Cain, Abel and Grilled Chicken Sandwiches

Take a look at Genesis 4- hard times just went down in the chapter before.
Adam and Eve were just kicked out the garden.
God had Cherubim set up shop outside the garden to guard the Tree of Life.
Now He’s dealing with the downward spiral of sin- which is about to lead to murder.

Genesis 4:5 described Cain as “dejected”, which is associated with sad, depressed, heartbroken and miserable. God sees and knows how Cain is feeling and where his feelings are taking him. So God warns him by saying, 

“But if you refuse to do what is right, then watch out! Sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you. But you must subdue it and be its master.” (Gen. 4:7)

God not only warns Cain of sin, he tells him the way out! God tells him what he must do! 
Which is what?
“Subdue it and be its master.”
To subdue is to defeat, overcome, beat and suppress.
Which tells us a lot of how God advises us of our sin- he isn’t going to magically take away our sin (which would be dope, it would make this Christian thing a whole lot easier). Our desire and nature to sin against God isn’t going to go away.
We must learn how to be master over our sin.
We must learn how to defeat our sin.
We must learn how to beat our sin.

But how?
How do we “subdue it and be its master”?
Well, you say no. It’s honestly that simple- but we all know saying no isn’t that simple…
Paul said in Romans 7, “I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway.”
The Apostle Paul, who was an amazing man of God still struggled with sin. Even though he planted churches, preached the Gospel and discipled many other Christians.
Our struggle with sin will never go away. Which is why God advised Cain that he must “subdue it and be its master.”

3 years ago i weighed close to 240 lbs. i was chubby.
long story short, 3 factors were key to me now weighing 205 lbs. (and still dropping pounds son!)

1. my wife (who was my girlfriend at the time)
2. consistently working out
3. eating right

this weight loss thing isn’t easy. its a lot of saying yes to things that are hard and saying no to things that are easy. its sucks taking an hour or so out of your day to sweat and work out. its wack to go out to eat with friends and order the grilled chicken sandwich when all your friends are ordering double bbq bacon burgers.
Weight loss boils down to you saying no to all the unhealthy junk that ends up killing you faster.

We can say the same for sin.
We say no to all the spiritually unhealthy things that end up killing us.

And by God’s grace we will be able to subdue and master our sin.