Jan 18 2024
Your Choices
READ: Genesis 4:5
CHALLENGE: Make Good Choices
Last week we talked about getting past mediocrity. We need to make sure that we are living for God and investing into that relationship. Cain is angry and downcast because God did not approve of him or his offering. God warns him that sin has desires for him and that he needs to get it under control.
(trans.) Perhaps you’re struggling with anger or feeling things are unfair. Maybe your thoughts get a bit gloomy. Let’s talk about it.
A. REVIEW YOUR THINKING
Vv5-6 - but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast?
God did not accept just anything that Cain brought to the table as he met with disapproval. Thus, God didn’t give him the favor that he thought he deserved and he’s ticked. It’s a vicious cycle. You don’t do what you’re supposed to. You get called out for it. Now you’re angrier and your behavior gets worse. He’s angry right now. Anger is common but sometimes we’re not thinking straight. As your thinking goes, so goes your attitude and your actions!
(trans.) What can we learn from Cain?
1. Calm Yourself Down
Cain’s offering was not viewed with favor, so Cain was VERY angry! He’s not a little bit upset, he’s super ticked! It’s impossible to know how they knew God approved of the one and not the other, but there was no doubt. Cain is super peeved, and his face is downcast.
· Don’t Fuel Your Anger
He’s angry and this is a word, “angry”, means to “burn” or to “be kindled”. Is this different from outbursts? Outbursts are when you instantly explode and then you’re fine! Everyone else is a smoldering briquette but you feel so much better! “What’s for dinner”?
This is not explosive anger, this is kindled anger. A fire built a piece at a time – a thought at a time. I imagine at some point in your life you’ve built a real fire. I start off with small pieces of broken twigs and sticks and some pieces of bark and I start my fire there. Then I add slightly larger pieces until I have a nice hot fire burning. Soon there is a bed of hot pulsating radiating coals!
That’s a good word picture for this anger. We can start out with little sticks of upset ,whether real or perceived, and then we add one stick upon another until we get that fire burning nice and hot! Kindled gives me the idea building it a piece at a time.
Ever kindle anger one thought at a time? “I can’t believe they did that”. “They said this”. “They didn’t do that”. “They don’t care”. “They never listen”. “They wanted to hurt me”. Or they somehow break your trust. The only thing I asked was for them to get a Snickers bar while they were out and they couldn’t even remember! “I’d remember because I do everything…. I literally do EVERY THING! I’m tired of doing everything!! No one helps me! They’re all sitting there in the living room laughing together while I’m slaving away”. I can hear that fire crackling right now.
I’ve asked them so many times to please refrain from …. Fill in the blank! Or, I’ve asked them for months to fix that dripping faucet. Their mother calls and they’re gone! For me it’s six months of waiting. For their mother it’s six seconds! Your thoughts are up in smoke! They never or they always – let’s light this fire! And all this chatter in our brain is dry and splintered sticks just perfect for igniting.
We pile up all of these little hurts and we build the blaze and if you’re not careful, the fire is not so little any longer - it’s a full blown blaze. I can just smell the smoke. Jesus warned against it in the sermon on the mount! He equated our anger and name calling with murder.
I can tell you one thing that does not help and that’s fueling the fire. Stop looking at their facebook page. Stop wondering about what they’re doing. Stop thinking about how unfair what they did was. Why fuel it? What good will it do? Entrust yourself to God because vengeance belongs to him.
One thing I know about fires is this, they cannot burn without fuel. If you’re not adding to it and continuing on with the gossip, it has nothing to burn on. But when you keep talking about it and bringing it up over and over again, keep ruminating on it, you’re keeping it going! It’s unhealthy.
And let’s remember – it’s Cain who’s on fire, not Abel. Cain is the one burning up inside and there is no good that will come of it.
James 1:19-20 - My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, 20 because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.
Abel was doing what Abel was supposed to do. There’s not even a forgiveness issue here. The biggest thing wrong is Cain’s thoughts. It’s how he’s viewing his life and allowing himself to take offense.
· Don’t Allow Your Thinking to Sour
His face is downcast. The anger is impacting him to the point that it literally says that his face is fallen! His happiness and joy just fell off the map. Our thinking can sour on people like milk left out on the counter.
What makes you sour? Often, it’s because your expectations are unmet. You thought people would elevate you more highly than they did. You thought that people would help but they didn’t. You thought your spouse would be more attentive, but they’re not. You thought people would miss you when you weren’t around, they didn’t seem to.
Perhaps you think you should have been invited or included or looked up to. But you weren’t. They didn’t even care what you thought, and you thought they would. And because our expectations are unmet, we begin to get resentful and angry and other ugly things in our brain bets bigger.
And of course, Cain is not down on himself. He’s down on his brother. His brother is in the way of him getting the acceptance that he truly desires. So another leading culprit in anger is frustration from blocked goals. Cain perhaps had a blocked goal of acceptance by God. When our goals are blocked, we become angry.
The easiest way to think about it is this. We set the goal to be up in Austinburg in 10 minutes but a slow poke pulls out in front of us and now it’s going to take 11 minutes. I was behind someone who was going the speed of a pedal car. We may go ballistic over this. All we have to do is change the goal that we set.
We set goals for when projects need to be done. For how much of something we need to accomplish. For all kinds of things. Should that not happen we’re frustrated and then angry. What can we do? Change the goal, it was always arbitrary anyway.
· Ask Why You Are Angry
God asks Cain the perfect question. Why are you angry? Why are you downcast? I think of God’s question to Jonah. Do you have a good reason to be angry? The answer? No. You have no real right to be angry. Right now, if you’re angry at someone or at a situation or even at the church, do you have a right to be?
If you’re angry at God, why are you angry?
You get angry at your spouse. Do you have a good reason? Are you seeing it clearly? Often when you’re angry you’re not thinking straight. You’re reacting emotionally and it will get you in trouble.
If you’re angry at someone or something, ask yourself this – do you have a good reason to be? Do you have a right to be? Because sometimes you don’t have your facts right. You’re not seeing it accurately. You’ve made some misinterpretations and jumped to some conclusions.
Trans. So what’s the answer?
B. TAKE RESPONSIBILITY and DO RIGHT.
V7 - 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;.
God talks to Cain about Cain. He said, you want acceptance and you need to do the right thing. Now that could be making the right sacrifice to some obedience in his life. There is obviously a darkness in Cain. And we have to deal with that.
1. Do Right
a. Right is a Choice
Look at the verse. If you do what is right – this is result. If you do not do what is right – this is result. You can do what is right or you can do what is wrong. No one else was deciding this but Cain. And no one was making him commit such a heinous crime against his own brother – it was all on him.
We all have choices in this life. God clearly lays out two options in this passage. Doing right or doing wrong. The word “right” comes from a word that means good and pleasant and here refers to “moral goodness”, the opposite of evil. Everyday you have choices. I don’t control what other people do but I do control what I do. My response is my responsibility – get a handle on that truth and it will go better for you!
I can make time to read my Bible or not. I can choose to work hard or to slack. When we work hard there are typically good benefits to that.
God is pointing out the truth to Cain – you can choose the right way! And these are steady steps in the right direction. Typically, any spot I’ve gone, I didn’t there right away. Last Saturday I went hiking with my son, Luke. We visited a few falls and to get there required many steps along the way. It wasn’t one step – it was many steps.
Cain would kill his brother. That horrible destination was at the end of a trail deliberately walked day after day. He chose to walk a path of bad choices and one step at a time until he found his way to a spiritual catastrophe.
I’m sure failures in marriage or faithfulness didn’t happen in one moment. There were many decisions to linger in places you shouldn’t have been. To allow thoughts. To communicate. To flirt. To not invest into your relationship. There are typically many choices made that get you to the cliff – to the brink of moral failure.
God encourages Cain to do the right thing. It’s a choice between right and wrong. Please acknowledge that there is right and there is wrong. Like there is sweet and there is bitter. Like there is hot and there is cold. Like there is light and there is dark. Like there is love and there is hate. There is right and there is wrong. They are opposite and both exist. Just like you can do something really good, you can do something really bad. Both choices are before us.
I enjoyed watching the Lord of the Rings because JR Tolkien had no problem clearly spelling out a good side and a bad side. Mordor was way different from the Shire! I love that in the Bible that right and wrong is spelled out in the Ten Commandments and places like Deuteronomy which means the second law. Moses was a great leader and before he died, he once again gave clarity on how to live. The Bible is full of clarity.
Hebrews 5:13-14 - Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. 14 But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.
The word of God teaches us to discern right from wrong. What decision will you make in life? If you lack the wisdom to know what the right thing to do it then ask God and he’ll give you direction.
b. Choices Bring Consequences
Decisions are cause and effect. One path leads to this and another leads to something else. In Deuteronomy they stand on two mountains talking blessings and cursings. On Mount Ebal it is dry and arid and that was the side where curses were recited. The other mountain had more vegetation on it and springs and growth. That was blessing.
If you obey, there was blessing. If you disobeyed, there were curses that you brought consequences upon yourself. This is a missing piece in the thinking of America today. We don’t think there are consequences for bad behavior. We think that we can choose any option and every path will lead to the same happy place but that’s untrue.
On the other hand, good choices bring blessings to your life. I know that hard work pays off. We had some difficult projects last year including laying the floor for a stone patio which we had NEVER done before. On the days we didn’t want to shoot ourselves, we wanted to shoot each other. It was one of hardest projects I ever did! If I could wind back time, I’d still do it all over again as the beautiful end result is amazing. Good things happen when we’re willing to work at it.
Typically you reap in areas into which you invest. It’s up to us whether or not we are investing into our spiritual lives. Our marriages. Our important relationships.
In this case, Cain is looking for acceptance from God. God tells him, “Do the right thing and you’ll be accepted”. This is classic! This is a result of making the right decisions.
(1). Acceptance
What is acceptance? It comes from a word that means “to lift one’s head in restoration”. To lift one’s face is an indication of favor or acceptance. Doing what’s right precedes being accepted. I don’t think that we can do whatever we feel like doing and then demand that God accept us or that people accept us regardless. Especially when we’re not willing to be repentant. You want forgiveness and the acceptance back into the good graces of someone else? Then do the right thing.
There’s some thought as to how the world will deal with you if you do the right thing. I truly believe that honesty, hard work, faithfulness to your spouse, kindness, service are universally accepted. Doing the right thing brings a certain level of respect.
I don’t find acceptance from my wife if I’m not behaving. I find acceptance when I do what’s right. When I’m investing energy into our relationship. When we guys know all is well – our faces can be lifted up at home.
When you’re working with others you may know what triggers them. How about don’t do that? Don’t do things that are going to upset the apple cart and then be upset when no one wants you around the apples.
Don’t be upset that people don’t want you fishing with them if you’re always splashing around and throwing rocks in the water. Live in a way that brings acceptance to you. Assuming that’s the right thing.
1 Peter 3:7 - Husbands,.
Treat your wife right that your prayers not be hindered. Our behavior impacts our prayer life and our relationship with God. So there are consequences of bad behavior.
Do the right thing and you’ll be accepted. You’ll be favored. You might have offended a family member or friend. You know what you could do that would help out quite a bit? Change!
(2.) Dominated by Darkness
….But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.
Sin desires Cain. Sin was lying at the door just waiting to take opportunity in that anger. Sin is right there just waiting for the chance. It’s wanting to get at you. It’s like a ferocious lion just waiting for the chance to pounce on you. It’s a monster!
What does God identify as the problem? Sin. Doing the wrong thing. Sin desired him. Was hungry for him. I reckon it’s safe to say that sin wants to destroy people.
Ephesians 4:26 – “In your anger do not sin”: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, 27 and do not give the devil a foothold.
All evil needs is an open door! Sin is crouching. The devil is in that sin – you can bet on it. He uses it. Jesus called him the father of murderers. He’s involved in this somehow!
So, let’s take the analogy. Like a lion waiting at the door to pounce on you. You’re lamp chops. It’s salivating at the thought of getting to you. What are you going to do? Darkness wants to dominate you.
God said, you have to master it. You have to say no. You have to show it who’s boss. You have to exercise self-control. And I think that’s so important because it’s one of the fruits of the Spirit.
In Cain’s case, it’s anger that must be mastered. You need to control it. God told him that he needed to call the shots over evil. There are so many times we need to remind ourselves that we don’t need to do the wrong thing. We can do right.
Resist the devil and he will flee from you! Resist. Evil is so destructive. Addiction, drugs, pornography, anger.
He wanted to be accepted and to be accepted meant that he needed to make changes. Often we do need to make changes.
It’s a tug of war. It wants to master you but you must master it!
8 Now Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go out to the field.”[d] While they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.
Choices
