SPEAKER_01: The second reading is from 1 John.
SPEAKER_01: For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.
SPEAKER_01: We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother.
SPEAKER_01: And why did he murder him?
SPEAKER_01: Because his own deeds were evil and his brothers righteous.
SPEAKER_01: Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you.
SPEAKER_01: We know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brothers.
SPEAKER_01: Whoever does not love abides in death.
SPEAKER_01: Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.
SPEAKER_01: By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.
SPEAKER_01: But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?
SPEAKER_01: Little children, let us not love in word or talk, but in deed and in truth.
SPEAKER_01: By this we shall know that we are the truth and reassure our heart before him.
SPEAKER_01: For whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything.
SPEAKER_01: Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God, and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him.
SPEAKER_01: And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.
SPEAKER_01: Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him.
SPEAKER_01: And by this we know that he abides in us by the Spirit whom he has given us.
SPEAKER_01: The word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Thanks be to God.
SPEAKER_00: So an ancient voice of spiritual wisdom once said this to a lonely pupil.
SPEAKER_00: Fear is the path to the dark side.
SPEAKER_00: Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you recognize this quote, it's not from Plato and it's not from Aristotle or Confucius, it's actually from Yoda, from Star Wars.
SPEAKER_00: Talking to a young Darth Vader who feels out of his element, off his home planet, and the caution that this little green guy has for a young Darth Vader is that the attitudes of your heart translate into the actions of your life.
SPEAKER_00: And not just for you, but they will have consequences for those around you.
SPEAKER_00: Yoda's warning is about fear.
SPEAKER_00: But for Christians, we know that this principle is true as well.
SPEAKER_00: See, the attitude of our hearts testifies to what path we're on, what path we walk.
SPEAKER_00: The attitudes of our hearts become the actions of our lives, and that's true not just with fear, but it's true with hatred as well.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what John is writing his congregation to warn them about in the last half of chapter three here.
SPEAKER_00: See, we looked at the first half of chapter three last week.
SPEAKER_00: We explored what it means to be a child of God, so we are in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And we saw many facets, indeed, there were many facets of what it means to be a child of God.
SPEAKER_00: And the one we glimpsed at last week is the fact that children of God love their brothers and sisters in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The attitude of the heart for a child of God is one of love.
SPEAKER_00: This is what characterizes us.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, this is what John says is the message that we've heard from the very beginning that we should love one another.
SPEAKER_00: Love becomes the determining attitude for those who are in Christ, for those who are children of God, and it leads to an eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we see in verse 15.
SPEAKER_00: But what we see here in chapter 3, verses 11 to 15, is a fork in the road.
SPEAKER_00: We see two pathways we can walk.
SPEAKER_00: We see a way of Cain, a way of hatred that leads ultimately to death, and we see what I might call the way of the cross, a way of love that leads to life.
SPEAKER_00: And not just any kind of life, not just the life that comes having avoided the consequence of death, but an abundant life, a flourishing life, a full to overflowing kind of life.
SPEAKER_00: This is the message, John says, You've heard from the beginning that we should love one another.
SPEAKER_00: And friends, this message is no trivial matter.
SPEAKER_00: This message is a matter of life or death.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we see in verse 14.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever does not love abides in death.
SPEAKER_00: So it seems to me that understanding the difference between the way of Cain and the way of the cross, the difference between the way of hate and the difference of the way of love, is to know the difference between death and life.
SPEAKER_00: So, friends, those of us who endeavor to follow after Jesus and to be his disciples, we have to explore this morning John's powerful warning and his exhortation to love one another.
SPEAKER_00: Let's explore these two ways together: the way of Cain and the way of the cross.
SPEAKER_00: First, let's look at the way of Cain.
SPEAKER_00: The way of Cain is a way of hatred that leads to death.
SPEAKER_00: And what John wants us to see is ultimately a sin-corrupted world follows Cain's lead.
SPEAKER_00: Let's begin in verse 12.
SPEAKER_00: John warns us we should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one, who murdered his brother.
SPEAKER_00: And why did he murder him?
SPEAKER_00: Because his own deeds were evil, and his brothers righteous.
SPEAKER_00: See, immediately we know that John is hyperlinking this principle with an Old Testament story that we find in Genesis chapter 4.
SPEAKER_00: So we better zoom the camera lens out a little bit and understand what exactly John is getting at in Genesis chapter 4.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the thing about Genesis chapter 4 is it's preceded by Genesis chapters 1 to 3.
SPEAKER_00: You're welcome, that one's for free.
SPEAKER_00: But it's what happens in Genesis 1 to 3 that's so significant.
SPEAKER_00: Genesis 1 and 2 offer us complementary accounts of the creation story.
SPEAKER_00: What we see in Genesis 1 and 2 is that an abundant, life-giving God decides to create a creation out of love and delight.
SPEAKER_00: He calls forth not an okay creation, certainly not a violent creation, he calls forth a good creation, a peace, a shalom-bearing creation.
SPEAKER_00: And he's delighted to do so.
SPEAKER_00: And he crowns this creation with human beings who are very good, who bear his image, who are called into a life of perfect communion and loving relationship with God and with one another and with creation around them, and they're commissioned on an adventure to go and cultivate creation around them and enjoy a life of flourishing and fullness.
SPEAKER_00: But what we see in Genesis chapter 3 is that our first parents disobey God.
SPEAKER_00: God gave them one commandment.
SPEAKER_00: It was the context of faithfulness, a context of trust in the Lord, and they transgressed that commandment.
SPEAKER_00: They ate from the one tree that God commanded them not to, which is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which is to say they decided to choose for themselves, to determine for themselves what is right and what is wrong, and not trust in the Lord's word to them.
SPEAKER_00: They transgressed God's law.
SPEAKER_00: Sin, we learned last week, is lawlessness, and that's been true since Genesis chapter 3.
SPEAKER_00: It's introduced all kinds of devastation and destruction and corruption into an otherwise good creation.
SPEAKER_00: But where God was perfectly within his right to do away with those who've transgressed his commandment, those who committed the sin, God instead, out of his abundant mercy, commits himself to a rescue plan for these creatures created in his image and for creation.
SPEAKER_00: In Genesis 3.15, God is addressing the serpent when he says this, the serpent that deceived Adam and Eve.
SPEAKER_00: God says, I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and her offspring.
SPEAKER_00: He, this promised child, will bruise your head or crush your head, and you shall bruise his heel.
SPEAKER_00: So in the midst of this devastating fall, God has made a very important promise.
SPEAKER_00: This woman is going to conceive a promised child, or from this woman will come a promised child.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, you'll deal a lethal blow to this child, but he will ultimately crush you under his feet.
SPEAKER_00: So we might know where the story's going.
SPEAKER_00: We might already have that in our minds.
SPEAKER_00: But what if we pause?
SPEAKER_00: And what if we pretend we're among the first audience reading this story and ask where we expect it to go?
SPEAKER_00: Who is it that we meet in Genesis chapter 4 after this promise is uttered?
SPEAKER_00: We meet Cain.
SPEAKER_00: We meet this woman's offspring.
SPEAKER_00: So our expectations should be high.
SPEAKER_00: God's promised an offspring, a child coming from this woman, who through faithfulness can undo the power of sin, who might rescue creation, or through whom creation might be rescued.
SPEAKER_00: Cain could be the one.
SPEAKER_00: He could be the one who through faithfulness rescues a fallen creation.
SPEAKER_00: And so when we meet Cain, our expectations are high.
SPEAKER_00: He and his brother, well, he's a worker of the ground.
SPEAKER_00: He's a farmer.
SPEAKER_00: His brother Abel is a keeper of sheep, we learn.
SPEAKER_00: He's a shepherd.
SPEAKER_00: In the course of time, they both offer offerings to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Clearly, God's given them some instruction in right worship.
SPEAKER_00: And so they offer what they have to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: It's not saying that shepherds are objectively better than farmers.
SPEAKER_00: It's to say that they've been called to this vocation and called to be faithful in it.
SPEAKER_00: So far, so good.
SPEAKER_00: Our expectations are high.
SPEAKER_00: And then Genesis 4, verse 4.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard.
SPEAKER_00: So Cain was very angry, and his face fell.
SPEAKER_00: See, it's not immediately obvious to us why it is that the Lord accepted Abel's offering and rejected Cain's.
SPEAKER_00: But if we measure this passage of Scripture against Scripture, if we let Scripture interpret Scripture, which is always a good principle in biblical interpretation, what we learn from the author of Hebrews is it's by faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous.
SPEAKER_00: That's Hebrews 11, verse 4.
SPEAKER_00: See, it seems to me that faith has made the difference between Abel's offering and Cain's offering.
SPEAKER_00: Abel has approached the Lord with an attitude in his heart of dependence, of humility, of reliance upon God and not upon himself.
SPEAKER_00: It seems to me that Cain has not approached the Lord or offered sacrifice with this at his very heart.
SPEAKER_00: So what we see happen next translates that attitude of the heart.
SPEAKER_00: Cain is very angry.
SPEAKER_00: His face fell.
SPEAKER_00: Cain is furious, he's hateful, he's despondent.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord knows this and he gives Cain a warning.
SPEAKER_00: Why are you angry?
SPEAKER_00: Why is your face fallen?
SPEAKER_00: If you do well, will you not be accepted?
SPEAKER_00: What's the condition of doing well?
SPEAKER_00: I think Hebrews 11 tells us that's faith.
SPEAKER_00: If you do not do well, will you not be accepted?
SPEAKER_00: And if you do not do well, sin.
SPEAKER_00: Make no mistake, Cain.
SPEAKER_00: Sin is crouching at the door.
SPEAKER_00: Its desire is contrary to you.
SPEAKER_00: You must rule over it.
SPEAKER_00: Cain, you have to realize the destructive power of sin in all of its ugliness is ready to eat you for lunch.
SPEAKER_00: But your desire has to be contrary to it.
SPEAKER_00: So what happens next for the first readers must truly be devastating.
SPEAKER_00: Cain spoke to Abel, his brother.
SPEAKER_00: They were in the field.
SPEAKER_00: Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him.
SPEAKER_00: So much for our expectations.
SPEAKER_00: So John warns us we should not be like Cain.
SPEAKER_00: But in what way we might want to ask?
SPEAKER_00: Well, certainly we don't want to murder.
SPEAKER_00: That's a bad idea.
SPEAKER_00: But I think John is getting at something even more fundamental than that.
SPEAKER_00: I think John is talking about the difference between a lively faith which relies upon God and depends upon him and approaches him humbly.
SPEAKER_00: And heart of self-reliance.
SPEAKER_00: It translates into hatred.
SPEAKER_00: It tears life from the world.
SPEAKER_00: We should not be like Cain.
SPEAKER_00: We should not reject God's word and thereby reject our brother, but rather obey God's word and live in a context of life and love.
SPEAKER_00: See, John's point is that a sin-corrupted world ultimately follows Cain's lead.
SPEAKER_00: Cain has blazed the trail.
SPEAKER_00: He's the first murderer in Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: He's something of a prototype or a figure of destroying life where God desires to see it flourish.
SPEAKER_00: So John warns his congregation: don't be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you.
SPEAKER_00: We know that we have passed out of death and into life because we love the brothers.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever does not love abides in death.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.
SPEAKER_00: What does Cain show us?
SPEAKER_00: Cain shows us a journey from hatred to death.
SPEAKER_00: The death of his brother, but his own spiritual death as well.
SPEAKER_00: John warns us don't be like Cain.
SPEAKER_00: Because we have passed from death into life because we love the brothers.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever does not love abides in death.
SPEAKER_00: See, abiding in death means we don't abide in life.
SPEAKER_00: And who's the source of our life?
SPEAKER_00: It's God in his life and in his love.
SPEAKER_00: Abiding in death means a rejection of God.
SPEAKER_00: This is what Cain shows us.
SPEAKER_00: John wants his congregation to be aware that there's been a fundamental conflict between those who have humbly depended upon God in accordance with his word and the world around that despises the righteousness of God's children.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be surprised when you're despised, is what John says.
SPEAKER_00: But lest we get too self-righteous, we need to pause long enough to ask ourselves: do I harbor hatred in my own heart?
SPEAKER_00: See, the warning of Cain is not just a far and away, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away kind of story.
SPEAKER_00: It's a story that causes us our own reflection.
SPEAKER_00: Do I harbor hatred or do I harbor any of its cousins?
SPEAKER_00: Resentment or bitterness or cynicism?
SPEAKER_00: Do I delight when my enemy suffers misfortune?
SPEAKER_00: Do I harbor these attitudes in my own heart?
SPEAKER_00: Do I walk a little closer to the way of Cain than I might otherwise want to admit?
SPEAKER_00: See, John is picking up on what Jesus has preached in the Sermon of the Mount.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says in Matthew 5, You've heard it said to those of old, you shall not murder, and whoever murders will be liable to the judgment.
SPEAKER_00: But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother is liable to the judgment.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever insults his brother will be liable to the counsel, and whoever says, you fool, will be a liable to the hell of fire.
SPEAKER_00: We might be inclined to say, boy, this sounds a little extreme.
SPEAKER_00: And you know what?
SPEAKER_00: There is, there might be a practical, well, the blast radius of something like murder and something like calling someone an idiot might seem different, but Jesus is saying the heart is the same.
SPEAKER_00: The heart is one that wants to destroy the brother.
SPEAKER_00: The heart is one that wishes ill upon another created in the image of God.
SPEAKER_00: This is the heart of Cain.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps Jesus is just willing to be a little more honest about the condition of our heart than we are.
SPEAKER_00: It's been said that resentment is a poison that we drink, hoping that the other will die.
SPEAKER_00: I think there's truth to that.
SPEAKER_00: I think we could also say that resentment and all of its cousins, anger and hatred and malice and bitterness, these are poisons that we drink, hoping that the other will die.
SPEAKER_00: And if it doesn't happen, then maybe like Cain, we raise up our hands against our brothers or our sisters, take matters into our own hands, as it were.
SPEAKER_00: This is a time for self-examination.
SPEAKER_00: Do I harbor that kind of resentment, bitterness, malice, or ill will in my heart?
SPEAKER_00: And John's warning is clear.
SPEAKER_00: If this is where we choose to live, if we choose to, if we choose to abide in that kind of resentment, then we choose to abide in death.
SPEAKER_00: Because God is love and life.
SPEAKER_00: And apart from God, there is no love.
SPEAKER_00: There is no life.
SPEAKER_00: There is no eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: See, here we are, east of Eden and west of the new creation.
SPEAKER_00: And apart from grace, humanity lives in the way of Cain.
SPEAKER_00: And this way of Cain weaves its way through our own hearts.
SPEAKER_00: So the solution might seem easy at this point.
SPEAKER_00: If we're willing to be honest with ourselves, we're willing to recognize that we too are prone to that kind of hateful attitude that leads to destructive actions.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe we say, okay, I'm going to pick up my bootstraps.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to love that much harder.
SPEAKER_00: We might be inclined to say that.
SPEAKER_00: But what we need is not self-help.
SPEAKER_00: We need rescue.
SPEAKER_00: We need rescue from the way of death.
SPEAKER_00: This is the message that John says, you've heard from the beginning that we should love one another.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it resonates with the new commandment that Jesus gave in John chapter 13.
SPEAKER_00: We heard it on Maundy Thursday.
SPEAKER_00: Love one another.
SPEAKER_00: By this we know love, that He laid down His life for us.
SPEAKER_00: See the way of Cain leads from hatred to death.
SPEAKER_00: John understands that it's only the way of the cross that leads from love to life.
SPEAKER_00: By this we know love.
SPEAKER_00: That we just have a lot of fuzzy feelings for one another.
SPEAKER_00: Boy, that we just get all gooey inside when we get together.
SPEAKER_00: Is that what he says?
SPEAKER_00: By this we know love that he laid down his life for us.
SPEAKER_00: John wants to point us to the essence of love.
SPEAKER_00: It's not the gooey feelings we may or may not have on the inside.
SPEAKER_00: Love, in the words of one commentator, is the willingness to surrender that which has value for our own life to enrich the life of another.
SPEAKER_00: This is the agape love that John is talking about, a self sacrificing love for the other's benefit, giving what I have for your sake.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, Jesus says greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
SPEAKER_00: So how do we know love?
SPEAKER_00: We go to that place where we see the ultimate sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: We go to the cross.
SPEAKER_00: We know love because he laid down his life for us.
SPEAKER_00: For us, the cross becomes the image of God's ultimate love for us.
SPEAKER_00: His complete self-giving, withholding nothing, and calling us to know his complete self given for us.
SPEAKER_00: Not something we just know in our minds either, but something we know at the very core of our being.
SPEAKER_00: Because we know the one who has died and rose again by his Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: We know personally this love of God in Christ on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: It's this love that gives everything, that empties himself, Paul writes in Philippians chapter 2, that takes on the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
SPEAKER_00: It's humble, it's sacrificing, serving love.
SPEAKER_00: See, Jesus is the promised offspring that Cain failed to be.
SPEAKER_00: We had high hopes for Cain, didn't we?
SPEAKER_00: This could be the guy.
SPEAKER_00: And yet the way of Cain led from hatred to death.
SPEAKER_00: But Christ, in bearing his cross, has given himself completely for our sakes out of love and opened to us the door of everlasting life.
SPEAKER_00: In Christ, we see the promised offspring that Cain failed to be.
SPEAKER_00: We see the very essence of love when we behold the cross.
SPEAKER_00: But we're called to give evidence of this love.
SPEAKER_00: Those of us who know the love of Christ cannot help but show it forth.
SPEAKER_00: So that's why John writes in verse 16 that knowing love in Christ means we ought to lay down our life for the brothers and for our brothers and sisters in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: But if anyone has the world's good and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?
SPEAKER_00: Little children, he writes, let us not love in word or talk, but indeed and in truth.
SPEAKER_00: See, we cannot help but be transformed when we encounter this love of God in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: He's given everything for our sake.
SPEAKER_00: So what right have we to say, no, I think I'm just going to withhold that?
SPEAKER_00: Thank you very much.
SPEAKER_00: We're called into a radically renewed way of being human.
SPEAKER_00: To participate in this renewing and restoring and rescuing work that God is doing in a fallen creation, it requires an open heart and not a closed heart.
SPEAKER_00: Cain's heart was closed towards his brother because fundamentally it was closed towards his God.
SPEAKER_00: An open heart that receives the love of God in Christ is a heart that opens up to brothers and sisters and to our community.
SPEAKER_00: It's a love that asks itself, what provision do I have that I steward, that I can pass along?
SPEAKER_00: Because how could we say we love someone else when we can meet their needs but refuse to do so?
SPEAKER_00: We're called to love indeed and in truth, and not just word and talk, and boy oh boy, if anything convicts me about this, it's right here.
SPEAKER_00: We're not just called to talk the talk, but to walk the walk.
SPEAKER_00: C.S.
SPEAKER_00: Lewis famously writes that it's easier to be enthusiastic about humanity with a capital H than it is to love individual men and women.
SPEAKER_00: Especially, he writes, those who are uninteresting, exasperating, depraved, or otherwise unattractive.
SPEAKER_00: Loving everybody in general may be an excuse for loving nobody in particular.
SPEAKER_00: Holy smokes.
SPEAKER_00: You might say it this way.
SPEAKER_00: I love humanity, but it's people I can't stand.
SPEAKER_00: Little children, let us not love in word and in talk, but in deed and in truth.
SPEAKER_00: God didn't just talk sentiment to us.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't just whisper sweet nothings.
SPEAKER_00: He loved us in deed and in truth.
SPEAKER_00: And the cross is proof of that.
SPEAKER_00: So if we're called to be his disciples to take up our cross by grace and follow after him, so too are we called to offer our complete selves for the sake of others.
SPEAKER_00: So the way of the cross is a journey from love to eternal life, a renewed resurrection life.
SPEAKER_00: But true love requires self-sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: It requires us to ask, Am I willing to lay down my life and deny myself as my Savior has for the sake of others?
SPEAKER_00: Not just in theory, not just a general, oh, I love my community.
SPEAKER_00: I love my church.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, those are wonderful things.
SPEAKER_00: We should feel that way.
SPEAKER_00: But what actions of love do we put into practice that testify to this transforming love of Christ in our hearts?
SPEAKER_00: Friends, it requires grace.
SPEAKER_00: This is not something we can just pull up from ourselves and tighten up our bootstraps.
SPEAKER_00: It requires a renewing, transforming presence of God's love in our very hearts.
SPEAKER_00: And this is the promise of the Holy Spirit that John tells us about in verse 24.
SPEAKER_00: He guides us into all truth, we read in John 16.
SPEAKER_00: We read that he dwells in us, he abides in us in our gospel reading today.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit is God's empowering presence of love in our very hearts.
SPEAKER_00: If we open our heart to him, we open our heart to receive his word, our hearts will inevitably become open to those individuals around us.
SPEAKER_00: We will find us called into the adventure of loving our neighbor as we have been loved in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: This is a this is what scripture witnesses to, and theologians use this word sanctification, becoming holy as he is holy.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, holiness and love are not opposed to one another.
SPEAKER_00: Growing in the holiness and the life of God in Christ is growing in love for our neighbors.
SPEAKER_00: Eugene Peterson writes, we learn how to love, not by being told to love, but by being loved.
SPEAKER_00: This is who you are, loved by God.
SPEAKER_00: But by being loved, pardon me, but being loved is not all there is to it.
SPEAKER_00: Being loved creates a person who can love, who must love if that person is going to be fully human.
SPEAKER_00: Getting loved is a launching pad into giving love.
SPEAKER_00: So, friends, what does it look like to walk the way of the cross, a way from love to eternal life?
SPEAKER_00: Well, perhaps it begins by praying for that open heart to receive that love of God in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord wants to transform and renew our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: In a way that Cain's heart was closed and hardened, he wants us to give us tender hearts, joyful hearts, hearts that are full and overflowing of his love.
SPEAKER_00: And in being transformed by the loving presence of the Holy Spirit, we now go forward and carry that love to those around us.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps it begins by recognizing what God has given us to steward.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us have treasures, some of us have time, some of us have talents, some of us have a combination or all three.
SPEAKER_00: God calls us to take what He's given us and like Abel, offer that back to Him as a sacrifice, to give of what He's given us for the sake of others and to the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: We have to recognize what God's given us to steward, and then to look around to see the needs around us.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe we need to go hunting.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe we need to get into our community, have those conversations with those individuals around us, and ask the Lord for wisdom to show us how we can show Christ's love to them and meet their needs in a wild way, maybe an unexpected way.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, we're in the middle of a pandemic, and it's not hard to find needs around us.
SPEAKER_00: We love indeed, not just in talk.
SPEAKER_00: Just like James says, faith without works is dead.
SPEAKER_00: We put this love into practice by taking the actions of love.
SPEAKER_00: I think in taking the actions of love, we discover a cure for resentment, for this hatred that was characteristic of Cain.
SPEAKER_00: We are renewed and transformed by the presence of the Holy Spirit into those who show forth God's love in his world and become agents of renewal and redemption.
SPEAKER_00: So, friends, the attitude of our heart becomes the actions of our lives.
SPEAKER_00: For Christians, the attitude of our hearts testifies to where we abide, to what path we're on.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, our fallen nature weaves its way in and through the way of Cain, of resenting our brothers, of hating them.
SPEAKER_00: And a sin-corrupted world follows this lead.
SPEAKER_00: But friends, we are called to take up our cross, to give of ourselves, to love in a way that leads to abundant and overflowing life, because we see the heart of love in our crucified and risen Lord Jesus, and we have his very Holy Spirit dwelling within us.
SPEAKER_00: So, Father, would you show us what it means to love our brothers and sisters, to be overflowing with love and life, to walk in the way of the cross and give of ourselves for their sake.
SPEAKER_00: Lord Jesus, show us what needs we can meet generously as you have met our needs and rescued us so generously.
SPEAKER_00: Help us to be agents of your renewal in your creation.
SPEAKER_00: We pray this in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.