Father, what a safe and secure shelter your son Jesus is. Thank you that Christ is ever present with us. Not only that we may lean on him, but Lord, carry us. And hold on to us even when we let go.
What security and steadfastness of love do we find in your son Jesus? Jesus, we just want to say thank you for the great grace of salvation in Christ.
That through him and him alone you have made us new and will forever keep us.
Father, I pray that you would bless our giving, our tithes, our offering. Lord, that it would be with all joy and worship that we give you the first fruit of your Son Jesus Christ. The fruits of what you’ve given to us. We pray that in Christ’s name. Amen. Amen.
Well, good evening.
It’s good to be with you.
It’s good to be in the Word this evening.
We’ve been in Revelation the last two weeks, so we’re getting close to finishing the book of Revelation. And by God’s grace, we’ll finish it in just a short few weeks. But tonight, I want to turn your attention to the book of Genesis, chapter 4.
And we’ll probably stop at verse 5. Genesis, chapter 4, verses 1 through 5.
Genesis, chapter 4, verses 1 through 5. It says, 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 sheep and Cain a worker of the ground. 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 in his face, and Abel fell.
Eve says something that I don’t want us to miss. And I think this passage, understanding the whole of it, between Cain and Abel, actually comes back to understanding how Eve describes, understands, what it means for her, to have a child. She says she has gotten a man with the help of the Lord.
Cain came to Adam and Eve from the help of the Lord. Abel, came to Adam and Eve from the help of the Lord. What does that tell you and them? Now this is a sermon on money. This is a sermon on finances. This is a sermon on radical generosity. But it’s going to seem like for a minute, it’s a sermon on money. It’s a sermon on pro-life doctrine that we would find from Scripture. It’s going to seem like for a while, I’m preaching on the sacredness of human life. And I am. Life itself, this verse, asks us not what are people, but how are people. What people are has already been established. Earlier, God told us that plainly. He said he made everything, but he said man, he made what? In his image. So what is man? Man is an image bearer. How, though, does man come to be? How? The what gives you the answer for the pro-life argument. We’re image bearers. That’s why all life is sacred. Right? That’s what makes it special. It’s not a small thing. We read that in the creation account. But what Eve says, it pushes us deeper into thinking about how you and I come to be. Now, this sounds like I’m coming to a birds and the bees explanation for how people come about. But I’m not, because Eve’s not.
The creation of a person is not the result of a man and a woman’s choice to procreate. Some people intend on having a baby and they don’t, or they can’t. Sometimes they know why, sometimes they don’t know why. Oftentimes people don’t want a baby and they get one. So, saying people are because other people are, because other people chose for them to be is irrational based off of this verse. What Eve reveals is that people come to be by the hand of God. God brings into existence, God says who is conceived. Irrespective of the biological realities that, you know, we’ve mapped out so well. God does it. So, you do get your popular pro-life texts, you know, like in Psalm 139, we’re knit together in, you know, our mother’s womb. God’s the one doing that. And I didn’t even mean, I promise, to say earlier, it’s not a result of a man and a woman’s choice. It was later down I realized, oh, that’s funny. If you just read the Bible for what it says, it naturally disagrees with what the world says. A woman’s choice, what a popular phrase and slogan. So, it’s difficult, it’s impossible to read the Bible and take God’s word serious and it not plainly and powerfully cut right through the philosophies, the beliefs of man. In fact, it’s not a woman’s choice. So, on a fundamental level, this really is a simple, beautiful truth. God creates life. That’s so plain from the Bible.
God created you. You did not choose to exist. No one chose for you to exist other than God. So, we can affirm with Paul when he says, all things are from God through, God back to God. When I was at the pregnancy center for the time that I was, you could imagine all the reasons I would hear people say for why they, you know, did not want to have their child, why they would want to terminate their child. One being, you know, well, I just couldn’t bring a child into this world. This world is just a terrible place. You know, or I just couldn’t imagine how I could take care of a child. I couldn’t do that. The problem with that is, one, there is no sense in which someone is thinking about bringing a child into the world. If you have a baby in a mother’s belly, the child is in the world, right? So, the problem is thinking about a fetus. Again, fetus is Latin for just small child. So, there is no distinction between a baby in a belly and a baby outside a belly. That’s a person. And more so, a person is something anybody gets. How does any person come to be in a mama’s belly? God’s help, Eve says. But here’s the thing. If any mother could really feel the edge of that blade, of what it means to bring a child into this world, it’s her, because Eve exclusively knew what a non-broken, dangerous world was like. Think about that. She’s the only woman who ever has an idea of what it could have been like to have a pleasant place in which to raise a child.
The world she would have had if not for her sin, if not for Adam’s sin. So, she really felt the hard hit of the fall. Didn’t she, in that way? She knew, acutely, the distance from where she had been to where she was. Yet, Matthew Henry says this, and I think it’s very helpful. He says, children are God’s gifts, and he must be acknowledged in the building up of our families. It doubles and sanctifies our comfort in them when we see them coming to us from the hand of God. Who will not forsake the works and gifts of his own hand. Though Eve bore him with the sorrows that were the consequence of sin, yet she did not lose the sense of mercy in her pains. I love that. I love that. Even though it was a broken world, there was consequences, she didn’t lose the sense of mercy in that God gave her a child though she did not deserve one. Though the world was broken.
How have any of us come to be except by the mercy and choice of God? The famous philosopher, Rene Descartes, his famous adage, I think, therefore I am. And true enough. How do you come to that state of thinking of consciousness? Because God has a sense of mercy in allowing you to exist though you have no right to it.
How you answer that question, it’s going to affect everything else. That’s going to affect money, it’s going to affect provision, your needs being met. Obviously, a lot of people on the face of the earth do not attribute their existence to the Lord. It’s the work of randomness or perhaps some other false religion that would give its answer. But I want to say to us who are in Christ Jesus, if we trace our how to the one true God, then what we’ll see is this, that the sense of mercy and choice of God flows past our inception in the womb, our point of conception, but that sense of mercy and choice flows onward for the rest of our lives.
So we’ll see two totally different brothers, and those two brothers will have two totally different answers about why they exist. Even if it’s staring both of them right in the face plainly, they don’t both come to the same conclusions about it. They have different answers. So I want you to think about this. Even though they were so close to God, and it seems that even audibly so, because we see God audibly talk to Cain, what does the voice of God say about the post-natal experience of those who embrace their origins, their origin story, as God made me? What is there to tell us about God’s provision for post-natal sinners?
Well, first of all, if we go back to the garden, what was God’s original design? His original design for Adam and Eve was I’ve created you, and what are you going to do? You’re going to have dominion over everything that I’ve made. You’re going to be provided by every plant and every tree, and you’re going, you’re going to work it, and obviously in working it, you’re going to enjoy it, and in your enjoyment of it all, what are you going to do? You’re going to glorify God. And we read about God walking with them in the garden. So, God provided all things for Adam and Eve. God created Adam and Eve. Now, they have the one huge exception of being made from dirt.
Yet, God’s provision for people by whom God’s mercy and choice they were born doesn’t stop there, even though sin enters the world.
You say, well, I don’t know. Is there proof? Can you show me that I could believe that if God created me by His mercy, and I’m acknowledging that He’s the one that made me, and all things flow from Him, and I uniquely exist because He is? Can you give me biblical evidence of that? Man. Multiple things. Firstly, in the fall, when God is handing out punishments, He doesn’t say, now you’ll have to go figure out how to feed yourself. He said, you will eat, but it’ll be painful. And He said, you will have bread, but it’ll be by the sweat of your brow. See how, even in God’s judgment, He does not deprive them of the good things that they need. But then we do go on, friends, to Psalm chapter
37 verse 23. And this is a very popular Psalm, and I think for a good reason. And it’s because it gives us so much encouragement about how good God is to us. Psalm 37, 23. It says, the steps of a man are established by the Lord when he delights in His way. Though he fall, he shall not be cast headlong, for the Lord upholds His hand. Verse 25. I have been young and now am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or His children begging for bread. He is ever lending generously and His children become a blessing.
What about in Matthew chapter 15 when Jesus has been preaching to the crowds, Jesus says this to His disciples. I have compassion on the crowds because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat. Here’s what Jesus, think about. This is what Jesus says. And I am unwilling to send them away hungry.
What about Matthew 6? When Jesus says, don’t be like the Gentiles who chase after their drink and their food and their clothes, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.
How about this? When the disciples ask Jesus, Jesus, what does it look like for us to pray? How do we approach the Father? What is that like? What is the first request Jesus Himself teaches us to bring to the Lord? Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. So you see, Jesus teaching us the Father knows what we need. Christ has an unwilling heart to withhold it. And we see Jesus teaching us to expect God to provide our daily bread.
At our new location over there on Pine Grove, there’s a very nice gentleman who works in the Texaco gas station down there. And he’s a Haitian refugee. And he was telling me recently that he was a couple weeks ago, I think, he looked out the window there at the four-way stop on Pine Grove in Waltriana, and there was a car wreck, a massive car wreck. And he said that within minutes the ambulance showed up and people were everywhere, and these people were being taken care of. And he said, I just started to weep because you would never see that in Haiti. My people would never have that. He said, I think Americans should go all over the world to see what they have. And it’s not to guilt you or me, it’s just to say we don’t even have, I think, the spiritual acumen to see a blessed, sacred thing it is to have food in front of us when a lot of the world has none of it. We have obviously so many blessings, like health care to take care of, what? You got an aching tooth? A lot of people around the world are like, sorry, right? Here, we’ll go do, you know, pay your co-pay, whatever, and get… God is kind to take care of our temporal needs. God is kind to put food in our bellies.
Jesus says God has his eye on the sparrow. He has his eye on the ravens. It says that the Father will give a fish and a snake, a bread, not rock. Jesus says don’t worry about any of that stuff. So yeah, there’s an overwhelming amount of evidence that God cares for you. He cares for you in your existing as much as he did in bringing you into existence. He is your soul provider just as he is your soul creator. Let me say that again. God is your soul provider just as much as he is your soul creator. We glorify God for creating us, right?
We glorify God and enjoy him forever as he provides for us. That’s the first question of the Westminster Confession, right? What am I to do after I exist? What am I to do? What is it? Enjoy God, glorify him. But then there’s this. I want to push us deeper on this. There is this perspective that we should have as Christians. When you realize that God cares not just for our bodies and always intended to give provision to his people though they don’t deserve it and though they are sinful, you know way deeper and way better all along, God had a heart to provide the spiritual food that they needed. Jesus says in John chapter 6 verse 55, for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him. As the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me he also will live because of me. God doesn’t just take care of your breakfast, lunch and dinner needs. He doesn’t just take care of your utility bill you didn’t expect to be bigger. He doesn’t just meet your needs. God had a mind in eternity past and a plan to give so much more for your very soul.
Surely we can sense the mercy of God, the choice of God in loving us, not just at birth, but beyond. We could really make an argument and say he loved us before birth for all that he intended to do for us. For his people who are in Christ Jesus these sinful, wicked, falling apart bodies. God’s taking care of that. Certainly your soul. So the how we came to be is so plain, but the why we are is also as we exist to enjoy God for who he is and be satisfied in his son and bring him glory forever more. That’s our what, that’s our how, that’s our why.
Looking at verse 3 back in Genesis chapter 4 we see plainly which of these brothers takes that opinion and which doesn’t. In verse 3 it says 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. Calvin says this about it I think it’s helpful. He says the Jews foolishly imagine that the offering of Cain were unacceptable because he defrauded God of the full ears of corn and meanly offered him only barren or half-filled ears. Deeper and more hidden was the evil, namely the impurity of heart of which I have been speaking, just as on the other hand the strong scent of burning fat could not hide the divine favor to the sacrifices of Abel but being pervaded by the good odor of faith. They had a sweet-smelling savor. See Calvin’s helping us see this doesn’t start with what they outwardly gave God in the same way that God says elsewhere in the scriptures, I’m sick of your feasts and I’m sick of your shows I don’t need it. God says do you think I’m actually hungry? I would come and ask you for food. He said do you think if I were thirsty you’re the ones I would come and ask for it? God makes it abundantly plain throughout the Old Testament the sacrifices have nothing to do in and of themselves with anything the issue is my heart. The issue is have I come in faith, believing I am what I am because God made me in his image. I came about because God made me and why I exist is because God has made me to joyfully depend on him to meet all my needs and to know his goodness and love as a father. That’s Abel’s why and it’s not Cain’s. Abel’s hope and desire and security was not in what he owned. It was the God of his mother and father who has mercy on sinners. A God that loves them and cares for all their needs. We see Cain to be a clenched fisted man tightly holding on to loving dearly trusting in depending on the work of his own hands. And you see the fruit of that in his children and grandchildren because Cain goes off and he starts his city and what is that city but a wicked, wicked place where men live for their own interests.
Abel knew God provides. When I ask you that as simple as that is I think you and I can believe that creedally, right? Do you believe that God provides for his people? Yes. Do you believe that God’s in control of all things? Yes. When you have an unexpected bill tomorrow will you stay calm and not freak out? No. So there’s believing something like, you know, ethereal like it’s in the concept of Christianity but then there’s believing that comes down to orthopraxy like it’s what I’m doing. So my orthodoxy isn’t all that good if it’s just kind of this conceptual art that lives in my mind and it’s not pervading the way I live and how I see myself and my stuff and my needs. Abel knew God provides so Abel gladly worshipped God by giving God the very best of what he had because he knew God gave it first and God would take care of him. And we know that beyond that Abel knew God provided something better than food for the present moment.
The Hebrew writer reminds us in Hebrews chapter 11 verse 4 by faith by faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain through which he was commended as righteous. God commending him by accepting his gifts and through his faith though he died he still speaks. That gives me cold chills. Is God your provider? So we can read all of that and then we can go to Acts chapter 4 verse 32 and we can read this. Now the full number of those who believe were of one heart and soul and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own but they had everything in common and with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles’ feet and it was distributed to each as any had need. Thus Joseph who is also called by the apostles Barnabas which means son of encouragement a Levite native of Cyprus sold a field that belonged to him and brought the money and laid it at the apostles’ feet. So I want you to see this. What’s happening for Abel in Genesis chapter 4 is not anything that’s happening any different in Acts chapter 4.
When people say this line and I’ve heard it a ton of times I’m sure you’ve heard it maybe you think it but the line is show me in the Bible where it says I have to give 10%. Show me in the Bible where it says I have to give 10%.
Well the response is this. No, the Bible for New Testament age Christians does not teach you a command to give 10%. What it teaches you is a culture of generosity and that culture of generosity precedes even the law of Moses back to the man Abel. So if you want to put yourself in this law of Moses mind. Mindset where show me the law where it says I have to do that. I can so easily say to you why are you looking for a way to give God as little as possible? Why are you looking for a way out of expressing your worship to God and your faith in God that if you give your very best and your first to him he will wildly bless you and do amazing things through you. That’s what I’m saying back.
Scripture. Does not give us a command to give X number of dollars. The scriptures give us something far better. It teaches us a culture nay a spirit of generosity. It’s a spirit. The Holy Spirit that shows us supernaturally God is over the whole thing and he deeply loves his own people. Even in their sin God loves us and takes care of us and everything we have is his. See this also. In the next chapter you have Ananias and Sapphira and they die. Why do they die? They die because they abominate the culture of extreme generosity. That’s why. They have a Cain like spirit. They say, church, we’re giving you our very best. Here is our whole field. The spirit of God said, uh-uh, that ain’t it. That ain’t it. So they were struck down. What is it to be a Christian and to have any less of a view of God’s provision and your needs? What is it?
Well, it’s non-biblical. We could say that.
I guess I can’t ever get over George Mueller. I love George Mueller. He has an autobiography and it’s wonderful if you ever want to read it. But George Mueller eventually came, I believe he was from Austria originally. He came to England as a missionary. It didn’t work out. He didn’t really jive with any of the missionary societies. So he started an orphanage for kids and he ended up being called the robber of the streets because the orphan problem was so bad. This is a man who took care of droves and droves of orphans and not once did he ever ask for a donation. Not once did he ever lobby for funds. To the point, there was a night when it was dinner time and you had, oh, these massive number of orphans sitting at dinner with plates and forks in hand, no food. He had no idea where it was coming from and he just stood there and he prayed. And what happened? A knock on the door. Oh, I had some food and I just thought I would bring it by. It’s silly. I mean, it’s really silly that we say we believe in this God and then we freak out about money or we think because we have jobs or something that we take care of ourselves and we’re the ones that do it and it’s really, it’s unchristian, actually. It’s a very, it’s a very atheistic view, even. Don’t you think? Yeah, God, yeah, I believe that, but I’m saving right, I got the right money. You know, and I’m, you know, laying in bed freaking out because we need a few thousand bucks to pay for the carpet in the building. It’s like, Lord, forgive me. Like, you have all things. You have all things and you provide for every need. Every need. So, do you have a million dollars in your bank account or ten bucks?
What does it matter if God is your father and you believe he’s going to provide for you? I can’t speak into the providence of God and why God has some people have more and some people tend to have less and, and time and chance affects people differently on how wealthy they are. But the Bible’s very clear that God doesn’t let the righteous and their children go hungry. The Bible clearly teaches us we should be content with the bare minimum of food and clothing, Paul says. God takes care of you. I want the 10% thing to be offensive to you. Did you get up there and teach a sermon to me about how I’m supposed to give more than 10% to the Lord? That’s offensive. I’ve read the Bible, thank you. I’ve been baptized. I know what this whole thing’s about. I don’t need that one. That’s like telemarketing, right? You’re like talking people into doing something they don’t want to do but you can guilt them enough and like, I’m fine. Who wants that? I think what we’re talking about here in this culture of generosity is something that issues from love, right? So if you’re giving radically, it’s because you have experienced the radical love and goodness and mercy and generosity of God to you so when God says, hey, you should sell that or you should give this much or you should this or you should that, it’s not like, I don’t know or I’ve got to hold on to my pennies for that rainy day or it’s like, okay, okay.
So here are a number of points of application from this text. First one. We all have to have we all need to slow down so that we see and treasure the mercy of God to us in temporal and spiritual things so that we would worship Him accordingly. You are not owed whatever it is you eat for dinner tonight. You need to praise God for the food you eat. I am a real hound dog on my kids if they don’t pray for they eat. Not because, you know, Christians should and it’s formal and nice. I think it’s rude. It’s profane, I think, to be unlike animals who can’t think and not thank God that He’s provided it. I don’t understand that. So for me, it’s an act of worship. It’s an act of faith in God’s mercy every time you eat. Slow down and see the goodness of God to you in temporal things. And in the blood of His Son, Jesus, so that you would worship Him and trust Him and remember who He is to you. Next. None of this means that you can be reckless with your personal finances and responsibilities. You cannot say, oh, wonderful, God is always going to take care of me because He loves me. This must mean I can buy a $50,000 boat and then God will make up the difference. Quite the opposite. If God’s supernatural work is the thing that brought you into existence, don’t think it a small thing that God has given you your hands and your brain to work and to provide for your family and also do ministry with that money. That that is a grace to you and you have to steward that well. So if you make money and if you work, these are not things that are your thing. These are things, gifts God’s put in your hand and you better be accounting for every loose dollar. You better have an answer for your money. Right? And that’s work and it’s hard, but it really is ministry, right? So I want to encourage you. Is your budget sloppy? Is your budget full of idolatries, obsessive spending, misspending? I know debt can be a problem. Are you working to be set free from that slaveholder so you can be fully submitted to Jesus? Maximize your budgets to the glory of God. And if you’re terrible with money, as I am, and the Lord was kind of giving me my wife, I know that there are people here that are good with budgeting and would love to maybe help you, if that’s something you would need help with. Next point. You need to be praying that God would grow your faith. Pray that God grows your faith in believing what He can do in and through your life. Okay? You need to be asking God to grow your faith about what you believe He can do. Why? Because God desires to use you in big ways. God desires to use His people to fulfill the Great Commission. And if we have an impoverished mindset on who God is and what God does and God’s real stingy up there and I’m just barely getting by and I don’t know how these other people have money, whatever. This is not about, again, you having money to get more stuff. This is our monthly memory verse for the week, right? Or for the month. I believe. What’s He also say? Help my unbelief. So God does. Grow me up more and more in a belief that you are a generous God so that you can use me to be generous for the sake of the gospel. It doesn’t stop with you. It goes through you. And then also grow your faith to be carefree. I don’t mean carefree like reckless. Carefree of the burdens you shouldn’t bear. Carefree of what are my kids gonna are they gonna have enough food when they grow up? Or maybe I need to save more in case the apocalypse does happen and all those billionaires have like a lot of money. Or maybe I need a secret bunker somewhere. Maybe I should get something like that. Or I think there’s a carefreeness to faith. Again, not recklessness. But there’s a certain peace that comes with oh, yeah, my father’s actually the creator of the universe so I’m not gonna worry about that, right? I’m not gonna worry about when the water heater blows up and I gotta spend whatever, you know, $500 or whatever, bigger, whatever it is. So I’m gonna say this. Expect more from God. How about that? Now that seems a little touchy. Can you tell God you expect more from him? That sounds like something he should say to us. No, I think that you can take God up that if you ask, he will provide. Asking you will receive, right? Knocking the door will be open. God doesn’t give rocks. He gives bread. So when I’m asking and the end of my asking is God, I’m expecting you to be you in my life, in my church, in ministries, I’m a part of. I’m expecting you to do the stuff only you can do. Do you need a bigger God than you have? Definite. We all do. Demand God be that.
Last one, maybe.
Sometimes life is hard financially. We don’t want it that way, but God does that. Why? Why? He does it to grow our faith in him. He does it to grow our faith in him. How many stories could we find of believers who lost their job, they couldn’t make ends meet they thought, yet they prayed and they prayed and man, God just showed out just like George Mueller’s thing, right? So God puts us in those positions not to show us how little he loves us. God takes things away from us so we would know how much he loves us. Remember that.
God is our helper from creation to sustenance for this life to our eternal souls. God, he has the cattle on a thousand hill. God has storehouses that are busting to be open. He says, will you ask for it though? He says, won’t you just ask for the storehouse to be opened? Mostly, God has helped us by giving us his beloved and precious son, Jesus, that we can have true food and true drink forevermore.
And then just lastly, I will just quote Jesus. Where your treasure is, your heart is also. About that.
Lord,
oh how we need an increase in faith.
Oh how we need you to remind us of your goodness and grace. That we can have that when Lord, we have a impoverished mindset that you care so little. Lord, shake off those doubts and those fears to know that you are you are infinitely wise and you’re infinitely good. And you are our provider and you meet all of our needs. And we can trust you to work for your own glory in our lives. Through our church. So we do pray, Father, that the cross would be the lens through which we have a greater vision of your provision, of your power, of your love, of your desire to use your people to give them resources that they would fulfill the great commission.
So Lord, let all these things not be lost on us or soon forgotten. Lord, help us to truly savor them. That we may truly live in the culture and spirit of the generosity of the gospel of Jesus.
Take some time and do your meditation question or two. Reflection. .