If you have a Bible,
Genesis, chapter 4 is where we're going to be. We're starting up a new
series of messages this week called Baby Monsters. Yeah. And so welcome to week
one, Baby Monsters, here Fresh Life Church, a subject I
feel particularly qualified to preach on, because I
have a one-year-old baby in my house right now. So Baby Monsters, or as we
call him right now, Lennox. I love my son. Don't get me wrong. I love him a lot. And he's 99% of
the time amazing. But that 1%, that
1% of time, he's kind of a cross between
Boss Baby and Jack-Jack from The Incredibles,
you know what I'm saying? I'm not joking. He goes from being
just so composed, so calm, giving thumbs
up-- his new thing is to give thumbs up to people. But he doesn't give them
like you and I give them. He gives them like Bill Clinton. He's like-- And he's very diplomatic. If he gives one, he'll
give them to everybody. He'll work the room. You? Did you get one? Would you like one? Would you like one? Would you like one? His newest catchphrase
is, oh, yeah, which he will say repeatedly
if he starts saying it. And that's when he's
not choosing to scream, headbutt, kick, slam his
head against concrete to show his displeasure. And his newest,
most horrible trick, gagging himself to
the point of vomiting when he's really angry
just to screw with us. He discovered he could
shove these two fingers down his throat, which he will
do if he's really furious, and then he projectile
vomits and looks at us like, you got to clean it up. And he's right. So when he gets really mad,
we know to grab his hands. And then he's like, mm. And he's trying to
get them down there. He only does this daily. So Baby Monsters. Why? Because huge terrible deeds
come from teeny-tiny seeds. Huge terrible deeds come
from teeny-tiny seeds. And that means that whatever you
and I can cut off at the pass never has to come to pass. If you can stop
it in its infancy, it will never get to maturity. Now, the devil knows this. And that's why we saw what
we did in the Christmas story at Fresh Life Christmas. Those of you who
were here, you heard me preach the least Christmassy
message I've ever preached. You're like, was
it the wise men? Was it the shepherds? Because that's what it
was like at the church I was visiting when I
was with my cousin's family in Pennsylvania. They preached a really
nice, feel-good message about the shepherds. We got babies dying
here at Fresh Life. Because right after the wise
men left, Herod, the king, started killing babies
all over Bethlehem-- that's the real end of
the Christmas story-- while Mary, Joseph, and
Jesus flee to Egypt. And they have to run--
they leave the country and go on the lam for a while. Why did Herod try and
kill him as a baby? Because he knew if he could
kill him in his infancy, he would never get to maturity. And it's a whole lot easier
to snuff something out when it's itty-bitty, when it's
little and small, because then it's more vulnerable. If that can be used
for evil, beloved, we could use it for good. Because the huge
terrible deeds the enemy wants to come out of our lives. Because, yes, it's true, God has
a wonderful plan for your life, but the devil has a
terrible plan for your life. And the devil would love
for you to live a life full of huge terrible deeds. And we can take them
out if we stop them when they are not full-grown. We got to kill them when
they're baby monsters. Are you with me? Let's be here for the
four weeks of this series. I got a lot to preach. I got the whole
series mapped out. I hope you'll come next week. It's going to be amazing,
and then amazinger, and then amazingist. So you got to be here. Make the commitment
to your future. Make the commitment to
your family, to your soul. Let's be here together. Let's see God-- especially
as we're fasting, let's see God's snuff out some
baby monsters in our lives. Amen? Amen. In Genesis 4, we see really
one of the first instances of a big terrible deed
really, really showing up in a tiny microscopic format
in the story of Cain and Abel. And this story really
could be called the Making of a Murderer. Genesis 4:1 tells us, "Now
Adam knew his wife Eve." That doesn't mean he met her. It means they got it
on is what that means. "And she conceived and
bore Cain, and said, I have acquired a
man from the Lord. Then she bore again, this
time his brother Abel. Now, Abel was a
keeper of the sheep, but Cain was a
tiller of the ground. And in the process
of time, it came to pass that Cain brought
an offering of the fruit of the ground to the Lord. Abel also brought of the
firstborn of the flock and of their fat. And the Lord respected
Abel and his offering, but He did not respect
Cain and his offering. And Cain was very angry. And his countenance fell. So the Lord said to
Cain, why are you angry? And why has your
countenance fallen? If you do well, will
you not be accepted? And if you do not do well,
sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you. But you should rule over it. Now Cain talked with
Abel, his brother. And it came to pass when
they were in the field that Cain rose up against Abel,
his brother, and killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain,
where is Abel, your brother? He said, I do not know. Am I brother's keeper? And He said, what have you done? The voice of your
brother's blood cries out to me from the ground. So now you are cursed
from the Earth, which has opened its mouth to
receive your brother's blood from your hand. When you till the ground,
it shall no longer yield its strength to you. A fugitive and a vagabond
you shall be on the Earth. And Cain said to the
Lord, my punishment is greater than I can bear. Surely you have
driven me out this day from the face of the ground. I shall be hidden
from your face. I shall be a fugitive and
a vagabond on the Earth. And it will happen that anyone
who finds me will kill me. And the Lord said to
him, 'Whoever kills Cain, vengeance shall be
taken on him sevenfold.' And the Lord set a mark on
Cain, lest anyone finding him should kill him." Jennie and I had the
chance with our family this week to travel to a
church of some friends of ours, a pastor in South Florida. And the church is located very
close to Stoneman Douglas High School, where just last
February the most deadly school shooting in American
history took place, and 17 people were shot down
in the middle of a school day on Valentine's Day. We were invited to
come to this church because a large number of
the families of the victims live in and around the
area, and quite a few of the funerals for those
who were slain that day took place at that
very high school. And having read our
book that we wrote, Through the Eyes of a Lion,
How to Find Incredible Power in Impossible Pain,
they asked us, would you come during your
preaching break and preach on the message of
hope at this church as we approach
the one-year mark? They said, give us one weekend
before the Valentine's Day day approaches. We would like to
invite every one of the families of the victims
to come and be attendants that day if you're willing. And as you preach on
hope, we would also love-- I know it would
be imposing a bit, but in between the
services, would you mind spending a few
moments with the families if they would be
willing to meet you? And, of course, we said,
tell us when to be there. And we went, and
we preached, and we met with many of the families. And as we were getting
ourselves emotionally ready for those
kind of encounters, we were prepped by the
team who was telling us one of the things that's
very hard for the families to get over it is
that things have frozen in time at the school. In fact, they've
left the blood pools exactly where they are at the
classrooms and the hallways, because they intend to
still be able to walk the jury through the school. And they want them to witness
it and see it and feel it as it was that day. And so it's hard, as
they still continue to have school around
that and live around that. And I was talking to one of
the students who's a survivor. He was shot in the
leg, but survived. And I asked him, did
he change schools? Did he want to move the area? He said, no, because,
yes, it's hard to be there around the reminders of it, the
grisly reminders of that day. But if I go somewhere
else, no one can relate to what
I've been through. At least here, it sucks, but
we're all in it together. Wow. And that image of the
blood still seeping into the ground in the
hallways of the school was in the back of my
heart as my wife and I hugged these women,
and weeping, and talk-- the two widows of the two men
who sacrificially laid down their lives that day to
protect students, and talking to brothers who lost sisters. And it was, of course,
devastating and beautiful. And God met us there
in those tender moments there in that back room
at the church service. And many came to know Jesus
Christ in the gatherings. And it was a beautiful thing. And I was able to
bring greetings from Fresh Life Church as we
did all of this, of course. And that's the tone
of this passage. What we're left here is blood
crying out to God for vengeance from the ground. This passage, it ends with
pain, it ends with crime, it ends with tragedy,
it ends with grief. The first family
is now fractured. But it started in church. Did you catch it? Yes, it ends with a funeral. And it's become just this
cautionary tale of sibling rivalry the world over. Get along with your
brother and sister. Remember Cain and Abel. But it's not actually
about sibling rivalry. It's about what happens
with unchecked spirituality. Yes. Wow. Yes. You see, Cain showed up
for church that morning. These two sons came to
present an offering to God. And what the story's
actually trying to tell us is that your worship life
affects all of your life. It's not about the horizontal. Get along with your sister. Get along with your brother. Be nice to your neighbor. If you give yourself over
to road rage one day. Temper, temper. So what's going to
follow isn't 10 ways to get your temper in check
and not be a rageaholic. What I'm going to do
is point us to God, because it was
Cain's relationship with the vertical that
caused this to infiltrate the pain-filled trajectory
of his relationship in the horizontal. And it is your
relationship with God that's going to
fundamentally infiltrate into how you treat every
single person in this world, your brother, who you are meant
to be the keeper of in a loving way, and your neighbor,
whether it's your neighbor geographically or
just because it's the next person you bump into. You are supposed to
let that love for God flow out to your love
for your common man. So let's sort of
weave our way through, because I believe this huge
terrible deed in Cain's life actually started with this
teeny-tiny seed of how he approached the worship of God. You see, unlike Abel, for Cain,
it was merely a-- first thing I want you to write down-- religious obligation. That's our first takeaway truth. Cain treated church like
a religious obligation, just something he had to do,
something he needed to do. His heart wasn't involved
in it the same way his brother Abel's was. Now, you're saying to me, I
don't see that in the text. I don't see that in the text. Well, aside from the
fact that God did not accept Cain's worship
being there in the text, we have the added benefit
today where we sit, 2019, of getting the New
Testament luxury of the X-ray vision to look back
at the old ways. Listen to me. The Old Testament is
in the New revealed. And the New is in
the Old concealed. So when we want to
understand the Old Testament, we look at the New to
be the deciphering code that we could use. So what does the New
Testament say about this? A lot, actually. In fact, in Hebrews
11:4, the faith hall of fame it's been
called, we're told that, "By faith, Abel offered to
God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain." So you're like, what
gave him the advantage? Why did God accept
one and not the other? And the New Testament says, it's
because Abel did it with faith. And what is inferred in
that is that Cain did not. And Scripture also tells us,
whatever is not done of faith is sin. Now, what is faith? It's humble dependence on God. What is the opposite of faith? It's self. If you're not living
by faith, you're living by self, living by
sight, what you can understand, what makes sense to you. It's the life of pride. Where faith says,
Thy will be done, arrogantly, a lack of faith
says, my will be done. I did it my way. So Abel didn't have
a lot to go on. Gosh, what we have now, this
full revelation, the death, burial, the resurrection
of Jesus Christ, His promise to return, all
the New Testament epistles. Are you kidding me? All the cautionary tales
from the Old Testament. We have such a leg up. All Abel had was, his mom and
dad screwed up, and God said, don't worry, I'm
going to send my Son to crush the head
of the serpent. And Abel obviously
was like, I trust you. I believe in you. In his heart, he
said, I believe you're going to solve my problems. And you know what Cain
obviously was saying? I don't need you to
crush the serpent. I'll crush it myself. Cain obviously thought, I
can take care of myself. So I'll bring you this. But it's almost like,
you're lucky to have me here in this church
service kind of a thing. Now a little bit about them
would help you understand maybe how this happened. And I'm not saying
it's their fault, but they're complicit in it. The word Cain means, here he is. The word Abel means, weakling. Thanks, Mom, right? Really? Obviously, Cain was a
strapping young man. Obviously, Abel didn't do
so good on the Apgar score, you see what I'm saying? The grimace was not quite
there for that one, right? It's like, Cain, he's like the
baby was born at 10 pounds, and Eve limped for six years. And Abel, obviously-- I don't
know if premature or what, but he was more of the
runt of the litter. So maybe, just maybe Abel
had an easier time trusting God, while Cain was sort
of favored and treated as his father's son and
the strapping young man. And no one walks like Cain. And no one talks like Cain. And a spitting contest,
no one spits like Cain. And so he kind of believed
his own press clippings, so to speak. And faith is not
about how great I am. Faith is about how great God is. Fasting is not, look at what
I can do, God Fasting is, God, this is how much I need you. I'm depending on you. Look how weak I am without you. And so Abel, with
faith, trusted God. Cain, as a religious
obligation, brought something. But even the timing
of their gifts is telling of the lack
of faith in Cain's life. What do you mean? Did you catch it in
verse 4, we're told, "Abel brought of the--"
say it with me-- "firstborn of his flock and of their fat." So he brought the
first and the best. First time the sheep had babies,
he grabbed the fattest first one, and said, that's God's. Now, what if there's
no more sheep born? Doesn't matter. That one's God's. He didn't wait to see all the
ones and then go, OK, OK, yeah, I've got enough for me. I've got enough for me. OK, I can pay my mortgage. I can pay my da-da-da. OK, yep, pay my Verizon bill. Yep, got to pay down the
Visa card from Christmas. Yeah, that sucked. Got to pay down da-da-da-da-da. OK. Yeah, OK, great. Hey, good news. We can tithe this month. That's now Abel approached it. Abel said, first and the best. Firstborn, fattest
one, that's God's. But not Cain. Notice verse 3. It says, "And in the
process of time." In the Hebrew, that
literally means, at the end of the season. Once it was all
done, once he saw what he was working with, then
he was able to say, good news! We're going to tithe this month. Good news! We've got something
left to give to God. Now, when you give
first, it takes faith. When you give what's left,
there's no faith involved. It makes sense. Anybody can wait to see
what we're working with, and then give God a little
tip on the back end. And it doesn't
matter if he gave God a bigger gift than Abel did. He did it at the end, so it
didn't take faith in his heart. You see? So it was a
religious obligation. And God wasn't pleased. And so as God began
to bless Abel, as the story says, and
not Cain, what happened? Second movement to the story. The baby monster begins
to grow a little bit. And now there's
jealous frustration. Jealous frustration. Because Cain's face fell. His countenance fell. He began to brood,
because God blesses faith. And God's hand is on faith. I'm telling you, when
God sees a heart that's upright towards Him,
heaven moves on our behalf. And though Abel's a weakling,
He began to work in Abel's life. Abel had this faith that
could cause him to run and not grow weary, to
walk and not faint, to run as though he had
eagle's wings propelling him. I'm telling you something,
when you got the Holy Spirit at your back, it
doesn't matter what you're up against, it doesn't
matter if the world says, weakling. God says, highly favored. Highly anointed. I pick her. I pick him. And so Abel began just--
there was a glow about Abel. There was a vitality about Abel. And it was so evident to
Cain that whatever Abel had on his life, Cain didn't have. And I'll tell you, I don't
care if you're here he is or he or she is, the best
of men are men at best. The best of women
are women at best. And apart from God's Holy Spirit
upon our lives, we are frail, we are sick, we are perishing,
and our glory is vain glory. Our glory is not real glory. It's not lasting. And Cain coveted what Abel had
that could have been his, too. That's the craziest part. He's ticked that God's
not blessing him in a way that God wanted to bless him. Do you see the irony here? Cain wanted what a
person would have that he wasn't willing to be. If he would just be
a person of faith, God would treat him
like a person of faith. But he wanted the benefits
of a life of faith without paying the price
of living a life of faith. You see the irony here? In The Living Bible, God says,
in verse 6-- look at it-- "Why are you so angry? Why is your face
so dark with rage? It could be bright with joy if
you would do what you should." I want to make your
face bright with joy. I want to ease the
guilty conscience. I want to give you peace. I want to walk with you
in the cool of the day. I want to fill you
with my spirit. I want to work in your life. Abel's not anything special. He just knows I'm
something special. And when a person knows
I'm something special, they get to know all things are
going to be added unto them. Why? Because they're
seeking me first. Cain, you want all things
to be added unto you, but you don't want
to seek me first. You want the blessings,
but not the burden. You want the perks,
but not the price. You want the outcome,
but not the obedience. And there's a whole
bunch of people who want to be right with
God, but not walk with Jesus. They want Christianity
without the cross. But I'm sorry, friends. Jesus said, I am the way,
the truth, and the life. And no one comes to the
Father except through me. There's nothing you can
look to in this world that's going to give you
what you're after, but your face will grow dark
and sullen, and you'll be angry, and you'll be bitter, and you'll
begin to take shots at those who are walking with God. Why? Because when your
motives aren't pure, you doubt those whose are. It's easy to cast a spur. They must be doing
something wrong. They must be doing
something wrong. No. God says, I'm just
working in their life like I want to work in yours. But jaded and cynical
and snarky he grew. And this baby monster
just got bigger, till finally this
jealous frustration led to this huge,
terrible, wicked action. And this is the
grisly moment of truth where he tricks Abel to
going out into the field, and bludgeons him to death, and
snuffs out the life of his baby brother because of
jealousy, because of rage, because the spirit of
religion was on Cain's life. And now Abel's dead. And Cain's standing there with
his brother's blood dripping from his hands. What have I done? He allowed the baby
monster to grow. And he should have seen it
coming, because God called it in advance. God spoke to him, and He
said, verse 7, Cain's sin lies at the door. Its desire is for you, but
you should rule over it. Another translation
gives even more clarity when it says, watch out,
Cain, watch out, Cain. Sin is waiting to attack you. It's longing to destroy you. And then notice-- tell me
God's not on Cain's side-- but you can conquer it. This is the deciding
moment, Cain. I know you see
your sinful desire. I know you think it's over
there, and it's little, it's small, but it's crouching. Sin crouches. Listen to me. The word crouch is
used of cats, always cats of prey, cats that
prey on other things. And the way they hunt-- you've
seen them-- what do they do? They crouch. They make themselves
seem smaller. So if the wildebeest
glances over, it's like, oh, what's that? Oh, it's just a small thing. Not a big problem. It's a small thing. They crouch. Why? It's the nature of sin to
make itself seem smaller than it is, so that you invite
it into your life seeing it as one thing-- oh, it's just
a small little thing-- not knowing that once
it's in your life, it's going to unfold
itself and unfurl itself to its full height. And you'll see, it
was just crouching, so you would think it was
less dangerous than it was. But it's already
in your life now. He's saying, sin is
crouching at the door. Don't let it into your heart. This should send chills up
your spine, because why? God is saying to you,
sin is not your friend. It's not on your side. It's not a pet. It's not something to mess with. It's not something to toy with. Come on, Dustin. His name is Dart. He's a pollywog. He seems cute right now. Oh, yeah, I'm preaching
Stranger Things up in here in the new year. I'm telling you,
it's going to get bigger and bigger and bigger. You don't own it. One day it's going to own you. It wants to destroy you. Its desire is for you. So here's what you got to do. When the sin's small, when
it's just a baby monster, you got to crush it underfoot
like the monster that it is. You got to conquer it. What I'm trying
to say is that you got to be a victor
over your sin or you will be a victim of your sin. That's my whole sermon
in just one sentence. Sin is dangerous. Sin is deadly. Sin is lethal. It always starts small, but
it inevitably and invariably grows. In fact, the gospel-- or, actually, the
brother Jesus, James, put it this way when he said,
"Each person's own desires and thoughts drag them into
evil and lure them away into darkness. Evil desires give
birth to evil actions. And when sin gets fully
mature, it can murder you." Someone once said that
sin will always take you further than you wanted to go,
keep you there longer than you wanted to stay, and cost
you more than you were ever willing to pay. It's deceitful. Sin deceives us. It deludes us. It tells us, I'm just over here. I'm not going to eat much. You won't even notice me. You can have your whole
spiritual life walking with God and your happy marriage. And what's the harm
once your family goes to bed if you drink half
this bottle of Jack Daniels? What's the harm with a
little bit of pornography? It's a vent. It's a release. You're not going to
actually have an affair. This is just a little
thing on the side. What does it matter if
you fudge a little bit and cook the books a little bit? Well, it's not that bad. There's way worse things
you could be doing. And you'll start to
tell yourself things, like the worst of which would
be, well, you know, Hitler. It's like, really? Is that the standard by
which we judge things? As long as you don't murder
6 million people, we're OK. Sin makes you stupid. It tricks you. It seduces you. It warms you. It intoxicates you. And when you're
inflamed with passion, it's telling you
all these things, like it's going to be fine. This is the last time. It's telling you
you should stop. This is the last time
you're going to do it. But you have to
give in this time. But after this time, it's done. Tomorrow you're going to quit. And eventually it's
going to be over. And you're slowly being
blinded and tricked all the way to the grave. And sin always
has death in mind. When you give in to a
temptation, you get pregnant. Conceiving death,
the Bible says. And that's what's going
to come out eventually at the end of the day. And so that's why
we have to see this for what it is, an
opportunity to kill the baby monster before it
ever has the chance to grow into a
full-fledged wicked action. Now I want to close
on a little bit more of a positive,
upbeat note, and that is to show you that all
throughout this story, there has been one
consistent element in all of man's weakness and
infirmity, and that is God's gracious provision. Because, yes, it was Cain's
religious obligation, and then jealous
frustration, and then finally the wicked action. I get it. I get it. I get it. But that's not what
the story's actually trying to impress on our minds. It's trying to show
us, in the midst of all of this, how good is our God? How good is our God is
the lead of this story, because in every step
of Cain's journey, there was God still saying,
right now, I'll meet you here. Right now, I'll meet you here. In your religious
obligation, I'll bless you. Just put your faith in me. And that's why God
asked so many questions. Did you notice that? Go back on your own time. Count how many
questions God asked. Question, question, question. He doesn't come and go, hey,
phony, I see you're fake. Those vegetables? You don't even care. Then he says, that wasn't God. He said, hey, Cain, why
are you so bummed out? Why? Why da-da-da-da? Question, question, question. Why? Here's why. God's a wonderful counselor. Wonderful counselor. I know when I've gone to seek
out professional counseling, because it's good for the soul,
they've asked more questions than they've given answers. Why? Because they're leading. Jennie and I, when we did
some marriage counseling this past year to work
some stuff out in our life, and it just was a really big
benefit and a blessing for us, it was just question, question,
question, question, question. Why? We started to do our
own math a little bit. And in giving answers
to the questions, we started to see solutions. Wonderful counselors
always ask questions. And God's the
Wonderful Counselor. That's one of His names. So, of course, He's peppering
Cain with questions. Why? Graciously giving
him a provision. This is going to be a consistent
theme to the whole baby monster series. In every temptation
you and I ever face, there's always a way of escape. You will never be able to say
with regret 20 years from now, looking back when you made
a shipwreck of your business or your marriage or your family
or your life or your integrity or your reputation or
the name of Jesus Christ that you've rubbed
through the mud and given people reasons to
say the church is just full of hypocrites because they
were in relationship with you, you will never be able to say, I
didn't have a chance to say no. No one can make you
do anything, honey. No one can make you do anything. You have a choice. Yes, you might have bad friends. You might have been born
into a screwed up family. You might have a lot
going against you. But God promises
in every temptation to give us a way of escape. You have a choice. You can, right now, say,
today's a different day. I'm telling tell you, right
now, you have a choice. You don't have to
date that guy anymore. He's no good for you. You know it. Your friends have
been telling you that. Delete his number
from your phone. Tell him it's over right now. Come talk to your campus pastor. Let your campus pastor
send that text for you. I'm just telling you, you
always have a way of escape. So all throughout, gracious
provision, gracious provision, all the way to the end
when Cain's killed Abel. And what does God say? I'm going to protect
you with a mark. Because Cain says,
someone's going to kill me. No, I'm going to protect you. I'm going to guard you. Why? Because God was still seeking
out Cain, still pursuing Cain. The story-- we're left seeing
God chasing Cain out the door out into this lonely world
where he's run out as a vagabond by himself because
of his own choices. And yet God pursues, still,
all the way to the grave. Why? He's trying to give
Cain the opportunity to do the only thing that
would give him any peace, and that is to stop lying
and running and hiding, and tell his dad the truth. When I was a little boy,
my sister and brother and I found out how to steal candy
from a vending machine. We could put our little
arms in the little slot. You push C7, the
Butterfinger, the coil moves. Remember when Dwight
hammered fruit and vegetables into those coils? One of those machines. We figured out our hand
could go in and then up, and we could pull
the little coils. And the whole bottom row,
we could get all that candy. That was just gum. We weren't really excited
about gum and mints. So we got a letter opener
from my dad's office. And this was in the waiting room
of the building he worked in. And with a letter opener,
we could get the top two rows above that. And that was where the
good stuff was, y'all. There was chips. And then eventually
there was candy bars. And we cleaned out
all three rows, because no one's
going to notice that. And now we have this
big bag of candy. And our big dilemma was,
what do we do with it? So we buried it. We went outside. And we dug up rocks and
dirt with our bare hands. We had filth under
our fingernails. I can still feel it. And I felt my heartbeat
racing out of my chest as we buried this candy. And then we tried
to act innocent. What have you been doing? Nothing. And I'm telling you,
I still remember when we walked back
in the building, I saw someone walking in the
other direction of the hallway. And I just thought
to myself, that's got to be a police officer. Undercover, obviously. It's a sting operation. The candy company's
been involved. I was delirious with suspicions. I walked in an
eight-year-old boy-- the big thing was how
far I could jump out of the swing set, and now
I'm paranoid of getting thrown in the slammer. A couple days later, we got
brought again to this office. And had a little
bit of time to kill. And all we wanted to do
was go dig up our candy. And when we got
to the spot, there was a dead squirrel lying there. And we were freaked out. This is a bad omen if
there was ever a bad omen. The squirrel died on our--
it was like, oh my God! What do we do? So we buried the
dead squirrel, too. We were like, we got
to hide the squirrel. They're going to know. Someone's going to
see the squirrel and know there's candy
below, and it was us. Hide the squirrel! So we had a funeral
for the squirrel. We didn't get any
candy that day. So now there's candy side
by side with squirrel. Now we've got more dirt
under our fingernails. And I don't know if
it was a week or two, but I've never felt so sick. I felt awful. My relationship with my parents,
school, it was all just-- it was all I could think about. I was having nightmares at night
involving a squirrel climbing out of a shallow grave, and
candy bars all dancing around, and police throwing
me in prison. And, honestly, this is a
traumatizing moment for me. I'm going to be
vulnerable here with you. I was like, this sounds funny. It was dark. It was bad. It was like The Revenant,
like, [HISSING].. And then there came a day when I
was in the backseat of my dad's car. He drove a New Yorker. And he said to me,
how was school today? And I just started weeping. And I was just like, I stole it! I did it all! I know you sent the
private detective. And it was the
squirrel that died. I didn't do it! And he was more confused
about the squirrel than, honestly, the candy. It took him a long
time to figure out what we were even saying. And I texted my
older sister, do you remember the squirrel
and the candy? And she goes, yeah. Did we kill the squirrel? I'm like, no, sicko, we
didn't kill the squirrel. That's how she remembered it. In her mind, the squirrel
was dead at our hands. I didn't touch the squirrel. I'm innocent of the
squirrel's blood. But I stole the candy. And I owned it up. And I'm just going to
tell you something. I don't remember exactly
what the punishment was and what that looked
like after that. I just know I've never
slept so good in my life as I slept that night getting
to tell my dad the truth. And Cain's running and hiding. And am I my brother's keeper? And I don't know where
he is, and pretending. God didn't ask him where
Abel was for information. He asked him seeking out
opportunity for confession. Some of you feel like
God's chasing you down and against you because
He wants to bust you. God's pursuing you,
so He can give you space to do the one thing
that will bring comfort to your heart. If you confess your
sins to Him, He's faithful and just to
forgive you and cleanse you from all righteousness,
because the blood of Jesus speaks a better word
than the blood of Abel. Jot down Hebrews 12:24. That's what that verse says. It says, the blood of Abel
speaks out condemnation. And all of us have
our own blood of Abel out there, speaking of our sins. But there's blood that was shed
on the ground that was absorbed into the Earth and the
soil of this planet, and it was the blood
of Jesus shed for you. And the blood of
Jesus also speaks out. And the reason God
chases you and the reason He pursues you is not because
of the blood that you shed on this planet, it's because
of the blood of His son Jesus that was shed
because of the blood that you shed on this planet. And the reason He's chasing you
and the reason even right now He has you listening
to this crazy preacher with the candy-stained
memory is because He wants to tell you your sins were
paid for in full at the cross. And if you would give
your heart to Him, He will save you
and make you new and give you a life full of
peace and purpose and strength and power. And, Father, I pray for all
those listening to my voice right now. And I pray for all of us
as we enter into this 21 days of prayer and fasting. And we pray like the
psalmists prayed. God, cleanse me
from secret sins. Raise your hands if you're
willing to pray this with me. God, would you show us
where our baby monsters are? What are the tiny pet sins
we've excused that are going to grow up and take us out? Would you show them to us, God? And would you, by your
Holy Spirit strength during these sacred days
of prayer and fasting, would you give us Holy Spirit
power to tear down strongholds through the name of Jesus? Open our eyes to see where we're
blind to our own blind spots. We want to know you. We want to make you
known to this world. Would you meet us here? You can put your hands down. I want to pray now
for those who are here and you've never given
your heart to Jesus. This is your day. Now is the time. If you've never trusted
Jesus for salvation for you-- it's a religious obligation. Here's what you do for God. Here's what you do for God. But you've never accepted
what he's done for you. But the Bible says, if you
believe in Him, He's faithful. He's faithful to save
you, to make you new, to give you a new heart. That could happen
right now, but you have to open the door of
your heart and let Him in. I'm going to pray a prayer. I want to invite you to
pray this prayer, making it your own, saying it
to God out loud after me, declaring that you accept Jesus
as your Savior, as your Lord. The promise of heaven,
a hope-filled life could be yours. Pray this prayer with me. Dear God-- Dear God-- --I know I'm a sinner. --I know I'm a sinner. I need your salvation. I need your salvation. I've done wrong. I've done wrong. There's no excuse for that. There's no excuse for that. But I accept-- But I accept-- --what Jesus paid for-- --what Jesus paid for-- --at the cross-- --at the cross. --forgiveness. --forgiveness. Thank you for new life. Thank you for new life. I give you mine-- I give you mine-- --in Jesus' name. --in Jesus' name.
