“Am I My Brother’s Keeper?”
Genesis 4:1-16
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Introduction: Back in 2006 there was a TV show called Justice. This show was about a law firm that would take difficult and often controversial cases. Like most law shows, there was great mystery and intrigue involved in the plots. But this show had a twist at the end of every show. The show ended with a verdict; guilty or innocent, but at the very end the TV audience was shown what had really happened. As a viewer you got to see if the jury got the verdict right or not.
There are many cases in our courts where the final verdict is wrong: either the defendant was guilty, and yet was released, or the defendant was innocent, and yet was sent to jail. How nice it would be to know the real truth of every case. In our scripture this morning, we see that Cain comes before the judge, God, and tries to lie to God; tries to deceive God. But as we know, God knows all things, and so God is not fooled; Cain is found guilty.
But there is more to the story than just the verdict. Today we start a new series called “Great Questions of the Bible.” Each week we will look at a different question, which will help us to come up with important answers, truths that will help us in our lives.
I. The Story- (Genesis 4:1-16; Colossians 3:17)
a. Cain and Abel- The story starts out wonderfully, with Adam and
Eve having their first 2 children (Cain and Abel). The name Cain means “possession,” and was given to him from Eve because she was so thankful to God for this gift given to her, as Eve acknowledged that Cain was given to her “with the help of the Lord.” Eve saw her children as gifts from God, and understood that life was meant to be lived with thankfulness to God.
We next see that both Cain and Abel were given a calling: Cain was called to work the soil, while Abel worked the flocks. It makes sense that they would have different jobs, since both jobs needed to be done. In this we can see that we all have a calling; something we are to do in this life. And whatever that calling is, we are to do it well and do it for the glory of God. Colossians 3:17 affirms this for us, saying: “And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.” Cain and Abel did just this, they worked hard at their calling and seemed to glorify God through it.
We know that Adam and Eve imparted their relationship with God to Cain and Abel, for we see them bringing an offering to the Lord. And yet the offerings were not received the same by God. Cain brought an offering from “some” of the fruits of the soil, and yet God did not look on this offering with favor. Whereas, Abel brought “fat portions” from “the firstborn of his flock.” Abel’s offering was received with favor by God.
Why was this so? Why was Abel’s received by God and Cain’s not? It was based on the attitude with which it was brought. We will talk about this more in a little bit….
God’s rejection of the offering made Cain very angry. In his anger Cain was said to be downcast. His anger was very visible on his face and in his body language. This largely came from the fact that he felt rejected, but even more from the fact that his heart wasn’t in it to begin with. It seemed that he was bringing his offering more out of duty, than out of a deep relationship with God. It also came about because he did not have a humble heart. The person with a humble heart will seek God for what needs to be changed, so that God might accept him. The one with the willful heart will just get angry at the seeming rejection!
God questions Cain about his reaction, and even gives him direction by saying: “If you do what is right, will you not be accepted?” And then God gives Cain a warning: “But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door…you must master it.” God recognized that Cain had a problem with anger, knowing that this anger could lead him to sin.
b. Cain and God- We see that Cain does not listen to God’s warnings,
about being careful in regards to his anger. We know this because in the next scene Cain is talking with Abel. But the conversation happens away from everyone else. Why? Because in his anger, Cain wants to confront Abel. So Cain takes Abel out to the field. Abel is very trusting of Cain, and he goes with him.
Does Abel know that God rejected Cain’s offering? Does Abel know that Cain has an anger problem? Does Abel know of Cain’s intentions? It doesn’t seem that he knows any of this, for he goes willingly, and without any concern. This trust he puts in Cain costs him his life, as Cain kills Abel in the field, and then buries his body. We are not told of the circumstances that bring the Lord and Cain together again, perhaps the Lord sought out Cain because of this occurrence. The Lord’s first words to Cain are: “Where is your brother Abel?” Have you ever been caught in a sin? You’ve done something wrong, and you’re not sure if the other person knows it or not, and so you try to hide it at first? This is what Cain is doing when he responds with these well-known words: “I don’t know, am I my brother’s keeper?”
Story: One memorable time when this happened to me was when I was in high school. I had started to hang out with the wrong crowd. One day they were smoking some pot, and I was with them. When I came home I went in to my room to change, and my mom came into my room. She started to talk with me, then stopped and said: “What is that I smell on you?” Thinking I was still not found out, I said: “Some of my friends were smoking cigarettes. The smell must have gotten on me.” And then she said: “That’s not cigarette smoke I smell.” At that point, I knew I was in big trouble!!
After Cain tries to deny any knowledge of Abel’s whereabouts, God responds with these cutting words: “What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground.” Oooh. Cain has been found out. At this point Cain knows that God knows what he has done. This sin of Cain was caused by the sin of Adam and Eve, eating the fruit and bringing sin into the world. This sin cost them one of their sons. God then curses Cain and makes him a wanderer of the earth. And if you follow Cain and his ancestors, you see that they have anger issues, and become enemies of God’s people.
II. The Implications- (2 Corinthians 9:7; Galatians 6:2)
Let’s stop the story here, and begin to look at the deeper implications.
a. Dealing with anger- The first implication is Cain’s attitude and
anger. As we said before, Cain did not humble himself before God, but rather was visibly angry at God for not receiving his offering. In this story we can see what comes of envy, anger, hatred. Anger is a great problem in our society, because it leads people to do terrible things.
God warned Cain that he needed to master his anger so that it did not lead him to sin. We would do well to listen to God’s warnings, and seek to know where we stand in our own issues with anger. Here are some true/false questions that you might ask yourself: 1. When a teenager drives by my yard with the car stereo blaring rap or hip hop, I can feel my blood pressure starting to rise.
2. When stuck in a traffic jam, I quickly become irritated and annoyed.
3. If someone treats me unfairly, I’m apt to keep thinking about it for hours.
4. Whenever an elevator stops too long on a floor above where I am waiting, I soon start to feel irritated. 5. When someone criticizes something I have done, it makes me feel annoyed. 6. The little annoyances of every day life often seem to get under my skin. Here are some statistics about anger:
· At least 12% of people say they have trouble controlling their anger.
· One in five people say they have ended a relationship because of how they have behaved when they are angry.
· 64% agree or strongly agree that people are getting angrier.
· 58% of people say they wouldn’t know where to go if they needed help with anger.
Some other statistics involving violence:
· one in four women have experienced domestic violence in her lifetime.
· Nearly 2.2 million people called the domestic violence hot line in 2004.
Child abuse, rape, bullying….These issues and more are very prevalent in our society. Why? People have a problem with their anger and don’t deal with it. Having a problem with anger leads us to not give ourselves over to God, and ultimately affects our relationship with God just as it did with Cain!!
b. Worship- A second issue we see here with Cain is that his heart
was not right when he brought his offering to God. The bringing of an offering to God should not be out of duty, but out of love. The apostle reminds us, in 2 Corinthians 9:7, “Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” Worship is about giving ourselves to God; giving our heart to God; giving our gifts to God, willingly and with great joy. When Cain brought his offering, he was not giving of the first fruit of his crop, but just “some” of his crop. He wasn’t giving his best.
A few weeks ago the Hispanic church, that is now renting our chapel, met for the first time. As we came out of the sanctuary, we could see the people spilling out of the chapel. The music was playing; they were singing; even dancing. And I watched as many of you were intrigued by what was happening. Some of you even went into the chapel to see what was going on; you were drawn into the service. Now I know some of you think the music is too loud. But aside from that, there was an energy and excitement in their service that was compelling.
At my CREDO conference that I was at a couple of weeks ago, we were asked to seek God out, and to set some goals for our life. As I reflected on my life, I was thankful that much of my life is healthy (although I did set some goals to improve in the financial area, my health, and my spiritual practices). But when it came to setting a big goal, I focused on the church. I felt God leading me to lead this church into DYNAMIC WORSHIP.
What does dynamic worship look like? It comes from the heart. When you love God, you are compelled to be in church, not because it is what you are supposed to do, or because it looks good, but because you want to share your heart with God. Dynamic worship is energetic, because worship is a verb, not a noun. It is in our fervent prayers, and joyous singing that shows our love for God. In worship, we are moved by the elements of worship, but our energy adds to the worship. I want people who visit our church to be moved by our worship, because they know that we love Jesus!!
c. Am I my brother’s keeper?- Lastly, I want to look at this question
Cain asks: Am I my brother’s keeper? Cain was not asking this with sincerity. Cain was saying this as a way to avoid God’s question, and a way to avoid responsibility for his actions. In essence, Cain was responsible for his brother, since he was the older brother. But in the end, Cain kills his own brother. Abel was a good brother; one who had never done him any harm.
Cain did not want to take responsibility for his brother, or for his
actions against his brother. Cain’s sin is first seen in his anger, then his inability to control his anger that led him to kill Abel, and then he topped it off by showing a lack of remorse for his brother’s death. The only time that Cain reacted with emotion, in his second dealing with God, was when God cursed him. Cain’s reaction was, “My punishment is more than I can bear.” All the while, he did not seem sorry at all that this had all transpired.
How about you and me? Do we care for others as we should? Are we supposed to be our brother’s keeper? We are told in Galatians 6:2, “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” The burdens we are to carry are the moral issues that people struggle with and the weaknesses that people have. We are to walk with them in these issues and in these weaknesses and help them to be strong. In essence, Cain’s satirical response reminds us that “yes, we are to be our brother’s keeper.” We are called to be in community, supporting each other.
Conclusion: The word façade comes from the French language meaning “frontage” or “face.” In movie sets we see facades all the time. There is just the front of the building that is seen which is held up by supports. By doing this it saves the movie company money by not having to build a whole building. With think it is real, but it is not.
The word can also be used as a figure of speech to describe the "face" that people show other people. An example of this might be a person who seems very professional and organized on the outside, but is really feeling very disorganised and stressed. And we even show this face to God. We come to worship thinking we can fool God with who we are and how we feel. God doesn’t want us to come pretending. God wants us to be real with Him. When we are, then God can work in our hearts, God will accept our offerings, God will lift us up into His presence, and God will prepare us to do what we need to do in our lives (care for others). Let us not be like Cain, pretending to worship God. Let us give our whole hearts to God so that we might love God with our whole being, and love our neighbor as ourselves. Amen.
Genesis 4:1-16
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Introduction: Back in 2006 there was a TV show called Justice. This show was about a law firm that would take difficult and often controversial cases. Like most law shows, there was great mystery and intrigue involved in the plots. But this show had a twist at the end of every show. The show ended with a verdict; guilty or innocent, but at the very end the TV audience was shown what had really happened. As a viewer you got to see if the jury got the verdict right or not.
There are many cases in our courts where the final verdict is wrong: either the defendant was guilty, and yet was released, or the defendant was innocent, and yet was sent to jail. How nice it would be to know the real truth of every case. In our scripture this morning, we see that Cain comes before the judge, God, and tries to lie to God; tries to deceive God. But as we know, God knows all things, and so God is not fooled; Cain is found guilty.
But there is more to the story than just the verdict. Today we start a new series called “Great Questions of the Bible.” Each week we will look at a different question, which will help us to come up with important answers, truths that will help us in our lives.
I. The Story- (Genesis 4:1-16; Colossians 3:17)
a. Cain and Abel- The story starts out wonderfully, with Adam and
Eve having their first 2 children (Cain and Abel). The name Cain means “possession,” and was given to him from Eve because she was so thankful to God for this gift given to her, as Eve acknowledged that Cain was given to her “with the help of the Lord.” Eve saw her children as gifts from God, and understood that life was meant to be lived with thankfulness to God.
We next see that both Cain and Abel were given a calling: Cain was called to work the soil, while Abel worked the flocks. It makes sense that they would have different jobs, since both jobs needed to be done. In this we can see that we all have a calling; something we are to do in this life. And whatever that calling is, we are to do it well and do it for the glory of God. Colossians 3:17 affirms this for us, saying: “And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.” Cain and Abel did just this, they worked hard at their calling and seemed to glorify God through it.
We know that Adam and Eve imparted their relationship with God to Cain and Abel, for we see them bringing an offering to the Lord. And yet the offerings were not received the same by God. Cain brought an offering from “some” of the fruits of the soil, and yet God did not look on this offering with favor. Whereas, Abel brought “fat portions” from “the firstborn of his flock.” Abel’s offering was received with favor by God.
Why was this so? Why was Abel’s received by God and Cain’s not? It was based on the attitude with which it was brought. We will talk about this more in a little bit….
God’s rejection of the offering made Cain very angry. In his anger Cain was said to be downcast. His anger was very visible on his face and in his body language. This largely came from the fact that he felt rejected, but even more from the fact that his heart wasn’t in it to begin with. It seemed that he was bringing his offering more out of duty, than out of a deep relationship with God. It also came about because he did not have a humble heart. The person with a humble heart will seek God for what needs to be changed, so that God might accept him. The one with the willful heart will just get angry at the seeming rejection!
God questions Cain about his reaction, and even gives him direction by saying: “If you do what is right, will you not be accepted?” And then God gives Cain a warning: “But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door…you must master it.” God recognized that Cain had a problem with anger, knowing that this anger could lead him to sin.
b. Cain and God- We see that Cain does not listen to God’s warnings,
about being careful in regards to his anger. We know this because in the next scene Cain is talking with Abel. But the conversation happens away from everyone else. Why? Because in his anger, Cain wants to confront Abel. So Cain takes Abel out to the field. Abel is very trusting of Cain, and he goes with him.
Does Abel know that God rejected Cain’s offering? Does Abel know that Cain has an anger problem? Does Abel know of Cain’s intentions? It doesn’t seem that he knows any of this, for he goes willingly, and without any concern. This trust he puts in Cain costs him his life, as Cain kills Abel in the field, and then buries his body. We are not told of the circumstances that bring the Lord and Cain together again, perhaps the Lord sought out Cain because of this occurrence. The Lord’s first words to Cain are: “Where is your brother Abel?” Have you ever been caught in a sin? You’ve done something wrong, and you’re not sure if the other person knows it or not, and so you try to hide it at first? This is what Cain is doing when he responds with these well-known words: “I don’t know, am I my brother’s keeper?”
Story: One memorable time when this happened to me was when I was in high school. I had started to hang out with the wrong crowd. One day they were smoking some pot, and I was with them. When I came home I went in to my room to change, and my mom came into my room. She started to talk with me, then stopped and said: “What is that I smell on you?” Thinking I was still not found out, I said: “Some of my friends were smoking cigarettes. The smell must have gotten on me.” And then she said: “That’s not cigarette smoke I smell.” At that point, I knew I was in big trouble!!
After Cain tries to deny any knowledge of Abel’s whereabouts, God responds with these cutting words: “What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground.” Oooh. Cain has been found out. At this point Cain knows that God knows what he has done. This sin of Cain was caused by the sin of Adam and Eve, eating the fruit and bringing sin into the world. This sin cost them one of their sons. God then curses Cain and makes him a wanderer of the earth. And if you follow Cain and his ancestors, you see that they have anger issues, and become enemies of God’s people.
II. The Implications- (2 Corinthians 9:7; Galatians 6:2)
Let’s stop the story here, and begin to look at the deeper implications.
a. Dealing with anger- The first implication is Cain’s attitude and
anger. As we said before, Cain did not humble himself before God, but rather was visibly angry at God for not receiving his offering. In this story we can see what comes of envy, anger, hatred. Anger is a great problem in our society, because it leads people to do terrible things.
God warned Cain that he needed to master his anger so that it did not lead him to sin. We would do well to listen to God’s warnings, and seek to know where we stand in our own issues with anger. Here are some true/false questions that you might ask yourself: 1. When a teenager drives by my yard with the car stereo blaring rap or hip hop, I can feel my blood pressure starting to rise.
2. When stuck in a traffic jam, I quickly become irritated and annoyed.
3. If someone treats me unfairly, I’m apt to keep thinking about it for hours.
4. Whenever an elevator stops too long on a floor above where I am waiting, I soon start to feel irritated. 5. When someone criticizes something I have done, it makes me feel annoyed. 6. The little annoyances of every day life often seem to get under my skin. Here are some statistics about anger:
· At least 12% of people say they have trouble controlling their anger.
· One in five people say they have ended a relationship because of how they have behaved when they are angry.
· 64% agree or strongly agree that people are getting angrier.
· 58% of people say they wouldn’t know where to go if they needed help with anger.
Some other statistics involving violence:
· one in four women have experienced domestic violence in her lifetime.
· Nearly 2.2 million people called the domestic violence hot line in 2004.
Child abuse, rape, bullying….These issues and more are very prevalent in our society. Why? People have a problem with their anger and don’t deal with it. Having a problem with anger leads us to not give ourselves over to God, and ultimately affects our relationship with God just as it did with Cain!!
b. Worship- A second issue we see here with Cain is that his heart
was not right when he brought his offering to God. The bringing of an offering to God should not be out of duty, but out of love. The apostle reminds us, in 2 Corinthians 9:7, “Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” Worship is about giving ourselves to God; giving our heart to God; giving our gifts to God, willingly and with great joy. When Cain brought his offering, he was not giving of the first fruit of his crop, but just “some” of his crop. He wasn’t giving his best.
A few weeks ago the Hispanic church, that is now renting our chapel, met for the first time. As we came out of the sanctuary, we could see the people spilling out of the chapel. The music was playing; they were singing; even dancing. And I watched as many of you were intrigued by what was happening. Some of you even went into the chapel to see what was going on; you were drawn into the service. Now I know some of you think the music is too loud. But aside from that, there was an energy and excitement in their service that was compelling.
At my CREDO conference that I was at a couple of weeks ago, we were asked to seek God out, and to set some goals for our life. As I reflected on my life, I was thankful that much of my life is healthy (although I did set some goals to improve in the financial area, my health, and my spiritual practices). But when it came to setting a big goal, I focused on the church. I felt God leading me to lead this church into DYNAMIC WORSHIP.
What does dynamic worship look like? It comes from the heart. When you love God, you are compelled to be in church, not because it is what you are supposed to do, or because it looks good, but because you want to share your heart with God. Dynamic worship is energetic, because worship is a verb, not a noun. It is in our fervent prayers, and joyous singing that shows our love for God. In worship, we are moved by the elements of worship, but our energy adds to the worship. I want people who visit our church to be moved by our worship, because they know that we love Jesus!!
c. Am I my brother’s keeper?- Lastly, I want to look at this question
Cain asks: Am I my brother’s keeper? Cain was not asking this with sincerity. Cain was saying this as a way to avoid God’s question, and a way to avoid responsibility for his actions. In essence, Cain was responsible for his brother, since he was the older brother. But in the end, Cain kills his own brother. Abel was a good brother; one who had never done him any harm.
Cain did not want to take responsibility for his brother, or for his
actions against his brother. Cain’s sin is first seen in his anger, then his inability to control his anger that led him to kill Abel, and then he topped it off by showing a lack of remorse for his brother’s death. The only time that Cain reacted with emotion, in his second dealing with God, was when God cursed him. Cain’s reaction was, “My punishment is more than I can bear.” All the while, he did not seem sorry at all that this had all transpired.
How about you and me? Do we care for others as we should? Are we supposed to be our brother’s keeper? We are told in Galatians 6:2, “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” The burdens we are to carry are the moral issues that people struggle with and the weaknesses that people have. We are to walk with them in these issues and in these weaknesses and help them to be strong. In essence, Cain’s satirical response reminds us that “yes, we are to be our brother’s keeper.” We are called to be in community, supporting each other.
Conclusion: The word façade comes from the French language meaning “frontage” or “face.” In movie sets we see facades all the time. There is just the front of the building that is seen which is held up by supports. By doing this it saves the movie company money by not having to build a whole building. With think it is real, but it is not.
The word can also be used as a figure of speech to describe the "face" that people show other people. An example of this might be a person who seems very professional and organized on the outside, but is really feeling very disorganised and stressed. And we even show this face to God. We come to worship thinking we can fool God with who we are and how we feel. God doesn’t want us to come pretending. God wants us to be real with Him. When we are, then God can work in our hearts, God will accept our offerings, God will lift us up into His presence, and God will prepare us to do what we need to do in our lives (care for others). Let us not be like Cain, pretending to worship God. Let us give our whole hearts to God so that we might love God with our whole being, and love our neighbor as ourselves. Amen.
posted by Logan's Blog at 2:27 PM
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