My Brother\'s Keeper

September 24th, 2006. My Brothers Keeper. Genesis 4:8-16.
Anger can be a dangerous and destructive emotion.

We've all either seen or been on the receiving end of someone's misplaced and ungodly anger. Ungodly, unrestrained anger can destroy intimacy, damage relationships and ruin lives. Cain's anger though directed at God eventually led to the murder of his brother and his own eventual destruction.

Cain already seemed to have a settled feeling of displeasure, distaste and disdain for the Lord and all He represented. His offering gave him the opportunity to display his displeasure toward the Lord in a tangible way. Thus when Cain brings his offering and it’s not accepted this settled displeasure, distaste and disdain begins to boil within him. Much like a fire begins to smolder and simmer before it flares up into a full conflagration so Cain’s anger simmered against the Lord. The term translated ’anger’ in vss. 5 and 6 mean a displeasure and distaste that is kindled. Kindle means to set something alight or to begin to burn. God’s reaction to Cain’s offering provides the spark for Cain’s simmering distaste and displeasure against God to burn until it ignites in the murder of his brother.
Cain’s anger is his response to God’s presence along with His rightful claim to absolute loyalty, worship, obedience and service.

Anger is the second emotion attributed to people following the fall. The first is fear when Adam said to the Lord that he was afraid. Anger is a feeling of strong displeasure in response to an injury whether real or assumed, it arises feelings of annoyance, irritation or resentment at a situation or person. In Scripture the feeling of anger usually leads to rash, ill-tempered and violent action. Many times anger is an indication that something within us needs to change. That was certainly true with Cain and may be so for you too if your anger is directed at God. Cain was angry at the situation of God’s sovereign control over his life. His was displeased and resented that he owed the Lord is loyalty, obedience and worship. God graciously gave Cain an opportunity to deal with his anger properly, but Cain chose to nurse it until it eventually exploded onto his own brother.
Further in Scripture God taught His people how to properly deal with their anger when someone offended them.
"'Do not go about spreading slander among your people. "'Do not do anything that endangers your neighbor's life. I am the LORD. "'Do not hate your brother in your heart. Rebuke your neighbor frankly so you will not share in his guilt. Lev. 19:16-18.

What if anything is causing you to be angry this morning? What situation or circumstance in your life causes you displeasure and distaste as soon as you think of it? How do you deal with your anger?

Learning to deal with anger properly is how believers avoid walking in the way of Cain.

Be honest when someone says or does something to offend you. Don’t pretend you’re not hurt while all along you nurse a grudge and allow bitterness to seep into your heart and mind toward the one who offended you. Recognize that you will become angry and that is not necessarily sinful. Things will be said and done that displease you, annoy you, get on your nerves etc. Remember Jesus in His humanity become angry when He saw swindlers using His Father’s house as a place of merchandise. Becoming angry isn’t necessarily a sin, it’s what you do with that anger. The first step to handling anger in a godly manner is to not allow the cause of the anger to kindle within your spirit.
One way to do that is to simply forgive the offense, not hold a grudge against the one who offended you and basically keep getting’ up. If however, the offense is such that you must speak to the one who offended you then by all means do so. Recall the wisdom of God’s word from Lev. 19. You know that you must speak to the one who offended you if the what they did weighs on your mind and heart for the rest of the day, into the night and on into the day after that and so on.
At this point you must lovingly confront and speak with the person who offended you because failing to do so will give the devil an opportunity to damage your relationship with that person, the Lord and potentially the whole fellowship. When you speak to the person, use speech in wise, uplifting and gracious ways. Don’t speak in such a way as to demean or belittle the person. Speak to them the way you would want someone to address you had you made the offense and sinned against someone. Confront what was done and how it made you feel.

Don’t automatically believe that you know why the person acted that way. Don’t automatically attribute malicious motives to them. Don’t allow bitterness, revenge, slander or gossip to fester in your heart and then pour of your mouth to the person. Even when offended, ask God for the grace to be kind. That is find something good to do for that person out of genuine motive to build them up. Ask the Lord to keep you tender-hearted. Being tender-hearted can prevent you from become harsh, critical, cynical and sarcastic toward them or whatever else is causing you anger whether that be your family, neighborhood, school, work or church. Finally, when you approach that the one who offended you make sure you’re armed with an attitude of forgiveness. Approach them with an eagerness to forgive believing God that He will so work on the person’s heart that they will ask for forgiveness. To forgive is to refuse to punish someone for an offense. Forgiveness says that I will not allow your sin against me to forever change, damage or remain a barrier between our friendship and fellowship. When we truly forgive an offense we refuse to bring it up any longer to the one who offended us, to anyone else or to ourselves.

Since Cain’s anger was against the Lord it wasn’t a matter of him forgiving God, but repented of his sin. It shouldn’t surprise us then we issue the call the gospel that we meet resistance, indifference and even hostility. Like many of us Cain wanted a distant God. One who would ensure that all we needed to enjoy life here and now was taken care without meddling in our lives with His will, ways, wisdom and worship. What we don’t see and will never see unless God opens our eyes is that real life begins when set our hearts and minds to worship, serve and delight in Him.

Despite Cain's anger God still chooses to act graciously toward him.

God responds to Cain’s misplaced anger by pointing out his sin and giving him the opportunity to repent. The Lord highlights the exact point of Cain’s sinful issue, namely that his offering was unacceptable but could be redone and be accepted. God emphasizes the blessings of responding to Him in repentance and obedience, promising that he would be accepted and his depression lifted.
The root or essence of salvation is acceptance before the Holy God of the universe. To be saved means to be rescued from His certain anger against sin and be placed in His unmerited favor forever.
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Romans 5:1-2.

God warns him of the consequences of continued disobedience. If Cain failed to repent, sin would dominate every area and aspect of his being leading to his own destruction.

We have to stop here to once more reinforce that God is never under any obligation to show any form of grace and favor to anyone at any time. God would have been perfectly within His rights as God to look at Cain’s sorry, pathetic offering and without even looking at Cain punished him with physical death on the spot while He reserved his soul for eternal punishment.
Let’s not ever get confused with the grace and justice of God. God can either act justly or graciously but never, ever unfairly. God does not owe you, me or anyone else a second chance or anything else. God is obligated to uphold His holiness, maintain the universe He created in perfection without sin and execute those who would dare challenge His absolute authority.
God can choose to be gracious by declaring His word, pointing us to the way of salvation, securing that salvation through the life, death and resurrection of His Son and calling us to enjoy that salvation through faith in Jesus Christ or He can choose to be fair and give us what we’ve earned and deserved which is punishment for our sins. The fact that God continues to allow Cain to draw breath let alone repent of his sin and be accepted is an act of sheer grace that Cain does not deserve.

The offer of God's grace and forgiveness isn't the opportunity of a lifetime, it’s the opportunity of an eternity. You can’t avoid God forever. Sooner or later you will come face to face with your Creator. Will you face Him having allowed your own sin to dominate you and keep you away from Him or will you face Him having repented of your sin and anger and trusted in Jesus for full forgiveness of sin? Would you rather accept the grace God offers today or wait for the justice He will certainly dispense later?
Is this morning your opportunity to repent of your sin and accept the wonderful grace of God?

Cain’s anger drives him to strike out against God by killing his brother.

Cain’s sinful anger though directed at God affected someone else. For though all sin is against God, it usually affects and harms someone else. Even when Cain is given another chance to repent he still demonstrates his hardness of heart and uncaring attitude toward his brother and to God. Cain should have been his brother’s keeper. He should have been the one who watched over his brother, protected him, and if necessary gave his life to save Abel’s if it came to that. Rather than dealing with his anger, repenting of his sin and turning toward living a lifestyle of love toward God and love toward his brother Cain ends up experiencing God’s judgment for the rest of his life. That judgment is that Cain is now driven from God’s presence, will no longer enjoy God’s special favor and provision and will eventually die separated from the Lord and endure His eternal punishment.

How true it is that many of us are life Cain. We’ve been angry with God or someone else and have allowed that anger to cause us to sin by slandering, retaliating, refusing to forgive and even murdering our brother in our hearts. We too like Cain deserve God’s judgment and because of our sinful anger should be sent away from His presence.
The only reason God does not execute His full justice on us is because He did so on Jesus so that He could demonstrate His grace to all those He’s chosen for salvation.
Unlike Cain Jesus is His brothers’ keeper. As opposed to Cain Jesus accepted and reveled in His Father's sovereign will. Jesus came to give life to His people, not take and destroy life. Jesus showed the full extent of His love for us by dying for our sin. In other words Jesus suffers the same judgment that Cain did, namely being separated from the presence of the Father so that we who deserved to be forever separated could enjoy eternal communion and fellowship with Him.

We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother's righteous. Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. 1John 3:12-16.

To Him Who Loves Us...
Pastor Lance