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Part 7 of 8
Evolve Church—Year of Presence Series
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We're continuing in our series on the presence of God. Last Sunday we started this journey, and today we're looking at the story of Cain and Abel—two brothers from the same family, raised in the same home, yet with completely different values toward God.
We begin in Genesis 4:1, where Adam and Eve have their first son, Cain. Eve says, "With the help of the Lord, I have brought forth a man." This is important: without the help of God, you cannot raise a man. You can bring forth a male, but you cannot raise a man. A man can only truly get his identity from his Creator, because that's the image he was created in.
Later, Abel is born. The text tells us: "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."
Notice the difference. Cain gave God the part of his crops that didn't mean much to him—leftovers. Abel gave God the best that he had. These are two brothers in the same household. One is saying, "You should just accept what I'm giving you, God." The other is saying, "No, God—if I'm going to give you something, I'm going to give you everything I have."
The question is simple: Which son are you? Are you Cain, or are you Abel?
Jesus taught us this principle in Matthew 6:21: "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Your heart is always exposed by where you put your treasure. If you want to know where your heart truly is, look at your bank statement. Look at where you're willing to spend your money. Some of you—your treasure is with food delivery services. Some of you—your treasure is in fashion. Your spending reveals what you value.
This is why it's easy to tell who actually loves you. A person who loves you doesn't mind spending on you. You don't have to beg them. When I love you, I naturally want to give to you. Why? Because love gives. It's a verb. Love gives. "For God so loved the world, he gave." Jesus loved you so much he gave his life.
Genesis 4:4-5 tells us: "The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering, God did not look with favor."
Here's a secret many don't know: You can actually increase the amount of favor in your life. You don't have to settle for the level of favor you currently have. You can increase it in two simple ways:
First, you increase favor through how you honor God with your lifestyle. You can't increase favor while living in disobedience. Jesus said, "If you love me, then keep my commandments." If I want more favor, my life has to actually resemble Jesus, not the one He's warring against.
Second, Abel shows us that favor comes through the sacrifices you give to God. I can increase the favor in my life based on how I honor God with my giving. When I give God my best, I'm signifying to God: You can trust me with more. When you give me more, I give you more. And you give me more. And I give you more. That's a relationship. That's what it looks like when my treasure is where my heart really is.
Abel received more favor because he gave God his best.
But look what happens: "So Cain was very angry and his face was downcast."
Cain is angry that he didn't get the same favor, even though he knows he didn't give the same sacrifice. Isn't human nature strange? We give God less and then get angry with God when we don't get what we think we deserve.
I've seen this as a counselor. People come to me and say, "Pastor, I don't know why things aren't working out for me." And I ask them, "Have you been doing what God told you to do?" "Well... no, pastor. But for the last week, I've been doing good." You want God to turn your life around in a week when it took you 17 years to put down what He told you to put down. How unfair is it that we want God to move faster than we do?
We say, "God, I'll be in disobedience for five years, but you've got five days to make me happy"—and then we get angry when He doesn't do it. We never talk about how we're dishonoring God with our lives privately. People didn't see you, but God saw you. People may believe your story, but God knows the real you.
God confronts 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 the door. It desires to have you, but you must rule over it."
God had to check Cain immediately. He saw his attitude and the path he was about to take. Whenever God disciplines you, it's because He loves you and doesn't want you to continue down the wrong path.
Some of you know what this feels like. Your friends can sin without consequences—at least for a while. But the moment you mess up, you feel the weight immediately. Why? God disciplines those He loves. When God has a purpose for your life, He won't let you have fun in sin. He'll keep pulling you back every chance He gets.
God tells Cain: "It's easy for your situation to change. All you have to do is the right thing." But notice how simple this is: Most people overcomplicate it. They say, "Pastor, I just don't know what to do." The answer is: Stop doing what God told you to stop. People tell me, "I know God told me to leave this relationship." Then you literally just told me what God told you to do, and you're not doing it, and you don't understand why you're sad.
God warns Cain: "Sin is crouching at the door... you must rule over it."
Listen carefully: Not doing what you know to do will give access to sins you never thought you would do. This is critical. Some of you know what I'm talking about because you play around on the edge. "I just drink a little, but I don't get drunk, pastor." And then you wake up the next morning wondering what happened. "I never thought I would get drunk."
Don't say what you would never do. The enemy loves that. Your parents said, "You would never..." And the enemy said, "Yeah, you're about to do exactly that." People say, "I date around, but I would never deal with a married person." A year later: adultery. "But they told me they were leaving." If it's still on paper downtown, then you're wrong.
Here's why: It's the little foxes that spoil the vine. It's the little things you won't stop doing that open doors for other sins the enemy wants to pull you into. You have to learn: If I keep playing with this, I'm going to trip into something I can't get myself out of.
God literally tells Cain: Sin is trying to take over, but you have a choice. Yes, thoughts can be intrusive, but you have a choice to say: Will these thoughts stay, or will I force them out? You can make a decision to follow God.
But Cain doesn't listen. "Now Cain said to his brother Abel, 'Let's go out to the field.' And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him."
Cain lured his brother out to the field—his own territory, his habitat. This teaches us something: Don't match their pettiness. Don't try to keep the same energy, matching negativity with negativity. The Bible says, "Don't return evil for evil. Overcome evil with good." If you go to the enemy's territory, you're going to die there.
Now think about this: What did Abel do wrong? Nothing. All Abel did was give God his best and receive favor. And it made his brother hate him so badly he wanted to murder him.
Sometimes the hate you experience is simply because God keeps putting favor on your life. Maybe people don't like you, and you never did anything to them. You tried to be kind. You tried to be nice. And they still find an issue. What's the real issue? Favor. God keeps blessing you. Everything you do works. Everything you touch grows. And they're angry because they can't stop God from blessing you.
In theology, we learn that Abel was a type of Christ. Christ was killed by His own people because He wanted to obey God. And Abel was killed by his own brother because he wanted to obey God. When somebody comes for you, it's typically going to be somebody close to you. It was Judas to Jesus. It was Cain to Abel. You're looking out for the enemy far away, but your enemy is stabbing you in the back the whole time. The person spreading your business, talking about you, dragging you in the street—that's the one you're going to lunch with.
It's his own brother. He shouldn't have had to watch his back with his own brother. He shouldn't have had to be careful. We live in a generation where you have no option but to be cautious. You never know where the enemy is going to come in from.
God asks Cain: "Where is your brother Abel?" Cain replies, "I don't know. Am I my brother's keeper?"
Look at this: Cain gets angry when God brings up Abel's name. That's how deep the envy was. Abel was dead, and just hearing his name ruffled Cain. When people have hate in their heart toward you, your name frustrates them. Even if you're not in the room, just mentioning your name makes them angry. They'll leave the conversation, leave the group chat angry. Why? When the favor of God is on you, it creates hate and envy to the point where your name disrupts the spirit inside of them.
But God says: "Listen, your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground."
This is profound: Even though Abel is dead, his blood still has a voice. God can hear it. This is why we plead the blood of Jesus. Even though He died 2,000 years ago, the blood of Jesus is still crying out on your behalf. The blood of Jesus still works. When you speak it over your kids, over your home, over your family, the blood of Jesus still has a voice.
God says the blood is where the DNA is. The blood is where the power is. And even blood that has been spilled in the ground still cries out. Even when a person is dead and gone, God still hears the blood. Judgment still comes when blood is shed in the streets.
For those of you who've lost a loved one—maybe they were murdered, maybe something wrong happened—you might feel like nobody remembers. But the blood still cries out from the ground. God still hears.
Now God becomes serious: "Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground which opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hands."
God says to Cain: Your own actions have put a curse over your life. I'm speaking to some of you because many are still blaming generational curses, when really it's behavioral curses. It's what you did. It's the stuff you've done that's bringing negativity over your own life.
Yes, maybe somebody was wrong to you. Maybe they hurt you. But you have to own your part too. Maybe the reason life has been hard is because of the way you handled some people. This is why you have to watch how you handle God's people. The word says, "Touch not My anointed and do My prophets no harm."
What if the pain you're experiencing is because of the people you hurt? It's hard to say amen when you have to consider yourself. Because we all think we're Abel, but what about when we're Cain? Some of us had to be Cain in the story. Some of us had to damage somebody. Some of us had to cut somebody. And even if you didn't have a physical knife, your tongue is sharper than ever.
We have Abels in this room, but we also have Cains. Some of you—in some seasons, you've been Abel, but in other seasons you've been Cain too. In some seasons you were hurt. But in other seasons, you were the ones hurting other people. While you're praying for mercy for yourself, please remember that God has to give the same mercy to the people you've been asking Him to judge.
The pain in Cain's life came from his own actions. Maybe you should ask yourself: Is there blood on my hands? Is there somebody I hurt that made God respond in judgment over me?
God says: "When you work the ground, it will no longer yield crops for you, and you will be a restless wanderer on the earth."
This curse is twofold. First, his work will no longer produce anything. That's terrifying. Second, he will never find rest or a place that feels like home.
Does this sound familiar? Cain will feel like: No matter how hard I work, I can never get enough. And no matter where I go, I can never find rest or peace.
Maybe some of us are more like Cain than we realize. Maybe you've been in a place where no matter what you're doing, stuff isn't working. No matter where you go, you can't find peace. Why? Maybe I'm the problem. Moving to Houston won't be the solution. Running to Atlanta won't heal me. Running to DC won't fix me. Maybe I need to be still and deal with the damage I've caused.
Cain cries out: "God, 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 earth, and whoever finds me will kill me."
Notice something crucial: The biggest part of the curse for Cain was that he would no longer feel God's presence. He said, "God, I can handle the other stuff. But to tell me I can never experience your presence again—that's too much for me to handle."
This is what I need you to hear: The biggest curse that many people are living under right now is that they're living without the presence of God in their lives.
You thought the curse was about money, or that relationship didn't work out, or that job fell through. That's not the curse. The real curse is that every day you've been living and you don't even know if God is with you. That's the real curse.
How scary is it that what was the scariest thing to God's people in Bible days has become our new normal? It's normal now for people to live their whole lives and never experience the presence of God. In the Bible days, that was the only thing they were deadly afraid of losing.
When David sinned, he didn't care about the kingdom. He didn't care about the soldiers. He didn't care about the money. He said, "God, I don't want to lose your presence." Look at Psalm 51:11: "God, do not banish me from your presence and don't take your Holy Spirit from me."
He said, "God, I can handle anything else. If I don't get money and success, that's fine. But what I can't do is live my whole life and never experience you being with me." Living without the presence of God in your life is a void impossible to explain.
For those of you who have lived with that void, nobody has to explain it to you. You know what I'm talking about. It's like no matter what you do, you never feel complete. There's always this nagging emptiness inside of you. Even when you have success, you know it's short-lived. You'll only be happy a little while because eventually that darkness you feel inside becomes louder and louder. You're struggling when you can't feel God with you.
Cain says, "God, my punishment is too much. Now people will try to kill me because they know I can't hide in your presence anymore. They know your presence isn't protecting me everywhere I go."
He's right. The only thing that had been keeping him his whole life was the presence of God. And if God isn't with him, everybody's going to know he's a victim now. He's easy because the only thing that can keep him is God.
But listen to what God says: "No. I will give a sevenfold punishment to anyone who kills you." Then the Lord put a mark on Cain to warn everyone who thought they would try to kill him.
Notice this: Even in Cain's blatant sin, God was still protecting him. How? God, how are You still protecting me when I'm dead wrong? I know I messed up. I've been doing crazy things. And even in my ruin, the Lord is still protecting me when I'm not even pleasing Him.
Finally, we read: "So Cain left the Lord's presence and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden." The word Nod in Hebrew literally means wandering. He never found a home again. He just settled for wandering. When you leave God, everything else just feels like wandering. When you don't have the presence of God as your anchor, you never know where you're going.
My question to you is: Have you settled for less than God in your life? Are you living without God? Are you living with less than what God has created for you? Are you living with that void?
I'm teaching this in our series on the presence of God because God put it on my heart: There are so many people living and they don't even know how to deal with that emptiness inside. The scariest thing for people in Bible days has become our everyday issue, and we don't know how to deal with it.
There are so many of you living without the presence of God. I'm not talking about going to church. I'm talking about living without the presence of God. And that's why you feel empty inside. That's why no matter what you do, no matter who you lay with, no matter what you drink, no matter where you go—when you get back home by yourself, you still feel that nagging emptiness. You still feel like you're hurting.
I've been there. Before I had the presence of God, I was one of those people. I remember laying down at night and literally telling God, "I'm okay if I don't wake up." How empty do you have to be to not want to see tomorrow?
But nobody told me. They had me in church, but nobody ever sat me down and talked to me about the presence of God. You know how hopeless you become when you go to the place where God is supposed to be and you still can't find Him? What choice do you have but to think maybe God doesn't want me?
But then I experienced the presence of God. I'm not even a crier—that's not what I do. My family will tell you I was a fighter my whole life. But the first time I felt the presence of God, I cried for an hour. I literally laid on the floor. Every time I tried to stand up, I would fall back to the ground. Not because of some emotional sensationalism, but it was the first time in my life that I felt the source that created me. And I realized I wasn't alone. And this thing I'd been seeking my whole life was real. It wasn't a fairy tale. It wasn't something they just sang about in the gospel choir. It was real. It was something to actually experience.
Then I understood why David said, "God, take the kingdom. Take the money. Take the gold. But don't take your presence from me."
I'm hurting—if I could be real—for those in this room who have lived without God's presence. Those who are hurting. Those who have tried to hide. The only thing that fills that void is the presence of God. There's nothing that anybody can do. There's no religious activity that can fake or duplicate that experience. Only the presence of God can fill the emptiness you've been living with for so long.
Not the love of a person. Not another relationship. Not money, success, or a degree. Not even a child. You will give birth to a child and damage that baby because you don't have the thing they need—the presence of God to fill them.
If that's you, if you feel this cry in your spirit, I want you to come. Skip the crowd. I'm being transparent with you. I've been there. And if every person in this room would be honest, we've all been there until we experienced the presence of God.
It's a lot of people in this room still living in that void, but they don't know how to be honest about it. They don't know how to get to the presence of God. If that's you, I want you to come forward. I'm not going to make you say anything. But if you're thinking, "Pastor, I need God for real. I need the presence of God in my life. I want to experience the presence of God in a real way"—then just come forward.
I feel there are so many in this room, and people are afraid. But God is pulling on you right now. He wants to help you. The absence of God's presence would turn Abel into Cain. You would take somebody's life. The reason you're so willing to be angry, to do that—it's because there's emptiness inside. It's not about what people see. It's about what God knows.
You think God doesn't see your tears? You can't smoke it away. Some of you are going numb on purpose, trying not to feel that emptiness. But God is pulling on you right now. He's literally pulling on you. It doesn't matter what people see or say. Your family doesn't even know what you've been battling. Your family doesn't even know what you've been struggling with.
If this will snatch somebody out of that dark place that I know I was in—this part is not a game. This is the part we can't play with in church. Because people will leave here and want to commit suicide because they came looking for God and all they got was a church service and some people singing about God. They're looking for the man you're talking about.
We want them to experience God. Not just hear about Him. To have an encounter with God. If you never come back to this church, if you never do anything else, I don't want you to live your life without knowing that God is alive. He's here. He wants to heal you, fill that void, and live with you permanently forever.
