10th January 2024

10th January 2024


Pray (ACts)


Read - (1 John 3:11-15 focus v12-13)


Message (Alan Burke)


We are to love one another, this is the message that we have heard from the beginning, this is what John is making clear to those whom he wrote to and to us. The thing is even though many of us have heard this message for most if not all of our lives we find it hard, it can be hard to love those around us, when they have wronged us, when they have said those hurtful things, when they weren’t there for us when we needed them. But as John goes on he gives us an example, an example that is to emphasise to us why we should continue to love and as Christ does and that example is the example of Cain. We know about Cain and his brother Abel, the first two sons of Adam and Eve, we’re told about them in the book of Genesis. These two brothers, were brought up in the same home, they were both taught about the same God, they became the first farmers, Cain in arable, Abel in livestock. They lived as God intended, they cared for God’s creation, providing the necessities to live by. Both bring offerings but the Lord only had regard for Abel and his offering. What ensued is that Cain warned by God about his sin and it mastered Cain as he led his brother out to the field and murdered him (Gen 4). 


In Hebrews 11 we are told it was by faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks. While Cain and Abel were from the same family, they shared the same blood, it ran through their veins, the same upbringing but they couldn’t be more different. The reason is because they were not part of the same spiritual family, while they were brothers in a biological sense they were not brothers in Christ, brothers of faith, Abel was a child of God through faith whereas Cain was a child of the devil. Able was a child of God through faith, Cain a child of the devil. Cain’s attitude, his sin, his heart were all characteristic, they resembled his spiritual father the devil whereas Abel was a child of God because he practiced righteousness, he brought his offering in faith brining glory to his Father in heaven. Cain was warned by the Lord about his sin, his heart attitude by the Lord God himself but it fell on deaf ears ultimately because Cain hated God and it showed forth in his treatment of his brother. 


If we are in Christ then we will not be like Cain, we will love, our love will show forth in our treatment of our brothers and sisters in Christ but if we are like Cain a child of the Devil then we will not love, we may not kill someone but there is much we can do with our words and actions that show hate and not love. If we love in love then the world will also hate us, we shouldn’t be surprised by this and the reason is simple for we are either the children of God or the children of the devil. Cain like all those who are children of the Devil love the evil of this world, he hated Abel and his righteousness because he hated God. This is something that the church should expect, we should expect to be hated by this world because we are not willing to call sin by any other name. People do not like their evil deeds to be called what they are, they do not like being told the truth of how that there is no other way of salvation but through Jesus Christ. We love the world by doing God’s will, by sharing the truth and the world will hate us as a result, it hated our saviour Jesus Christ and we shouldn’t expect anything different for ourselves. 


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q38 What benefits do believers receive from Christ at the resurrection?
At the resurrection, believers being raised up in glory, (1 Cor. 15:43) shall be openly acknowledged and acquitted in the day of judgment, (Matt. 25:23, Matt. 10:32) and made perfectly blessed in the full enjoying of God, (1 John 3:2, 1 Cor. 13:12) to all eternity. (1 Thess. 4:17–18)
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