We are in the second week of our sermon series called “In the Beginning”, where we’re looking at some of the stories from the first book of the Bible, the book of Genesis. Today, we’re going to look at the story of Cain and Abel.
The reason I chose this story to preach on is that, even though I’ve heard this story ever since I was a little kid in Sunday school, I don’t know that I’ve ever thought about it all that much. I know the facts, and many of you probably do, too. Cain and Abel are brothers, they both bring an offering to God, God likes Abel’s gift but not Cain’s, Cain gets mad and kills Abel, God finds out about it, and Cain is punished. It seems like that last part is the part we always focus on, the murder and the punishment.
Is that really why that story’s in the Bible? What are we supposed to learn from that? I guess we learn that murder is wrong, but that seems kind of obvious. Why else is the story there? I don’t know that I’ve ever really thought about it. Maybe you’ve never thought about it, either. So, today, we’re going to think about it and try to figure out what we’re supposed to learn from the story of Cain and Abel.
One of the things we need to look at is why God liked Abel’s gift and not Cain’s. After all, they both gave to God from what they had. Abel kept flocks, and gave God some of his herd. Cain worked the soil, and gave God some of his crops. Seems like they both gave God from what they had.
Listen, though, to how those gifts are described. We’re told that Cain gave “some” of the fruits of the soil to God. We’re not told whether those fruits were good, bad, or indifferent, nor are we told how much Cain gave. We’re just told that he gave “some”. When it comes to Abel, though, we’re told that he gave “the fat portions from the firstborn of his flock.” In other words, Abel gave did not just choose something at random to give God. Abel gave God the first and the best of what he had. That’s why God liked Abel’s gift but not Cain’s.
That’s a lesson for us right there, before we even get to the rest of the story. What do we give as an offering to God? Do we give the first and the best of what we have? Or do we just give “some”, just kind of whatever we feel like giving? And when we do, what reaction do we expect God to have? Do we expect God to like our gifts when we just give “some”, rather than giving our first and our best? This story tells us that’s not how it works. God deserves more than just whatever we feel like giving. God deserves our first and our best, and God does not like it when we try to get by with less.
Now, notice that God does not say that Cain sinned by trying to get by with less than the first and the best. God did not punish Cain for what he did, at this point. On the other hand, God did not bless Cain for it, either. What God did was give Cain a warning. God said that what Cain did was not right, and warned him that he was headed in the wrong direction. God said, “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.”
Think about that. It’s not that every time we fail to do right we commit a sin for which God is going to punish us. What happens, though, is that every time we fail to do right, we lose out on a chance for God’s blessings, and we give sin an opening. We start heading in the wrong direction, and that give sin a chance to take us over.
That’s what God said Cain was doing when he tried to get by with giving God less than the first and the best. That’s what God says we do, too, when we try to get by with giving God less than our first and our best. It’s not that every time we do that, we commit a sin for which God will punish us. It’s that every time we fail to give God our best, we lose a chance for God’s blessings, and instead we give sin a chance to take over. In other words, if we don’t give God our first and our best, we’re hurting ourselves.
That does not just apply to material things, of course. It applies to everything. Every time we fail to give God our first and our best, whether it’s our money, our time, our talents, or anything else, we lose a chance to gain God’s blessings. We give sin an opening to come into our lives. We fail to please God, but that’s not really the point. The point is that we hurt ourselves.
We never think about it that way, do we? When we try to get by with giving God less than our best, we never think of it as hurting ourselves. Usually when we do that, it’s because we want to keep our possession and our time and so forth to ourselves, or because we don’t trust God enough to give God our first and our best, or because we’re too lazy to do it, or something like that. We think, on some level, that we’ll somehow be better off if we keep things to ourselves rather than giving them to God.
That’s probably what Cain thought, don’t you think? Cain thought he’d be better off in some way if he just gave “some” of what he’d raised to God, rather than giving God the first and the best. Instead, it turned out to be exactly the other way around. Abel received God’s blessing for giving God the first and the best, while Cain gave sin a chance to take over his life.
We know, of course, that that’s exactly what happened. Cain did not listen to God’s warning. Cain did not resolve that, from now on, he was going to give God his first and his best, the way God wanted him to do. Instead, Cain let sin take advantage of the opening he had given it. He felt envy and resentment at his brother Abel, and so he killed him.
Notice how God reacts to that. God does not instantly condemn Cain. Instead, God asks him, “Where is your brother, Abel?”
Did you ever wonder why God asked Cain that? It’s not because God did not know the answer, of course. In fact, just two verses later, God tells Cain that he knows the answer. I think what God was doing was giving Cain another chance. God had already given him one chance, when God warned him about sin crouching at his door. Now, God gives him another chance, a chance to confess what he’d done and ask for forgiveness for it.
It was only when Cain failed to take advantage of that chance that God sent Cain out of Eden. Notice, though, that even then God does not condemn Cain. God makes Cain accept the consequences of his actions, but that’s all. God does not kill Cain. In fact, God gives Cain divine protection by putting a mark on him to make sure no one will kill him.
Think of all the chances Cain had to ask God’s forgiveness, to get on the right path, and to receive God’s blessings. After he fails to give God the first and the best, God gives him another chance, along with a warning. Even after Cain kills Abel, God still gives him a chance to confess what he did and ask for forgiveness. In fact, even after God sends Cain out of Eden, we’re not told that God condemned Cain to hell or anything. In fact, God still gives him divine protection. I have to think that, even at that point, Cain could have asked for forgiveness from God.
For all we know, maybe he did. We don’t know what happened to Cain after that. We know he went to the land of Nod, east of Eden, that he had a wife, and that they had at least one child. We’re told that, at the time his child was born, Cain was building a city. That’s it. We don’t hear about Cain again. It’s entirely possible that Cain eventually did ask for and receive forgiveness from God, that he got back on the right path, and that he started giving God his first and his best. He still had to deal with consequences of his actions, but he may have received further blessings from God at some point in his life. In fact, just the fact that he had a wife and son may be evidence that he received some of God’s blessings.
You see, the story of Cain and Abel is not a story of crime and punishment. It’s a story of sin and forgiveness. It’s a story of what God asks of us, what happens when we don’t give it to God, and how, no matter what we do, we can always receive another chance.
God asks for our first and our best, not just in material possessions, but in everything. God asks us to dedicate our lives to God, regardless of what we may do for a living. When we don’t do that, we only hurt ourselves, not because God will punish us but because we don’t get the blessings from God that we might otherwise get.
God is always willing to give us another chance, though. We get warnings, and we get chances to confess. Sometimes, we have to accept the consequences of our actions. Even when we fail to change, and even when we have to accept those consequences, God does not condemn us. Instead, God still protects us and is willing to give us another chance. When we take advantage of that chance, we can still receive God’s blessings.
Every day, we get another opportunity to take advantage of that chance. At some point, though, our days will come to an end, and none of us knows when that will be. That’s why we need to take advantage of that chance now, today.
Let’s not deprive ourselves of God’s blessings any more. Let’s dedicate ourselves to God in everything we do. Let’s give God our first and our best.
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