Am I my brothers Keeper?
Notes
Transcript
Am I my brothers Keeper?
Am I my brothers Keeper?
Have you ever heard or said “ I dont know I am not their keeper?” when asked by someone where is so and so?
Maybe you have said this yourself
Maybe you have wondered where this saying has come from?
lets look at this today.
Cain spoke to Abel his brother. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” He said, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?”
Play Helecopter Movie Video
The gospel message is not a message where choppers have come to airlift everyone out it's a message where Jesus is the restorer the fixer upper.
We have as Christians walked around with this theology where Jesus is coming back and were all off to another world with him.
If your a christian your coming with, if your not your staying and eternal hell is coming for you which is partly true, yet not quite on the mark.
And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
We get this theology from this verse and one other.
For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.
We presume that a new earth is going to be made but if you read these versus in Context and in order of events, it appears that there will be cleansing by God with the devil and people, then what will essentially be left is believers that never deserted christ that had enough oil in their lamp to now take a seat in the new heaven and the new earth.
Doesnt essentially mean were going to get a brand new created earth maybe just one that has been cleansed of Sin.
Therefore Jesus wants us to go about with him and fix what is wrong with our current earth and bring as many to the table as possible.
Today I want to present another way that this may be working, when Jesus does finally return.
Its just it wouldnt make sense for God to leave his beloved creation behind and we all high oter out of here like the woman getting out of the car.
Dont get me wrong there are consequences of not being a christian and one of them is you will spend eternity in hell pereshing. That the bible is clear on. Its a harsh message but the destination your destination can be changed with one simple belief change.
Thing about a destination
The Bible starts with a story of brother killing brother a story of Humanity going wrong from the start. Adam and Eve Cain and able the stories of mans empire like Egypt, assyra, Babylon and Rome.
Humanity began with Killing and at each opportunity God puts someone in the picture with Cain and Abel there was Seth, from Seth came Moses, from Moses came David from David Eventually God sent his Son Jesus to save the world from its self.
When we de humanise people and go against different nationalities, ethnicities, religions, politics, and classes or even now gender we open the door to us Vs them and we allow Satan into our world and give acceptence to war. When we become us Vs them we start the process of becoming murderes and monsters. This process has actually been going on for a long long time.
Since the beginning of time with Cain and Abel man has sort to kill another man for land, power or money. Look at the aftermath of September the 11th we are still at a never ending war, look at North Korea and South Korea always fighting or Palestine's Vs Israel or even in our own country the Gang wars that are going on all over London and now Southend with what's called post code gangs. Then there is the Brexit of us Vs them.
When we de humanise people and go against different nationalities, ethnicities, religions, politics, and classes or even now gender we open the door to us Vs them and we allow Satan into our world and give acceptence to war. When we become us Vs them we start the process of becoming murderes and monsters. This process has actually been going on for a long long time.
This world that we live in that we love to live in. It's this world that Jesus came to save.
One of the most famous Bible Versus is and I can never say it publicly without thinking of Billy Graham as I believe this man just says it best.
Play Billy Graham Video
Such a bold statement but many ask how did Jesus save the world.
it's a question asked by people skeptics, atheists alike they ask how can Jesus be our saviour if the world is not any different today.
Let's first try and imagine a 21st century world without Jesus. A world without Christmas, or A world without Easter.
CS Lewis put it in Narnia “a world that's always winter and never Christmas.”
What would our world look like without these two things? The world may look like something of the last man standing or like the film I am legend
Play I am Ledgend Movie Clip
Without Christ we would be capable of Making a world where there is only one man left. It would be a lonely place.
Many say never would that happen yet when we created the atomic bomb we made this reality very real.
When countries have made nuclear bombs we have made this crazy idea a reality.
Yet it was Jesus that gave humankind the ethic of mercy through the incarnation of Love. It was Jesus that shows us what Love is.
Without this one event in our historical time line we would not have the following things:
The NHS
Orphanages
Hospitals
The Law that we are goverened by
The Great President’s like Theodore Rosovelt, or Abraham Lincoln
Ghandi based alot of His phylosophy on christ and famously once said “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” (He wasn’t far wrong.)
Mother Theresa
All these things are built on the Ethics of Jesus.
Jesus came down from heaven and went into human form a weaker being than his Godly being. He took on the flesh to show us how important the human creation is. The incarnation of Christ has made the world a more humane place to live.
Why?
Because the World needed Saving it needed and still needs today a saviour. Except today people just ignore Jesus and look for another saviour.
Is it because the Church has not done a great Job of fullfilling the Ideals of Jesus. Had Ghandi got it right? Has or had the church lost the real meaning behind Jesus the saviour.
since the advent of Christ we call things like the hollocast an atroctie September the 11th an Atroctie the London bombings an Atroctie. We call murder of children an atrocie.
Otherwise without Christ we would just have the other world of the last man standing and we would call it all just the way things are. It's because of this ethic moral of mercy through Christ Jesus we are now built with the fundamental value of Love and the responsibility of being our brothers keeper.
A pagan world as it were before Christ never had the value system to have compassion for the poor, the sick, the weak, the marginalized, the victimizes the very people Jesus brings out of the shadows through his life teach-ins. Jesus Futher eastablises compassion. As he famously stated in
And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’
Jesus has taught us to seek the poor, the sick, the prisoner, the strangers as his brothers and our brothers.
The failure to feed the hungry look after the sick and stand up for the poor is to sin against Christ himself and everything he stood by and preached. As it was Christ that laid down his life for the least of his brethren.
Jesus has saved the world from the self centered, brother denying ethic witnessed as Cain.
We are meant to be our brothers keeper. We are meant to look after each other.
Jesus is going around slowly fixing things, putting them right through Christians.
He taught us his ways, yet the Church has lost his ideas and his message.
Each sunday Churches all over the land preach a message of repentance and Jesus being a saviour yet Jesus is much much more than that.
If he was just a saviour then why would he charge us to do good to one another?
Why would he tell us its the poor that inherit the Kingdom of God?
The Job was not finished when Jesus died our part had not even come into play when Jesus Died.
If it did then why do we have a helper?
“But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.
John 15:
Why did Jesus give us the holy spirit if all he was, was a sacrafice for our own salvation.
Why is the Holy Spirit known as the spirit of truth.
Its clear that we have a part to play in this story of Jesus, even today.
Its clear that we have to speak out for the opressed the marginalised.
Its clear that the church needs to take back the mantel and say
Jesus is not just our saviour, he is an advocate for truth and justice.
Jesus is not just our saviour, he is an advocate for truth and justice.
This is the part we need to play
To allow christ in us through his Holy Spirit to go around and start fixing whats wrong with our world.
Our Country
Our Society.
Not just to preach salvation but to also preach the message of truth and justice for all.
To preach, teach and do the ideals of Jesus.
Take his Ideas to the world as I mentioned last week.
To not do any of this is to Sin against Christ.
Let Us Pray
Let Us Pray
Father may you help us, in exploring what to do in our day to day lives in helping the people less fortunate than us. Send us people that need help, send us Poor people, send us people that need healing, send us people that are hungry, send us people that are thirsty lord, and may we hear and see you in them lord and do what you have commanded us to do. To be our brothers and sisters keeper and look after each other in the spirit of community under your holy spirit father. May you help us every step of the way and may this town see you through us as the hands and feet of Jesus our lord and saviour. Amen