The second Bible reading is from Genesis chapter 4. 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, and his face fell. The Lord said to Cain, why are you angry, and 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. Cain spoke to Abel his brother, and when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain, Where is Abel your brother? He said, I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper? And the Lord said, what have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground. And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. When you work the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength. You shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth. Cain said to the Lord, my punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground, and from your face I shall be hidden. I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me. And then the Lord said to him, Not so. If anyone kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord put a mark on Cain, lest any who found him should attack him. Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden. Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. When he built a city, he called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch. Enoch was born Erad, and Erad fathered Mahujail, and Mahujail fathered Methujail, and Methujail fathered Lamech. And Lamech took two wives. The name of one was Adar, and the name of the other Zillah. Adar bore Jabal. He was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock. His brother's name was Jubal. He was the father of all those who play the lyre and the pipe. Zillah also bore Jubal Cain. He was the forge of all instruments of bronze and iron. The sister of Jubal Cain was Namar. Lamech said to his wives, Adah and Zillah, hear my voice. You wives of Lamech, listen to what I say. I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. If Cain's revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech's is 77-fold. And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and called his name Seth. For she said, God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel, for Cain killed him. To Seth also a son was born, and he called his name Enosh. At that time, people began to call upon the name of the Lord. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Lord, we are grateful that it is your word that we just heard read to us. Jesus, you are the good shepherd. And you say that your sheep hear your voice and that they know it is your voice. So would you give us ears to hear your voice this morning that we would receive this word as your word? Holy Spirit, we pray that you would work in our hearts to do what we cannot do, and that is to understand and to believe and to be changed. And we pray that this would be done, Lord, for your great glory we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, friends, let me invite you to keep your bulletins open there to Genesis 4 or in your Bibles, if you have a Bible with you this morning, to turn to Genesis 4. If you don't have a Bible, you'd like a Bible, there's some Bibles in the back. You are very welcome just to get up and go help yourself to one of those Bibles here today. A few weeks ago, Adam Harris and I had the opportunity to gather with some other Christian brothers and sisters as part of our wider Anglican partnerships here in the U.S. And one of the gentlemen who was speaking at this gathering that we were at was a man by the name of John Rucciano. He's actually a bishop in the Anglican province of Rwanda. And he's someone who, in his ministry, experienced firsthand the immense tragedy of the Rwandan genocide that occurred there some 30 years ago now, in which, in the span of only about 100 days or so, somewhere between half a million to a million people were systematically murdered. And one of the things that Bishop Roushianna said about the genocide that occurred there was that we didn't just lose those who were killed, he said, but we also lost those who did the killing. Because those who did the killing, this brutal systematic attempt to eliminate a whole ethnic group, it caused those who did that to lose their humanity. That's how he put it. And so he said, it's so painful in Rwanda because it's a double loss. We lost all those people who died and we lost all those who did the killing. Because that's what sin is like. Sin takes something of our humanity. God made human beings in his image, but sin makes us less than human. Because what it does is it defaces that image of God in which we were created. And this is especially pronounced with the sin of murder. That act of intentionally taking the life of another human being. It's, well since John Rucciano put it, it's a double loss. And it's that kind of tragic double loss, a loss of life and a loss of true humanity, that we're looking at this morning in our continuing study in the book of Genesis. And so friends, my hope and prayer for us this morning is that when faced with such sin and evil as we're going to encounter in our passage here today, I pray that it'll become even more clear to us just how desperately we need Jesus. That Jesus is our only hope. That Jesus is our only means of salvation. So again, do look with me, if you will, here at Genesis chapter 4. Over the last two weeks, we worked our way through the first three chapters of Genesis. Genesis 1 is the big picture account of God creating the heavens and the earth in seven days. Genesis 2 then narrows in on the formation of the Garden of Eden, this wonderful paradise of delight and pleasure that we noted was kind of temple-like in its description, meaning it was a place in which God dwelt and was a place where God was to be worshipped. And therefore, Genesis 2 also focused in on the creation of the first man and the first woman, Adam and Eve. And you'll remember, I hope, that wonderful description from Genesis 2 about how God lovingly and intimately breathed into Adam's nostrils the breath of life, such that Adam then became a living being. And it was Adam's job given to him by God to work and cultivate and keep the garden. And so God, in his kindness, then gave to Adam the gift of his wife Eve so that she would be a strong helper for him in that work of cultivating the worship of God in Eden. And yet, of course, that's exactly what they both failed to do. Genesis 3 recounts the tragic events of Adam and Eve being so deceived by the serpent Satan that they come to reject God's authoritative word as they begin to question and doubt just how good and generous God really is. And so at the instigation of the serpent Satan, they rebel against God, they sin against God, and as a result, the good world that God created was forever changed. And because of human sin, the world was now to be marked by pain and death and hardship and struggle. And so ultimately at the end of chapter 3, God banishes Adam and Eve from that paradise he created. They're removed from the Garden of Eden. And so what we have from chapter 4 onwards then is the beginning of life and civilization outside of Eden. Now, there are a couple of lingering questions that should present themselves to us as we move from Genesis 3 into Genesis 4. One of those questions is simply, how is all of this going to play out? We heard of the judgments of God given in chapter 3 in response to Adam and Eve's sin, but how exactly will all of that play out in everyday life? You know, in other words, what should we expect of a world that's now marred by sin and rebellion? And then the second question is, what about that somewhat mysterious promise that God gave in Genesis 3.15? Do you remember that? If you have a Bible open, look with me at Genesis 3.15. This is part of God's judgment upon the serpent Satan. God says, beginning at verse 14, He says to the serpent, because you have done this, because you have deceived Adam and Eve, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field. On your belly you shall go and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring. He, that is the offspring of the woman, he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. Okay, so what Genesis 3.15 is saying is that there's going to be an ongoing conflict, not only between the serpent and the woman, but also between the offspring of the serpent and the offspring of the woman. Now you have to understand, this isn't referring to biological offspring. Because Genesis 3.20 tells us that Eve is the mother of all human beings in a biological sense. And so what Genesis 3.15 is referring to is something more like a spiritual designation. Okay, so in other words, among human beings, there'll be some who are spiritually children of the serpent Satan. That is, it'll be those who are spiritually against God like Satan is. Just think of those very confronting words that Jesus says to the religious leaders of His day who are opposed to Him and opposed to God the Father. He says to them, you are of your father, the devil. And so there are those who are spiritually going to be offspring of the serpent, but there will also be children offspring of the woman. That is those who, by God's grace, are part of God's redeemed people. And so there's going to be ongoing conflict between the offspring of the serpent and the offspring of the woman until one day, one singular offspring of the woman comes and bruises the head of the serpent. Meaning he will destroy the serpent and he will thus finally defeat all of sin and all evil. Which is why Genesis 3.15 is rightly understood as a promise. And indeed it is a wonderful gospel promise of salvation. A promise, of course, that's ultimately fulfilled in Jesus Christ. And particularly on the cross of Jesus, where Jesus, though crucified, yet defeats the very power of Satan. And so you and I, church, we know, with the whole Bible that we have, we know that Jesus is the answer. He is the fulfillment of the promise given there in Genesis 3.15. But what you and I have to appreciate is the fact that this gospel promise is given all the way back at the very beginning of the Bible. And so can you imagine for God's people early on what this would have sounded like to them? I mean, it would have been rather mysterious. Who will this serpent destroyer be? When will he come? Should we be looking for him? What will he be like? And not only that, but how will this conflict between the offspring play out? What will that look like? What should we expect? What will that mean practically for us as God's people in this world? Okay, so those are two lingering questions for us to keep in mind as we now begin to work our way through the rest of Genesis. And friends, let's just be upfront here. Genesis 4 is an ugly chapter. You know, there's just lots of ugly here. Now, there's hope held out to us, and we'll get to the hope. And we'll see how this chapter ultimately points us to Jesus in a variety of different ways, but we're going to need to first walk through the ugly. Because by doing so, ultimately, this chapter is going to show us a crucial lesson that you and I very much need to learn as human beings in this world in which we now live life outside Eden. So what do we see here? What does life look like outside Eden? What are some of its features? What should we expect in a fallen world? Well, one feature of life outside Eden is that what's done in the name of worshiping God isn't always accepted by God. Chapter 4 tells us of the birth of Cain and Abel, these two sons given to Adam and Eve. Abel is a keeper of sheep. Cain is a worker of the ground, a farmer. And so when the time comes to make an offering to God, Abel gives of what he has and Cain gives of what he has. Now, as part of that, I think we should note the fact that after the tragic rebellion of Genesis 3, God seems to have immediately instituted sacrifices as part of the way that he would engage with fallen human beings. I mean, it certainly seems that sacrifices, offerings, they're just assumed here. They're already an established custom. So there's no introduction to them that were given here. We're simply told that Cain and Abel, they bring their offerings to the Lord. And furthermore, God seems to have provided some instructions for how these offerings were to be made. And thus, God doesn't accept Cain's offering. That's the language that God uses with Cain in verse 7. It's the language of acceptance. If you do well, will you not be accepted? Now, commentators have a field day wrestling with the specifics of why God doesn't accept Cain and his offering. A lot of people speculate that maybe it has something to do with the fact that Abel offered an animal sacrifice, while Cain didn't. But that doesn't really seem to fit with what we know of sacrifices and offerings in the rest of the Old Testament. And so some have therefore speculated that maybe Cain didn't bring his best to God, whereas Abel is noted as bringing the firstborn of his flock. But actually, it's Hebrews chapter 11 in the New Testament that sheds the most light, I think, on why God accepted Abel's offering, but not Cain's. Hebrews chapter 11, verse 4, by faith, Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain. It's a matter of faith. Abel trusted God. Abel believed God. Abel loved God. Abel put his hope in God. And so the real problem, you see, with Cain's offering, it's not the offering itself. The real problem with Cain's offering is the heart with which it was offered. And the fact that Cain's heart here isn't right, it becomes immediately evident in the way that he responds to God. Because what does he do? Well, verse 5, he gets angry, which indicates right away, I think, that this offering isn't really about him wanting to please God. Because if it were, I think we might have expected a response more along the lines of him trying to find out how he can really love and please God. Lord, I want to please you. I want to worship you. How can I do that better? That's the response of faith. Whereas the response of anger indicates that Cain has a heart that isn't really focused on pleasing God, but is instead much more focused on himself and even on a sense of entitlement before God. You know, almost like, how could God not receive the offering I brought him? And church, I wonder if there's a warning there for us. What kind of heart do you bring to worship? Do you come to worship Imagining that God should count it as a privilege to have you worship Him. Is that your heart? Or do you come humble, wanting to please your Lord? Do you come before Him, not just with empty offerings, giving only as a matter of some sort of formal religious obedience, but do you come to worship Him because you have faith in Him? Because you love Him? Because your hope is in Him? We should be aware that in a fallen world, there is worship done in the name of God that God does not accept. A second feature of life in a fallen world outside Eden is that sin has the ability to devour us and to lead us to do previously unthinkable evil. as is evident in the murder that takes place here. Before we get to that ugly scene though, I just want you to see how merciful God is to Cain when Cain first responds in anger. Verse 6, the Lord said to Cain, why are you angry and 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. As you see, God is graciously warning Cain about how destructive sin really is. Sin is like the serpent from Genesis 3, always ready to pounce on you, to control you, to keep you from honoring and obeying God. And so God graciously warns Cain. And yet, of course, Cain refuses to listen. And the end result is that he lures his younger brother out into the field and then murders him in cold blood. He murders his own brother. He murders another human being into whom God had breathed the breath of life. When the New Testament refers to this incident, it uses a word that refers to Cain butchering his brother, meaning we're to understand that this is a brutal murder. The blood of Abel soaks the ground. And friends, this is only the first generation removed from the garden. I mean, it's not like it took generations for this to build and to happen. No, it's immediate. Sin is that fast, it's that furious, it's that destructive. And so right away, what's presented to us here, you see, is the conflict that now exists between the offspring of the serpent and the offspring of the woman. Cain, though biologically born of Eve, is clearly presented here as being not the offspring of the woman, but the offspring of the serpent. In other words, spiritually, he's a child of the devil. The serpent has devoured him. The serpent made Cain his own. And so after Cain murders his brother, we get sort of a replay of what happens after Adam and Eve first sinned. God comes to Cain, and like God asked Adam questions like, where are you? What have you done? Well, similarly, he asked Cain, where is Abel, your brother? And then after Cain's absolutely callous, dismissive response of, I don't know, I'm not my brother's keeper, God ultimately then pronounces his judgment upon Cain, saying to him in verse 11, now you are cursed from the ground. Well friends, listen, that's the same judgment that God pronounced upon the serpent in Genesis 3.14. It's the exact same Hebrew words in the exact same order. And that's not an accident. That's Moses' way of saying to us that Cain is of the offspring of the serpent. So Cain isn't the chosen one who's going to destroy the serpent as maybe Eve was hoping for when he was first born when she said in verse 1, I've gotten a man with the help of the Lord. No, Cain's actually of the offspring of the serpent. That's what Moses, the author of Genesis, wants us to see. And guess what? The New Testament writers, they picked this up perfectly. Just flip back in your bulletins or your Bibles to that reading we had this morning from 1 John 3. If you're in your bulletins, it's page 8 there in your bulletins. Did you notice what John wrote? Verse 12. We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. He's of the evil one. He's of the offspring of the serpent. And so as John goes on to warn us there in verse 13, we shouldn't be surprised when the world hates the church. Because there's this ongoing conflict that runs throughout history. Because this is what sin does. Sin devours people. Sin sets them against God. Sin sets them against the things of God and against the people of God. But even more so, I think in terms of application for us today, John says to those who would identify as God's people, he says to them, don't be like Cain. Don't hate your brother or sister in Christ, but love them. Verse 14, John says, we know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer like Cain. And you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer. You don't have to lure your brother out into a field and kill him in cold blood to be a murderer. You just have to hate him, says John. And that'll make you like Cain. That'll make you like the offspring of the serpent. Brothers and sisters, do you understand that Satan would love to devour us? He would love nothing more than to turn us into a community of Cain's, people who hate each other, people who speak evil of each other, who themselves devour each other. Church, hear God's gracious warning. Sin is always there crouching at the door. You must be on guard. You must set your heart fully on God. You must daily repent of your sins. You must daily put your faith in Jesus. And you must walk in love with each other. You need to carefully tend to your relationships with each other. If you sin against another, you need to go and seek their forgiveness. And if you've been sinned against, you need to offer that forgiveness. We need to walk in love with each other. We need to walk in the light with each other. This is so important. Because what we're being shown here is that outside Eden, sin has the ability to devour us and to lead us to do previously unthinkable evil. Do not be like Cain, who was of the evil one. Third, in a fallen world outside Eden, in a fallen world outside Eden, what Genesis 4 is showing us is that human beings in their sin will do everything they can to make a name for themselves in opposition to God. Verse 12, God tells Cain what his punishment will be. The very ground that soaked up his brother's blood will now work against Cain, and thus Cain will now be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth. When Cain then protests that this is too much and that this will lead to him being killed, God is once again merciful to Cain. Verse 15, then the Lord said to him, not so. If anyone kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord put a mark on Cain. Now, we have no idea what the mark is, so don't worry about it. It's not important. He put a mark on Cain, lest any who found him should attack him. Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden. So Cain is now away from the presence of the Lord. He is east of Eden, and so we're moving further and further away from Eden in every way. And though Cain's to be a wanderer, once again, Cain does what Cain wants to do. And so instead of wandering, he settles down and he builds a city. By this point he now has a wife and a son, so I think we understand that all this occurs over a long period of time in order for there to be an increased population on the earth. And the point that the Bible focuses on here is that Cain names this city after his own son Enoch. Okay, which is a bit of a foreshadow of what will happen with the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11, when the peoples of the earth, in their sinful opposition to God, set out to make a name for themselves. Well, that's what Cain is doing here. He's building the city of man. He's building the city of the world in opposition to the Eden of God, and he's naming it after his own son. And this then persists through his descendants. And so the next main historical figure we introduce here is this descendant of Cain named Lamech. And then from the children of Lamech, we get what is essentially the beginnings of human civilization. Verse 17. Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. When he built a city, he called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch. To Enoch was born Irad, and Irad fathered Mehugel, and Mehugel fathered Methuselah, and Methuselah fathered Lamech. And Lamech took two wives. The name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah. Adah bore Jabal. He was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock. His brother's name was Jubal. He was the father of all those who play the lyre and pipe. Zillah also bore Tubal-Cain. He was the forger of all instruments of bronze and iron. Okay, so here we have the beginnings of animal husbandry, the beginnings of music, the beginnings of metalworking. And of course, part of what we need to see here is, again, the mercy of God. It's the common grace of God in all of this. That despite human sin, God has still allowed human beings to exercise dominion over the world and to create things from the materials and the resources that he's given. And so in one sense, these things are good. You know, and they can be used for good. They can be used for God's glory. They can be used for the betterment of humanity. And so they should even be celebrated as a good gift from God in that way. But of course, what we also see here is the fact that you can have all of those gifts from God and yet forget God. You can have all of the resources of the earth and all of the skills that you need to put them to use, and yet set yourself in opposition to the God who's given all of that to you. Friends, I don't think it should be a surprise to us that as technology and civilization develop here in Genesis 4, that right alongside it, so does moral depravity increase and multiply. Not only is the sacredness of human life discarded with Cain's murder of Abel, but so now is the sanctity of marriage between one man and one woman, as Lamech takes not one wife, but two wives. And so not only does technology develop, but so does the exploitation and the abuse of women in this case. And then it multiplies. Abuse and violence multiply. Look at Lamech's poem, if you will, in verse 23. Lamech said to his wives, Adah and Zillah, hear my voice. You wives of Lamech, listen to what I say. I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. If Cain's revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech's is 77-fold. Now, I don't really know much about poetry. But that's not a poem that's going to win anybody. That's not a poem that's going to make you swoon. And friends, you can see just how far from Eden we now are when you contrast Lamech's poem with the very first poem in the world, the poem that was given by Adam, which expressed the beauty and the delight that he had in Eve back in chapter 2, when he says, at last, here is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. Praise God. They're two very different poems. What we see now in Genesis 4 is that life outside Eden, it has become so very different. It has become selfish and self-centered and self-aggrandizing. I mean, here Lamech boasts of killing a young man for simply wounding him. And whereas God mercifully put a mark on Cain that if anyone killed Cain, vengeance would be taken on him sevenfold. Here now with Lamech, Lamech completely distorts that word of mercy and he usurps it to his own use and his own bragging, taking justice into his own hands and arrogantly declaring a 77-fold vengeance should anyone come after the great Lamech. So friends, let's thank God for the very good aspects of culture and civilization that we get to enjoy. But let's also be clear that you can have all the culture and sophistication in the world And yet you can be very far from God. Which should actually cause some of us to perhaps reconsider why it is that we so envy the cultural elites in our world. I mean, what exactly are we envying? Have we forgotten perhaps 1 Corinthians 1? That God chooses what is low and despised in the world. even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. So again, you can have all the culture in the world and yet be very far from God. You can, in fact, use all of your culture and use all of your sophistication and technological development as a way of actually keeping yourself from God and thinking that you don't need Him. As you seek to make a name for yourself and to develop a world in which God is seen as unnecessary and irrelevant. Outside Eden, human beings will do everything they can to make a name for themselves in opposition to God. Well, I did warn you that there's lots of ugliness in this chapter. Life outside Eden is not very pretty in so many ways. But I did also assure you that there's hope here as well. And that hope comes to us here at the very end of the chapter. So look at verse 25. And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and called his name Seth. For she said, God has appointed, the name Seth sounds like appointed, God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel. For Cain killed him. To Seth also a son was born and he called his name Enosh. At that time people began to call upon the name of the Lord. So we see hope here in the fact that despite all of the sin and all of the rebellion, There are some people who are calling on the name of the Lord, which means they're calling on him for help and salvation, and or it means they're proclaiming his name to the world. And so what it tells us is that there's real worship taking place. God hasn't been totally forgotten, which is also very much true in this fallen world outside Eden. God always has a remnant of his people calling on his name and calling out his name. And the reason for that, the reason there's a remnant of God's people still here in Genesis 4, is because God gives another son to Eve. Out of which will form the offspring of the woman, which will ultimately lead to Jesus the Savior who destroys the serpent. Just notice how the word offspring is very intentionally used there in verse 25. In verse 1, in reference to Cain, only the word man is used. I've got a man with the help of the Lord, says Eve. But here, Eve's new son, Seth, is referred to as offspring. Why? Because again, Moses is very intentionally pointing out to us that Cain, though the son of Eve, wasn't the offspring of Eve, in terms of the spiritual designation given that term in Genesis 3.15. But here Seth is. And the point is that, yes, the offspring of the serpent, Cain and his descendants, seen most notably in Lamech, is growing and multiplying, and it's ugly in all of its sin. And yet despite all that, the point is that God will still fulfill his gospel promise to bring salvation to this world. And so Cain can kill Abel, but that won't stop the promise. And friends, nothing has ever stopped the promise, and nothing ever will stop the promise. Jesus, in the line of Seth, He has come and He's crushed the serpent. He died in our place for our sin, and in doing that, He destroyed sin. He destroyed death. He destroyed the power that the devil had. And He did so that we could worship God forever. With pure hearts, we can worship Him in joy and peace in a new Eden-like paradise, the new heavens and the new earth. Friends, that's what we believe. That's our hope in a fallen world. All of this has been fulfilled in Jesus. And so listen, I said at the beginning that there's a crucial lesson. here in all of this for us as we live our lives in this fallen world outside Eden. And that lesson is given to us in very stark terms here in Genesis 4, and it's this. These two offsprings, these two lines of descendants, are trying to show us that there are two very different ways you can live your life outside Eden. You can live your life either in full reliance on God, putting your faith in God, worshipping God, trusting God, hoping in God, calling on the name of God, or you can live your life in reliance on yourself, disregarding God, worshipping as you please, trusting in yourself and in your own abilities. putting your hope in your own resourcefulness, and seeking to make a name for yourself in this world. Some of you know this, perhaps most of you don't. I moved to New York City when I was 18 years old. And probably you could summarize the reason that I moved to New York City when I was 18 from a very state far away, was because I wanted to make a name for myself. And that's what you do, right? When you're 18, you want to see your name in lights. Where do you go? Well, you go to the Big Apple. You go to New York City. But you know what I found out just a couple years in after trying to do that, trying to live that life? I found out that trying to make a name for yourself is nauseating. It's nauseating. I wasn't walking very closely with the Lord at the time, and at that time, the Lord began to work graciously in me, began to remind me of all those Sunday school lessons that I had grown up with, and I remembered that there is a name that is so much better than my name. There is a name that is so much better than your name. There is a name that is better than any name in this world, and that is the name of Jesus Christ. There's only one name that really deserves to be shown in lights. And that's his name. And we would call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what this passage is doing, is it's showing us that there is a better name. It's trying to lead us away from making a name for ourselves. Again, Cain, he builds a city. He names it after his own son, which is Cain's way of saying, I'm stamping my name on this world. I'm leaving my legacy for my fame. And this passage is moving us away from that, and instead it's leading us to put all of our energy and all of our focus into proclaiming God's name. To calling on God's name. To relying on God's name. And in fact, it's the actual names in this passage that reveal that to us. Do you know what the name Cain means? It means to have gotten something. to have achieved something, to possess something. But do you know what the name Abel means? It means nothing. Like nothingness, emptiness, weakness. In fact, when Seth names his son Enosh, that too is a name, like Abel, that means weakness and frailty. And you see, those names Cain on the one hand and Abel, Enosh on the other. They represent for us two very different ways to live. Two very different ways to think of ourselves before God in a fallen world. We can either try to exalt ourselves and to make ourselves something before God. You know, we can try to achieve something for our own fame and legacy in this world. We can try to justify our existence in this world through religious offerings or through technological achievement, which is the Cain way of seeing ourselves and trying to live outside Eden. But friends, the Abel, Enosh, Gospel way is to live with empty hands, to come before God in weakness and utter dependency and in complete reliance on Him. And it is therefore to put all of our hope in Him, to put all of our trust and all of our faith in Him, to believe that He accepts us only because He's gracious. And so we don't need to achieve anything. We don't need to prove anything. We don't need to earn anything. We only need to call on the name of the Lord Jesus. Because you see, unlike Cain, Jesus is an awesome older brother. Do you know that's how the New Testament will often refer to Jesus? That he is our elder brother who, very much unlike Cain, looks after us and guards us and keeps us as an elder brother should do. Hebrews chapter 2, Jesus is not ashamed to call us his brothers. That's why Cain dismissively said, am I my brother's keeper? I don't care about my brother. I don't look after my brother. He's not my business. Jesus gladly and proudly keeps us and protects us. And unlike the blood of Abel, which rightly called for justice against Cain's evil act, the blood of Jesus, though, speaks a better word than that of Abel. Hebrews 12, the sprinkled blood of Jesus speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. Why? Because instead of speaking a word of justice, a word that exposed the sin of Cain as Abel's blood did, Jesus' blood speaks a word of mercy, a word of forgiveness so that our sin is no longer exposed and our sin is now covered by the blood of Jesus. And so unlike Lamech, in Lamech's poem of 77-fold vengeance and cruelty, Jesus speaks a word of complete forgiveness, 77 times over. Do you remember that? Do you remember when Peter goes to Jesus and he asks Jesus how many times he needs to forgive his brother who sins against him? And he says, as many as seven times, Jesus, thinking that's a lot, like I gotta forgive somebody seven times? Jesus says, no. I don't say to you seven times. 77 times. I praise God for such forgiveness. Praise God that Jesus is not another lameck. Brothers and sisters, we live in a fallen world outside of Eden in which we daily encounter those double losses. being both sinned against and sinning against others, defacing the very image of God in which we were created. But you see, with the name of Jesus, there's hope. And so with empty hands, acknowledging your weakness, your utter dependency, friends, cling to Jesus. Cling to Him with both of those hands. Cling to His blood. that speaks to you a word of complete and total forgiveness and mercy and acceptance with God. Cling to Him. Let's pray. Lord, I pray that right now your Holy Spirit would work in each of our hearts to show us the beauty and the majesty and the glory and the sufficiency of Jesus. Lord, would you turn our eyes to him, would you turn our hearts to him, that all the empty things of this world would hold no power over us. Lord, I pray that this church would be a community of love, Lord, of deep love, loved by Jesus, loving one another. Lord, would you protect us? Would you guard us? Would you do an amazing work in us, Lord? That we would love each other and to love you with all that we are. And we ask this for the glory of Jesus, our Savior. Amen.