Two Streams // Genesis 4

Join us as we continue our EDEN series in Genesis 4!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I used to be a big Marvel movie fan.
That is before they juststarted like pumping out hot
garbage that they called movies.
But back when I was in collegewas in the middle of like the
Infinity War Endgame, like thosewere coming out, and that was
like an event at DBU, like wewould all go after our
fraternity meeting on Thursdaynights we would go to the
theater, we would get all theseats, we get the popcorn, we

(00:25):
get the ICs and we were just soexcited.
And one of my favorite moviesthat came out during that time
period this is actually a littlebit before, but it was Captain
America, civil War, and the plotline to this movie is that in
the movie before the bigAvengers team up before, like
some stuff went down, they kindof got in some trouble, a lot of
collateral damage, and so nowthey're kind of wrestling

(00:49):
through like should there beoversight?
Should they not be oversight?
Like how do we do this thing?
And the superheroes divide intotwo teams you had team Iron man
and team Captain America andthen this guy named the Winter
Soldier comes and they want himturned over and it becomes this
big deal and ultimatelyeverybody's forced to pick a
side.
Which side are you on?
That was the big tension forthis whole movie.
Whose side are you on?
Why in the world am I talkingabout Captain America, civil War

(01:11):
?
Well, because, track with me,we've been walking through these
past few weeks our Eden seriesand we've been going through
Genesis 1 through 11, and we'vebeen looking at what the Bible
has to say about the bigquestions in life who we are,
why we're here, what's wrong,what's the solution, who makes

(01:32):
the rules.
All of those are found, thoseanswers begin in these first 11
chapters of your Bible, and wetalked about everything in it
that he made you as his specialcreation to bear his image, to
be a statue in the world, thathe made a visible representation
of the invisible God.
And this thing called sin camein and it broke that.
And sin is when we, just likeAdam and Eve, decide to
disconnect ourself from thesource of life and do it our own

(01:55):
way.
It's like a tree being sawedoff, or it's like a branch being
sawed off of a tree.
It looks like freedom, butultimately it leads to death.
And then this week we reach thestory of Cain and Abel, and
what we're going to see is it'sgoing to actually carry over
from Genesis 3, and we're goingto see two categories that all
of humanity gets grouped intothe children of God, or the seed

(02:16):
of the woman, and the childrenof the devil, or the seed of the
serpent, which I know soundsreally, really confusing, like
you're talking about, likechildren of the devil, like
what's going on here.
Track with me because when westart to dig in, we're going to
see that this is so true and wesee it in everyday life.
And specifically, we're goingto see that the story of Cain
and Abel shows us that Goddoesn't just want our leftovers

(02:37):
or performance.
He wants our hearts.
And while sin tries to masterour hearts, jesus, the true and
better Abel, shed his blood tofree us so we can live in real
relationship with God.
That's the sermon in a sentence,and so we're gonna jump in.
If you have your Bibles, flipopen to Genesis chapter four,
very beginning there.
It will be on the screen aswell as we read.

(02:57):
We're gonna read verses onethrough five.
Now Adam knew Eve, his wife,and she conceived and bore Cain,
saying I have gotten a man,with the help of the Lord.
And again she bore his brother,abel.
Now Abel was a keeper of thesheep and Cain a worker of the
ground.
And in the course of time, cainbrought to the Lord an offering
of the fruit of the ground andAbel also brought of the

(03:19):
firstborn of his flock and theirfat portions.
And the Lord had regard forAbel and his offering, but for
Cain and his offering he had noregard.
Will you pray with me For asecond?
Could you just pray foryourself?
Take this time to pray for yourheart, for your mind, that God
would prepare you to receivewhatever it is that he has for

(03:39):
you tonight conviction,encouragement, healing, that he
would remove any potentialdistractions.
And then would you pray for methat I would preach his word
faithfully, that everything Isay would be helpful and true
and that, if it's not, you wouldforget it quickly.

(04:00):
Lord, we thank you for tonightand your word and this
opportunity to gather here andlearn under it.
God, I pray that I would simplyfaithfully preach your word
with a shepherd's heart, and Godthat you would be glorified.
Father, we love you, we praiseyou and praise things in the
name of Jesus.
Everybody said amen.
So, like we said, this storypicks right up after where we

(04:22):
left.
Eve had been exiled from thegarden.
They've been sent east, they'reoutside of the garden, they're
still in Eden, but not in thegarden of Eden.
And they have two kids, cainand Abel.
And Abel was a shepherd,meaning he watched herds and
flocks.
He would wander around andfollow them as they grazed.
And Cain was a farmer, and thetext says that they both brought
an offering to the Lord.
And there's a lot of clues herethat talk about this offering

(04:46):
actually being at the door ofthe Garden of Eden.
And Cain brings an offering ofthe fruit of the ground.
We don't know exactly what itwas, but he was a farmer, so it
was probably like fruits,vegetables, grain, you know all
that sort of stuff.
And Abel brought an offeringfrom his flock, so it was
probably a lamb or sheep.
And God favors Abel's sacrifice.

(05:06):
He doesn't outright reject Cain, but he doesn't show any favor
to Cain, and so this part of thestory confuses a lot of people.
Why in the world does Godprefer Abel's offering Like is
it content?
Like Cain just brings God asalad and God's like get those
greens out of here.
Like I don't want salad fruit,like God just loves a good steak
, like the fat portion.
Well, the text actually givesus a clue.

(05:29):
Cain just seems to have likegathered up some vegetables.
It doesn't really say anythingspecial, like he just gets an
offering and brings it to theLord and there wasn't much
thought or care behind it.
It's almost like God knows,he's just there to check a box.

(05:50):
But Abel's offering actuallygets a little bit of an extra
description compared to Cain's.
It says that Abel brought abuck and their fat portions.
And the important thing to notethere is giving a firstborn
means you're not guaranteedanymore, like you're not
guaranteed a second born, like afirstborn is a really important
thing.
That's the first of your fruits.
You're not guaranteed more.
And he also gave the fatportions of this animal, which
were the best tasting, they werethe most nutritious.
And so what we're supposed tosee here in this text is that

(06:12):
Abel gave God his first and hisbest.
You could even say that Abelgave God everything, even though
it cost him.
Abel trusted God to provide,and the Bible calls that faith,
and we know that this is why Godshowed Abel favor, because in
Hebrews, chapter 11, it says byfaith, abel offered God a more
acceptable sacrifice than Cain.

(06:33):
And what the author of Genesisis trying to show us here is
that God cares deeply about ourhearts.
So think of it this wayHomecoming season is rolling
around, right?
Bernie is in two weeks champion.
How long before y'all's right.
So homecoming proposals is athing.
So, girls, imagine with me thatyour boo thing is proposing to

(06:54):
you for homecoming and this isthe sign he gives you, right?
So, yeah, it's cardboard, somesharpie like, some wrinkles,
some folds.
How many of you would want thisposter?
Okay, you're being nice.
Right, there's clearly no timeor effort put into this poster.
Right, like Tommy, you'regiving a thumbs up.

(07:15):
Like there is clearly noattention to detail or anything
put into this poster.
Right, it's clear.
Homeboy phoned it in.
He forgot about this.
And this is last minute, right?
So that's this poster.
But now imagine we actually havea picture for this one.
So this is poster number one.
Imagine poster number two.
I'm just going to set thatthere is this, right?
So this one is fancy, right?

(07:36):
This is you've got like lights.
You've got balloons, polka dots, glitter like that's outlined
balloons on the bottom.
Like, this is a much nicerposter.
But here's the kicker HomieVenmo'd his friend 20 bucks to
do it for him.
Right, like he didn't put anytime or effort into this thing.
He looked it up on ChatGPT andit's just clearly not anything

(07:58):
behind it.
Right, it was done for him, itwas outsourced, it's nice, but
it just doesn't feel quite thesame.
Now a third poster pretend hedecides to give you this.
See, we get odds right, why?
This is clearly not as nice asthe fancy poster, but you can
tell that there was time, therewas attention, there was detail

(08:19):
poured into this.
Right, like homie drank threeRed Bulls and tried like 15
times just to get his linestraight, like you can see the
pencil marks where he drew anderased.
Drew and erased Like this onemeans something, because there's
heart behind it, there'sintention.
Now let me ask you this girls,would you be happy if your boy
gave you this one?
And he was giving other girlsthis one?

(08:41):
No, right, you kick him to thecurb.
Right, he's actually giving hisheart to someone else.
Where in the world am I goingwith this?
Well, that's the point of thesacrifices of Cain and Abel.
It's not that God liked steak,it's not that God liked the fat
portion.
It's that God desired the heartto be behind the sacrifice and

(09:04):
it's clear that Abel broughtsomething that cost him.
That actually took effort, thattook time.
And while Cain broughtsomething and it was an
acceptable sacrifice in the OldTestament you hear about grain
offerings as being totally fineand acceptable God knew in his
heart and his mind he was justthere to check a box.
He just outsourced it.
It was just going through themotions box.

(09:27):
He just outsourced it.
It was just going through themotions, just like that fancy
sign or the bad one.
And this is so important becauseit's so easy for us to just
give God our leftovers.
You'll spend hours and hours onTikTok Netflix but only read
the Bible when there's literallynothing else to do.
Or put 100% into athletics ortheater or academics, but show

(09:49):
up to church with zero focus,zero effort.
Or you'll spend all your timeand energy on a relationship
with a girl or guy, doeverything you can to make them
happy, but spend absolutely notime with the God who created
you.
It's the spiritual equivalentof a janky poster and that's not
what God desires.
And for some of you you're likeposter number two.

(10:11):
If we're honest, there's noheart behind it.
We post the Bible verses, we goto the church events, we sing
real loud in worship, but inreality it's all just a facade,
just a mask that we put on tofeel less guilty about all the
stuff that we're hiding.
It's just a performance.

(10:31):
And so if you're in either ofthose camps, what I don't want
you to hear is me saying thatGod is demanding more and more
and more.
That's not the point here.
God wants your heart, and soask yourself does he have it?
Ask yourself the question whydo you do the things you do?
Why are you here tonight?
And I'm glad you're here, don'tget me wrong, but why are you

(10:51):
here?
Because we can do all thethings in the world, but if our
heart's not behind it, we'vemissed the point.
God wants your heart becausehe's the only one that you can
trust to actually hold it.
Anything else you give yourheart to will ultimately hold
you, and that's what we see nextin the story of Cain.
So we're going to pick up inverse five.
This is after the sacrifice.

(11:12):
It says so.
Cain was very angry and his facefell.
And the Lord said to Cain whyare you angry and why has your
face fallen?
If you do well, will you not beaccepted?
And if you do not do well, sinis crouching at the door.
Its desire is contrary to you,but you must rule over it.
And some translations will sayit wants to master you, but you

(11:33):
must rule over it.
And so Cain feels like God'srejected him.
He gets mad and God has notrejected him.
In fact.
God seeks out Cain and starts aconversation and he asks Cain,
why are you angry?
And God knows why Cain is angry.
Girls, are we good up here,girls?
God knows why Cain is angry.
It's not like he's just like,oh, all of a sudden so surprised
.
He's asking that question forCain to figure out why he's

(11:55):
angry With this sacrifice, whatis bothering you about
submitting to me, aboutsurrendering to my authority?
Like, why does it bother you?
He sees that there's somethingin Cain's heart that's off,
that's twisted, that's warped,and that's why he warns him
about sin.
He says sin is crouching atyour door and a lot of times we
think that means like it's atthe door of your heart, like

(12:17):
it's kind of like a metaphoricalthing.
But the reality is that thatphrase is not in the Hebrew
Bible anywhere.
In fact, a lot of scholarsthink that when he's talking
about sin crouching at the door,he's talking about the door to
the Garden of Eden, where theywould offer sacrifices, and that
word crouching is actually onethat's used as animals.
And so really, the picturethat's trying to be painted here

(12:38):
is that, just like in Genesis 3, when the serpent was crouching
in the garden beside Eve andwhispering rebellion, he's now
outside the garden next to Cainwhispering the same thing.
It's a mirror.
It's Genesis 3 all over again.
He faces the same choice thathis parents did.
Will he choose to trust God andlive under God's authority, or
is he going to do it his own way?

(13:00):
And what God is trying to getCain to see is that going his
own way is not freedom.
Sin wants to master you.
Doing it your own way isactually opening the door for
sin to take control, because, atthe end of the day, every
single time, a choice to rejectGod's authority in your life is
a choice to be a slave to sin.

(13:21):
I remember a story I heard froma young adult pastor at a really
large college ministry that wasgoing on in Dallas called the
Porch, when I was at college,and he had this crazy testimony
and he'd always share aboutbeing able to remember the day
that his parents dropped him offat college.
Like they unload all thefurniture, they set up the
fridge, they drive away, theyleave him and he remembers this

(13:42):
thought as he's watching himdrive away.
He thought to himself hey, Ican finally do whatever I want.
And that's what he did.
That very next night he goes toa frat party.
He gets extremely drunk.
Soon it was parties everyweekend, drinking, drugs,
hookups, pornography.
He got a job and with thatmoney you would think that he
would be able to get his lifetogether, but instead he just

(14:02):
kept using it on those badhabits, bad decisions.
He fed it, he fed it, he fed it.
And then church and God, whichhad been a part of his life
growing up, slowly got pushedout and at first it felt like
freedom.
Nobody could tell him what todo.
There were no parents to givehim rules or consequences.
But as time went on, he startedto realize that he wasn't in

(14:25):
control at all.
His sin was in control.
He thought he was choosingindependence, but he was being
masked.
It promised him freedom.
We're actually making him aslave, because freedom from any
authority always leads us tobeing slaves to our desires, and
we've all experienced this insome way.

(14:46):
Let's be real Vaping feels likefreedom until if you're away
from it for more than an hour,you start to get anxious and
jittery and afraid.
Social media feels like freedomuntil you can't go to bed
without TikTok.
Pornography feels like freedomuntil you try to stop and
realize that you can't.
Drinking feels like freedomuntil you can't have fun without

(15:09):
it.
Video games feel like freedomuntil your sleep and your grades
and your schedule are justwrecked because you can't stop.
Lying feels like freedom untilyou're trapped in them.
Because, see, true freedom isnot just the freedom to do
whatever you want whenever youwant.
That kind of freedom doesn'tmake you free.
It makes you a slave towhatever desire is the loudest

(15:30):
in your life at that moment.
True freedom is not just freedomfrom freedom, for Not just
freedom from rules, but thepower to live how you were
designed to live.
Freedom from rules but thepower to live how you were
designed to live.
Freedom to do what's right, todo what's good, to do what you

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should do, to be connected tothe source of life, to bear
God's image.
Freedom is not the absence ofauthority in your life.
It's the joy of living underthe right authority and it's the
freedom that comes fromsubmitting to God and doing
things his way by followingJesus.
And if you do that, you won'tbe enslaved to fear or sin or
your desires, but you can befree, knowing that you belong to

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a loving God and you're his sonor his daughter, and he cares
for you and everything he tellsyou is either for your good or
harm.
That's the kind of freedom youwant, but unfortunately, cain
chooses his own way.
That's not the type of freedomthat he chooses and that's what
Genesis is going to show us next, in verse eight.
Cain spoke to Abel, his brother,and when they were in the field

(16:32):
, cain rose up against hisbrother, abel and killed him.
And then the Lord said to Cainwhere is Abel, your brother?
He said I do not know.
Am I my brother's keeper?
And the Lord said what have youdone?
The voice of your brother'sblood is crying to me from the
ground.
And now you are cursed from theground, which has opened its
mouth to receive your brother'sblood.
And when you work the ground,it shall no longer yield to you

(16:53):
its strength.
You shall be a fugitive and awanderer on the earth.
Cain said to the Lord mypunishment is greater than I can
bear.
Behold, you have driven metoday, away from the ground and
from your face.
I shall be hidden.
I shall be a fugitive and awanderer on the earth, and
whoever finds me will kill me.
And then the Lord said to himnot so.
If anyone kills Cain, vengeanceshall be on him sevenfold.
And the Lord put a mark on Cainlest anyone who found him

(17:16):
should attack him.
Then Cain went away from thepresence of the Lord and settled
in the land of Nod, east ofEden.
So Cain kills Abel and, justlike in Genesis 3, god comes in
with a question Where's yourbrother?
Obviously, calls him out on it,exposes the truth and he lays
out the consequences.
He says, cain, you're going tobe a wanderer, right, you're not

(17:49):
going to be able to farmanymore, which sounds like a
really, really weird consequence.
Like hey, you murdered someone,you don't get to grow corn
anymore.
Like ha ha ha.
But the thing here is, farmingwas actually kind of thought
about as like what we considercity life in that day and age,
because if you're a farmer, youcould stockpile resources and
food, you could be a lot moreindependent.
But if you're a wanderer, ifyou're a shepherd like Abel, was
you actually had to rely on theLord for protection for the
grass to be there for your herdsand for your flocks.
And so the crazy thing is, cainwanted independence from God

(18:11):
and his punishment, hisconsequence, is now he has to
walk the rest of his life in hisbrother who he killed's shoes,
so that he will learn to bedependent on God, because that's
what we were made for.
So even the punishment wassupposed to draw Cain back.
And you see this, because Cainstill clearly doesn't get the
point, he complains about hispunishment.
He's like God, you're being toomean, and God's like all right,

(18:33):
fine, nobody's gonna kill you.
I'm gonna give you a sign sothat nobody can kill you, and if
they do, they'll be avengedseven times, meaning nobody's
gonna kill you, right?
And so the sign wasn't justrandom.
All throughout the Bible, godconfronts sin with justice, but
he always gives mercy on theback end.
Think about after the floodright, you get the flood, which
is God's judgment on sin, butthen you get the rainbow

(18:55):
afterwards.
Or at the Passover, you get thepunishment on Egypt for
wickedness, but then you get theblood on the doorpost and mercy
.
Or at the cross, you getjustice and mercy.
And so you think that Cainwould get the point and turn
back right.
Like he gets it at this point,he understands the consequence.
Well, in verse 17, he does thecomplete opposite.
It says that Cain had a child,enoch, and when he built a city,

(19:15):
he called the name of the cityafter his son, enoch.
He builds a city which is theexact opposite of wandering.
It's another act of defiance.
It's his way of saying, hey, Iknow you might've protected me,
god, or said that you're goingto protect me.
I don't trust you, I'm going todo it on my own.
I'm going to build a city, I'mgoing to take care of this
situation on my own.
It's the same old choice.

(19:37):
It's the same downward spiralof sin.
And the next thing we get is agenealogy, which normally
genealogies are the part that welike sleep through.
But there's actually a lot ofimportance, especially in this
one, because this genealogy goesseven generations down, from
Adam to a guy named Lamech orLamech.
Some people pronounce itdifferently, it's spelled

(19:57):
differently, but Lamech is a notnice dude, he's a bad guy,
right.
And so this goes down throughthe line of Cain to Lamech, and
the first thing we hear aboutLamech is that he takes two
wives.
This is the first instance ofpolygamy, which means like
marrying multiple people, whichis frowned upon in the Bible,
Very frowned upon, right.
It never turns out good.
And so this is this lustful,selfish act that says I don't

(20:21):
care about you as a person, I'mjust gonna use you for my own
pleasure, for my own gain.
And then he sings a song to hiswife, which is a really weird
song.
He says Ada and Zillah, hear myvoice.
You, wives of Lamech, listen towhat I say.
I have killed a man for woundingme, a young man for striking me

(20:45):
.
If so, he's bragging to hiswives that one time a young man
struck him and wounded him andhe retaliated by killing him.
And later you're going to seein Exodus that God limits
retribution.
He says an eye for an eye, atooth for a tooth, and we think
about that as being cruel.
Like an eye for an eye, youshould forgive and like yes, as
time goes on.
But in that day and age, to sayan eye for an eye was to say,
hey, you can't just gowilly-nilly Wild West.
If somebody hurts your feelings, like if somebody stubs your

(21:06):
toe, the most you can do to themback is to stub their toe.
You're not allowed to go andkill them and their family and
all their ancestors, becausethat's what happens.
But Lamech does the completeopposite.
He says this dude even looks atme the wrong way.
I'm going to kill him and I'mgoing to brag about it.
And then that thing he says atthe end he says if Cain's
vengeance is sevenfold, then thevengeance for somebody killing
me is 77 fold, like seven timesseven, which is like, can he

(21:29):
just say that?
Like can he just declare, likeGod's going to protect me?
And the answer is no.
But it's just so much pride andarrogance and violence that's
caught up in this.
It's like Lamech saying, hey,I'm gonna do what I wanna do and
God's gonna forgive me, becauseit's his job to forgive me.
And we think that sounds crazy.
But how many times have we usedthat exact where we make a

(21:51):
decision?
And the point here is Not justto zoom in on some random
character named Lamech, but thepoint here actually goes back to
Genesis 3.
And so bear with me here realquick.
We're actually going to use theiPad real quick for this.
So if we can switch over to theApple, so let me get hooked up

(22:13):
to this real quick.
Oh, hold on, all right, hold on, okay, hold on, cool, all right
.
So that should be good.
Now, maybe, maybe it's hookedup.

(22:34):
Okay, I don't know if this isgoing to work, we'll try it one
more time.
If it doesn't, then we're justgoing to bail.
Let's try it one more time.
Oh, you know what?
Hold on, talk amongstyourselves.

(22:55):
I know the issue.
I'm on the wrong Wi-Fi, okay,well, we're just going to nix
that then.
So what you see here is that inGenesis 3, you get this picture

(23:23):
of two different lines.
You get the seed of the womanand the seed of the serpent
right, and the seed of the womansays, hey, I'm going to put
enmity between the serpent,which we're talking about, satan
, so I'm going to put hostility,hatred, between the serpent and
the seed of the woman.
And then you get the first timethat the gospel is ever
preached.
God says that you're going tobruise his heel, but he's going
to crush your head.
He's talking about Jesus.
But then you get the line thatgoes down and the woman has two

(23:44):
children she has Cain and shehas Abel.
And then the serpent also haschildren as well.
So the children of the devil,children of God, but then over
here under the children of God,cain decides to kill Abel, and
so, by his decision, he decidesto become a child of the devil,
of the serpent.
And then you see, ultimatelySeth is born and a replacement

(24:04):
for Abel.
We didn't read that.
But then now you still havethese two lines throughout
history the seed of the woman,the seed of the serpent.
And it continues on.
And so Cain then go down hisline and you have Lamech, who's
a murderer, and then you haveAbel go down that line.
It says Seth, and Seth's linebegins to call on the Lord.
And so the point here is thatone side is the line that calls

(24:27):
on the Lord, that trusts in hispromise, and the other side is
the line that rejects him andlives in rebellion.
And Cain and Abel areindicative of, like we said in
the beginning of the sermon, thetwo streams of humanity
children of God, children of thedevil.
And Abel trusted God.
He brought him his first andhis best.
He tried to do it on his own.
Abel's blood cried out forjustice from the ground, while

(24:50):
Cain's descendants just gotdeeper into violence and
arrogance.
And so the whole point here,and really what Cain and Abel,
what this Genesis chapter fourstory is trying to tell us is
that there is no neutral ground,that all of humanity is split.
You are either a child of God ora child of the serpent.
Trusting yourself as a child ofthe serpent, building your own
little city apart from God, ortrusting in God and calling on

(25:13):
his name, one leads todestruction and one leads to
life.
And so you need to ask yourselfwho am I a child of?
What line do I fall under?
And that's a really importantquestion to ask.
Because Cain, a child of theserpent, he was offering a
sacrifice to the Lord.
He's in church, right Like justbeing in church, growing up in

(25:35):
church, being around Christianthings, knowing some Bible
verses.
That does not make you a childof God.
There are children of theserpent in here tonight.
It's a matter of the heart, it'sa matter of your relationship
with God, and the truth is thatwe are all born into being
children of the devil.
We're born into sin.
Romans 3.23 says all havesinned and fallen short of the

(25:55):
glory of God, of the glory ofGod.
But we don't have to stay thatway.
God made a way, he created asolution that the seed of the
woman would crush the serpent'shead and the seed of that woman
was named Jesus.
And while Abel's blood criedout from the ground for justice,

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hebrews 12, 24 tells us thatJesus's blood speaks a better
word.
Where Cain's violence broughtdeath, jesus's sacrifice brings
life.
Abel gave his first and best toGod, but Jesus is the first and
the best God's own son offeredup for our sin.
Cain shed his own blood out oflove.

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Abel's death left a cry ofguilty on Cain, but Jesus's
death leaves a cry of grace onus.
That's the better word of thegospel.
Justice is satisfied.
Mercy is for you.
You don't have to be mastered bysin.
You don't have to build yourown city.
You don't have to be defined bythat relationship mistake.
You don't have to be controlledby what people think of you.

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You don't have to be enslavedto your phone.
You don't have to be controlledby what people think of you.
You don't have to be enslavedto your phone.
You don't have to be crushed bythe pressure of grades or
performance.
You don't have to be ruled byanger and bitterness or jealousy
or comparison.
You don't have to be stuck inshame from your past and you
don't have to be mastered fromthe future.
Why?
Because Jesus is the betterable, and he made a way for you

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to come back home, to be a childonce again of God, to be
adopted back into the family.
Scripture says that he laiddown his life.
Romans 10, 9 through 10 says ifyou declare with your mouth
Jesus is Lord and you believe inyour heart that God raised him
from the dead, saved, that theblood of Jesus will cover you

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and it will speak a better wordnot guilty but forgiven, not a
slave but free in Christ, childof God.
That's the invitation.
That's the invitation.
You don't have to be Cain, youdon't have to wander from thing
to thing empty well to emptywell, disappointment to

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disappointment.
You can quit your wandering andyou can come home.
And it starts with surrender.
The opposite decision of Abelor of Cain, of Adam and Eve, to
say God, I'm done trying to doit my own way.
I'm done trying to rule my ownlife, do my own thing.
I'm surrendering to you, I'mgoing to live under your

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authority.
Jesus, I'm going to make youking, which means I'm going to
do what you say.
And when I don't, when I screwup, when I mess up, I know that
there's grace and I can repent,I can stop, I can turn around
and I can come back home.
And it's saying I'm gonna dothat.
Jesus, I believe that what youdid for me on the cross was
enough to forgive all of my sins, that you paid for them, and if

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you do that, you'll be saved,you'll be set free.
That's the invitation to youtonight.
Come back home Everybody, justbow your head, close your eyes
for me real quick.
We're about to pray and go tosmall groups, and so tonight, I
know there's a lot of people andwe're all here for different

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reasons, different things goingon.
Some people, you've been goinghere since you were born.
Some people, this is your firstweek here, but each and every
single one of us has come in inone of those two camps children
of God, children of the devil.
And if you realize, hey, Idon't have a relationship with

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the lord, I haven't been walkingwith him.
I might have been in church, Imight know some answers, but at
the end of the day, it's just myparents faith, it's just a
performance.
I've been given god just somehalf-hearted leftovers.
You don't have to stay that way.
And so tonight, for maybe thefirst time, you really feel that

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something's wrong.
Something needs to change, andmy invitation would be to you to
make that decision.
Don't put it off another day,don't ignore it.
Confess with your mouth andbelieve in your heart that Jesus
is Lord and that he was raisedfrom the dead and you will be
saved.
And so what I want you to do is,when we go to small groups, if
that's you, if you say that's me, I am in the wrong camp.

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I want you to have aconversation with a leader.
Find me, find one of us.
I'll be down here at the stage,and we want to walk you through
that so that you can be setfree from your sin, from your
guilt, from your shame.
Or maybe you realize that, hey,I've placed my faith in Jesus.
That's a once and for all thing.
You don't need to do that again.
But you realize I'm walking inthe wrong direction.

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I need to turn around.
Tonight can be that night.
Confess it, confess it to aleader, confess it to a friend,
put it out into the light, leaveit and move on.
That's what's available to youin Jesus.
You need to move.
My ask is to just respond,whatever that might look like.