Thy Brother's Keeper

Am I my brother’s keeper?

The Bible is full of stories where people try to dodge their responsibility their God-given responsibility to their fellow human beings. But the one I’m thinking about right now occurs very early in history. In the book of Genesis we read the story of Cain and Abel . . . tell story!

Genesis 4:3-9 3 In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the LORD. 4 But his brother Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, 5 but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast. 6 Then the LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? 7 If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it." 8 Now Cain said to his brother Abel, "Let's go out to the field." And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him. 9 Then the LORD said to Cain, "Where is your brother Abel?" "I don't know," he replied. "Am I my brother's keeper?"

(interactive portion) What do you think? Was Cain avoiding his responsibility to Abel? Did Cain have a responsibility to Abel, or not?

Yes of course! Cain did have a responsibility to Abel, he was his brother’s keeper, but he chose to deny it. Instead of protecting Abel, he chose to bring harm to him. This isn’t what family is supposed to do! Family is there to protect one another, to nurture one another, to watch out for one another. In our families we are our brother’s keeper!

But now what about the Body of Christ—the church. Is that like a family? ____________ Yes! Are we bound to one another, do we have a responsibility to one another? Yes! Romans 12:5 says, “so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.” You do not belong to yourself, you belong to me, and I belong to you. Look around you—in front, back, left, right—these are the people that you belong to, these are the people that belong to you.
As a Christian family, we have responsibilities to one another. We are to bear one another’s burdens, we are to pray for one another, we are to encourage one another and build one another up. But in our responsibility we are also charged with the task of correcting one another. We are truly our brother’s keeper.
We have a responsibility to family members to be our brother’s or sister’s keeper, to nurture them, to care for them--that’s true. It’s also clear that we have a responsibility to our brothers and sisters in Christ—a responsibility to uphold them in prayer, to build them up, and yes, to lovingly correct them if they were to stray away from the teachings and practice of the Christian church.
But what about outside the family, outside the church . . . Do we have a responsibility beyond that?
Well, I think we can find the answer to that in the Old Testament lesson for today. The reading was from Ezekiel. Now, Ezekiel was appointed by God to be a prophet. He was called and commissioned to be the mouthpiece of God to the nation of Israel. And in the reading for today what did call Ezekiel? He called him a watchman. A watchman is another way of saying keeper, isn’t it? A watchman has a responsibility to warn the people of impending danger. God says to Ezekiel, “Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give them warning from me. 8 When I say to the wicked, 'O wicked man, you will surely die,' and you do not speak out to dissuade him from his ways, that wicked man will die for his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood. 9 But if you do warn the wicked man to turn from his ways and he does not do so, he will die for his sin, but you will have saved yourself.”
God tells Ezekiel that it is his responsibility to warn people when they are in danger of judgment from God. In other words, God told Ezekiel to take note of people’s sins, to warn them that sinning is not the way of God, and to implore them to come to repentance. God appointed Ezekiel to be his brother’s keeper.
Now what does that mean, to be our brother’s keeper? To be our sister’s keeper?
The word “keeper” means one to whom something is entrusted to, it means that a person has been charged with the care of a certain thing, that he or she has a responsibility to someone or something else. A zookeeper is responsible for the proper care and feeding of the animals. A doorkeeper is responsible for guarding an entryway and making sure only the right people get in. You don’t keep something by locking it in a box and putting it out of your sight, you keep it by caring for it, you keep a person by upholding your responsibility to that person.
To be your brother’s keeper means that everyone you know, everyone you meet, everyone you see . . . you have an obligation to them. There is no person that you come into contact with that you do not have a responsibility to. Your task as keeper is to warn people of the danger they are placing themselves in by their own sinful actions.
Now that gets a little difficult, doesn’t it? No one wants to be the heavy, no one wants to be the bad guy. Telling a brother or sister that they have sinned against God . . . that just seems kind of harsh. It would be nice if we could just love on people all the time, if we didn’t have teo take the responsibility. Jesus is so serious about the need for us to correct a wayward brother or sister that He says, “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone.”

Why am I my brother’s keeper?
The first reason why we are our brother’s keeper is because it reflects the truth that God is already at work in our lives. 1 John 4:19-21 says, “19 We love because he first loved us. 20 If anyone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.”
Think about what you once were . . . think about the empty way of life you once had. We’ve all got stories, we’ve all got skeletons in our closets . . . do you remember that way of life? Do you remember where that was headed? You . . . were . . . dead in your sins, you followed the course of this world, you didn’t follow God but chased after Satan instead. Remember that?
We all once lived in the passions of our flesh, we carried our every desire of our mind and body, and like the rest of mankind we children of wrath and enemies of God. The Scriptures say that neither the sexually immoral nor the idolaters or adulterers nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God . . . and yet is what we were. That is what you were . . . remember?
You were on a path that was leading to your own destruction! Your way of life was bringing untold damage to your life, the lives of those around you . . . your very soul. Face it . . . we were despicable. There wasn’t a single thing in any one of us that would please God, that could cause Him to love us. We deserved death and Hell. That is what we once were! Remember!
Remember what you once were . . . and now think about what Jesus Christ did for you. For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from your empty way of life, but with the precious blood of Christ. Despite the stone-cold fact that you had declared yourself to be His enemy, God took you in, He cleaned you up, He forgave you your sins, and He made you His own. The gift He gave you was so precious, so valuable . . . God brought you from the gutter to His glory, He transformed you into something brand new, and you’ll never have to go back to the old ways again.
Remember what Jesus Christ did for you, think about what that meant in your life—the comfort, the peace, the forgiveness—and now remember who brought you to Christ. And now you begin to understand why we are our brother’s keeper.
See, God uses His people to do His work. He gives us each a part to play in the advancement of His kingdom. The person who brought you to Christ—whether it was your parents bringing you to baptism, whether it was a friend who explained how much God loves you—that person was being your keeper. They were doing the job God gave them to do, and you were brought to Christ because of them.
God uses you to do the same thing for someone else.

God uses you as His agent of restoration, the watchman standing on the wall. He uses you as your brother’s keeper.

How do I be my brother’s keeper?
So how do we act as our brother’s keeper? What are we supposed to do?
There’s many different ways in which we have a responsibility to those around us, but let’s just focus on one. But the one responsibility that we are focusing on today is our responsibility to warn people off of the path of sin. That is a job that either 1) never gets done because we’re too shy to actually say something or 2) gets done so poorly that you wish it would have never been done at all. God has placed us in this position, however, so we’ll want to make sure that we can do it as best as we can. Here’s five tips to get the job done, and get it done in a manner that brings glory to God and healing to the sinner.
1) Be bold. This is not the time to shrink back from speaking. Imagine this: If during a routine examination a doctor were to notice signs of a serious illness, but did nothing to warn his patient . . . who’s at fault then? In the same way, the knowledge that you are your brother’s keeper compels you to speak. If you fail to speak, God misses a chance to restore the life of your brother or sister who has strayed.
2) Be truthful. In Jeremiah 26:2 God commands the prophet Jeremiah, “Thus says the LORD: Stand in the court of the LORD's house, and speak to all the cities of Judah that come to worship in the house of the LORD all the words that I command you to speak to them. Take that as the first tip: When being your brother’s keeper, you must speak the full counsel of God. The full counsel of God includes both the Law and the Gospel. In other words, it is unacceptable to simply harp on a person’s sins and never tell them that there is a way to be forgiven of those sins. We have truth to speak, but is has to be the whole truth.
3) Be loving. We speak the whole truth, but we must also speak the truth in love—this is what the Apostle Paul exhorts us to do in Ephesians 4:15 when he says, “Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.” Be careful with this one: Do not allow your speech to come off as smug or superior—you are not there to be your brother’s judge, but his keeper!

Remember what the point of being your brother’s keeper is: the point is to draw a wayward brother or sister back to repentance. If your heart is not broken over the way of life they have chosen, then I doubt you will be speaking in love. If we don’t speak in love, people with throw up their defenses and plug their ears and not here what we have to say. Have we then done our duty? Heavens no! If we were to go up to someone and say, “You’re going to Hell because of your ways, and I for one am glad of it. Don’t bother coming to church.”, then have we pushed them away or drawn them in? The point is to draw them to repentance.
4) Be prayerful. Pray! Speak the truth, speak it in love, but pray about it first. Pray that God will give you the right words, that God will give you the right time, and that God will give your brother a heart that will be open to His correction.
5) Be glad! Jonah was a man sent to be his brother’s keeper, but he wasn’t glad when the sinners repented. But Jesus says in Luke 15:10 that “there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” When a sinner repents, rejoice with them and with the angels! Don’t be upset that someone else got some grace; rejoice that God used you to bring it to them!


Being your brother’s keeper . . . it isn’t often the easy thing, I’ll admit. But it is the right thing. It’s more than just you job, your responsibility. It’s more than just what God would have you do. It’s what God has already done for you: Used others to warn you off the path of sin and restore you to the path of righteousness. And He seeks to use you in the same way for someone else. For His glory, and for their restoration.

Amen.