Am I my brother's keeper?

1 John 3v11-12

26^th August 2022

We recently studied verses 9 – 10 of this chapter, which end with the words "Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God. Nor is anyone who does not love his brother". John has been writing about the need for people who call themselves Christians to behave like Christians. Christian ethics should be clearly seen in the lives and attitudes of Christian people. If we call ourselves followers of Christ, we should live righteously. Now John changes his emphasis from living in righteousness to living in love. Of course, love is the cornerstone of Christian ethics. As John said, Anyone who does not love his brother is not a child of God.

John continues:

1 John 3v11-12
For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother's were righteous.

We don't know John's emotional state when he wrote this, but it seems to me that he might have been feeling a little exasperated that he needs to write something that the people in his churches really ought to be fully aware of already. Can you sense a little frustration when he says, "For this is the message you have heard from the beginning"? The idea that Christians should love each other is not news to any of us. Of course Christians should love each other! When John wrote this letter he thought, "Surely they know this". We certainly should know it. John had already recorded in his Gospel the conversation in which Jesus said:

John 13v34
"A new command I give you, that you love one another. As I have loved you so you must love one another. By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you love one another".

The clearest, most powerful, obvious demonstration that you and I are children of God is that we love each other. This is not a new idea. Nevertheless, some Christians can be quite unloving towards other Christians.

The message we have heard from the beginning is that we should love one another, and yet we can be very critical of one another. If we belong to different denominations, we can be quite dismissive of one another. If we see things differently, we can criticise. And even in the local church, where our doctrine is more or less the same, we can be unloving in the way we speak to each other and the way we treat one another. We can complain and belittle. Sometimes we can even raise our voice to one another. It shouldn't be like this.

We've heard from the days Jesus walked this earth, and exemplified love, that we should love each other. And when we don't love one another, we really let Jesus down, don't we?

The church should be one community where everyone is safe, everyone knows they're welcome, knows they're loved. If we have to say something to a brother or sister that they don't really want to hear, we should always say it with tremendous gentleness and care, so they go away from the conversation knowing they're loved, even if they also know we think they could behave better. This is the message from the beginning. To put it at its most basic, lowest-common-denominator level, why not be nice?

Jesus compared unkind speech to murder when He said:

Matthew 5v21-22
"You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.' But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, 'Raca,' [a term of contempt] is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell."

Similarly, John compares our unkindness to one another to murder. He says, "Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother." This is because the heart of unkindness and the heart of murder are the same. At root, they're both a willingness to hurt others so I feel better.

We read in Genesis Chapter 4 that Cain and Abel both made offerings to God. God accepted Abel's offering of sheep but He didn't accept Cain's offering of crops. Cain was very angry but God asked him, "Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right will you not be accepted?"

Some people think Cain was wrong to offer crops rather than a blood sacrifice, and so God didn't accept it. Other people think that Cain was a sinful man and so, whatever he offered, God wouldn't have accepted it. This second explanation seems to be borne out by Genesis and also by John's words here. God said to Cain, "But if you do not do what's right, sin is crouching at your door. It desires to have you but you must master it.". God was warning Cain not to hate Abel his brother, but he didn't listen. Will we heed God's warning?

We can get things wrong sometimes. We all sin sometimes. Maybe we make an inappropriate offering to God, or make an offering when our heart is not right or our behaviour is not acceptable. But the main lesson to learn from this story is that we can't serve God or please God if we don't love our brothers and sisters. Dear Christian, sin wants to have mastery over you, and you must choose instead to have mastery over sin.

God spelled this out for Cain, and yet Cain enticed his brother into a field and murdered him there. John says that Cain did that because his own actions were evil and his brother's were righteous. Because Abel was a good man, God received his sacrifice, and blessed Abel. Cain hated Abel because Abel was blessed by God and he wasn't. So he murdered him out of envy.

Afterwards, the Lord said to Cain, "Where is your brother Abel?" And in very infamous words, Cain replied, "Am I my brother's keeper?" To which the answer is, of course, "Yes, you are!"

Dear brother or sister in Christ, are you responsible for the well-being of other Christians? Yes!

We're not God. We can't do everything for each other. But we are responsible for doing what we can to ensure the well-being of all our brothers and sisters. There are billions of Christians, and we can't care personally for many. But we can do what we can do. We can give to Christian charities that can help our afflicted brothers and sisters. We are responsible for one another. And we can show positive, Christian agape love to all the brothers and sisters we come into contact with. At the very least, we can refuse to act or speak unkindly towards each other.

Anyone who does not love his brother is not a child of God.

Irrelevant Evolution joke: At the local zoo, an unusually erudite gorilla has just finished reading both Charles Darwin's "Origin of Species" and the book of Genesis. He turns to the gorilla next to him and asks, "Am I my keeper's brother?"