a bad word or I show the pen at the bank, right? The scripture describes sin in a different fashion here. It says that sin is almost like it's alive. It's animated.
It has a will and that will is not for you. There is something in work in you that is not for you. Let me say it again. This is a big truth in scripture.
There is something at work in you that is not for you. It's planetary. It has a deadly life of its own. God is saying that sin has this abiding, growing presence in your life.
Come on guys, you know this, right? When you commit sin, sin is an over. It doesn't stay put. It's not just in action.
It's a horse and a power and it hides really well. Sin crouches, right? Can I say it over in the corner? Sin does a really good job telling you it's not a big deal.
Don't worry about it. Now, Tim Power talked about how sin hides. I like how he talks about it in the 21st century. He points out that one way it hides is intellectually.
The very word sin, right? What is the last time somebody talked about sin? I know, maybe you brought your friend today and your friend is going, I thought this was a cool contemporary church. I was up here talking about sin, right?
I get it. You know, I don't want to hear about it. I told you. I don't like hearing about it myself.
Why? Which of course goes exactly the way it's saying. It's crouching, right? It's just ready to spray.
Right? But I'm not talking about stealing pens and saying about words. I'm talking about a horse that's at work in your life. But I know in the 20th century it hides, and in the 21st century it hides intellectually.
It just sounds so primitive. See, yes, Lewis. Right? Everybody loves to see us.
He nails this in his book, Mirror Christianity. Stick with me. There's a little bit hard to understand, but stick with me because I think it's going to help. He says this explains what always used to puzzle me about Christian writers.
They seem to be so strict at one moment and free and easy the other. They talk about mere sins of thought as if they were immensely important. But then they talk about the most frightful murders and treacheries as if all you've got to do is repar- be forgiven. But I've come to see, Lewis said, that they're right.
What they're always thinking of is the mark which the action leaves on a tiny central self which no one sees, which each of us will have to endure or enjoy forever. One, man, maybe so placed that his anger sheds the blood of thousands. Another so placed that however angry he gets his sin, he'll only be laughing at. Lewis is saying, look, there's two kinds of people.
They both get angry. One of them because of his conditions, his power, he kills people with the anger. The other person, no matter how angry he gets, people just laugh at him. But each of them is doing damage to their soul.
He goes on. Each has done something to himself which unless he repents will make it harder for him. I think, you know this is true in your personal life, right? And I could go through all kinds of different sins up here.
You know the first time it was big deals. Second time's not that hard. Third time you even know anymore. But if leaving marks on your soul, each has done something to himself which unless he repents will make it harder for him to keep out of the rage next time he's tempted and will make a rage worse when he does fall into it.
Each of them, if he seriously turns gut to God, you could have the twist in his central man straighten out again. But in the long run, he's doomed if he will not. The bigness or smallness of the thing seen from the outside is not really what matters. This is why Jesus always speaks of the heart when he's talking about sin.
There's another place in New York, Christianity where Lewis makes this interesting observation. That first the Nazis killed the Jews because they hated them. But then after a while they hated the Jews because they have killed them. The point being this, when you sin, the sin doesn't just go away.
The sin becomes an animate presence in your life. You start by doing sin but then sin does you. Hannah Arend put it this way. She was Jewish and she went to Adolf Eitmann's trial.
She wanted to see with her own eyes somebody that could be capable of these atrocities. And so she went there in the trial and she came to a conclusion that she wrote about which got plastered all over the world in an essay called Ike Men in Jerusalem report on the banality of evil. Here's what she wrote in the essay that became picked up and written all over the place. She said, you know what?
He looks ordinary. He looks just like us. He doesn't look evil. Do you know what that means?
He's just like us. The way sin crouches down intellectually for most of us is that when we see somebody like the Nazis right, we go, oh we could never be like that. We can be that arrogant. We're not capable of that delusion of that kind of pride.
We could never be that violent or cool. Hannah Arend says, why not? She says, we're just like them. They're just like us.
We must be capable of it. Of course we're capable of it. She said, this is an interesting conclusion. She goes, if they are some people and we treat them that way, that's exactly what they did to the Jews.
If we don't treat them as some people, then we have to admit we're capable of it too. Some of you could come up here and you could tell the stories about sin and it just crouching and pouncing. I know, I mean, I do a lot of counseling. I mean, I can hear the stories.
You know, it's just a business trip with a colleague. We're just going to have a drink at the hotel bar. Then it was. You know, I was just going to take a quick look.
I was just doing something. I was just checking something out. It was just going to be a sip. One smoke.
One time. Then it was. I'll give you one. All of us at one time or another, if you're in a kind of relationship, let's just put it nicely bent to the truth.
Remember the first time you kind of bent the truth to your spouse? Never had to see. It kind of bothered you. It felt kind of bad about it.
It just rolls right out. Doesn't it? It's very quite easy. Comes very easy.
So interesting, right? Think about it. This is fascinating. Okay?
It's so good. This is so great. It's terrible, but it's so fascinating. Adam and Eve, right?
Their desire for sin was it came from an external source. It was an external factor in outside enemy. But with Cain, I mean, the world you and I now occupy, sin and water needs to be compelled from the outside because just that came to compulsion towards sin now comes from me. There's something in me that's doing it.
Now, Cain said to his brother Abel, Hey, let's go out on the field. Big boy. While they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him. I think we've gotten so used to this story that it doesn't bother us.
We don't get a sense of the horror, especially in a world that was so close to perfection. We had just been at Eden like not a long time ago. I remember what it was like. At least they did.
So I just so you get a sense for the horrific nature of what was being experienced by our forebears. Here's a picture by Peter Paul Rubens in 1600. Cain slaying his brother and you just see the violence, the anger. See Abel's face, the terror.
And in a picture that's really been haunting me from 1888, the first, it's called the first morning. It's a picture of Adam and Eve with Abel. And you see Eve, you know, first they're covered right in the grain of where they are. Eve can't bear to look and Adam is holding his heart.
I mean, sin doesn't know about this man. So the Lord said to Cain, where's your brother Abel? I don't know. He replied.
By the way, if God ever comes asking you any questions, just remember he already knows these answers. It's so stupid, right? Like, I don't know. And he's got this attitude, right?
Am I my brother's keeper? If you think about this story, in the story of Cain, you're the first crime, the first opportunity for vengeance. You have the first act after the fall. You have the first sacrifice, the first expression of hypocrisy, the first occasion of false religion, the first act of self-righteousness.
And you have a picture of what is possible for each and every one of us, when this decision to be our own gods, to determine good and evil for ourselves, when it comes into full bloom, what can happen to any one of us, and does happen to each of us internally? G.K. Chester. Chester, who is this thinker?
There was an article that came out in a newspaper asking all the great thinkers to write a response. And the question was, what's wrong with the world? Anybody ever see Chester since his response? He wrote it back.
He wrote it back. He just wrote it back. Dear sirs, I am. Sincerely, he was G.K.
Chester. I got this issue. The New Testament writer John, he said this way. For this is the message you heard from the beginning.
We should love one another. Do not be like Cain, who belongs to the even one who murdered his brother, and why did he murder it? Because his own actions were even when his brothers were righteous. Don't be surprised my brothers and sisters at the world.
Let me give you the kiss principle of this morning, if you want to keep it simple, stupid. I don't mean stupid for you. I mean for me. If you want to keep it simple, go home.
Here's what you say to John. No, do not be like Cain. Don't be like this. Now remember, on a surface, Cain and Abel look pretty much the same, right?
They're both hard working. They both in a sense go to church. They both believe in God. They're trying to do God's will.
But there's something fundamentally different at the trust level of their heart. Who are they trusting to be God? Don't be like Cain. Who do they believe has the right to lay out what is good and right and evil and what?
Are they looking to other things for their lives and their salvation or are they looking to God? This is what makes the difference guys. Whether you're going to be in this life, grumpy, angry, furious, frustrated, fearful, anxious, worried, Cain types, always upset. Somebody's always getting ahead of you.
Somebody's always stealing from you. Somebody's always robbing from you. You're always competing. You're always looking at the ables around you.
Oh, why is that guy ahead of me? They don't deserve to be ahead of me. I'm not getting mine. I mean, you want to be like Cain?
Because I didn't tell you a lot of Cain's. Or you want to be like Abel. You see, Cain's hate Abel's. I mean, I sense the Cain in me because I have some ables.
I'm not a big fan of them. Ables don't hate Cain's. Ables' eyes, minds, their hearts are focused on God. They're trusting in God.
They're not worried about themselves. Cain's been out. Cain's demonized. Cain's are always comparing.
They're always frustrated. They're always filled with fear. And so it always goes back to this same root, origin. Who are you trusting to be God?
Where is your heart's fundamental trust? Don't be like Cain. But God doesn't leave Cain here. There's such a beauty at the end of the story.
If you've grown up in the church, we just leave it there. Don't be like Cain. But there's something more incredible at work. God doesn't leave Adam and Eve in that scene.
He comes and he says this. The Lord said to Cain, what have you done? Listen. He literally means listen.
He says, your brother's blood. It cries out to me from the ground. The scripture uses that term a lot. The blood of injustice crying from the ground.
And what is it crying for? It's crying for justice. That's like your brother's blood. It's crying out for justice.
Do you hear it? He goes, look, now you're under a curse and you're driven from this ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. Now you're going to work the ground. It's no, we're going to yield its crop for you.
You're going to be a restless wander on the earth. You're going to love Cain, said to the Lord. This isn't fair. You may have any teenagers.
My punishment is more than I can bear. I need that cell phone. Because you're driving me from the land. I'm going to be hidden from your presence.
See what sin does. Sin hides. Sin separates. I'm going to be separated from your presence.
I'm going to be a restless wander on the earth. Whoever finds me is going to kill me. Now is there any sense of repentance here? No.
This is your kid. After telling you after you take a cell phone for one week saying, well this is ridiculous. I'm fair. You're telling you're a total jerk.
You're unfair. This is what I respond with. Fine. Now it's two.
This is what I... See thank God I'm not God. You would really be miserable. You really would.
You'd all be in big trouble if I was... This is not what God does. Because God is this perfect balance of justice. Because he hears the ground.
He hears the blood available. Crying for justice. Please, this is God of crazy mercy. That makes no sense.
The Lord said to him, not so. Anyone who kills Cain is going to suffer vengeance seven times over. He puts a mark on Cain so that nobody who finds him would kill him. And so Cain went out of the Lord's presence and lived in a land of God east of even...
It's so interesting. If you spend any time on this, everybody's trying to figure out what's the mark. What do you get the mark? How do you get the mark?
I think we spend way too much time worrying about the mark because you missed the point. Here's the point. God's concerns for justice for the innocent is matched only by one other thing. His care for the sinner.
Even this silly prayer of Cain, it has this germ of an appeal and God answers it and marks him. It's not a stigma, the mark, but it's for safe passage. It's God saying, I'm going to protect you. It's a mercy church.
You've got to hear this now. This is a story of mercy even for the unrepentant. God is just not only concerned for the innocent. God is merciful on the unrepentant.
God cares for people who don't listen to him. That's crazy. And if God is merciful to Cain, who shows no repentance, if God doesn't give up on Cain and is protecting what he cares that much, what does it mean for you? Whatever you've done.
I mean, if you're here this morning and you're at least a little repentant, you're a little sorry, you're way ahead of Cain. I cared for Cain. What does he think of you? But there's this issue of justice.
What about the blood crying out for the ground? How's God going to settle? There's something needs to be done to make this right. One writer summed up the justice thing this way.
This is what God said. He said years later, another man showed up who too was a lot like Abel because he came into a world. He came into an nation that was filled with Cain's. People who were religiously very observant, who were always bringing their offerings, honoring the sacrificial system, and yet they hated him.
They hated his spirit and they killed him. The book of Hebrews says that when Jesus Christ shed his blood and innocent victim of injustice, did you know Jesus' blood cries out too? But it cries out in a new way. Check this out.
The writer to Hebrew says to those who choose to follow Jesus, this is such an incredible verse. I don't give a call out before he goes, you have come to God, the judge of all, to the spirit of the righteous made perfect to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. See to it that you do not refuse him who speaks. Jesus, this ultimate Abel, the only truly innocent person that's coming to the world, he is unlike Cain.
He's loving. He's trusting in God. The Cain's can stand it. They killed him.
Yes, he dies a victim of injustice, but he also dies by design in your place to pay the penalty for our injustice. What does all that theology mean? Listen, if you were a sinner like me, this is really great news. Because I, if you were a sinner like Paul says, right, why is it the things that I don't want to do?
I keep doing the things I do want to do. I never get to. You know the thing that you keep that besetting sin that you keep going to God with and you keep going, please forgive me, please forgive me. And you keep holding it.
Then you start to go. I've never gotten to the place where you've said God forgive me. Like a million times, you're like, there's no way you could possibly still be forgiven me. Like there's just no way.
That's because you think that your appeal to God is based on his mercy, but it is not. There is something going on here with justice. In a sense, Jesus stands before the throne of God. Jesus' blood, like all innocent blood is crying out for justice.
But here's what Jesus' blood cries out for. It's his father. Your law demands justice. These people have sinned.
The way Jesus' sin is death. But for these people who believe in me, I have pain in it. This is my blood crying out for justice. But it's justice demands that you not condemn them.
Why? Because that would be two payments, two lives for the same sin, and that would be unjust. First John, famous verse we say it all the time. I want you to understand it differently.
First John says, if you confess your sins, he is faithful and what? Merciful to forgive your sins? Just. So forgive us our sins and cleanse us.
It says he's faithful and just. It means that Jesus isn't standing before God interceding saying, God, I know they did it again, but please have mercy. The blood of Jesus cries out for justice. The justice is not against us.
The blood spilled on the ground. The flute of the cross cries out for justice. But it is justice that is for you. I'm not the band come up a band.
If you could get that. I mean, when you start to understand who you are, this force that's at work and you constantly rebelling against God, when you start to understand a little like Abel did the depth of your sin and the greatness of God, his love and his justice and his mercy, it's really hard to be like, hey, when that starts to happen, when you become so secure in his love, you're not going to be angry because somebody's getting ahead of you. My identity is going to be based on what you're doing anymore. When you are like Abel, there will be security and peace.
Listen, I want you to understand this. It's very important when you go home. I want you to think about this. The world needs some ables.
The world is full of kings. They're everywhere. Your family, your home, our town, this church, we need a lot more ables. The canes are killing each other.
The canes are exploiting each other. The canes are lying to each other, cheating on each other, elbowing each other out. Their miserable is going to be sin has become their master. But you can be different through faith, by faith, because of faith.
You can be like it. Allowing God begot, trusting His goodness, allowing for Him to define for you what is good and evil and right and wrong. There's plenty of canes out there. The world needs a few more amles.
Do not be like it.