What is God Looking For?

Genesis 4:1-8
The story of Cain and Abel is one which provides a valid lesson: about hate and murder. But a better lesson: about jealousy and pleasing our Creator. The story’s sketchy, but from what we’re told, Cain killed his brother Abel not to get something, or because of some offense; but because Cain was jealous that Abel had pleased God and Cain hadn’t. God looked upon Abel and smiled but apparently he looked upon Cain and said, "You can do better." If we read this story we will find out what God wants from us.
Pleasing God is not something that can be done once and for all or on occasion. He desires and deserves our lives to be given to Him in total surrender.
If we seek God and give Him our life we will please Him with our lives. Here are some lessons I found from the Cain and Abel story - don't miss them:
1. Worship
Worship is more than just getting together to listen to a sermon, sing a list of songs, pray — true worship comes from the heart. It's an expression of adoration and gratitude that are done with humility. If it’s not coming out of our heart and our spirit then we miss the intention.
There's some controversy about why Cain’s offering to God was displeasing to him while Abel’s pleased God. One thought: Abel’s offerings were animals and the shedding of blood was involved. Cain’s offering was produce, it was grown and harvested. No blood was shed. So God wondered what was going on.....the law was clear with the need for blood. Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. Hebrews 9:22 Abel brought the best from his flocks, while Cain brought to God only the second-best from his harvest. Problem: you have to read a lot into text to get this understanding. We’re not told why it is that God accepted Abel’s worship but was less than pleased with Cain’s, but I have always wondered about the condition of the heart of the person offering it. God looks at the heart. He always has and always will.
Could it be that he was not pleased with Cain’s offering solely because he looked into Cain’s heart and saw that his worship was done with wrong motives. Maybe the nature of the worship had nothing to do with it — maybe it was just the motives of the worshipper.
Paul Harvey once shared this story: The Butterball Turkey Company set up a hotline to answer consumer questions about preparing holiday turkeys. One woman called to inquire about cooking a turkey that had been in her freezer for twenty-three years. The operator told her it might be safe if the freezer had been kept below zero degrees the entire time. But the operator warned her the woman that, even if it were safe, the flavor had probably deteriorated, and she wouldn’t recommend eating it. The caller replied, "That’s what we thought. We’ll just give it to the church."
True worship comes out of a desire to please God, to show one’s gratitude to God, to show one’s love for God. True worship comes from the heart — a right reason behind it. Our time, serving others, caring for others our prayer, our generosity with our money, — all done with the right heart, a heart of love and adoration and thanksgiving, then that is true worship.
The essence of worship lies in the heart of the worshipper, not in the deed that is done and called worship. What makes God happy? When we worship Him from our hearts.
2. Service
The commandment was for Cain & Abel to give something to God. In Old Testament, they served God out of a sense of sacrifice, as an offering for sins. The priest class served on behalf of all Israel and each family offered sacrifices to atone for their sins.
In the New Testament, under the New Covenant, we serve not out of a sense of atoning for our sins - Jesus did that on the cross for each of us - but now we serve out of a sense of gratitude and love for God.
Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. (1 Corinthians 15:58)
God desires that we who have received His grace, work to share this good news with others.
Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men. (Colossians 3:23). That is worship!
Peter Drucker said that "religion lives off the excess of culture," meaning it is something people do in their spare time. That may be true for some, but it is not supposed to be true for Christians. I read about a fellow who had just moved into a new house and his riding lawn mower broke down. He worked for 2 hours & still couldn’t get it to run. Suddenly a neighbor showed up with tools & said, "Can I give you some help?" In 20 minutes he had it running smoothly. "Thanks a million," said the fellow. "And say, what do you make with such fine tools?" "Mostly friends," the neighbor said with a smile. And then he added, "I’m available any time."
Whatever we do, if done in the right attitude and for the right reasons, can be just as righteous and pleasing to God as when we come to a formal worship service. God just wants us to serve Him out of love and gratitude and how we do that is almost entirely up to us.
3. Obedience
When Cain was angry, God said to him...(v. 6-7) "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."
Mark Twain tells of a man he met who said: I am going to take a trip to the Holy Land and shout the Ten Commandments from up on Mount Sinai. Twain said: It would be better if we stayed here in Boston and just kept them.
God expects us to obey his commandments and rules. While we don’t earn our salvation by doing so, the Bible makes it clear that when we disobey Him, we’re not pleasing Him.
Many have a wrong idea about obedience. Many think that obedience will ruin their fun. The reason God wants us to obey Him really has very little to do with Him wanting keep us from fun, it has to do with Him caring about us so much that He doesn’t want us to get hurt. God’s guidelines for our behavior are there to protect us. Think about it: think of something named as a sin in the Bible. Doesn’t matter what it is, a person will always be safer and better off if they don’t do it. I could name many examples, but it’s almost silly to waste time doing so now. Pick a sin, any sin, and a reason to avoid it can be quickly thought of.
July 1976, Israeli commandos raided a hijacked plain at the airport in Entebbe, Uganda. In less than 15 minutes all 7 of the kidnappers had been killed and the 103 Jewish hostages had been set free. However, 3 hostages were killed. Commandos came in and shouted, in Hebrew, "Get down! Crawl!" Most of them understood and obeyed, but some--for whatever reason--hesitated, and were shot by the men trying to free them.
Obedience is commanded for our own good. God’s rules for our behavior are not things we must do to earn our salvation or rules to obey because of some arbitrary decision made by a vengeful Creator, they are there to protect us, to make our lives easier and the sooner we stop thinking of God’s rules as ruining our lives and see them as things that make our lives easier the better off we’ll be.
Don't miss being a Christian, a committed follower of Jesus. It could be that all this sounds good to you, that you’ve always tried to live your life as "good person." And if you have, that’s great — but I’m here to tell you that Bible says it’s not enough, no one can be good enough to get to heaven their own. We all need Jesus. He is the way to God and our faith must become our path to Him and then through Him to God. That’s the first thing we need if we’re going to please God with our lives. That is where worship starts - at the foot of the Cross with us saying: YES LORD - I BELIEVE IN YOU and allowing Him to be our Savior and Lord and Master.