Tag: St Augustine

“The Power of Anger: Cain & Abel”

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This past weekend at Eastbrook, we began a new preaching series entitled “Fractured,” drawn from Genesis 4-11. This is the second part of a two-part series on Genesis 1-11 that will stretch from January through Lent up to Easter. You can access the first part of this series on Genesis, “In the Beginning,” here. This first week of the series I preached from Genesis 4:1-16, walking through the story of Cain and Abel.

You can find the message outline and video below. You can access the entire series here. Join us for weekend worship in-person or remotely via Eastbrook at Home.

“Now Cain said to his brother Abel, ‘Let’s go out to the field.’  While they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.” (Genesis 4:8)

The Turn Toward the Next Generation (4:1-2)

Cain: the firstborn, who works the soil, like Adam

Abel: the second-born, who keeps flocks

The Brothers’ Offerings and Conflict (4:3-7)

Two different offerings and two different responses from God

The silence of Abel

Cain’s response of anger and depression

The warning of God

The Double Wrong of Cain (4:8-14)

Cain intentionally murders his brother

Cain pleads ignorance and non-responsibility

God’s punishment upon Cain 

God’s Grace Amidst Punishment (4:15-16)

Grace in hearing Cain’s complaint (4:13-14)

Grace in the promise of protection (4:15)

Grace in the mark of Cain (4:15)

Dig Deeper

This week dig deeper in one or more of the following ways:

“The Fall, Part 2” (Genesis 3)

Matt EricksonLeave a comment

This past weekend at Eastbrook, we concluded our preaching series entitled “In the Beginning,” drawn from Genesis 1-3. This is the first part of a two-part series on Genesis 1-11 that will stretch from January through Lent up to Easter. This final week of the series I preached from Genesis 3:14-24, walking through the second half of Genesis 3 and our exploration of the Fall into sin.

You can find the message outline and video below. You can access the entire series here. Join us for weekend worship in-person or remotely via Eastbrook at Home.

“So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.” (Genesis 3:23)

Consequences for the Serpent (3:14-15)

Impact on movement and humiliation

Disruption of relationship with humanity

Consequences for the Woman (3:16)

Impact on childbearing

Disruption of relationship with man

Consequences for the Man (3:17-19)

Impact on work and eating

Disruption of relationship with the creation

God’s Grace Amidst Judgment (3:20-24)

Grace in a hopeful name and God’s clothing (3:20-21)

Grace in God’s limitations of humanity’s reach (3:22-23)

Grace in glimpses of holiness and future restoration (3:24)

Dig Deeper

This week dig deeper in one or more of the following ways:

  • Memorize Genesis 3:19
  • Genesis 3 holds an important place in the New Testament. Read either or both Romans 5:12-21 and 1 Corinthians 15:21-22, 45-49. As you read, take some notes on how the Apostle Paul reflects on what we read in Genesis 3. After you finish reading, let your notes and thoughts lead you into prayer, perhaps being still before God, praising God’s greatness, confessing sin, or thanking God for Jesus our Savior.
  • Watch the Bible Project video, “The Tree of Life”: https://bibleproject.com/explore/video/tree-of-life/
  • Read one of the following:

“Mary, a disciple of Christ”: a word from St. Augustine of Hippo

Matt EricksonLeave a comment

A good word from St. Augustine of Hippo on Mary as a disciple of Christ. This reflects some themes from my message this past week, “He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and born of the Virgin Mary.”

But look here, my brothers and sisters, concentrate more, I beg you, on what follows, concentrate more on what Christ the Lord said as he stretched out his hand over his disciples: This is my mother and these are my brothers; and whoever does the will of my Father who sent me, that person is a brother to me and a sister and a mother (Mt 12:49-50). Didn’t the Virgin Mary do the will of the Father? I mean, she believed by faith, she conceived by faith, she was chosen to be the one from whom salvation in the very midst of the human race would be born for us, she was created by Christ before Christ was created in her. Yes, of course, holy Mary did the will of the Father. And therefore it means more for Mary to have been a disciple of Christ than to have been the mother of Christ. It means more for her, an altogether greater blessing, to have been Christ’s disciple than to have been Christ’s mother. That is why Mary was blessed, because even before she gave him birth, she bore her teacher in her womb.

Just see if it isn’t as I say. While the Lord was passing by, performing divine miracles, with the crowds following him, a woman said: Fortunate is the womb that bore you. And how did the Lord answer, to show that good fortune is not really to be sought in mere family ties? Rather blessed are those who hear the word of God and keepit (Lk 11:27-28). So that is why Mary, too, is blessed, because she heard the word of God and kept it. She kept truth safe in her mind even better than she kept flesh safe in her womb. Christ is truth, Christ is flesh; Christ as truth was in Mary’s mind, Christ as flesh in Mary’s womb; that which is in the mind is greater than what is carried in the womb.

Mary is holy, Mary is blessed, but the Church is something better than the Virgin Mary. Why? Because Mary is part of the Church, a holy member, a quite exceptional member, the supremely wonderful member, but still a member of the whole body. That being so, it follows that the body is something greater than the member. The Lord is the head, and the whole Christ is head and body. How shall I put it? We have a divine head, we have God as our head.

St. Augustine, Sermon 72/A, 7.

St Augustine on the Nature of the Two Cities, the Earthly and the Heavenly

Matt EricksonLeave a comment

St Augustine burning heart.jpg

In The City of God, St. Augustine offers a wide-ranging exploration of the two cities, the heavenly city and the earthly city. This is not merely the difference between heaven and earth, or the church and the wider world, but something more. As I read this the other day, what caught my attention most, perhaps because of the preaching I am doing in “Hungry for God,” is the first phrase of this excerpt: “two cities have been formed by two loves.” The development of these counter realities cascades not merely from different thinking, but different loving.

Accordingly, two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self.  The former, in a word, glories in itself, the latter in the Lord.  For the one seeks glory from men; but the greatest glory of the other is God, the witness of conscience.  The one lifts up its head in its own glory; the other says to its God, “Thou art my glory, and the lifter up of mine head.” In the one, the princes and the nations it subdues are ruled by the love of ruling; in the other, the princes and the subjects serve one another in love, the latter obeying, while the former take thought for all.  The one delights in its own strength, represented in the persons of its rulers; the other says to its God, “I will love Thee, O Lord, my strength.”  And therefore the wise men of the one city, living according to man, have sought for profit to their own bodies or souls, or both, and those who have known God “glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened; professing themselves to be wise,”—that is, glorying in their own wisdom, and being possessed by pride,—“they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.”  For they were either leaders or followers of the people in adoring images, “and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever.”  But in the other city there is no human wisdom, but only godliness, which offers due worship to the true God, and looks for its reward in the society of the saints, of holy angels as well as holy men, “that God may be all in all.”

From St. Augustine, The City of God, Book XIV, Chapter 28.