Answering God’s Questions

Introduction

Be making your way to Genesis chapter 3, Genesis 3. We’re going to read a section of text from the third chapter and the fourth this morning. I want to look at really the questions in those texts, approach this in a way that is maybe a little bit different, at least than I’ve done it before, and something I’ve wanted to do for quite some time and thought about and just decided through this week to come around to talking about this idea of the questions God is asking Adam and Eve and Cain, and more so do a reflection. that’s what I kind of intend this sermon to be more of a reflection on these questions and how they can help shape me to improve my life and you as well as we’re looking at this text.

I don’t typically say a whole lot before I preach, and you know that I like to get down to business, and that’s just my personality, but I just feel like I need to take a moment this morning and just thank all of you for all the love you’ve shown to us, particularly leading into Xander’s birthday, and you are a huge part of him getting all sorts of cards and demonstrations of love, and that really just means a lot to our family, and there’s so much more going on. some things I don’t even know about. there are people who are taking care of things, and I don’t know all the details for our family, and so we are just super grateful that you’ve made a situation that is very difficult and very hard much easier to bear.

And I just cannot express enough how much that means to us. and so we’ll be grateful, eternally grateful for that. And so we really appreciate this, and that’s what church family is supposed to be. I had a neighbor come by, really nice man who met my father in law when he was here, and he brought something for Xander, and I he ran off. He didn’t want to bother us, and I went after him and said hi to him, and we talked for a little bit, and I told him about all the things that were going on, at least some of them that I knew about. And that’s exactly what he said. That’s what a church should be. And so you are to be commended, not just for our situation, but of so many other situations that I know about as well, where you have risen up to take care of those who are in our number.

And so I appreciate that for my family, but I know that there are many other families who feel the same way about so much that’s been done, both generosity financially, but really it goes well beyond that, doing all sorts of other things, devoting your time and your energy and your effort to make sure that things are taken care of, that we can deal with the things that we need to deal with Xander and other things are not being missed. And so you’re just amazing people and people of God, and so I really do appreciate that. Begin reading with me chapter three and verse nine. Chapter three and verse nine, and then we’re gonna we’re gonna read a section, and then we’re gonna skip to chapter four and verse three.

So I’ll try to make note of that as we move, so you know where we are. But we’re gonna start in chapter three and verse nine. It says, But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, Where are you? And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. And he said, Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? The man said, The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me the fruit of the tree, and I ate. Then the Lord God said to the woman, What is this that you have done?

And the woman said, The serpent deceived me, and I ate. Chapter 4 and verse 3. In the course of time, Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock, and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell. The Lord said to Cain, Why are you so angry? And why is your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it. Cain spoke to Abel his brother, and when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him.

Then the Lord said to Cain, Where is Abel, your brother? And he said, I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper? And the Lord said, What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground, and now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. And when you work the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength. You shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth. And Cain said to the Lord, My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground, and from your face I shall be hidden. I should be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.

And the Lord said to him, Not so, if anyone kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord put a mark on Cain, lest any who found him should attack him. Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord, and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden. I’m well aware that I’m only giving you portions of the story, and that you most likely know most of the rest of the story. And so I want to focus my attention really in specific areas of what’s going on here in Genesis 3 and 4. The more I read these stories, the more I see God interacting like a loving and just father. And as I have reflected on these texts many times, I keep coming back to this idea as well, as the Hebrew writer talks about, that really as parents, we sort of reflect the kind of thing we see happening here with God and Adam and Eve and Cain.

Now there’s positive sides of this too. This is certainly negative stories here, dealing with sin and dealing with temptation and desire. But I hope that you caught, and if you didn’t, then I’ll I’ll make sure you do as we go through the sermon this morning. I hope that you caught how similar a lot of these questions are to the sorts of things that we would say to our children. Did you get a sense of that? That God, just even this first one, right? God comes in and where are you? And any parents ever deal with that? Where are you at? Hey, I need your attention. Where are you? I want to see you. I want to talk to you. And God comes in the garden, you can’t find them.

They’re nowhere to be found. And we’ll talk more about why here in just a moment, which may be important for us as parents and to our children as well. Why is it we can’t find our kids sometimes, or they’re hiding from us? But it’s interesting that the interactions that are taking place, even beginning from the first question here, really sounds so much like what happens in parent-child relationships. Really, this is kind of a secondary thing I just want to note and kind of keep in our mind as we go. Maybe that’s beneficial to us as parents or as children. It’s not the main direction I want to go in the sermon this morning, but it’s just unavoidable, it seems to me, as we read through this text, to see God as a loving father who is directing, who’s guiding, who’s disciplining, who in essence is actually trying to help people who then are rejecting the help that he’s offering.

He’s telling them things that they should do and shouldn’t do.

1. Where Are You? God as an Interested Father

And God is seeking a relationship. And so the first question here really is God as an interested father. And we see this with Cain as well. We’re gonna have a little parallelism going on here. The first two questions we’re gonna talk about here are where are you? And then we’re gonna jump to Cain’s story. We’re gonna keep moving back and forth between Adam and Eve and Cain in his interaction. So just take note of that and be aware. It should be noticeable on the screen behind me as well. I’m not sure if when God walks into the garden and says, Where are you? if this is just a typical kind of inquiry, like, hey, where are you at? Or if this is more of like what we all know, it sounds like if there’s a problem.

Like with my kids, hey, where are you? Hey, we know there’s some trouble at hand when the question is asked that way. And I’m not sure. I don’t even know from the text itself if through God’s statement, if he’s already indicating he knows there’s a problem, or if he’s just simply seeking a relationship. And doesn’t it happen both ways? We know this as parents. Right? I mean, sometimes we come in and we’re looking for our kid. We don’t have any indication that they’re doing they’re doing anything wrong, but we can’t find them. It’s a little bit too quiet, maybe in the house, and we’re wondering where they are, and then we happen to see some things are awry not going around.

And then there are times, parents, that we do know something’s wrong. We’re aware and we’re wondering where they are, so we can go and talk to them. I don’t know, I’m not sure which one it is here. But what I do know is when God calls to Adam, it’s it’s interesting that Adam he responds back, much like a child, and we’re gonna see this with Adam and with Cain both, that they interact in ways that are very immature, like children. He sort of betrays himself with his own words and actions, right? I mean, first he’s hiding. Like, why are you hiding? God is the creator, he made you, he provided for you, he cares for you, and now you’re hiding from him. That seems strange.

This person who loves you more than anything else could love you, and now you’re trying to stay away from his sight. That seems a little bit odd. And he’s also mentioning that he was afraid, he’s afraid of God. Why is he afraid of God? I’m I was naked, so I hid. And then we’ll come to the next question in a few minutes. We go from the interesting, from the interested father to a father who’s interrogating. So save that thought here. We’ll come back in a couple minutes. But we see the same sort of thing here with Cain. Now, Adam has already sinned. And so the circumstances are slightly different. I don’t know that Cain has sinned yet. Maybe he has. Maybe in his offering that God has no regard for, maybe there’s sin in that.

I there’s not a whole lot of information here in the story about that. I know that God’s not pleased, and he is pleased with Abel. But the focus of the story is not really whether or not Cain sinned in the offering. It’s more about the attitude he has afterward, right? That’s the focus of the story. Cain is angry. Right? He can’t keep his emotions in check. Abel pleased God, and his offering is received. Something was wrong with what Cain did, and what obviously needs to happen. We can all see this from the outside looking in, because we’re thinking rationally as we look at this story. What obviously needs to happen is Cain needs to figure it out and get it right. And we know that God is a gracious God, he shows loving kindness.

Things that we know about God from stories of scripture. I think Cain could be made aware of that pretty easily. But Cain does not react in that way. He just gets angry. Has anybody else been there? Something’s not right, and you just get angry about it? You’re just mad, it’s Abel’s fault, right? Or maybe even it’s God’s fault. God just won’t accept what I’m doing. Or I can’t believe my brother. He’s always the chosen one. Everybody’s always happy with what he does. And so Cain is kind of pouting around. He’s mad, he’s angry. And notice what God does here. Why are you angry, Cain? Why is your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? I don’t know about the rest of you here, but as a parent, I’ve had this conversation multiple times.

Right? It’s not everybody else. I mean, if you’re doing the right thing and you’re making the right decisions, wouldn’t things be going well now? But you’re just angry. You’re mad. You’re upset. And this is not your sibling’s fault. It’s not your mom’s fault. It’s not my fault. It’s not some other random person or friend’s fault. It’s a decision that you’ve made to mope around the house and be angry and mad and hate life right now. That’s a choice that you’ve made, right? We’ve had these conversations. And this is the conversation that Yahweh is having with Cain. Isn’t this sort of strange? Can you imagine having conversations with a holy God? That’s perplexing to me. It’s strange. It’s sort of frightening, I would think, that, you know, as you’re living your life, all of a sudden, Yahweh starts talking to you.

Hey, why are you angry, Brent? This is not good. That we can have this kind of direct conversation. Do you think dessert is the right idea today? No, like I don’t necessarily feel good about God directly talking to me like that. But this is what Cain has. This is what Adam and Eve have. And obviously it’s a blessing. It’s a good thing that God can talk to them and give them direction. I’m not sure they saw it that way.

And I think there’s a lot more innocence on the part of Adam. You know, Adam, God calls to him and he says, Hey, I was afraid and I hid. It’s like a little child. I was scared. Well, why were you scared? Because they did the wrong thing and they knew it, you know, and so he runs and he hides somewhere. Cain is, he’s a little bit more developed in his deception. And the very first thing he does is nothing. You notice that? I mean, the creator of the whole universe talks to him and says, Hey, why are you angry? Why are you down? If you do the right thing, you know you’re going to be accepted. If you don’t do the right thing, things aren’t going to go well.

He’s having this conversation, and Cain doesn’t even respond. Parents, have you ever had that? You offer words of wisdom, guidance, advice, and what you get is. Cain doesn’t need Yahweh’s help. He’s got this figured out. He’s going to handle it. He’s going to take care of it. He can control his emotions. He doesn’t need his father to help him with this. No response. No answer whatsoever. Sort of strange. Maybe he feels justified in his anger. Maybe he feels like he should be angry at Abel, because Abel, everything is going well for him, and just things never go right for me. And so it’s justified. This is the sort of thing that happens when we get caught up in sin. We get caught up in desire. And this is why I said something earlier about us from the outside looking in.

2. Who Told You? The Father Who's Interrogating

We think logically. We know when we’re in the middle of that, we think irrationally, don’t we? We justify our thoughts and we justify our actions. And this is exactly the sort of thing that’s happening here with Adam and with Cain. And I love how God just sort of gently asked these questions. Right? So we go back to Adam. Adam here has told God everything. He’s revealed all the information. I was afraid. I was naked, so I hid. And then there’s kind of this -oh sort of question. Who told you that you were naked, Adam? How did you know that? It’s kind of like our children. You know, I see this again with everything that we’re talking about here in these stories. You know, you catch your kid, hey, what are you eating?

At least my kids are like this. Some of them are a little better at how they handle this than others, but I’ve got at least a couple kids who are like this. They’re not supposed to be eating something or doing something, and you say, hey, what are you what are you eating? You get the blank stare. Like, which I actually like, because that means they’re not very good at lying, so that’s actually preferable. And then there’s kind of the other side, like, why are there 1,000 candy wrappers under your bed? And they’re like, well, insert the other sibling’s name. I think it’s because they were eating them there, you know. Right? I mean, do you see how our stories sort of match? And I’m using kids, but as adults, we’re often not much better.

We just see this more easily with children. You see how our stories are so similar to what’s going on here? You know, who told you were naked, Adam? You’re not even supposed to know this information. Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? That’s gonna be a shocking moment for Adam. Everything he does, he’s trying to, you know, he doesn’t say, as I was afraid, I was naked, I hid, yes, I did that. And then he asks this question because God knows. He already knows the answer. We already know the answer. That’s why we ask the questions. Right? There’s so many similarities. God understands what’s already happening. And he asks Adam, and notice how he responds. The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me the fruit of the tree, and I hate.

Actually, it’s your fault, God. If you wouldn’t have let me go trick or treating, I wouldn’t have had those thousand wrappers to eat and put under the bed. It’s your fault. This is how we handle sin, right? If we’re immature. If we’re not thinking carefully about what’s happening here, and it started in the very beginning with Adam and with Eve, and Eve’s not any better. When God then says, What have you done? She blames the devil. And certainly there is some culpability on the part of Eve and Satan in the story when it comes to Adam. And I think God recognizes that, and it’s why he just keeps moving to the next person. But it’s also on Adam. It was his decision to do what he did.

He made the choice, and now when God’s asking questions, he doesn’t answer the question. He just moves on to the next thing. Hey, it’s the woman that you gave me. He blames Eve. And as you’re well aware, in this whole situation, as he’s passing blame, he blames Eve, and he blames God. And all started with this where are you question where Adam is hiding from a holy and righteous and good God who’s given him everything he needed. We provided for him, who cared for him. And after just a few questions, now he’s turning all of this back to God and trying to blame him. We have a society that’s all about this. I mean, we have mastered this concept of shifting blame, projecting on other people.

Because our culture is so focused on me, right? I mean, probably more so than almost any other culture. Everything around us, social media just drives this like crazy. And so we are our children really are growing up with the idea that nothing is really their fault. You know, if they have a problem, it’s the organizations, it’s the systems in place that have failed them, and all these kinds of crazy ideas that are pushing our world. And what we see in this story is the problem with Adam was Adam. The problem with Eve was Eve. And the problem with Cain was Cain. And so he has his own moment with God where he’s trying to act like this is not a big deal, but then he can’t handle it.

And he allows his emotions to drive him. Emotions are not bad. But they certainly can be misused. And God catches Cain in a moment where his emotions are getting out of check, and he tries to help him check his emotions. Cain’s not interested. Cain gets angry, talks to Abel his brother, and gets enraged and kills him.

Like I said, Cain’s a little bit more sophisticated in his treachery. Not quite as innocent, I think, as Adam.

I don’t know. Am I my brother’s keeper? Right? You see how Cain does this? He’s kind of mastered the accusatory question and answer to the previous question. Anybody else ever faced that? Now, he’s not answering the question, just like Adam wasn’t answering the question. But the way he’s doing that now is instead of answering the question and wrestling with what he’s actually done and who he really is, again, he’s going to turn this back on God. What do you expect from me? God, am I my brother’s keeper? Am I the one supposed to be taking care of him all the time? And of course, there’s a lot of irony there since he killed him. Not wanting to own up to what he really is and what he’s really done.

3. What Have You Done? The Father Who's Disappointed

And so then comes the last question in the series of questions, which is in both stories. What have you done? The father who’s interested to the father who starts interrogating a little bit more, and then it’s the father who’s disappointed. These are the questions where he’s metaphorically shaking his head. What have you done, Eve? And Adam? What have you done, Cain? And so the question ends both sections in a very heavy sort of way. Adam and Eve, of course, have violated the single commandment that God gave them. I mean, the only thing he told them not to do, they did. He had given them so much. He had blessed them in so many ways, provided for them in every way imaginable. They didn’t even have to work that hard to have all the things that they had.

Does this sound familiar at all? I don’t know. And then there’s one thing he tells them not to do, and they do it. And then Cain, he kills his own brother.

4. Sin Comes With Consequences; God Is Not at Fault

An uncontrolled emotion. Because he allows sin to rule over him. He allows desire to take control and rule the things he’s doing in his life, even though God had warned him not to do this. And so there is the reality of consequences that come from their sinful actions. Now, most of those, again, you’re pretty aware of, and I’m not wanting to spend my time on that this morning. What I do want to come back to is just some simple lessons that I think we can pull from those. And the first of those are the basic consequences. I mean, our actions are going to be followed by natural results. And I know at the end of that list I have there for you, it says God is not at fault, but really this kind of fits all of this, but particularly this first one, that sim comes with consequences.

Sometimes when we get upset with God or we want to blame God, which Adam and Cain are both doing here in these stories in various ways.

We weren’t careful, we didn’t look at things the right way, and then we were upset about what happens. And we actually, you know who needed to change? It was me. To me, that’s a lot like, which in a much bigger way. It’s a lot like sometimes how we feel toward God. And I’m not saying that we can’t ever feel that way, and we don’t, feelings are what they are, and sometimes we have to work through those, and that’s just the way it is. But we need to recognize that it’s not God who’s at fault here. God is not at fault when Adam sins just because God gave him a woman who is supposed to be his helper to do the right things. Right? That’s Eve’s fault, and that’s Adam’s fault for following Eve in her sin.

It’s not God’s fault that Cain then faces punishments that are difficult as the natural result and consequences of his actions of murdering somebody. That’s a pretty extreme story. That’s not likely going to be the case for many of us, or most people, even in the world, that they have to deal with consequences of murdering someone, but we do deal with the consequences of sin, and God is not at fault. It’s not his fault that I do the wrong thing, and then I have to bear the burden of that in my life. It’s also not God’s fault that I do the wrong thing, and you have to bear the burden of the wrong thing that I did. That happens too. And that’s not God’s fault. That’s the fault of sinful humanity.

And so it becomes very easy, just like Adam and Cain do here, to try to blame other people, particularly God, as if this is his fault, when the reality is it’s my fault or it’s some other sinful human’s fault, and that’s why I’m dealing with the problem I’m dealing with in this fallen world. Now, this is particularly interesting here because these first two stories are about the fall of humanity. I mean, it’s the fall of Adam and Eve, introducing sin into the world, and of course, Paul deals with that in a very big way in the book of Romans. And then Cain following right after that, and a treachery that’s even more in murdering his own brother. It is humanity’s fault that we have these problems.

5. Failing to Own My Sinful Behavior Damages Relationships

It is not the fault of a holy and righteous God. And so we have to wrestle with the reality that sin does come with consequences. But it’s really the second one that I actually think is really important in this section of text that I want to spend a few minutes on here before we close, and that is that failing to realize and recognize and own my own sinful behavior damages important relationships around me. And that’s happening all through these stories here. The first one, the obvious one, is they’re damaging the relationship with God. You know, they have this beautiful, wonderful relationship with God where he’s with them. They’re in the Garden of Eden, and everything is great. I mean, literally perfect. And they ruin it, they run and hide.

They don’t want to deal with their issues. Cain is kind of the same way. He doesn’t want to, he doesn’t want to confront his own anger problem that he has here, his own problems with emotions. And so because he won’t recognize it or deal with it or even recognize what God has said, he then runs into bigger problems. Right? And when we go from a problem of his emotions and his anger to murder, that’s a pretty big relationship problem. And so all through this story, we see huge problems being caused within family here with Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel. That’s only going to be corrected ultimately by God as we go further down the story. But we see Adam and Eve hiding from God.

Then we have Adam blaming Eve and blaming God for his problems. When Cain’s actions don’t please God, rather than changing himself, he ignores God, allows his anger to cause him to lash out at Abel, who was innocent. Have you ever seen the innocent person be blamed? Be attacked by the one who’s not willing to confront their own problems. I think we have a world where that sort of thing happens pretty frequently. It’s the sin of Cain all over again. So how do we handle this?

I think there’s a few things we can think of that can help us along the way. I mean, if I’m hiding from or avoiding people, that’s a pretty good sign that something’s not right. Now maybe they just don’t smell good or something. I don’t know. But probably, unless it’s a minor issue like that, and I just don’t want to be around somebody, or I’m trying to stay away from them, there’s some sort of big issue here. Either it’s with me, and I need to correct what I’m doing, or maybe it’s with them, but there’s some, this is a sign, right? It’s not definitive. There’s not some answer here. But if I’m staying away from people, and this includes staying away from my parents or staying away from my children, which is something that can happen within families when there’s problems and difficulties.

But if I’m trying to hide and stay away from people, that’s not good. That’s something that needs to be addressed. And of course, the first place to look in these situations is at myself. That’s exactly what Jesus says multiple times. And one of these is instead of trying to correct each other, which I mean, this sort of thing we see all the time, right? When we talk to our kids, well, really, it’s the other kids’ fault. Did you see what they did? You see the way they acted. And right, of course, and the kids are an easy way to see this, but as adults, we do the same thing, right? It’s hard for us to own the problems and the mistakes and the failures that we have in our life.

It’s way easier to look at somebody else or compare ourselves to somebody else. But the place to start is to look within. Or maybe to think, what’s the question that God would ask me right now? What you’ve been looking at? What are you watching? How’s your marriage going? How’s the relationship with your kids? I see you putting a lot of focus on work and school. I don’t see you putting a lot of effort into what’s happening here. What do you love me and want to spend time with me? These are the kind of questions maybe God would ask me based on my behavior and my actions. And so rather than being like Adam and Cain, particularly in these stories, and looking mostly outwardly and blaming other people, including God, the place to start is with myself.

I have to be forthright with my failures. Rather than saying, oh, it’s the woman, it’s the woman you gave to be with me, God. That’s why I have these problems. Or just ignoring completely the wisdom and the advice of Scripture. And then acting like it’s somebody else’s fault, which is what Cain’s doing. He’s ignoring the words of God, and then he doesn’t want to accept the problems that he has as his own. And so I have to be honest with who I am. And the big part of that is being willing to listen when God speaks.

Do not eat of the tree. This is what God said. And then they ate of the tree. Right? They didn’t listen when God spoke. Cain’s given advice from God himself. He says, hey, you’ve got to rule over your emotions. You can’t let this rule over you. Cain ignores him and lets the very thing happen that God warns him about.

I mean, he’s not literally speaking to me and literally speaking to you. But there is a way that he talks to us. Right? And the Hebrew writer talks about this in Hebrews chapter 4. That the word of God, it’s powerful. I mean, it’s speaking to us as well as long as we’re allowing it in our life. It’s speaking to us in very powerful ways. For the word of God, this is Hebrews 4 and verse 12, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of morrow, and discerning the thoughts and the intentions of the heart. Now listen, and no creature is hidden from his sight. But all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

6. There's a Solution to All of This

There are still questions to be asked. And that is all vetted through looking at the words of God and the things that he’s told us and allowing that to do its work in our life and to convict us to help us understand our failures and our faults. But here’s the great part about all of it. A lot of this has been negative. The story of Cain, the story of Adam and Eve and their failures and being kicked out of the garden and then leaving the presence of God. But the whole story of Scripture is that there’s a solution to all of this. So we keep reading in Hebrews chapter 4. Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God.

Let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

If we are willing, unlike Adam and unlike Cain in those stories, if we are willing to confess our sins, he is faithful to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Unlike Cain, who said, I’m not my brother’s keeper, Jesus gave himself as a sacrifice for me and for you, and now he stands ready to advocate on our behalf before the throne of God so that we can come with confidence to the throne of God and say, I sinned, I did wrong, I need help, I need to correct this. And so the message is not one of no hope, of that you’re a terrible sinner and there’s nothing that you do. We’re not here this morning to throw in the towel and say, Well, this is just what it’s like as humans.

We mess up and we can’t ever get it right, and we lie and we cheat and we deceive and we blame people, and that’s just no, that’s not what we’re doing this morning. God is giving us answers, he’s telling us how this is supposed to work. We are supposed to confess our sins to one another. We’re supposed to admit our failures, say when we’ve done wrong, and we know that we have an advocate, Jesus Christ the righteous, who can stand before the holy God and say, They are with me. And in a world that will commit themselves to this proposition, to this plan, this would fix all the problems. All of the political things that are going on aren’t going to do anything. That is not going to fix the issue.

Conclusion

What’s going to fix the issues in our world are more and more people committing themselves and devoting themselves to Jesus Christ the righteous, relying on his advocacy, realizing that he is his brother’s keeper, that he’s going to go before his father and say, I want this person, they are mine. And then as more and more people do this is what’s going to change the world. Not a president, not some leader of another country. None of those things are going to fix the problems. God’s plan is what works. And so don’t be like Adam. Don’t be like Cain. That’s the message this morning. Be committed to learning from their mistakes, seeing the errors that they made, and lessening the possibility of sin, or when we realize we have sinned, humbly admit those sins and return to God in faithfulness.

Understanding that he does love us.

He wants what’s best for us. And he has a plan for us to be with him for all eternity. If you haven’t given your life to Jesus Christ this morning, you can do that. God has an amazing plan, one in which we ought to die for our sins. We ought to have to give up our own life, but he sent his son as a sacrifice for sin. And what we are to do is to die with Jesus Christ. That’s what scripture tells us. That we die with him, we’re buried with him in baptism, and we are raised up with him in newness of life, and now we are his people. And if you haven’t done that this morning, all of the negativity, all of the consequences that we talked about, the things that look bleak and bad, you still bear that burden.

But if you give yourself to Jesus Christ, he bears the burden. And you are declared righteous in the eyes of God. Can we help you do that? Why don’t you come now as we stand and we sing?