LaGrave Live
LIVE Morning Worship Service 07-12-2026
Hearing Abel, Raising Cain
About The Service:
We welcome Rev. Scott Hoezee, Director of the Center for Excellence in Preaching at Calvin Seminary, to our pulpit, and we will celebrate the Lord's Supper together. Rev. Hoezee's sermon will be "Hearing Abel, Raising Cain" from Genesis 4:1-16.
Order of Worship:
https://lagrave.org/wp-content/uploads/2026-7-12-AM-Order-of-Worship.pdf
About the Church:
We are a traditional CRC church in the middle of Downtown Grand Rapids, MI, worshipping at 8:40am, 11:00am, and 6:00pm. (10:00am and 6:00pm during the summer months)
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The Better Word: From Cain's Restlessness to Christ's Peace
Summary
A Worship Service Grounded in Forgiveness
The service opens with confession and assurance drawn from Psalm 32, emphasizing that acknowledged sin is met by God's forgiveness. Congregational prayer then holds together personal illness, grief, birthdays, church ministries, missionary work, denominational renewal, international suffering, and the hope that God's love and faithfulness extend beyond every human need.
No Red Card with God
The children's message uses soccer's yellow and red cards to explain conviction, confession, and grace. A yellow card becomes an image for the Holy Spirit's warning when someone lies or harms another person. Unlike a referee who permanently removes a player, God does not cast repentant people out of his family; confession is met with forgiveness.
Reading Cain and Abel Beyond the Simplest Version
The sermon turns to Genesis 4 and challenges children's-Bible summaries that portray Cain as obviously evil from birth and Abel as obviously righteous. The preacher observes that the text gives little explanation for God's different responses to the offerings, making room for a more careful reading of Cain's anger, God's warning, and the tragedy that follows.
The Cry of Innocent Blood
After Cain kills Abel, Abel's blood becomes the Bible's first voice of an innocent victim crying from the ground. The sermon connects that cry with continuing violence throughout human history. Cain's punishment uproots him from the soil and makes him a restless wanderer, yet God still marks and protects him, interrupting the cycle of retaliatory death.
A Better Word Spoken by Christ
Hebrews 12 provides the sermon's central theological claim: Jesus' blood speaks a better word than Abel's blood. Abel's blood names injustice and death, while Christ's blood speaks grace, life, resurrection, and reconciliation. Jesus represents both victims and perpetrators, revealing God's insistence on life even where human beings repeatedly choose violence.
Communion as Reconciliation and Homecoming
The closing illustration from Places in the Heart imagines victims, perpetrators, the dead, the marginalized, and the guilty sharing communion and exchanging the peace of God. The service then moves directly to the Lord's Table, where bread and cup proclaim that Christ brings restless wanderers home, creates shalom, and offers forgiveness and rest to wounded hearts.