Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.
– John 4:23
In Genesis 4:2-8, we read the familiar but fascinating account of Cain and Abel. Here God provides another glimpse of what He expect of our worship:
Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the LORD. But Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast. Then the LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.” Now Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go out to the field.” And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.
I must admit that when I first read this passage as a child with my child-like ways of thinking), I was perplexed. It seemed to me that God treated Cain quite unfairly! Although I shared in God’s distaste for certain vegetables (or so I thought), why should God bless Abel just because he brought steak, and scold Cain simply because he brought a veggie tray? How was Cain suppose to know that God didn’t like squash (although, frankly, I didn’t see how any sane person—especially the Lord of the Universe—could)?
Later as an adult, I realized, of course, that this passage has nothing to with food. It has, instead, everything to do with this: Cain brought “some” of his fruits and Abel brought the “firstborn” of his flock. The analogy would be like me taking my wife to McDonalds for Valentine’s Day instead of a fancy restaurant that uses different forks for different parts of the dinner. In essence, Cain brought God a Big Mac. Abel brought God the finest prime rib. It was not the amount or type of offering that God was disappointed about. His displeasure was the state of Cain’s heart. His concern was the state of Cain’s worship.
In this passage, God gives us another very interesting insight into the heart of worship. When God asks Cain the rhetorical question—“If you do what it right, will you not be accepted?”—the implication is that Cain already knew that what he was doing was wrong. As Cain prepared his offering in the fields, he knew that he was holding back something from God. Cain’s sin, therefore, did not begin with the presentation of a subpar offering to the Lord. It began much earlier. The question then is this: if Cain was not giving his best to God, then who was getting his best? Obviously, someone or something else other than God was getting the choicest part of his harvest and, consequently, the best of his affections. In essence, Cain was worshipping someone or something else other than God. Cain’s initial sin was idolatry. And likely, the object of his worship was himself. Pride—the oldest sin the Bible—is nothing more than the idolatry of self-worship.
Things then go quickly from bad to worse. The Bible clearly teaches that unless we “master” sin, our sins will “master” us. In fact, sin often begets other sins. In Cain’s situation, idolatry lead to pride, pride lead to unrepentance, unrepentance lead to covetousness, covetousness lead to unrighteous anger, and unrighteous anger lead to murder. Others in the Bible have also sadly proven the truism that one sin causes a “pattern of sins.” When we look at the life of King David and his adulterous relationship with Bathsheba, we are reminded that, for David, idolatry (of likely himself) lead to sloth, sloth lead to lust, lust lead to adultery, adultery lead to an elaborate cover-up which then lead to murder. The interesting finding about these propagations of sins is that in both cases (and probably all cases), the initial sin is idolatry. In fact, the root cause of all sin is from idolatry which can also be defined as misplaced worship.
Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh
Although the wise men were strangers from a far off land, they sought to worship the prophesied Messiah. After following the Christmas star to where Jesus was born, they presented baby Jesus with the best of their possessions. But it was not these gifts that God cherished the most. Their “best” was a sincere heart that longed after truth, that wanted to know the meaning and purpose of life, and that sought earnestly after God. Although these men were not Jewish, God blessed them with a personal encounter with His holy Son. The eyes of God were looking for true worshippers regardless of ancestry or race. And His gaze pierced the pleasing smoke of gold, frankincense, and myrrh into the quality of the flame burning inside their hearts.
