This is the Truth Network. Welcome to Ignite the Light Ministries Radio and Podcast. It is our mission to help listeners develop a deeper relationship with Jesus by sharing what the Bible says and what it means. We aim to encourage and equip you to serve others, share the gospel, and reflect Christ in every aspect of your life. I'm Pastor Wyatt Cud.
Thank you for tuning in.
Well, I want to share something with you guys. This, I don't need it.
So this is a card that my my wife got for me for our anniversary, and. As you can see, she she filled it out. She put a lot of thoughts in there that she wanted to share with me. And you ain't gotta read it, but it's very sweet. She's very kind to me.
And every every anniversary or every birthday, she'll get go out. She'll give me a card, and she will put all of her thoughts that she wants me to know. She really she puts effort into it.
Now, let me tell you about my grandma, though. All right.
So my grandmother and my grandfather. What my grandmother does is she takes the same. Anniversary card that she gave him the year before, and she re-gives it to him, and he takes a look at it, says, "That's really sweet of you." And then she'll date it on the back, and so you got this big list of dates where she's used the same card again and again and again to see if he ever catches on. She's done it for like seven years, so. And that's that's you know it's a funny joke, but with what we see in scriptures, we see we see Cain and Abel at the beginning.
Where Cain does not give his best effort; he gives God a he gives God the leftovers. While Abel gives God his best lamb; he gives God his best. And we see God receives those sacrifices in two very different ways.
So it's important in life that we show up and we are giving our best, whatever that might look like. What are things? What what are you pursuing? What what are your ambitions? Where are you going to college?
Do you have a retirement plan set up? Might have missed the mark there. Whatever we do in life, give it your best, and that's it. You guys, we'll pray with me.
Okay. Thank you, Lord Jesus, God, that you gave us your best. God, we ask you as you walk with love with us through life, that you help us to give our best back to you. And we know that we get your blessing, we get your favor. It doesn't have to be perfect, Lord.
We just have to show up and give our best. We praise Him, Jesus' name, Amen. Thank you, guys. Oh no! I hope this didn't break.
We have a treat today. Carly is going to be doing children's church. Oh! Thank you, Carly. That's really awesome.
Well, better hurry on back there then.
Okay, so we're just going to be building on that.
So the past two Sundays, we have been talking about the relationship between suffering and peace. Huh? I'm just going to keep going. We've been talking about the relationship between suffering and peace.
Now, I've intended to start a Romans series again, and last week we did touch in Romans. But man, the section we were in was on that same topic about having peace with God.
So I haven't been able to let go of this this this topic just yet.
So some of this is going to be fresh.
Some of this is going to be stuff we've talked about. But I want to look at At this topic with with fresh eyes, in in in a different light, through the lens of of Cain and Abel. All right, so we're going to be in Genesis chapter four, going from verses one through seventeen. I'm going to do a clean read through of it. Just let the story speak for itself, and then we're going to talk about it.
All right, all right. Let's go ahead and we'll start here at verse four.
So Adam made love to his wife Eve, all, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. She said, "With the help of the Lord, I have brought forth a man." Later, she gave birth to his brother Abel.
Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. In the course of time, Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord. And Abel also brought an offering, fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering He did not look with favor.
So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast. Then 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, and it desires to have you. But you must rule over it.
Now Cain said to his brother Abel, "Let's go out into the field." When they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain, "Where is your brother Abel?" "I don't know," he replied. "Am I my brother's keeper?" And the Lord said, "What have you done? Listen, your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground.
Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth." Cain said to the Lord, "My punishment is more than I can bear." Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence. I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me. But the Lord said to him, "Not so.
Anyone who kills Cain will suffer vengeance seven times." Then the Lord put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him.
So Cain went from the Lord's presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden.
So Cain went out.
Okay, yeah.
So Cain went out from the Lord's presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden.
Okay. So right there, verses 15, God puts a mark on Cain, even despite this treachery, this egregious sin that he commits. We see that the Lord is still making provision, even though He doesn't have to. We see that with. We see that with Adam and Eve as well.
They sin, they fall, and then God still clothes them before sending them out. God, there's still God's grace and provision, even despite sin, and that that is an undeserved grace. That's just an example of God's character at play here.
So we've been looking at this relationship between suffering and peace. You know, we all suffer. I don't have to tell you that we're all living in it. Everyone, rich, poor, young, old, male or female, regardless of race or ethnicity or culture, even regardless of religion, ultimately, everyone is suffering and everyone is looking for peace.
So some items we talked about a few weeks ago. You got religions like Buddhism and Taoism that would tell you the right thing to do with suffering is to escape it, either by just radically accepting things how they are, or by just completely letting go of everything, and it's. Letting go of your desires is—I like to say—it's half right. You know, it's important we let go appropriately, but we don't just drop our desires anywhere. We take everything—our desires, our ambitions, everything good we've ever done, everything bad—we take all of it and we give it to Jesus.
We lay it at the foot of the cross like an offering.
So. Everything we're going to talk about here, Jesus is the model. Even even in this, so when Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane praying right before he is about to be crucified, it's Luke twenty two forty two. He's about to be crucified, and his prayer is, "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me. Yet not my will." But yours be done.
Some translations say, "Take this cup of suffering from me. Take this cup of horror for me." Jesus is about to undergo the most brutal suffering anyone could imagine. He's about to be murdered. Not only that, he's completely innocent. Not only that, it's going to be a public spectacle.
Not only that, his mother is going to be in the audience watching. Not only that, he's betrayed by one of his closest friends. Not only that, all the rest of his friends completely abandoned him. Not only that, it feels like God has completely forsaken him. I could go on, but.
The cross is the greatest story of tragedy we have, and Jesus is staring down the barrel of all the suffering that is to come. Maybe I shouldn't say story. Maybe I should say historical event. But he doesn't run away. He doesn't try to escape.
He's not dishonest about his feelings to God either. What does he do? He he confesses exactly how he feels to God. He submits his path to the Lord. Then as well, not my will, but yours.
He's taking his desires, his longings, and he's giving it all to God. Your will be done. And then, what does it say? God does next. Flip to verse forty-three.
It says, "An angel from heaven appeared to him to strengthen him." That's what comes next. An angel of heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. When we submit our desires, God, this is what He does. He strengthens us for what is to come. Because when we walk the narrow path.
Often God doesn't lead us around suffering; He leads us right through it, and He walks with us through it. Christian way of understanding suffering and peace: it's through suffering we find peace on the other side. This is true in our lives in the day to day, and then this is true in the big cosmic level. Humanity, all of humanity, is under the effects of sin, and in order to be reconciled, in order to be have peace with God, there's got to be a sacrifice. There's got to be a whole lot of suffering undergone.
That's going to require the sacrifice of all sacrifices. But the good news is the gospel. That Christ sacrificed Himself. He trades places with us so that we can be covered by His righteousness and step right into the peace with God. Thank you.
Jesus says, John ten nine, "I am the gate, and whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in, they will go out, and they will find pasture." See, it's through suffering we find peace on the other side, both in the big and in the small. But in the big, Christ bore it for us. This is good news indeed. Why is it hard for us to find peace?
You know, everybody's looking every which way to try to find something. It feels like nobody can find. Are you struggling to find peace today? If you are, I want to affirm you where you're at. You haven't missed anything.
In Genesis three, we see the fall. We're gonna build up to here, Cain and Abel. Here, Adam and Eve disobey God. They eat of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. They are cast out, and puts this curse on the world.
First thing, first thing is that death has entered the world. We age, we die, as does all things. And if you feel like, man, like, why does it have to be this way? Why do people have to die? I don't like that.
You haven't missed anything. We were designed for the garden, for the eternal fellowship with God. Death is a part of the curse; it's a foreign insert.
Now we see the curse that God puts on Eve: "You will have pain in childbearing, and your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you." So that's a sinful desire and a sinful rule over her.
So we can say. Eve, her relationship with the children to come, and with her husband; those are the two relationships right now.
So, I like to think more broadly. We could say relationships don't work the way that they should. That's a part of the curse of sin. Relationships don't work the way they should. Our relationship with our parents, with our kids, with our wife, with our husband, our friends, our broader community—all of it is tainted by sin and selfishness.
So this is entered because of sin. Then we have Adam's curse. Cursed is the ground because of you. Through through painful toil, you will eat from the food from all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistle for you, and you will eat the plants of the field by the sweat of your brow until you return to the ground.
This is a curse of work. This is a vocational curse. Our work will be painful.
Now, when I say the word work, we we associate the pain with it. You know, I don't want to go to work Mondays. You know, but imagine if work was not painful. What might that be like? Imagine if work was not a sacrifice to get up in the morning and go do it.
I think it would feel like play. I think Adam and Eve could have been taking care of the garden, all the glory of God, and it might have felt like two kids on the playground, their whole life. But now, because of sin, work is painful. Work is sacrifice.
So, if in struggling to find peace, you've noticed, man, it's really hard to communicate with other people, or my relationships don't work the way they should, you haven't missed anything. If you find yourself not wanting to go to work, it feels like man, I'm taking two steps forward, but there's that one step back that happens again and again. You feel the thorns and the thistle. You haven't missed anything. And this last part from the fall, Adam and Eve, they are kicked out of the garden.
That fellowship of walking side by side with God in the garden—it's not the same anymore. Sin has created a gap between us and God.
So, if you feel like, man, I just—I don't know if God is always there. I don't know if He always hears my prayers, or it feels like there is a distance between us and Him, brothers and sisters. You haven't missed anything. We live in a fallen world. Theologically speaking, that is where our peace went.
So, what are we supposed to do about it?
Well, it's not an accident that the very next story from the fall is Cain and Abel. All right, Cain and Abel have two very different approaches to life. I'm sure you've met somebody who lives like Cain. I'm sure you've met somebody who lives like Abel. Both bring forth a sacrifice to God.
Now, as far as I can tell, work and sacrifice are basically the same thing. When we work, we are making a sacrifice in the immediate of time, effort, and energy, in hopes of bringing forth something in the future. A sacrifice is giving up something now for a greater return, whether it's mid or long term.
So, sacrifice and work—they're very, very similar.
Now, if that's the case, you and I have to work every day. We make constant sacrifices in our approaches to work. To sacrifice is either going to look like Cain, or it's going to look like Abel. That's why it's very important we get this story right.
Now Abel brings the firstborn from his flock. He brings the very best of the best. He puts forth the best he has before God, and his sacrifice is accepted. Cain offers a second-rate sacrifice. He does not bring his best to the table.
It doesn't directly say this, but that is the connotation. Cain does not try his best. Cain does not give his best. Cain gives what he thinks he can get away with. He thinks he can pull the wool over God's eyes, and himself for that matter.
But he cannot.
Now, because Abel gave his very best, it says, verse four, that the Lord looked with favor on Abel. God did not look on favor of Cain's offering.
Now, one who walks blessed by God's favor. I like to think the pathway of life just kind of unfolds before them. It's not that we don't go through pains and sufferings, but God is the one opening our doors, and He will open doors that you thought could not be opened. Psalm thirty-seven twenty-three. It says, "The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and He delights in His way." So it doesn't mean everything's gonna be all peaches and cream, but it means that God makes the path straight and guides us through life.
So what's the alternative here? That the alternative is Cain and what Cain ends up with. If we don't show up into life prepared to give it our all, we might show up thinking we can give half effort, or thinking we can deceive God and other people. And that might be easier in the short term, but brothers and sisters, there's not peace to be found there. It's actually the exact opposite.
It says Genesis verse 16.
So Cain went out from the Lord's presence. He's going out from the Lord's presence even further to live in the land of Nod. You know, it didn't go with him God's presence.
Now, the the land of Nod in the Hebrew means the land of wandering. Or exile, so Cain winds up wandering the earth with nothing to hope for, no clear pathway, completely aimless. Because not only did he give his best, or he did not give his best, he did not change his ways when given the option. Further, he went off and killed the person that he should have been aiming to be like. And when we go off and we kill our aim, there is nothing to aim at.
There is nothing but wandering and bitterness and resentment at fresh and frustration with God's world.
So let's look here, verse six. 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 don't do what's right, sin is crouching at your door and desires to have you. But you must rule over it.
Okay, so God's giving Cain a chance. Look, you and I both know that was not. Your best, and if you do your best, you will be accepted. You will have my favor. But if you keep down this path you're going, this path of bitterness, this path of resentment, things are only going to get worse.
You cannot shortcut your way through life.
Now, we think about suffering; we think about peace. Abel gives his best. He accepts the pain that's going to come with sacrificing his best. He accepts that head on, up front. Not only does he have peace, but he has favor with God on the other side.
Cain avoids this initial trying, giving his best. He avoids that upfront. He does not give his best. Maybe that's easier in the beginning, but it's leading him to a lifetime of pain and suffering. Because brothers and sisters, peace has very little to do with ease, and has everything to do with our proximity to God.
Everything to do with our proximity to God, and God demands our best in life. Verse seven, God says, "If you don't do what's right, sin is crouching at your door." So we get this picture of sin sitting out on his front door, like a predatory lion, just ready for him, knocking on his door, just begging him to open the door. And the word desire, it says, but a desires to have you. That word desire, it's the same word in the Hebrew that is used for desire in the book of Song of Solomon.
So this desire is an intimate desire, the same that we describe between longing between lovers.
So what's the threat with that? The threat is if King welcomes that into his home. And forms a union with sin. Together, it's going to give birth to something truly vile, and that's exactly what Cain does. Cain is wayward.
Cain is resentful towards his brother, and instead of taking responsibility for his second-rate sacrifice, Cain instead blames God for creating a world that doesn't cater to him. He takes Abel out into the field. Instead of giving his best, he kills the example of who he should be. He kills the one that points out the flaws in his own life.
So God asks Cain, "Where is your brother?" And Cain lies to God about what he has done, still trying to pull the wool over God's eyes. Verse twelve: God is cursing Cain. He says, "When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops to you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth." Brothers and sisters, I believe those that follow in the way of Cain, that give second-rate sacrifices, that live in bitterness and resentment, unwilling to acknowledge their own shortcomings—those who live like that still experience this curse today. If we do not go through suffering, making the appropriate sacrifice for the peace on the other side, there is only restlessness and wandering.
This is a cautionary tale, and it lays out for us what we must do now as a result of the fall. We can give our best in life. We can throw everything we have at being the best version of ourselves. We can sacrifice our lives for God, and we can avoid and or we can avoid and blame somebody else for our problems. Those are two pathways for them, but God's favor is only on one of them.
Peace is found in our proximity, God. Hey there! I hope this sermon has enriched your day. If you like this message, I want to personally invite you to join us for Sunday worship. We have two locations in Virginia: Trinity Methodist Church in Concord and Mount Comfort Methodist Church in Appomattox.
Come join us Sunday morning at 9:45, and we will help you get connected. As always, I'm Pastor Wyatt Cud. Thank you for tuning in.
