Genesis chapter number 4, please. 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, Cain a worker of 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 their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering, he had no regard. Cain was very angry and his face fell. The Lord said to Cain, why are you angry? Why has 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. Father God in heaven, come into our assembly, please. Bless this attempt to teach your word. Holy Spirit, do what I can't do. Do what no preacher can do. Intervene. Make the word come alive. In Jesus' name, amen. So let's get started. So she says, I've gotten a man with the help of the Lord. No doubt she's thinking about Genesis 3, 15, where she was promised an offspring who would crush the head of the serpent. And so now God is hearing and answering this promise through Cain, and God does it again, for she bears Abel. So now we have two sons. Now, let's take a moment and talk about the historicity that is the historical fact of these two individuals. Are they made up? Is this a myth? Is this just a fictional story for primitive man, or are these real individuals? Well, if they're not real people, that is to say that you couldn't walk up to Cain and say, hello, Cain, hello, Abel. Then Jesus is a liar. Jesus. Jesus, the eternal son of God, said Abel was righteous. He gave Abel righteous. He described him as righteous, not in the sense of a mythical idea, but this man was righteous, like Lot was righteous, like you can be made righteous. And then the author of Hebrews talks about both Cain and Abel. And then the apostle John also talks about Cain and Abel. And the brother of Jude, Jesus Jude, talks about Cain. So we have four different authenticating individuals saying these are real people. This means that I need to take this text even more serious. This is not a parable. This is a historical description of what happened with these two adults. One brought this offering, the other brought this offering. One was regarded, the other one wasn't. Why? I need to know why. I need to be able to answer that question. So let's be clear, believing the Bible to be the Word of God demands, it requires that you choose an earth that's about 7,000 to 10,000 years old. Or you have to put a giant gap between verse one and verse two. In fact, some of you probably have a Schofield reference Bible somewhere on the shelf. David actually puts a gap in there. It tells you, inserts that gap in there that this is what people believe because we're trying to reconcile the Bible with science. You know, science is right in the Bible. Well, not for us. Thank you, brother. I was wondering if one person would say it. I was like holding out that pregnant pause there as a pastor. Is anybody going to acknowledge the fact that the Bible is what we believe? You know, is that transparency that you said, if you like hymns, sing. If you like preaching, say amen. Something. So Abel was a keeper of sheep and Cain was the worker of the ground. Now let's make it clear, these are both great jobs. These are two good jobs. One is not better than the other from a biblical perspective. Now we have to say this at the outset because we're trying to figure out why was one offering accepted and the other one rejected? We need to know this. If we don't pay attention to that, then the entire narrative falls flat. Why did he accept one offering and not the other? Now let's compare them. We have an offering of the fruit of the ground, and we have a firstborn of the flock and their fat portions. Now these are the details we get. This is what we get. This is the details. Now let's acknowledge that when we're studying the word of God, we're looking for two things, what's in the text and what's not there. Those are the two big issues. What does the text say and what doesn't the text say? In other words, what did the author intentionally omit? And we're gonna look at both of those this morning. What is said and then what's not said. And we're gonna learn from what's said and what's not said. This is interesting because I've got this obscure reference to fat portions. That's kind of strange. I mean, we really don't think a whole lot about the fat portions. That's not a big deal to us. You know, you get a pork chop and you enjoy the fact that there's a long strip of fat there because it normally means the meat's gonna be a little bit more flavorful, but I don't eat that fat. How many here would eat that fat? Raise your hand up. Okay, chef, I kind of figured you might be the guy that would eat that. You know, and some people like it. Yeah, you look back at him like, who's this guy? And I saw you looking back like, who would they eat that? But there are some people that like that. Pam's dad would eat all of it. I mean, there wouldn't be anything. He'd put a steak down. The whole thing is the gun. Looked like a napkin cleaned that plate off. I mean, nothing's left. Doesn't matter. Yes, John? Yeah, right. But that's not why this is here. This is here because all the fat is the Lord's. We're going to pay attention to that. We need to keep that in the back of our mind. These are important details. If you don't do something in your Bible like underline it or circle it or something, four months from now you'll forget about this. One offering he likes and the other one he doesn't. He has no regard for it. Why, why one and not the other? I need to know. Typically what I heard growing up the whole time was one had blood and the other one didn't. And that was the standard answer. And that was the extent of it. One was a blood sacrifice. The other isn't. Jesus' blood was shed so that our sins could be forgiven. This one is and this one isn't. I need to tell you this morning, that answer isn't acceptable. That answer is wholly inadequate. I'm not seeing that in Scripture. That doesn't work. Let me show you why. Number one, Cain is doing precisely what was mandated in Genesis. He's doing it. Genesis 3.23 said, go out and work the ground. And what is Cain doing? He is working the ground. He is fulfilling the creation mandate. He's subduing and having dominion over the ground. He is doing exactly what God said to do, get fruit and vegetables from this ground, and he does it. So the idea that this is acceptable and this isn't because one has blood and the other doesn't wash for that reason and it doesn't wash because these offerings are in fact prescribed in the Mosaic Law. Let me show you what I mean. Exodus 23 16, you shall keep the feast of harvest of the first fruits of your labor and what you sow in the field. Cain is doing an offering that's acceptable. Cain is doing an offering that's required in the Mosaic Law. So the issue can't be that one had blood and the other doesn't, because the Mosaic Law is full of examples of bring the fruit of the ground to me. Lots of them. For example, Deuteronomy 26 two, and you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, and you shall put it in a basket. That's exactly what Cain does, or does he. The Jewish reader of Moses' day would have immediately identified the words missing. The words missing, the words not there. If I were marking in my Bible and I were you, I would underline an offering. I would underline the words an offering. Cain brings an offering and then I would underline the words, two words or two sets of words, the firstborn, the firstborn and their fat. Because that's what I want you to see. I want you to remember this. We are comparing and offering to the firstborn and their fat. There's a lot there. There's a lot there. Exodus 23, 19 says that you're to bring the best of the firstfruits. The best of the firstfruits. Exodus 34, 26 says the best of the firstfruits. Now do you see anywhere in our text where it says that Cain brought the best or firstfruits? Now I'm asking you to look at your Bible. You brought it to church on purpose so that you could look at it. And I'm asking you to look and compare and offering, the words and offering, to the complete description which is the firstborn and their fat portions. So I'm saying, here's what you learn about Cain's offering and offering, and this is what you learn about Abel's offering. The firstborn and their fat portions, or their fat portions. And so I'm looking at, this is the one that was rejected, and this is the one that was accepted. What's the difference? Well, here's the difference. The word best is not there, and the word firstfruits is not there. It's totally missing. Numbers 18, 12 says the best of the oil, and the best of the wine, and the firstfruits. Here's where we're at. The church in America, and I don't mean Breein when I say that, and I don't mean the true church. I'm just talking about the visible church, the one on the corner, the one that speaks on CNN. I don't mean the true church. I'm talking about the visible manifestation of the quote believers in America that go to a church and they call themselves a church. That church wants God's blessing. Take care of us God, shower blessing on us. Take care of our debt, give us a good job. And on and on and on, God bless, bless, bless, bless. And then that same church gives God Cain's offering. And they can't figure out why God has no regard for it. Proverbs 3, 9 says, honor the Lord with your wealth. Honor the Lord with your wealth. Proverbs 3, 9, 10 says, honor the Lord with your wealth and with the first fruits of all your produce. Then, then your barns will be filled with plenty. Your vats will be bursting with wine. Now the reason this verse doesn't resonate with the American congregations is because we don't think we're wealthy. Just ask us. Ask any church member this morning on the way out, do you think you're wealthy? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. In fact, let's be honest, there's never enough. Most of us are making far more money than we made 20 years ago, and we still don't think we make enough money. And it doesn't feel like we make enough money. We compare ourselves to Bill Gates, and we go, that's wealthy. How many of you, please raise your hand, how many of you have a toilet in your house? You have a toilet that flushes in your house. Please raise your hand if you have a toilet. Would you please keep your, oh, you don't have one? All right, I was checking right now, because I'm gonna call you out if I don't see any hands. All right, we're gonna find out. We're going to your house. Keep your hand up, please, if you have two. You have two toilets. That is to say somebody can go, yeah. Keep your hand up if you happen to have three. Yeah, ours would just keep going up, it's like ridiculous. How many toilets do we need to clean this week? Do you understand how many in the world don't have a single porcelain toilet? One. Do you realize how many people in the world live on what we spend at Starbucks in one visit? We are crazy wealthy. The poorest in Berean is wealthy compared to the vast majority in the world. And yet we struggle with honoring the Lord with our wealth. We struggle with it. Tithers make up only 10 to 25% of a normal congregation. Only 5% tithe, then 80% of Americans give 2% of their income. We can have a whole nother theological discussion as to whether tithing is biblical or required and all that, but let me just tell you what's not up for discussion is whether God expects us to give offerings. God calls us to be generous people. Okay? And the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ was funded by generous people. The ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ was funded by generous people. In fact, if you dig into the Gospels, you'll find it was often generous women. Women who were generous. Christians are giving 2.5% of their income. During the Great Depression, it was 3.3%. For families making 75K and above, and many of you are there, you don't think you are, but if you actually ran the numbers, you're there. Get an Army retirement and add one job to it, and you're there. Just any Army retirement, add a decent job, and you're there, you're over 75. And these numbers are shocking. Families making 75K, 1% of them gave 10%, 1%. I know how it works. When we get this threshold, then we'll start giving offerings. When we get this threshold, we'll start giving offerings. When we get this threshold, we'll start giving offerings. And you know what happens? You never quite get there, do you? For families making, the average adults give, in US Protestant churches, 17 bucks a week. $17 a week. You can't hardly take your wife and yourself out for a burger at lunchtime for 17 bucks. Now let's talk about Brian, because Brian's different. And I got to tell you right now, Brian, we are above the average in every regard, praise God. Let me tell you something. It looks like we are going to exceed our 2020 giving by 10 or 11%. Yeah, thank you. $165,000 more than was budgeted. $165,000. It's amazing. It is unbelievable. So I am not chewing anyone out. You guys are doing a great job. Many of you are. Look at these numbers. 15% of the membership gave 55% of the total income. Because here's what we're trying to figure out, just so we're clear. We're trying to figure out if you go out the right door, which is Abel, or if you go out the left door this morning, which is Cain. And who can decide that? You. You have to decide that for yourself. I'm not going to be the judge of that. You decide, am I a Cain or am I an Abel? Here's an amazing fact, this will rock your world. 25% of our income this year, which was $400,000 came from non-members. Did you hear what I just said to you? One out of every $4 given this year came from somebody who's not a member of the church. Many of them don't even attend the church. They connect Sister by sermon audio. Now, the average Protestant gave 17 bucks a week, but I'm going to tell you right now, brilliance, you guys are amazing. The average was 108 a week amongst the membership or six times the national average. Six times the national average. Praise the Lord. Yes, God is good. And many of you are incredibly faithful. So this pastor is celebrating God's good provision, and then asking you to consider who are you in the story? Am I Cain or am I Abel? So let's be clear, if God has blessed you to be able to give, Brian needs your consistent offering to the Lord. Why'd you even bring that up, Pastor? Three different articles I read, David. I love having you back here so I can just, it's wonderful. Three different articles I read this week, John, said that if you just tell the church you need money, they'll give. So here it is. We need money, okay? I told you, all right, I told you. All right, the light bill has to be paid, okay? Nothing's free for us. So now that you know that, everything should change for you in 2021, because now you know that. You didn't know it before, but the experts told me, you know, and I have to trust the experts, trust the scientists, and they said, if you just tell the people, they'll start giving. So you've been told. You've been told. So here's the question. God rejected Cain's offering. Would God reject yours? There are four options on the screen. Option number A is I give nothing to God to reject. So no, he wouldn't reject it, because you have to give something to be rejected. So that's you, I give nothing, and there's nothing to reject. And number B is in 2020, God got my leftovers. God got my leftovers. You know what leftovers are, right? That's where you get your gun, and you get your boat, and you get your new car, and then whatever's left gets thrown in the offering plate. And then there's a ton of you that you're C, you're in red. I strive to give God my best and the first fruits of my labor. And then I threw D in there because you have to have D. You can't just have three letters. So none of the above. Right. So which one are you? Imagine that system that I'm trying to get John to develop in the pews. So you have four choices and then everyone reaches and pushes a button and then the numbers quickly go on the screen. John says we need your money. Cat's gonna develop the app as soon as we give him enough money. So John's gonna develop the app. But seriously, we have to ask ourselves. Because the text is asking us, am I Cain or am I Abel? And we all want to say who? Abel. We all want to be Abel. So what about this best, Pastor Sean? Let's talk about this best. It's a superlative. It's good, better and best. Look at Cain's reaction. Cain was very angry. He gets told that God has no regard for his offering and Cain gets very angry and his face falls down. This is a very common reaction. Anytime someone's told that you didn't do well, that you didn't give me your best, immediately the face just drops. This is unbelievably applicable. This is so practical, it's ridiculous. This is students, this is workers, this is athletes. I was wishing that Coach Ty was this morning at 8.30 service because I was teaching him how to coach this morning from the biblical passage. This is the coach right here, God the coach, looking at Cain the player and saying, you didn't do well. And then Cain the player becomes very angry. How dare you say I didn't do well? And his countenance falls. You've seen it a hundred times. You've seen it a thousand times as a coach. Who else besides David has coached anywhere? Who else besides David has coached? Raise your hand if you've coached. Now raise your hand if you're a teacher. Keep your hand up. I'm asking for all these hands up. Somebody, do you have hands? All right, you've led people before. You're a leader. Okay, now more hands go up. Okay, now we got some hands going up. And oftentimes, you can put your hands down. It's your job as a leader to say, you didn't do well. That's your job as a leader. That's your job as a teacher. That's your job as a coach to say you didn't do well. God, the coach is saying to Cain, you didn't do well. And what's Cain's reaction? He's angry. He's angry. Coaches, teachers, and leaders have stopped demanding the best from their players because they don't want to deal with the anger and the fallen faces of either the players or the parents. I see it all the time. We're losing a teacher this year because I'm done. I don't want to deal with the parents anymore. The student puts together a mediocre something, a paragraph, a paper, something. They get the equivalent grade for mediocrity, a big C or a D, and the parent explodes in anger with all the long faces and their cane at that moment. They don't want to deal with it. So coaches, teachers, and leaders have stopped demanding the best from their players because they don't want to deal with the anger and fallen faces, all of which has resulted in, listen to me well, the normalization of mediocrity. And it's America everywhere. It's everywhere. If you get mediocre out of anybody, it's decent. If you're exceptional, you get promoted, you get made the boss. Where did you come from? Who taught you to be exceptional? You consistently do a good job, you're in charge. The Lord said to Cain, why are you angry? Why has your face fallen? At this point, you may be thinking, Pastor Sean's making much of what isn't in the text. This fits his agenda, and he's always saying the same thing. All this talk of best effort and first fruits, this is just an excuse to preach on giving on the first week of the year. Leftovers, this fits his agenda. Look at verse six and seven, please. Look at verse six and seven. This is unbelievable. I need you to see this on the text so that you say, this isn't Pastor Sean's sermon, this is what the word of God says. Look at the dialogue here. The Lord said to Cain, why are you angry? Why has your face fallen? I want you to make this a basketball game, because I know so much about basketball. That was sarcastic. It's halftime. That was timeout, which is not the right thing for halftime. See how backwards I am? I'm all chewed up. But you go into the locker room, and you're not winning. You're not doing well. And it's time for some players to get fired up. They haven't been giving you their best. And so you call them out. You have no regard for their playing. You have no regard for their offering. See the parallel I'm making right now? And you call them out. That's not cutting it. You're not paying attention to me. That won't work. I'll never forget the time. I'll never forget this. I'm gonna keep telling this story a dozen times. I'm at the basketball game, and he timeout, and he calls the ball again, he writes a play, and then they go out there, and David goes, I don't know why I even did that. He throws the clipboard. He's like, you gotta do what I say. Come on. This is exactly what's happening in this narrative. How do we know that? I'm not sure I agree with you. I don't see it. You're making much of it. Let me see if I can unpack it. If you do well. Oh. Why do you say to somebody, if you do well? What is the clear implication? They can do well and they previously weren't doing well. That's why you say it. You don't say that to somebody who's doing well. You say that to someone who wasn't doing well, who isn't doing well. This is how I know that what Cain brought, it had nothing to do with blood and fruit. It had to do with this wasn't his best, and this was his best. You say, can you prove that? Well, this little word well right here translates to a Hebrew word, and we give it the word H there for Hebrew, and then we give it a four-digit number, 3190. Remember that, please. We don't have to know how to pronounce it. We just have to be able to remember 3-1-9-0. So here's my thesis this morning. I'm arguing that God had no regard for Cain's offering for two reasons. Reason number one was it wasn't the best. Reason number two is it's the first fruits. It wasn't the firstfruits. How do we know that? How do we know it's not? Why does the text go out of its way to say that what Abel brought was the firstborn and the text says nothing about Cain as firstfruits? If you were writing a paragraph and both brought the first, then you would have the parallelism, firstfruits, firstborn. Right? Why in the world would you include the detail of Abel brought a firstborn, and then if he brought firstfruits, then you would include that detail. But instead, it's what's missing in the text, which is it's an offering, and it's the firstborn. Are y'all getting the details here? Nod your head if you're getting the details. Right, it's logical. We're expecting this. So now, remember that word best, the best, the best, the best, the best, remember that word? I looked that word up. I was following this along, I was like a detective doing research in the Word of God. And then, David, I went over there and I clicked on that. And you know what it is? It's the word well in our text. It's the word well. Let me back up. I lost some of you for a minute. Let me back up. Here's the word best right here, the word best. And this word is up here, 4315. I don't need to know how to pronounce it. All I need to know is the relationship. Is there a relationship? Because this is the noun, the best is the noun, and I wanna know, does it have any relationship to if you do well? And when I clicked on it, the root word right here, it became the verb of the word that God said, if you do well. So I could easily translate this, and it wouldn't be getting loose and goosey with the text, and I could easily say, Cain, if you do your best. Or I could say, Cain, if you'd brought me the best. Here's what you need to remember. Cain gave God the leftovers and Abel gave God the firstborn. The firstborn. The firstborn. God's response to Cain, if you do well, shows the reader that this wasn't Cain's best effort. It wasn't even a good effort. Cain didn't give God the best or the first fruits. Neither. I should have built this, but I'll hold my hands up. I like to use my hands as an illustration. In this text, this is Abel, and we have two key things that we're looking at. We have two key things. Key thing number one is the word firstborn, and key thing number two is the word fat portion, okay? Fat portion and firstborn. And then we move over here and we're thinking, all right, what are the parallels? Well, there are parallels. The parallels are firstfruits and the best. It's here for ables, it's missing. No, there's nothing there. It doesn't say first fruits. It doesn't say fat portions. It doesn't say best. It's missing. All it says is an offering. That word enough should be enough to alert us, an versus the. That is enough to show us the problem. You're still not convinced, okay. We're focusing on these ideas right here, the firstborn and fat portions. That's what we're focused on right now. Giving the firstborn of the flock is an act of faith. The giver takes what that which his animal has provided and gives it to the Lord, not knowing if there will be another lamb, another kid, another calf or another offspring. It's an act of faith. It's an incredible act of faith. Imagine for a moment that you have one milk cow and your milk cow is getting old. Your one milk cow is getting old. And so you have a calf and it's not a male, it's a female. That means there's a potential that this is gonna become your new milk cow. And instead you give it to the Lord. You give it to the Lord. You know what you're trusting in? That that cow is gonna have another milk cow. Are you guaranteed that that cow is gonna have another milk cow? You know what it is? It's an act of, say it with me church, it's an act of faith. You see, when you give God the firstfruits, it's an act of faith. When you give God the firstborn, it's an act of faith. When you give God the leftovers, that doesn't take any faith to give God the leftovers. No faith, you're not walking by faith when you give God the leftovers. Hebrews 11, four says, by faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain. Now you know, the next time you read that text, now you know why it was by faith. Because he gave the, say it with me church, he gave the what? The firstborn. Now let's look at this fat portions. Let's look at this fat portions. I wanna unpack this fat portions. I'm going to show you a verse in a minute and you're going to say it's a stretch, but I don't think so. You're going to say it's a stretch, but I don't think so. Here's Genesis, same book, same author, same culture, same time frame, roughly. And this is what we read, Genesis 45, 18. And I've got it in the ESV, the King James, the Net Bible and the NASB, four great translations. Notice this, please. I will give you the best of the land of Egypt and you're going to get to eat the fat of the land. Wait a minute, the King James says, I will give you the good of the land and you're going to get to eat of the fat of the land. The Net Bible says, I don't want to obscure this for you. You might lose the meaning here. So it takes the word fat, the literal word fat, and translates it to the best so that you understand that when God gives you the best land in Egypt, you get to eat of the best of the land. And then the Nazbi also does the same thing. The fat of the land is the best. So what I'm saying here is that we learn that the fat portions is communicating the best. The best. So we have two things. In Abel's offering, it is the firstborn and it's the best. In Cain's offering, there's no reference to firstfruits and there's no reference to best. It's not an issue of blood versus not blood. It's an issue of I'm giving you my best. This is the firstfruits. God, I'm giving you the leftovers. And God has no regard for your leftovers. No regard whatsoever, none. You see, God expects your best. From now on, every single time you read Genesis 4-7, if you do well, I want you to understand that God is communicating that He expects your best effort. This is a coaching verse. This is God's expectation for all humans is you give me your best effort. Mediocrity, going through the motions, apathetic behavior, partial obedience, a marginal effort, none of that's God glorifying. God's not glorified with your marginal effort. The next time your teacher gives your son or daughter a failing grade or a mediocre grade, you want to thank them. Thank you. Thank you for calling out my child's apathetic attitude. Thank you for calling out mediocrity. Thank you for showing me when they're just going through the motions. When they start to get angry, do you get angry with them, the student, or angry with the teacher for causing your little Johnny a moment of discomfort? Come walk in the shoes of a teacher for a day or a week and you'll change your entire perspective, Mr. and Mrs. Parent. You know the whole thing when we had that program where everyone gets a trophy, what was that called? Someone remind me. Upward, yeah, the participation. No, no, no, you don't get anything, why not? You didn't do well. You didn't give me your best effort. That wasn't your best effort. When Johnny doesn't give you the best effort, don't take him to Dairy Queen. No yogurt today, you didn't give me your best effort. When the countenance falls and they get angry, call them out on their sin. Take them to Genesis chapter four. Show them what the scripture says. Look closely with this text with me. If you do well, will you not be accepted? If you have an ESV, there's a footnote. There's an actual footnote. We need to pay attention to the footnotes. The reason they're there is because the translation committee is trying to communicate something to us. There's more information we need to know. And the text literally says there'll be a lifting up. There'll be a lifting up. Now you need to see this right now. If you do well, there'll be a lifting up. The ESV translates it, you'll be accepted, but the literal rendering is there'll be a lifting up. Now clearly, that is a response to his fallen face. There's a parallelism right there. If you're angry and your face is fallen, that is your countenance shows you're angry, you're ashamed, you're disappointed, you're mad, how do you fix it? Do well and then your face will be lifted. The Darby Bible, translated in 1890, renders it like this. Jehovah said to Cain, why art thou angry and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well, will not thy countenance look up with confidence? This is so good. Parents, parents, I'm giving you, you don't need a therapist, you don't need to buy a book this week. I'm giving you Parenting 101, it doesn't get any better than this. Don't go to a seminar, just come to church. When Johnny's not giving you their best effort and their countenance fallen, start giving me your best and everything will change. You can put a smile on your face. Your countenance will go up. It won't go down, it'll go up. The NASB, Mike Christensen was here, he'd have the NASB in his lap. I think, Bill Boyd, you have a NASB in your lap, I think. Why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? Countenance is in italics because the word's inserted by the translators because it's just literally lifted up. That's because our text is written in a parallel sense. This is why I'm absolutely convinced that I'm right in the previous parallelism to show this repetition right here. An offering versus the firstborn, that's the contrast. Do well versus not doing well. Countenance being lifted, countenance being fallen. Now please notice, God is not banishing Cain from his presence. This is so good. He's not banishing Cain from his presence. Instead, God is admonishing Cain to repent. He's coaching, this is excellent, this is so good. This is like halftime, and he gets two more quarters to go out there and play. How's he gonna play after getting this admonishment? We'll see next week, it doesn't go well. God takes the clipboard and throws it. but right now he's getting a chance. This is so good, and you and I get a chance too. Did God get your leftovers in 2020? Give him your best in 2021. When you got your giving records, when we emailed them to you this week, and you looked at it and you said, that isn't even close to what we could have given God, change it for 2021. That way your face won't have to be fallen the next time we do a message on tithing and giving. You see, the people who give to the church, their face isn't fallen because they know they're doing their best. When you know you give more to your 401k plan, you give more to your truck payment, you give more to four or five other things than the Lord, then your countenance is fallen and you're angry that the preacher's preaching on tithing. See, please notice, God is not lowering or changing the standards. He's extending another chance to Cain to get it right. Teachers, teachers, listen to me. Tell the student, do it again. Hand the paper right back to them and say, this wasn't your best effort. You can write much better than this. Give me a new paragraph. And by the way, don't give them the same grade that the student who gave you their best effort on the first time. They don't deserve that grade. Give them an opportunity to repent and get it right, but don't put them on the playing field with the student who gave you their best effort on the first time. And if they get angry, call them out on their anger. Say something like that. Why are you angry? Why is your countenance fallen? If you do well, won't you be accepted? Did you have any idea that your Bible was so practical? If I had more time, and I don't, I never do, we could go to Malachi 1. In Malachi 1, they give the polluted sacrifices to God. The broken, the lame, the blemishes. And God calls them out for it. Read it yourself this week. Malachi chapter one, read it for yourself. Four minutes, very practical lessons. Number one, when you give God your best effort, you can hold your head up. Now, I don't mean arrogantly. I don't mean arrogantly. But Paul said that he worked harder than anybody else. It wasn't arrogant. It was just the truth. And when you give God your best effort, you don't have to have a fallen countenance. You can go to bed at night with a clear conscience because you gave God your what? Your best effort. Now three quick theological lessons and we're done. Number one, doing well requires faith. Doing well requires faith. Abel is commended for his faith. Cain is said to be of the evil one. Abel is the believer and Cain is the unbeliever, but Cain is being given an opportunity to become a believer. What will he do with it? Hebrews 11, six says, without faith it's impossible to please God. Abel's offering is commended for his faith and is counted to him as righteousness. Where do you see that, Pastor? Matthew 23, 35, Abel's described as righteous. Just like Lot's righteousness, just like Abraham's righteousness, it's all righteous that's imputed based on what? Faith, faith on faith. Number two, doing well requires that you give God the fat. I want you to start saying it like this. I want to change the culture of this church. No longer is best going to be best, it's going to be fat. Why are we doing this? To help us remember the text. Hey, I need your fat. I need your fat effort. It might not go over well. Hashtag fat effort. We could try that. But we have to remember this stuff. If you don't remember this for next week, if you don't remember when you're teaching in power hour, if you don't remember when you're teaching in Sunday school, what's the point of doing all this hard work on Sunday morning? If you go default back to the blood, not versus blood answer, then why did we do all this diligent work? We need to think about this. If you do well, if you give God the fact, if you give God the best effort you have, will you not be accepted? Look at this text in two minutes. Good. 2 Timothy 2.15. This is our Awana text. And I think it supports this beautifully. It says, do your best. The King James study, it's to be diligent. The New King James translates it, be diligent. Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved. And then what's the very next sentence? A worker who has no need to be what? Ashamed. Do you get it? This is so good. If you give God your best effort, does your countenance have to be fallen? No, because you gave God your what? Your best. No doubt Cain was ashamed of his offering when God called him out on it. His brother brought the firstborn and the best. And number three, and we're done. Doing well requires that God is your first priority. God is your first priority. That's the difference between Abel and God, Abel and Cain. He brought him his best. He brought him the firstborn, the fat portions. Maybe he had 10 firstborn, maybe he had 12 firstborn. Does he give them all? Which one? He gave him the best. Are you giving God your best? What will you do this year in 2021 to give God your best? Let's pray. Father God in heaven, help us to see how practical, how relevant, how theological, how helpful our Bible is. Help us to see the admonishment that God gave Cain as an admonishment to each of us. If you do well, will you not be accepted? Father God, bless our efforts to do our best by your grace. In Jesus name. Amen.