Sermon Cloud

UFC (Ultimate Family Challenge)

Cain vs. Abel – Genesis 4:1-15

INTRODUCTION

Introduce series:

How many of you have seen what's called “Ultimate Fighting”? It's not for the faint of heart (especially if you get queasy at the sight of blood). Two opponents, usually men (but there’s ultimate fighting for women too), step into a ring, often an octagon shaped cage, and they just go at it. There are a few rules: no biting, spitting, eye gouging, things like that, but in the octagon it's basically no-holds-barred and most times somebody either gets knocked out or taps out. It's pretty brutal, it's been compared to the death sport games of the Roman Coliseum. So Ultimate Fighting obviously isn't for everybody. By a show of hands, how many have watched a match? The basic premise - beat the tar out of your opponent, the one with the least amount of tar at the end loses.

We're kicking off a new series tonight called “Ultimate Family Challenge”. No matter who you are or where you come from, there's a kind of relationship that we all deal with – the family. There are countless configurations of what a family looks like, but one thing they all share in common are the strains and trials that conflict brings. Some of you might be a bit shocked by equating “bloodsport” and “family relationships”, others of you might be all too familiar with the correlation.

Now as for me, I'm much more passive-aggressive than that. I've never been one to physically spar with others. I can count the physical fights I've been in on one hand with a finger or two left over. I'm much more likely to insult you from afar than get all up in your face. In fact, I think my family relationships and my training program for Ultimate Fighting would probably be remarkably similar. As an example, I'd like to show you a quick little scene from one of my favorite movies of all time that shows what family fights might have looked like for me growing up.

[ show Napoleon Dynamite clip ]

What's going on here is a common type of family challenge: two brothers, squaring off in a battle of wits and wills. Now this could be any combination of siblings, the fact is they just don't see eye to eye. Conflict in the family, specifically between siblings, is nothing new. In fact, it's something that has been an issue since the very first set of siblings. We find this story in the Bible in Genesis.

Genesis 4 Cain and Abel

 1 Adam ^[a] lay with his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. ^[b] She said, "With the help of the LORD I have brought forth ^[c] a man." 2 Later she gave birth to his brother Abel.
      Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. 3 In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the LORD. 4 But Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, 5 but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.

 6 Then the LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? 7 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; it desires to have you, but you must master it."

 8 Now Cain said to his brother Abel, "Let's go out to the field." ^[d] And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.

 9 Then the LORD said to Cain, "Where is your brother Abel?"
      "I don't know," he replied. "Am I my brother's keeper?"

 10 The LORD said, "What have you done? Listen! Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground. 11 Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. 12 When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth."

 13 Cain said to the LORD, "My punishment is more than I can bear. 14 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."

 15 But the LORD said to him, "Not so ^[e] ; if anyone kills Cain, he will suffer vengeance seven times over." Then the LORD put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him. 16 So Cain went out from the LORD's presence and lived in the land of Nod, ^[f] east of Eden.

Retell Story:

So here's a quick recap of what just happened:

Cain and Abel are brothers

They go into different career fields

They each presented an offering to God

Abel's was pleasing to God – not because God needed the best stuff, but because he was pleased by Abel's devotion to relationship

Cain's was not – not because God needed the best stuff, but because of the personal/relational issue with holding back his best.

Cain burned with anger and jealousy

Cain tricked Abel into going out to the field, then jumped him and killed him

God doesn't let this slide – he forces Cain to face up to his actions – he comes to Cain, asks where Abel is – not because he didn't know.

Cain asks the famous question - “Am I my brother's keeper?” - we've managed to completely twist the original intent of this phrase nowadays by making it a question that we ask rhetorically, intending it to mean “I am not responsible for this person, so I relinquish any guilt for what this person is doing”. When in reality, a person in the Jewish culture would read this and be shocked that Cain would even ask the question – 'that's messed up!', they would say. Of COURSE he is – that's how we were created to be.

Then God disciplines Cain. [Read Genesis 4:11-15]. Although Cain faced consequences for his actions, notice that God never abandoned him. Cain messed up, but God was still watching out for him. God did for Cain, what Cain was supposed to do for his brother. In a sense, he was his brother’s keeper. He was supposed to support, care for, and protect his brother. He was not responsible for his sibling’s actions, but he was called to take care of him.

It's Not About the Murder

Now when we read this story, we have to look at it on more than just a surface level. It's much deeper than just 'don't kill your brother'. If God was concerned simply about the murder, as punishment he would have struck Cain dead right then and there. But he doesn't – because punishing the murder is merely attacking a symptom of the main problem.

What is the sin underneath the sin? Because the sin issue here is not murder, and the sin issue here is not even anger. Don't get me wrong, those things are both wrong, but WHY? If we define sin, it becomes very clear what's really happening here.

Sin = displacing God, or, putting something up as more important than God, or, looking to something other than God for satisfaction, value, worth, identity.

Cain was devoured by his anger, his jealousy. The Bible isn't clear – this is my conjecture, but I imagine that this interaction took place over a period of time. I wonder if maybe this was a continuing problem, and over time the jealousy and the rage in Cain's heart just burned and boiled until he couldn't take it anymore. Have you been there? Where something just nibbles and bites at your soul, until it just comes out? The sin is that in that situation, Cain was looking to satisfy his jealousy and rage. Maybe it was pride – he wanted to be the better brother, maybe it was fear – that he would eventually face consequences for his actions – but ultimately, that rage is what consumed him, and took over as the most important thing in his heart.

We tend to get into this cycle where we fall into what I call “sin management”. Sin management means that we believe that if we just manage our sin issues, keep a lid on the things we know are wrong, that we'll be able to live a good life and come out on the other side without too much damage. This practice of simply “managing” our sins makes for good-appearing people, but people who are spiritually void, because we constantly live in fear of being caught, fear of losing the handle and having our once precisely managed sin life explode to the surface in a mess of -- ?

One of the most common questions in dealing with this issue of sibling relationships is “how do I get my kids to get along?” A couple weeks back when I started studying this, it seemed like our kids were going over the top in their acting out – they were at each other's throats constantly. I decided for a short time that I was going to build Samuel a penalty box in his room....

But even in working through different discipline tactics, it became clear that simply disciplining the behavior and ignoring the heart issue wasn't the answer. So maybe your kids just can't seem to keep from beating the snot out of each other. The question to ask, is what's happening in their hearts? When one child blames another for a broken lamp, what's the motivation? Fear of being caught? Fear of consequences? Pride that would be injured by being thought less of? In that moment, the fear or the pride is the most important thing, and it's motivating all kinds of wrong behavior.

As an adult, you might be dealing with an issue with another grown sibling. Maybe your brother or sister has done something to you. In dealing with the pain of being injured in relationship, thinking about what heart issue is ultimately motivating the action can often be eye-opening. It's entirely likely that you're the sibling who has wronged another - Now I know what you may be thinking. “Well, I have never done anything that bad. The worst thing I have ever done is spit in my brothers face. Sure I get into fights all the time with my siblings but I have not killed them (pause) yet.” But be careful, because Jesus actually said a few things about this as well. Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.' But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment (Matthew 5:21-22). Jesus is saying that continuing to live in anger is like committing murder in your heart. So I think that God’s warning to Cain can also apply to us. When it comes to conflict with your siblings, look at yourself! Stop looking for the fault in the other person. Pay attention to the fault that may lie within you…what’s going on in your heart. We may be able to 'manage' the internal anger, but at that point we are already murderers, and left unchecked that anger will come out.

You might be saying to me, “I don't have any kids, and I'm an only child, so this doesn't apply to me at all!” Remember that if the story were just about Cain and Abel being brothers who got into a spat that ended badly, you'd be right. But to read it that way is a giant adventure in missing the point – the Bible is so much more than a list of situation-specific rules and regulations, and God's plan for redemption is so much larger than that. When we read the Bible as God coming to redeem and renew creation in and through the work of Jesus Christ on our behalf, we're reading the Gospel. We're not reading about “sin management”, we're reading about being changed at the heart-level by the transforming power of Jesus. So it would be silly to assume that this is limited to a brother/brother or brother/sister or sister/sister relationship.

When you read Acts, you find that people were living life together – eating together, worshipping together, sharing their possessions (Acts 2:44-47) – that sounds like a family to me. When Jesus is the ultimate thing in our lives, when we approach every situation, every conflict, every interaction with that in mind then suddenly we begin to realize that we are living the gospel in every relationship, from the most casual (the grocery checker at Safeway, the barista at Starbucks, the postal worker, the cable TV repair guy...), to the most intimate (brothers, sisters, wives, husbands, fathers, mothers).

It is because we put Jesus at this ultimate place that every week we honor the practice of communion. In being crucified, he took on a death that we earned, that we deserve, and so we celebrate communion as a way to constantly and consistently remember what he's done for us, and why he's worthy to be put in that place of ultimate lordship in our hearts.