"Give Us Eyes To See"

It is my first time in the pulpit in this new year and as we gather, we do so having completed now our second week of readings as a church family using the Chronological reading plan. How is that going for you so far? It’s OK, you can be honest.

I want to level set our expectations for this year as we endeavor together to read through the Word of God. Reading the Bible in a year will be a challenge for everyone, including myself. I set out to read a number of books in a year. In fact, I have to push myself to read. My hope is that by the end of 2022, we as a collective church body will be more familiar with God’s Word so that names and events through which God has sovereignly acted to accomplish his will should be less foreign to us. That is also why I strongly encourage your participation in a Sunday school class that is supporting your efforts of reading the Bible this year. Every week, classes where the Holy Spirit is leading will receive a lesson from the week’s readings and barring an exception like a special circumstance, what you hear from this pulpit during worship will also complement your individual readings.

I want to give you some encouragement this week that you will hear as a frequent reminder from me and other leaders in the church. Give yourself grace. The pace of reading is three to four chapters of the Bible a day. If you find that life has happened and you fall a few days behind, do not allow yourself to be paralyzed at the thought of catching up on 20 chapters of reading. Give yourself grace and just pick up your reading from that day forward. And if you are visiting with us this morning, please know that there are free Bibles in our foyer for you to take as our gift to you, even if you have already decided First Baptist isn’t for you.

I believe God is leading us this way so that together we can see the power of the Word of God to transform lives and this year I am pushing us as a congregation, I am pushing myself even, to read. It is easy for you or for me to make excuses. I use the excuse that being a busy pastor leaves little time for reading. Well, I used that excuse until I read about former President George W. Bush. According to his senior advisor, Karl Rove, Bush loves books and is an avid reader. For a guy who was frequently dogged about his intelligence, while he was president of the United States, W read between 40 and 95 books per year. Rove reported in the Wall Street Journal in 2008 that President Bush also read the Bible from cover to cover each year.

I am encouraged to set my alarm a little earlier in the morning and read a little more of God’s Word than I am used to reading. If someone as busy as the Leader of the Free World finds that time, I guess the pastor of church can too.

Tension

And while I have talked about the year’s purpose for reading the Bible, which is to become more familiar with the entirety of Scripture, this morning I want us to spend a moment thinking about how we as readers of the Bible engage with the Word of God as we read daily. I have acknowledged already that this room is filled with busy people and that as your pastor, I am asking you to carve out time in your day to do yet another thing. So then how are you reading and truly, to what end are you engaging with this? Are you genuinely seeking the voice of God to speak truth and breath life into your existence?

What does how we read a familiar text to some of us reveal to us about the work that the Spirit of God must do to prepare the soil of our hearts for gospel transformation?

Truth

And indeed for some of us, the story of Cain and Abel is one that we are very familiar with, although it may be a distant memory for some of us since it was part of our readings last Sunday.

God alone sets the standard of sacrifice (Genesis 4:1-7)

So as our text opens before us, it just so happens to be the continuation of the story of the fall of humanity that Pastor Carlos shared with you all last week. Where last week we discovered that in the introduction of sin upon the stage of human history, we discovered that there are lies we tell ourselves. From the Fall, we saw such lies in action like those that would convince us that we can be like God or lies like the possibility that God is imperfect in Adam’s blaming for giving him Eve as a helper in the first place.

Now, I am to understand that Pastor Carlos left the question about how we husbands question God in response to our wife’s decisions - thanks by the way - and I only wish to address this summarily with the commitment to you that when a text more directly allows for it, I will more specifically address these concerns. So then buttoning up that hold over from the text of Genesis 3, friends…neither can we rightly look to God with blame nor towards our wives in disdain, but the only right action for you and me is to look in the mirror. You and I are charged with spiritual leadership in our homes, so we can do none better than surrender to Christ anew, get our noses in our Bibles, get on our knees in prayer, and seek the Spirit’s guidance on how to lead!

So in Adam failing to lead, both Adam and Eve failing to obey, sin entered the world and humanity - from the terrible events of the garden until the return of the Lord Jesus in glory - has been set apart from the presence of God, as the Bible refers to as east of Eden.

And outside of Eden God has permitted the human experiment to continue on and in Genesis 4:1-2, we see that with the Lord’s opening of her womb, Eve bears two sons of Adam: Cain and Abel. And for a group of South Texans, we can quickly see that these boys have two similar but different vocations. Abel is a rancher and Cain is a farmer. In their own way, they each are aware of the need to make an offering unto the Lord and so as we find in Genesis 4:3-4, both sons of Adam bring yield from their vocation. Cain an offering of the fruit of the ground and Abel an offering of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions.

So as we read on, Genesis 4:4-5 “4 And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, 5 but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell.” And in many ways, whether this is our first encounter with the passage or not, there is a natural question that we ask. What made Abel’s offering acceptable and what made Cain’s not?

I want to offer to you a truth about God and in your understanding that truth, we will each discover a resource for us as we press on in our reading of the Bible this year. And this is of great importance because you may not realize this today on January the 9th, but as we read the Bible in this fashion, the next 8 or so months will have us reading Scripture that has been collected together and referred to as the Old Testament. In the Old Testament we will see God’s sovereign election of the nation of Israel to bear witness of the Lord to the world and we will find a pattern of Israel’s failings and God’s restoring of them. And though New Testament writers like John affirm the eternal existence of Jesus like in John 1:1 “1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” Jesus the Messiah is but a foreshadow of a hope yet to be fulfilled in the Old Testament.

So then there is a thought that floats around Christian circles…a heretical misunderstanding that the God of the Old Testament is much harsher than the God, the Jesus, of the New. Something we must come to terms with, if we haven’t already, is that when the Lord declared that he had no regard for Cain’s offering, that is the Lord our God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit who had no regard for the offering.

As our own Baptist Faith & Message proclaims, the eternal God reveals Himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence, or being.

Always in unity and always in agreement, the Godhead rejects Cain’s offering. And in addressing the question that comes to our minds…”why is it rejected?” this is the truth about God that we must remember: that God is God and we are not. To ask the question that floats in our minds is to repeat the sin of the garden in thinking that we can be God and in so doing, place God under our judgement and loved ones, that is a grave misstep. We must always remember that it is we who are under God’s judgement. He is Creator, Provider, Sustainer, Redeemer, and Savior. And because God is God, God alone can establish the acceptability of offerings.

So, as we read together this year, let’s remember this truth but also, remember this simple truth about God as you grow as a disciple of the Lord. Because I will tell you, schools have handed out PhDs and there are books galore in print that talk about the rationale behind why Abel’s offering was accepted. Things like that it was an offering of blood and fat portions. And I suppose there are maybe some theological hoops you can jump through to make yourself sound smart when speaking to a group, but if we are to keep the main things the plain things and the plain things the main things, as one of my favorite pastors Alistair Begg often encourages, the main and plain understanding is that God determines what offering, what sacrifice is acceptable. And as we will find in the New Testament, Hebrews 11:4 “4 By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts.”

And friends, as we navigate the Old Testament, in the coming months we will read about an entire system of offerings for the nation of Israel to practice, and among other things, these sacrifices were for their sin. While we have yet to see God administering his Law to his people, allow me to jump into the Fall and announce to you that we are a people today who are freed from the Law. We are freed from the Law because God has provided his Son Jesus Christ as the perfect and complete and ultimate sacrifice.

Jesus said that Matthew 5:17 “17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”

Jesus, being very God and very man, gave himself as an offering for your sin. And just as God chose to accept Abel’s sacrifice over Cain’s, friend, God has chosen to only accept the sacrifice that he himself has made in Jesus Christ for your sin. That is why God in Christ Jesus can declare John 14:6 “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

So I want to take a moment and ask, have you surrendered your life to Jesus Christ? Have you to this point in your life been walking your own way? Do you know of the life that God delivers in Jesus Christ? Have you received the free gift of grace that God extends to you today? With tears flowing from your eyes and repentance deep within your belly, is the melody of your heart, “Grace, grace, God’s grace. Grace that is greater than all my sin.”?

The Unregenerate Response (vv 8-16)

The Snowball Effect of Sin

Well, if you find that the Lord is leading you to call upon Christ for salvation today, I will instruct you shortly on how to share that with me.

And of course, accepting this truth about God is left to each of us. For Cain, his rejection of God as Sovereign and as Lord only has a snowball effect. What we see before us from Genesis 4:8-16 is the response of someone who has not been born of the Spirit, a wretch who remains an unregenerate.

At first sin starts its momentum as Cain commits the sin of denying God, then picks up speed in his rejecting the manner in which he is to approach the Lord in worship until finally this thing is so out of control that in one generation of humanity on earth, murder enters the scene.

It reminds me of the fact that

Illustrations for Biblical Preaching Sin

Sin is like a woodpecker. Each particular attack makes noise but doesn’t seem to do much damage. But, like a woodpecker, if you let it chip away at your life long enough, it will leave many an ugly hole that never fills in.

And be wary of dismissing the effect or presence of sin in your life. In other words, you may be saying, “this doesn’t connect with me, Pastor Dan! I’m not a murderer!” Jesus taught in

Matthew 5:21–22 ESV

21 “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ 22 But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.

1 John 3:15 ESV

15 Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

You may have never have so much as hurt a fly, but is there anger and hate within you?

The Focus on Self

That’s not a very comfortable question, is it? I know for me, I consider all the times I so quickly quip in frustration with someone: “You know, I hate that guy.” And the Word of God open before us shows us that we, like Cain, are worthy of judgement. And with that sense of conviction of our sin, we might be inclined to cry out much like Cain does here.

You notice, he doesn’t demonstrate any sense of repentance for his rejection of God from earlier in our text. He certainly doesn’t appear to have any remorse for his actions toward his brother. He simply says, “God, the penalty is too great for me to bear!”

How many of you, having heard of the heat of hell, convinced that hell is a real place, walked an aisle and prayed a prayer with a pastor? I ask that because if you have done that but have not been born of Heaven as the Lord Jesus speaks to Nicodemus in John 3, then friend, your prayer with that pastor that day is the cry of Cain with focus squarely on yourself, treating matters of the soul like you can pick up a ‘get out of jail free’ card from Monopoly. Yes, you may have left that Sunday church service or that revival meeting with an emotional high, but has that sustained?

Or have your days since then been much like those of Cain in Genesis 4:16, you left the presence of the Lord and just settled into your pew, content to show up at a church when it’s convenient to you, convinced that you experienced something that one time, but have never felt within your being a need for committed service, generous giving, or even giving a flip for anyone outside of your family and besties?

Application

“Well, Pastor Dan. You’re quite confrontational this morning. Couldn’t you sprinkle a little humor into all of this? Don’t you realize that we have to deal with the fact that the Cowboys are going to rip our hearts out again in a few weeks? Can’t you give us a shot in the arm to help escape the inevitable fact that Alabama is going to win another championship? Don’t you know that inflation is rising and some are writing that we are already in the midst of a civil war in this nation?”

Of course I do, but I cannot escape the reality that none of those things are eternal. They are distractions from what is of greatest importance, whether any one of us is prepared to acknowledge this today or not. Nor can I escape the fact that God in his Spirit preached this Word to me as I was studying for this message.

I confess to you that I was prepared to preach you a message about the exclusivity of Jesus Christ, the cancerous effects of sin in our lives, and call everyone to trust in Jesus but I did not know how to make sense of Genesis 4:15-16.

Genesis 4:13 “13 Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is greater than I can bear.” I had read through Genesis 4:12 and told myself, “Here is a sinner and whoa, his sin got really bad and yes, God gets some justice!” And God does punish him, but in his grace, God lets Cain live out his life, fading into relative nothingness.

And all of a sudden, it occurred to me, I had been reading this passage with my heart closed to it. Because in this text we see before us every person whose funeral we have attended that the greatest expression of hope we can muster on the sad occasion is a simple platitude like, “Well, she was baptized in this church.” We tell ourselves that lie to brush over a life that lacked any evidence of repentance and surrender to Jesus.

It is in the garden that we found that in believing the lies of the Satan, our identities have been fractured by sin. We cannot reassemble what has been broken by our own doing. In other words, Romans 1:16 “...it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.” And 2 Corinthians 5:17 “...if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”

When we have been saved, the Spirit will begin a work of transforming us.

Inspiration

300 Illustrations for Preachers Running from Police, Winding up in Prison

Cleveland police stopped 20-year-old Ricky Flowers for a traffic violation. While the police were writing out the citation, Flowers slipped his car into gear and took off, which triggered a high-speed chase. Flowers eventually jumped out of the car and scaled a fence to evade officers. Unfortunately for Flowers—and fortunately for truth, justice, and the law-enforcement officers—the fence surrounded the yard of a women’s prison.

Many times we find ourselves running from God, because want to be left alone to live as we want, to do as we please. When the Spirit of God seeks to arrest us, we run. And while running from God we end up in captivity that is much worse, just as Ricky Flowers did. The correct response to the probing of the Spirit is to repent. Turning toward the one who pursues us for righteousness’ sake, also known as repentance, is a much better solution than running from it.

Action

There are two words that I want to leave you with this morning.

To any Christian who can mark the point in their life when they were truly born again, as you read the Bible this year, read it with a broken heart. Read it not as a god unto yourself, but search the heart of God so that you might have eyes to see and realize that seated next to you in your pew today, or at the table across from you at the cafe or the student seated next to you in class are Cains who cannot bear the punishment for their sin and need to know that Jesus has and in that in repentance and faith, they can be delivered and transformed from the life of sin that grips them. Loved one, do not be content to let any soul settle into their proverbial Nod without sharing the gospel with them. If God has saved you, he has called you and equipped you.

To everyone else, I will repeat for your benefit, when we have been saved, the Spirit will begin a work of transforming us. Stop running from this truth. What keeps you from surrendering to the Lord? There are no self-made men or women in Heaven, there are only souls who have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ. Do not let your pride blind you. Don’t let excuses distract you. You’re on a committee in this church? If you haven’t been saved by God, so what? Pastors and deacons get saved all the time once God illumines to them that you can only approach God and be accepted by God on his terms. Have your eyes been opened to this truth? In a few moments, you will have the opportunity to make that known by coming to talk to me about it.

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