How to kill your brother
Later she gave birth to his brother and named him Abel. When they grew up, Abel became a shepherd, while Cain cultivated the ground. When it was time for the harvest, Cain presented some of his crops as a gift to the Lord. Abel also brought a gift—the best portions of the firstborn lambs from his flock. The Lord accepted Abel and his gift, but he did not accept Cain and his gift. This made Cain very angry, and he looked dejected. “Why are you so angry?” the Lord asked Cain. “Why do you look so dejected? You will be accepted if you do what is right. But if you refuse to do what is right, then watch out! Sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you. But you must subdue it and be its master.” One day Cain suggested to his brother, “Let’s go out into the fields.” And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother, Abel, and killed him.
Genesis 4:2-8 NLT
Regardless of how annoying life with my brothers Pax and Price has been, I've never considered killing them, and the odds are that no matter how difficult life with your siblings has been, you've also never seriously considered killing them. I’d even go as far as to say that you likely haven't planned and practiced murder towards anyone.
I don’t believe Cain would have imagined this for himself either. I don’t think many people grow up with dreams of the unthinkable. I find it hard to believe that many five year old’s are in kindergarten drawing pictures of how they dream of their adult life becoming with illustrations of mass murder and sexual assault. I don’t believe many children are putting away toy trucks and dolls in exchange for knives and guns as they practice and plan for the post-pubescent, premeditated murders they intend to commit. I don’t think many people grow up expecting to be as heinous as they end up becoming. Yet so many people allow sinful proclivities and desires to grow and fester in private until they inevitably rise to the surface. You may not have any desire to kill your brother right now but you may not be as far away from doing the unthinkable as you believe.
Jesus does something interesting when He conflates things like hatred for a brother to murder and lust to adultery. The seed of a sin left unchecked often blossoms into the very actions we thought we’d never resort to. 1 John 3:15 says that whoever hates a brother is a murderer. Jesus in Matthew 5 goes even further. While John says “Whoever hates is a murderer,” in Matthew 5 Jesus conflates anger to judgment just like He does with murder. Then He goes even further and says that whoever looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery. Jesus says that lustful lingering on that workout video of a friend needs to be approached with the same seriousness as we would if we were secretly getting a motel behind our wife’s back and sleeping with a prostitute. We need to be as serious in stopping the seeds of sin as we are at stopping the consequential fruit of those unchecked desires. Jesus goes as far as to say that if your right eye is causing you to sin, pluck it out. This isn’t a literally prescription for self mutilation but it is saying that if you’d be decisive and serious about stopping yourself from going to Diddy freak off, you should also be serious about muting or unfollowing people on instagram that trigger lust. Crazy right? It may seem extreme but Jesus is saying that unchecked private sin is a bigger problem than we think. While they may not have the same immediate consequences, they are birthed from the same unchecked desires. The “lesser” sin can lead to the “greater” sin if left unchecked and needs to be approached with intentionality and seriousness.
Unchecked sin is like mold, growing and thriving in the dark places. Its like a termite infestation. It grows and feeds in private until is it big and powerful enough to compromise the foundation and integrity of a once beautiful house. Its like a brain aneurysm. You may not notice what starts as a small and hidden weakening of a blood vessel, but if it ruptures, the consequences could be deadly. Jesus knew this and before Cain knew he would kill Abel, He saw the trajectory he was on. God comes to Cain and tells him to watch out because sin is crouching at his door, waiting for a chance to take over. The Hebrew in this text gives the image of sin being low to the ground like a hunting preditor sneaking up to its prey. It may be low and hidden now, but its active and hunting. God goes on to tell Cain that he must destroy it while its small.
You may think your casual gossip and slander of others is inconsequential but what will it look like when your words gain more power and the people you talk about miss out on opportunities, relationships and safety because of the power and influence in your tongue? You may think it’s ok to objectify women on a screen now but what will happen when you actually have the power and ability to meet them and gain their trust? David was just looking at first but when unchecked lust was paired with kingly power and opportunity, it because assault and murder. What can an unchecked diet of stress eating lead to? What does lack of diligence, honestly and integrity jeopardize? What can an unchecked pattern of misplaced priorities poison? What does your insecurity change about how you view and respond to the world, opportunities and relationships? What aspects of your life has God told you to get in check that you are ignoring? One consistent and hidden drop of water can cause millions worth of mold, mildew and water damage over time. What leaks are you allowing to slide? You have to catch the cancers of envy, greed, jealousy, lust, pride, fear and hatred before they start to metastasise and spread throughout the body.
So how do we respond? How do we capture the cub and subdue sin before it becomes a deadly lion? To help us discover our answer, we have to examine the start of this story. Cain is a farmer while Abel is a shepherd. The tension begins to grow when God accepts the younger brother's gift while rejecting the gift of the older. We may infer that God accepted Abel's lamb while rejecting Cain's fruits because He simply wanted a lamb and not crops, but it’s not that simple. Grain offerings to thank God for His provision were also prescribed by God. The difference comes not in the noun of the offering but the adjective. Abel gave his first and best. Cain gave some. Abel gave God the best of what he was given and Cain gave what was left. Able gave first and prioritized giving back to God while Cain gave the leftovers. Do you see the difference? Abel gave the best and Cain just gave the rest. God accepted Abel’s gift because he gave back the best and first of what God had given him but Cain lazily gave what was left over of what he was given, regardless of its quality.
Cain was mad that God accepted his brother's gift of his best and not his gift of what was left over. When God saw Cain in his jealousy and dejection He said that he would be accepted if he just did what was right. All Cain had to do was prioritize God first and submit to Him in the best of what he had been given and he would be accepted. If Cain had made it his priority to first look over the best of what he had been gifted and sacrifice it back to God in thanks, the offering would be accepted.
Could it be that by our prioritization and ability to surrender the first and best of what God gives us back to Him as an offering, we could get a handle on the sin that seeks to grow in our lives to destroy us? The symbol of sacrifice in that day was literally like saying “God, I can’t win without you and need you to cover me.” It wasn’t just an act of thanks, it was an act of surrender. Jesus was saying to Cain, if you just give me the best of you, I will cover you and handle the sin that is creeping at your door. God was telling Cain, all you have to do is do the right thing and let go if you don't want to deal with and succumb to the sinful desires inside of you alone. Giving yourself fully to God can be the answer to subduing the sinful flare ups we deal with too. Our sacrifice says the same thing now as it did then. It's an act of thanks, submission and surrender. We may not be giving crops or flocks but how do you surrender to God the best of the things He has given you? How do you say you need Him to take over? How do you surrender the best of your time and energy? Are you best in the morning or the evening? Who gets first dibs to that time when you're at your best? Are you giving God the leftovers like Cain? What about your money? Who gets first dibs on your budget? Is giving tithe and offering a priority when you have increase or a practice that may come up if there's some left? Do you give God the first of what you have as a way of saying you need Him to take control?
The thing about giving God the first and best of what He has given you is that it doesn’t just cover you, it keeps you. Jesus says that if you seek first the kingdom of God, the other things you may be worried about will be taken care of. Many of us are worried and feel a lack in our time, energy, relationships, finances and vitality because we have not given God the first and best. We try on our own without Him and then expect Him to save us with the rest. Instead of following God in the beginning of the relationship, we do it our own way and mess it up and then frantically ask God to put the pieces back together. God is telling Cain that if he just puts Him first, problems won't just be fixed, they'll be avoided.
One of the saddest things I commonly see is people crying and hurting and depressed over life circumstances that could have been avoided if they just followed God at the beginning. Many of the trials and tribulations of life can be avoided if you commit your life to the will of God first. If we're honest, many of our relational, financial and occupational issues come because we haven't committed our lives completely to the will and way of God. If Cain had committed his identity, emotions and relationships to God, the hate towards his brother would not have been able to grow. If David committed his time to God, he would have been where he was supposed to be and would not have even seen Bathsheba bathing. The way you stop sin from festering in hidden areas of your life is by committing those areas of your life to God. If the poison of sin is festering in your relationships, commit them first to God. If the effects of brokenness are in your finances, commit them first to the principles and work of God. Don't just try to fight sin when it's full grown. Use your energy trying to avoid the things that let it grow in the first place. If you commit every area of your life to God, the dog of sin that is crouching at your door wont even have what it needs to fully develop.
There is an old legend of a man who told his son that every man has two wolves in them that are fighting for control. One wolf is good and one wolf is bad. One is virtue, integrity and love. The other is perversion, insecurity and fear. The son asked the father which dog wins and the father sternly answered that the wolf that wins is the one you feed and the one that loses is the one you starve. We too have two wolves. One is our sinful nature and the other is the Spirit of God. Both are fighting for control of our lives. Which one are you going to prioritize and feed? God told Cain that he saw the puppy that was his sinful nature growing in him and the way to avoid its sure destruction was to starve it and feed the other dog. The way to stop this crouching and creeping dog of sin was to commit fully to God and feed the other side. Cain decided against God’s advice and it led to death. What will you decide? Will you do the right thing and feed the right dog?
ROAR Cincinnati is this weekend. Book your hotels. Rent your cars. Plan the girls trip. God is going to move. November 9th at Shiloh SDA Church. Pastor Kee’laun Crum will be our speaker that morning at 12pm and ROAR will be that night at 7pm (doors open 6:30pm).
Go to www.roarworship.com for tickets and more information.
ROAR Worship Experience Cincinnati 2024
