When I am Happy in Christ My Scars will Be Used as a Platform, a Footstool For Blessings (Genesis 4:1-15)

We are going through Genesis 4.  Murder happened as a result of being separated from God.  Diseases also are a result. That’s why God gave us the method to solve everything through Genesis 3:15, the offspring of the woman.  People cannot go before God, because now they’re under the control of Satan, there’s nothing they can do about it.  That’s why God gave us the symbol of the Christ, Who hadn’t even been born on this earth yet, in the Old Testament.  We call this the covenant, we don’t see it, but it’s the path going forward, holding onto the promise. 

After Adam and Eve committed Original Sin and were separated from God, God immediately gave them the way to restore themselves, but their issue was their children.  Among those children, we talk about Cain and Abel today who surely received the way to go back to God through their parents.  One of their occupations was a farmer, and the other was tending sheep. Honestly speaking, being a farmer would have been better, but Abel, the younger brother, chose the covenantal occupation.  Because he chose an occupation that allowed him to eat and survive by holding onto the covenant. 

It says, “In the course of time, Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the LORD.” What does this mean? It means he gave worship however he wanted. Yes, there is such a thing as grain offering, but the grain offering cannot resolve the sin and curses.  It’s not that he didn’t worship; he did worship, but God did not receive that worship.  Do you think Cain was actually talking to God? This is how they expressed that, but because he failed in worship, these were the emotions Cain was filled with.  

When he looked at his younger brother who received grace after worshiping God covenantally, he was jealous. They couldn’t talk to God because they were sinners, maybe they did pray, but when Cain saw his younger brother, he saw Abel had received God’s grace, and people change when they receive God’s grace, and Cain hated to see that. It says Cian was full of anger.  When he looked at his younger brother, his face became downcast and he was full of anger. 

Why did he become like this? This is what happens when you lose hold of the covenant, it means you’re separated from God. It means these are the uncontrollable results that happen when you’ve left the covenant and left God.  Then you need to hold to the covenant because God works according to the covenant; He doesn’t receive whatever we desire.

It doesn’t work according to your efforts. If your diligence was enough, we could make our own way to God, but it is only by the blood of Jesus Christ on the cross, meaning nothing other than faith, but they lost hold of faith in the covenant.  That faith in the covenant controls and determines our whole life. 

The result of losing our covenant is that we work according to our thoughts and we compare.  Do you know why shootings occur?  It’s because they look at someone and they’re angry.  It looks like other people are happy but I’m always angry and upset, so I’m full of anger.  99% of people who come back from the military have mental illness.  There was a veteran who returned from the war after seeing his fellow soldiers die, and he went to a college where he saw college students partying, and he got so angry he shot up the students in Northern California.

However, if you receive the covenant, you receive the grace to have peace.  When do we get angry? When something is dissatisfying to me, I’m angry. Can you satisfy yourself? That’s an idol, then Satan works with that greed.  It’s not only that, if his younger brother succeeded, he would get even more angry, why? He’s not confident himself. He has no confidence that God is all he needs, and because he lacks confidence, he looks at others.  If the culture pulls in a strong direction, you’ll be dragged along in that way as if there’s something there. If someone says something boldly, they have no assurance.

What confidence am I talking about?  They need to have the assurance that God is with me, “I’m satisfied with only God because God has a mission for me,” then you won’t be swayed by others. If I know the path ahead of me, I won’t get upset while looking at others.  Just because someone says something to me, that doesn’t mean my future will change, but you will shake without this assurance.  They believe in Jesus, that was Cain, but he had no confidence.  Confidence meaning, “Yes, this will work,” the confidence not in yourself, but that comes from God.  

We call that “faith,” look at Joseph.  Maybe he did receive an initial shock because of what his brothers did to him, but he knew what God was going to do, so he wasn’t shaken, but it became a platform for blessings.  It was the same for David who suffered so much, he lived a life being chased by King Saul for 10 years.  He was starving so much he even went into the Temple and ate the food the priests were offering as a sacrifice. There’s no law that says these things won’t happen if you believe in Jesus, but those things don’t influence your life.  He knew he would be king.

If you know God’s mission for you in the future, it doesn’t matter if there’s the coronavirus. If anything, this becomes an accelerator and platform for blessings.  In other words, it doesn’t mean you’re living a blind and directionless walk of faith, but you live your walk of faith with a direction. Paul definitely said he wasn’t running aimlessly, but for a definite goal. In Acts 9:15, God called Him to a definite mission and goal. Because he’s going towards that mission, it doesn’t matter whether he’s in prison or not.

For you and me today, it is not about the words of people or our environment.  There’s a lot of situations where young remnants receive scars from their parents.  I think America is very different from Korea because Koreahas such a limited and small population, in fact, if anything, Korea blocks foreigners from entering.  But a superpower nation means the nation has a large enough vessel to contain all the other nations.  So that means all these different cultures mix together to create families, but the families do not have the gospel.

So, children grow up, but how could they not be scarred?  They mature without having anyone help them with their scars, and if the individual doesn’t speak up, no one else knows.  America is a nation of individualism emphasized privacy, so we get wrapped up in scars. If anything, if we talk about scars to others, it’s almost considered rude to others.  Not only that, but they’re not aware of their scars and they cannot express their scars so they try not to touch it, but the person gets more and more mature.  But this student still suffers because of the scar.  

The more someone is an elite, they have to curate an image for themselves, so they hide their scars and cover themselves up with good education, but that’s not the case on the inside, there are some kids who are oppressed because of this. These kids aren’t able to study well, either. They don’t have good relationships, and it’s expressed in these two different ways.  Let’s say they come to church but the church has no idea and cannot heal them. They only look at the outer shell.  They only say, “Do you know the Christ of Genesis 3:15?” But to this kid, this will only touch their knowledge; it cannot touch their scars. 

Then one day will come when their inner things are met with their outer reality, then they will explode, right?  You have to explode when the inner things and outer things are aligned, and someone will say, “Why did this person do that?” That’s what happens in shootings.  I’m just talking about that because it’s a circumstance we’re familiar with, but it happens in church.  It’s simply that other people have an external reality where they can own a gun and one day, when all of those external realities align, they will explode.  But if we’re completely unaware of this and think we’re living a good walk of faith by living a religious life, we’re killing all the kids.

I’m sure we put the terms and form of the gospel, and that’s very important as well, because it needs to go into them for the Holy Spirit to reveal the Word later.  But even if you put the words of the gospel there, if you’re not able to touch their very important things?  Cain killed his younger brother and God wanted him, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast?” In Gen. 4:7, “If you do what is right.”  What is “Good?” It is only one thing, Christ, the blood covenant. There’s nothing good other than that, so if you held onto the covenant and gave worship, would you be like this?  

But because you lost hold of the covenant, you lose hold of worship, so sin enters into you.  This means that Satan goes into you through sin.  What is sin? It is losing hold of the covenant, not believing in Christ. Losing hold of the covenant is sin.  Then, Satan goes into you, using that sin.  It says here that sin desires to have you, but you must rule over it. How can we master sin? There’s no way to master sin other than the covenant, so quickly hold to the covenant.  What is the scar in this child?  Give them the covenant regarding that scar.  But if you don’t do this and you just talk to them about the gospel, that’s not a bad thing, but it doesn’t click with the child. 

Ultimately, Cain is seized by Satan and kills his younger brother, Gen. 4:8.  We hear there are a lot of suicides in youth, including elementary, middle, and high schoolers.  How must you see that these little children are attempting suicide and committing self harm? This explodes from what’s inside.  These scars are exploding from inside, but they’re young and there’s nothing they can do about it, so they harm themselves.  They go to church, but they don’t receive the medicine of the gospel, and they receive legalism so they’re oppressed even more.  One day, they commit suicde. That’s what this is talking about.

This is something impossible unless you lose hold of the covenant and become seized.  So, especially nowadays, you have to have very deep counseling with elementary and middle school students.  If you have a surface level conversation, it won’t go deep. Have the process of conversing with them until you have the deep things. If you sit them down in front of you and talk about the Christ, that will go into their heads, but not into their scars. You need to have them express their suffering about themselves and about their families. Once they express this outwardly, you can talk about it.

If they haven’t revealed what’s inside, you just talk about the Christ, then you can meet a few times and then you’ll stop.  Becaus ethey have their own pride and their own embarrassment, they don’t want to express their inner scars.  In the family, if the kids don’t have the relationship with their parents, they will hide it.  The kids think, “My parents won’t even listen,” then they won’t talk because they know what their parents will already say, they know the answer, so they’ll never tell their parents.

“Why would I say something that would just cause disappointment?”  If anything, the reason they tell their older brothers and sisters about it is because they trust them.  But if that older brother or sister doesn’t have the answer, they can’t talk and they won’t be able to save them.  So in order for us to have relationships with one another where they open up to us, we have to completely kill our anger and self-centeredness. If someone looks at you and thinks, “That person only thinks of themselves,” they’ll never open up to you. If they think, “This person only thinks about success and themselves,” they’ll never open up to you.  It’s important for them to think, “I want to talk about myself to this person.”  That’s what it means to be there as a missionary.

You making fun of them is not just you making fun of them; you’re going there to save people. That’s just the culture of people their age.  That’s why the word “missionary” must go into you.  I‘m not saying they don’t know the word, but they need to go in with the confidence, “I am a missionary.”  Otherwise you’re just playing with them, but what happens? Hanging out with them isn’t just hanging out with them, but you have different eyes, and you can spot the things from within them.  That’s what I’m saying. Everyone says things but you’re not able to hear it because your interest is somewhere else.  

So look at that Korean student, Jo, he murdered a lot of students.  He is someone who was trained in Campus Crusade for Christ, and I don’t know how much of the gospel or the Word he received, but he received training in God’s Word.  I’m not trying to discriminate between different religious organizations, it’s the same for our church. If someone comes in and we’re not able to give them the answer, it’s the same thing.

These things happened ever since human beings were separated from God. If it were just us murdering, it would be okay, but they oppose God’s Word and every time God spekas to them, they fight back.  You think you enver do this? Wheneeryou come to worship, you think, “Why are you saying the obvious things again?” Sometimes you receive a lot of grace, so you’ll change, and there are some times when you hate the messenger and hate looking at the pastor. In reality, you’re actually fighting against God.  The pastor isn’t God, but because they are relaying the Word of God, it’s bothering something inside of you.

Then, when God talks to Cain, he says things like, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”  Then after he kills his younger brother, the Bible says, “Even anger is murder,” but in Gen. 4:11, “The land is cursed,” which means it doesn’t matter if you study or work, the land will not yield fruit and you’ll be ineffective.  Some people think, “I keep getting mad at people and fighting, but I keep getting good grades and promotions.”  I hope you learn the word, “total.”  I hope you will think about everything in totality, don’t just think about this month, but in 10 or 15 years.  You’ll end up spending and wasting a lot of money.  Later on, you’ll face problems you cannot handle or solve with money.  In other words, the things people think they need will not be helpful for you.

Gen. 4:12, “when you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you,” because these things are given by God.  “You will be a restless wanderer on the earth,” why do you have to wander and run away? That’s the spiritual state without the covenant. Where will you wander to? You party and try to play.  Because that’s your spiritual state, you just go with the flow.  It says, “Restless,” meaning you have no rest.  So even though you sleep a lot and rest a lot, you have no rest.  These are things that happen after you lose hold of the covenant.  They wander around very diligently, taking planes and time off work.

Gen. 4:13, Cain says, “My punishment is more than I can bear.” Satan oppresses you with guilt. If you don’t have the covenant and you have the law instead, Satan oppresses you with the law. The words sound correct but they oppress you. If these words were wrong, you could look down on them, but these words are correct; you have to break free from them completely, that’s why Jesus Christ died on the cross for you.  You have to look down on those words, “The Holy Spirit is within me and will fulfill God’s Word in God’s time schedule.” Otherwise you’ll be stuck on legalistic and oppressive words. At that point, you have to fight back, holding to the covenant. 

“That’s why the Lord fulfilled it, not me, and I believe in that. The only skill I can work with is how much the Lord has given me.” That’s how you win. You have no idea how sneaky the devil is; he says words that are correct, not wrong, and he says words from the Bible. The True Word is the gospel, but he confuses you, so the words of legalism cannot strengthen anyone, they can only kill people.

There was a gathering of pastors last Sunday, and among the many conversations, somebody said something, but those words made me feel afflicted.  If those words were completely wrong, I would have just passed over it, but they sounded correct so I just prayed and thought about it for a few days.  It wasn’t God’s standards, it was logical to people, but what’s more important is to save people.  If I’m lacking, God will guide me.  So the words of the law are correct but they will subtly oppress people.  

Instead of hating that person, I received the thought, “The legalism inside this person may make their congregation suffer a lot,” then I looked at myself. If potentially some members of the church are oppressed about the legalism within me that I’m not aware about, and they cannot overcome but are oppressed by it, through this incident, I looked at myself and tried to find God’s plan.  My original style is, if someone says something like that to me, instead of looking at the sin in a disgusted way, I look at the person in a disgusted way.  That’s Satan’s masterpiece.

Love people, hate the sin; their standards may be wrong, but you should love the person, and God will fulfill the Word exactly as He gave it to me. I’m not normally like that. If somebody does something wrong, I hate that person.  Instead of hating the sin inside of them, I end up hating the person.  Satan really holds onto us and moves us in a subtle way, and that’s how Satan has victory.  

If you’ve gone one or two steps in the word of God but you hate that person, that’s Satan’s victory.  I have victory, God doesn’t give us the Word for no reason, and I even start thinking, “What would I do without the grace of God’s Word?” Do you hate me?  May you have victory if you do. If you hate me, that’s losing.  The fulfillment of the law is the love of God and people, but if you hate someone, that’s a losing game.

Same for your family, who is the victor? The one who loves people is the one who wins.  But if you’re fighting so hard to win, you’ve already lost, because that person is under the law, that person is under the basic, elementary laws of the world, seized by Satan. There’s no reason to argue about what’s right or wrong, but loving and saving people is what’s right.

Genesis 4:14.  Cain is filled with fear.  If you fear for your life, what will happen? You will go on the defensive, you’ll defend yourself from attack and you’ll attack instead.  If you are angry at someone else, you predict they will be angry back at you, then you’ll go on the defensive to protect yourself. This actually escalates, and this is the world. These happen because we lose hold of the covenant.  But if there’s one person who has the covenant, they can change that culture. If one person has the gospel in their family, they can change their family, but this happens because both people are the same, they both say words that are correct from their perspective, but it’s wrong from God’s perspective.

Then the Lord gives him a sign, “Whoever kills Cain will suffer vengeance 7 times worse.”  Do you think when God said these words, the 7 times curses disappeared?  Unbelievers receive this curse.  They receive 7 times worse disasters.  Look, later on in the verse, his family receives seventy times seven curses.  The world just gets worse, it’s full of wars, and it’s the same with human relationships. 

Someone has to end it, someone has to lose in the name of Christ, but no one wants to end it or lose.  Being at a loss means you hold onto the covenant of Christ on the cross and you die.  But honestly if you look at it the other way, moreso than saying, “Do not be angry,” it is to love and save the other person. Isn’t that right? Instead of stifling your anger towards that person, love that person.  In order to do that, you have to hate what’s inside of them, the channels of Satan, sin, and their standards.

Love the person, that’s how you resolve this. There’s no other method.  It doesn’t matter who the pastor is. If you say something you don’t like, you won’t like it, that’s what humans do.  If it’s not the gospel, there’s no other way.  This doesn’t just end. If you’re not able to hold onto the covenant and the gospel, this will continue to future generations.  

People make weapons because they’re getting attacked, so they make very sharp logic, they are smartly educated to use this as a weapon, and they just develop weapons to fight against others, so of course people have no choice but to study well and build fortresses to protect themselves.  They build fortresses of success to fend off attacks.  Because their heart is so lonely, they need music to alleviate the emptiness.  

Then, for people without the covenant, their culture and science are bound to develop.  Look at famous musicians as well. The most popular music is those that bring out the deepest emotions and loneliness out of someone. Because people of the world don’t have the gospel, they are empty inside.  This means the culture of the world has no choice but to develop so quickly because they don’t have God, so they try to create other efforts.  

But does that work? It says in the later verses that the future generations have the same anger and scars in their hearts so they kill again. It means it doesn’t end; it is continuously relayed. It only ends when someone holds onto the covenant and arises.  If you hold onto your scars, you can try to go to 100 different churches, but that scar will erupt.  Instead of trying to heal their scars, they try to cover up their scars, so they pray to God, holding onto their success. They try all these different methods to live a life that won’t be looked down on by others, so they can heal their scars. That’s a futile life.

King Solomon said himself, “Everything in the world that isn’t Christ is vanity.” If your life is not completely happy with Christ, the Lord, then everything is in vain. People try so diligently to cure their scars and hearts, but it’s all in vain. For us, we are happy with Christ, then, the scars inside of you through Christ will be used as a platform or footstool for blessings.  Because that scar actually becomes an opportunity for you to know the gospel more.

Because you’re able to know the gospel through this scar, it becomes a footstool for you to save other people. If the churches are not able to change people’s thoughts like this, they will actually be taken in by it.  There are many different kinds.  But all of those things without exception are because they are unhappy with only Christ.  Even if you receive scars from your parents when you’re young, if that allows you to enjoy and know the gospel, you won’t think of it as a bad thing, just like an Olympic gold medalist does not consider their training to be a bad thing.

It’s not about changing the words, if someone is scarred, they’ll use words to stab people, and that must be healed.  But what happens if you go to a high position without that scar being healed? You’ll give bad influence to others, and God would never allow His children to live like that. God not allowing you to succeed is the answer. God would give you success so you can positively influence many people, isn’t that right? Maybe it’s different for unbelievers, but if you’re a child of God, that’s how God operates.  God already knows that you’re a child of God, and if He raises you to a seat of success, you would cut down many people, so God keeps you down.  But if you’re enjoying it within the gospel, God will raise you to a seat of success because you have to save others.

God brought Joseph into the seat of the governor, a position where he could spread the gospel to all nations.  It’s not only the W/ord for this week because America is the nation of packaging yourself with education, the color of your hair, when you became a citizen, when you moved here; no one is able to identify what is inside anyone else. If you become a perfectionist, you’d deceive more people, but who is going to touch those inner things? The one who receives the answer can save others. 

I mentioned what happened while I was in middle school during the message, but I was in puberty and had such strong pride, so I was completely possessed by demons. I didn’t understand at that time, “My pride was hurt, ”but the answer was in the Bible, “Do not be angry.” When your pride is hurt, you get angry, and I was an unbeliever at that time, and forget about “Do not sin,” I was living under the authority of sin and Satan used that to enter into me, and he tormented me with that until I received the resolution in the gospel.

Do you know what the center was? It was only knowing “me,”my pride was hurt, I never was able to think about what I did to others.  I said, “My pride was hurt because of those guys,” but it turns out, I’m the one who started it, but I never thought about what I did. I thought, “It’s because of those guys.” I couldn’t live because of my hurt pride, and until that was resolved, the demons tormented me.  Think about it carefully, I’m speaking as a witness so I can laugh about it.

Think about  this carefully.  Even if what you received a scar about wasn’t your fault and the other person attacked you, it can still be resolved.  Because I was an unbeliever, I didn’t know God, I lived as my own master, so these things had no choice but to come.  So if you’re stuck on self-centeredness, all of these things will get caught on you.  If you’re so tightly bound in the individualism and self-centeredness of America, it sounds great but you can’t succeed that way. It’s not enough to speak English well or to go to church. 

Anyone can go to church; you need to really believe in Christ.  Whom do you need to believe in Christ as? As the King, the true God, the Lord and Master, then you’ll change. Not just vaguely saying He is King, but the King of that aspect of your life, then Satan will flee and you’ll be thankful for that incident.  If it wasn’t for the complete and perfect Gospel, the situation would never be resolved, so you have to be thankful and see that in other people.

This isn’t something you attain by training; you have to see it, because you’re a witness.  If someone used to steal a lot, they can recognize other thieves.  If someone has been struggling with their scars for a long time, they’ll recognize others struggling with scars.  You’ll be able to say, “That person is expressing themselves in a bright way to hide their scars.” Are any people suffering from depression around you? They’re completely down, but some people are down but they express themselves very brightly. That’s also depression, but the way they express it is in a bright manner.

We say, “That person is so bright and delightful; they’re a pleasure to be around,” but they’re actually in depression. That’s just how they deal with their depression.  For America, there are a lot of people who express it in this bright way because that’s the culture, and we’re deceived.  If anything, when Koreans are oppressed, they show it in their face and we’re able to see it, but American culture is different. The kids come to church, but don’t just look at them. One by one, you need to see them.  If you hold onto them and do an Upper Room meeting with them, that won’t open their heart; you’re just putting on a show. That’s why you need things like counseling, changing the environment, and that’s how you save them. 

What happens if you meet with someone for a long time and they commit suicide?  I experienced that, they didn’t commit suicide, but they were shot. I met them once or twice, but it shocked my heart. What happens if you meet with someone for a long time and they commit suicide? America needs that very detailed thing.  In order to do that, you need to experience every single day, the filling of the gospel, the power of the throne of heaven, and the Holy Spirit every day to experience the answer of uniqueness that saves many people.  

We keep talking about healing, but there’s no need to focus so much on that; there’s a method that heals. We talk about the problem to see the method to solve all problems. Don’t focus so much on the problems. Those problems just disappear naturally when you’re completely filled and satisfied with the word of God, but it’s important for you to see this in a detailed way.

Prayer

Let us pray together, holding onto the Word we have received.  Let us pray that we will be field and satisfied and happy with the Triune God ourselves.  And if there is anyone around you that you have met but haven’t heard their inner problems, you haven’t done proper ministry with them, so “God, work on this person to open this person’s heart.” Let us pray together.

Second prayer topic, our church is doing evangelism camps now, this church is a church that is the light and salt of the world.  The time schedule right now is to make these teams move out into the field.  We have the Southwestern law school, Kohyang middle school and high school, and Pico afterschool apartment with a senior deaconess who has limited English skills, so we’re praying for English-speaking ministers to arise to relay the accurate gospel into the field of children who have never heard the gospel once.

So, I was talking with someone and thought, we have Remnant Night worship, so instead of just giving our message to kids in the field, we can invite kids we meet in the field to participate in worship.  Then, through that, maybe we can connect them to Saturday programs or Sunday, but I want to make Remnant Night worship not for our church, but a courtyard for the field.  I hope you will all be praying for the answers God will give us next.  Let us pray together for the evangelism camps. 

One more thing we need to pray about is, we have elementary schools in this region, and the children’s ministry gave the Spirituality Counseling licenses for those who received the training.  I’d like it if we actually go through the Assistant Pastor who can send the headquarters of the children’s ministry, and then they can write a letter to the schools around us, starting with the schools where our kids are attending, but also the schools we don’t have kids in.  If we have training, we need to break that barrier. It’s not enough to have the license; we have to have evidence in the field because you have to have evidence where you met the students and changed them; it’s not enough to have the training, so I’d like to open the doors in the field in this way.

I really want us to move quickly with this. If anyone can do counseling in the field, contact Assistant Pastor Lim, and we have to do this quickly because it’s already October, and if the year ends, we have to go quickly. It is a good instrument to open the doors of evangelism, so pray for this continuously.

Especially for the remnants of all ethnicities who are receiving training in our church.  Tomorrow, we’re not having the Youth Evangelism school, but there’s the North America Youth Evangelism Institute online at 1pm, so please help a lot of people participate in that.  Let us pray also for the Sunday message for God to proclaim the message He desires for our church.  Let us pray.

On Oct. 10, Monday through Friday, Remnant University classes will be here in this church.  For the people who go into the Southwestern Law School for evangelism camp, the students will be in class so everyone else just goes into the camp. David is the director. We tried to do it without him, but there’s a huge difference when he’s not there.  We need to have David there.  He needs to be there, everything changes. Let’s make it so David Abrams is there and Senior Deaconess Sharon can support in the background in all things. That will be good. 

Benediction

Now may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the unending love of God, and the indwelling, working, guidance, and communion of the Holy Spirit, be upon all the heads of all the multiethnic people, the people of God, and the future generations who desire to hold onto, enjoy, and relay the covenant of God, be with us from now until forevermore always, amen.