We're going to be looking at Genesis chapter four, verse eight through verse 16. It's the second half of a story that's somewhat well known or familiar, the story of Cain and Abel, Adam and Eve's two boys. You find in the book of Genesis that sin has entered the world through the rebellion of Adam and Eve, and then it begins to spread not just from them, but to their family, to their two boys, Cain and Abel, who in the portion right before this text have been called before God or come before him to offer to him their sacrifices. One offers the first fruits of his flock. Abel does. By faith is the implication. That is, by trusting in God's goodness and his promises, Abel offers a sacrifice that God finds acceptable, pleasing because of his faith. Cain seems to bring just what's lying around, trusting that God is obligated by his actions more so than that God is gracious in response to his faith. And the consequence is that God rejects Cain's offering. And what you find happening in the midst of this is anger boils up into Cain's heart to where it begins to overflow in the portion of God's word that we come to today. Overflowing to the first act of murder in the Bible as one brother slays another in response to his sinful anger. And it is in this scene that God begins to pursue. And he does what he often does in the scriptures, is he starts to ask questions. We find in this story God coming to the brother who has just murdered his other brother and being asked a question that exposes him out of his hiding. Where is your brother? It's not just to Cain I want to suggest that God is asking this question but it's to you and I as his people through his word that he puts this question today. So let's read together from Genesis chapter 4 beginning in verse 8 through verse 16. 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 don't know. Am I my brother's keeper? And the Lord said, What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground. And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. When you work the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength. You shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth. And Cain said, the Lord, my punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground and from your face. I shall be hidden. I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me. Then the Lord said to him, not so. If anyone kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord put a mark on Cain lest any who found him should attack him. And then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod east of Eden. Let's pray together as we begin talking about God's word. Father we thank you that you are one who has made yourself known in your word that you are one who pursues your people even invading the spaces of our lives in the midst of our fleeing from you like you do in this text. Would you do so this morning? Give us ears to hear your word. We pray. I ask that the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts would be acceptable in your sight. The Lord, our God and our Redeemer. In Christ's name. Amen. It was a couple of years ago that I was working on another sermon on this text, and I was sitting in a Panera Bread Company in downtown Savannah on Broughton Street, the Panera there. And as I was working, I was sitting at a table that was located kind of next to a set of trash cans. And I'm sitting typing on my laptop when out of the corner of my eye I noticed that someone has gone to the trash can. And the reason I noticed them is that they were lingering kind of longer than you would expect at a trash can. They kind of weren't leaving. And so I looked over and what I saw was a man that looked somewhat disheveled who was reaching into the trash can and he was pulling out a bag of chips and started eating chips out of the bag. I thought, this guy, maybe they were his chips and he dropped them in, but then he pulled another bag out and I thought, maybe he's just very, very hungry. It's a little gross, but maybe he's hungry. And then he reached in and he pulled out a half-eaten sandwich. And he started to eat the half-eaten sandwich. At this point, I wondered, should I get management involved? This is really kind of gross right here. And then I started to hear echoing somewhere in the back of my conscience. Where is your brother? And I thought certainly not the hungry man so hungry and desperate that he's eating leftover sandwiches out of a trash can in Panera. I have work to do. I have a talk to work on. I'm supposed to meet with a student in an hour's time. I don't have time to be involved in this situation. All sorts of kind of excusing voices started to come up in my head. But the questions kept echoing. Where is your brother? Where is your brother? Where is your brother? There was a haunting sort of exposing that that question started to work in my heart. So much so to the place where I eventually got up and asked the guy if he was hungry and if I could buy him some food. This was no great act of virtue on my behalf. We'll come back to that a little later. But what I want you to see for now is the way in which the one who, as T.S. Eliot said, knows how to ask a question, that is God, has a way of asking questions that expose us, which is what's happening in this story in Genesis chapter 4. Sin has started to devastate human relationships and God shows up and starts asking questions that call us to a place of honesty about what's really happened. And I want us to look kind of the lens of this question of where is your brother to see some of the things that it exposes both in Cain and for us. The first of those is this is that I think this question exposes that what you do with your brother. Reveals your love for God, or to put it this way, what you're doing with your brother reveals what you're really doing with God, how you love one another, as we read earlier, shows what your love for God is ultimately like. This is what's happening in Genesis 4, the great social question is asked, where is your brother? God is concerned here, not only with what we're doing with him, but what we're doing with one another, because these two things are inseparably interlinked. They flow from and towards one another. How you love people reveals your love for God, and the negative is true as well. Your hatred for other people often reveals your hatred towards God. This is Cain's story. In the text that perceives this one, the section of the text that perceives this one, Cain has approached God through what seems to be a sort of self-interested religion. He's brought to God, not the first fruits of his field, but kind of the leftovers. He approaches God with a bartering mentality of if I kind of do what's right, then you owe me, you are obligated to me. And when he finds that God is not interested in his kind of religion, that he rejects him, rejects the place that he's placed his own confidence. then he grows angry. He had this sort of idea that if I give you my good behavior, then you'll you'll give to me your blessing. You seem to be more interested than God's blessing than really the God of the blessing, which I think is very often true of us. And God comes and he rejects his offering and he warns him. He says sin is crouching at the door and its desire is to rule over you. If you don't master it, it's going to master you. If you persist in this path of life apart from me, your anger is going to consume you. And in this portion of Genesis 4, the warning turns into prophecy. Cain gives free reign to his sinful anger and what happens is he murders his brothers. You see, Cain feels that there is an injustice that has occurred and he decides to pursue vengeance, to take justice into his own hands. He and Abel go for a walk in the field. He seems to ask him to go for this walk, which suggests, most commentators think, that this act of murder was not so much the flare-up of passion as it was the premeditated pursuit of justice, or his sense of justice. What revealed in this action towards his brother, though, is really, I think, a heart that is filled with hatred towards God. You see, Cain was angry with Abel, but he was really angry with God. He had a sense that he was getting a raw deal. that life was not unfolding the way he deserved it to unfold. And in response to this perceived injustice, his resolve was that someone has to pay. I'm giving a bond deal and someone needs to pay for it. Isn't this the same thing that very often happens in our hearts in response to difficult or disappointing circumstances? Someone does something that makes you angry and your internal response is that someone needs to pay for this. You've done something and vengeance needs to happen. And we don't think that God in his ruling and reigning over history and creation is just enough to take the matters into his own hands. Instead, we think we must take them into ours. And so we pursue justice. You make fun of me and it goes from playful to painful and I'm going to get you back. You eat my Fritos without asking and I'm going to eat all your Captain Crunch or cookie dough. This is what would happen on a college campus. I'm not sure what takes place in your home when someone eats the last cookie, but you hurt me in some way and I begin to craft and think of ways to pursue vengeance. It reminds me of a story I've heard about Abraham Lincoln before Lincoln was president. He was working as a lawyer in Illinois. And there was a man that came to him seeking legal help. He had been wronged in some way, shape, or form by another man. I don't remember exactly what had happened. But there had been a debt that had been accrued of $2.50. And the man was so angry at the injustice that had been done against him that he insisted upon suing the man who could not repay the debt. So he comes to Lincoln and he says, will you help me sue this man who owes me these $2.50? Lincoln tried to talk him out of it. He said, the guy can't pay you. It's a waste of time. The man persisted. I want to sue. I want to sue. And so Lincoln says, all right, here's the deal. I will help you out. But the legal fee for this case will be $10. The man says, great, let's do it. So Lincoln proceeds to take $2.50 to give it to the man who owes the debt so that he can pay back the man who is suing. And I guess he pockets the rest as profit. I'm not sure what Amos Dave did. But what does it take? For a man to spend four times what he is owed to sue somebody. But a heart that lust for vengeance. Brothers and sisters, I think that heart lurks within each of us. Think of the places where you have experienced deep pain, where someone has really wronged you. What vengeful fantasies are stirred up You know when you are alone driving in the car thinking of the movie scene of like this is what I really want to say if given the opportunity. Our hearts are often filled with hatred towards those who have wounded us and we long to seek revenge. I think Cain is confronted in this text with the painful reality the world is not the way it's supposed to be and that he knows someone that needs to pay. He's just unwilling to admit that he's the one responsible. for the situation that he's in for his heartache, and so he decides it's Abel that must pay. We find that the cancer of sin has spread its devastation throughout the human existence. You see how you love other people reveals really what's happening in your heart towards God. It's what Jesus is getting after in John 15 that Nick read for us earlier. It's what the same apostle writes of in his epistle in John, first John, chapter three, where he says this. Listen to these words. For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. We should not be like Cain, who was the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brothers were 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 and everyone who hates his brother is a murderer and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding him. By this we know love that he laid his life down for us and we also lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brothers in need it closes his heart against him. How does God's love abide in him. Little children, let us not love in word or talk, but in deed and in truth. And this is his commandment that we believe in the name of the son, Jesus Christ, and love one another. Just as he's commanded us, whoever keeps his commandments abides in him and he and them. Did you hear what John is doing in this portion of scripture? He's writing to Christians who are wondering, you know, are we really Christians or not? And he says, do you want to know? Do you want to know if you're really a Christian? Do you love God? Do you love God's people? Do you obey his commandments? He begins to use those three things, love for God, love for his people, and obedience to his commandments as synonyms almost. They're interchangeable, indispensably interconnected parts of one whole reality of this is what the Christian life looks like. His love for God is always shown in love for his people. This is why I think there's absolutely no merit in the notion that's somewhat popular these days of, you know, I love Jesus. I just don't really like his people. I love Jesus. I just don't really like organized religion. I don't want to kind of be connected. in any sort of ongoing active or dependent way with the church. You probably know the sentiment you probably have. Maybe it's yours. You may have friends that this is part of what they think or believe. It's the idea that somehow, you know, I feel closer to Jesus. Actually, instead of being in church on a Sunday, I'm in a park or I'm out fishing on the lake. I don't really need to be connected to his people. Let me kind of be diplomatic here. That notion is absolute hogwash. murky and muddy filled water. There's no such thing as John Wesley once said, as a solitary Christian, is if you love Jesus, it will inevitably show itself up in a love for his people and a connection to his bride, the church. If Christ loved the church enough to die for her, then surely loving him expresses itself in being connected to her. There is no such thing as a solitary Christian. It's why the Bible says this thing in so many different ways. As you do unto the least of these, which means the disciples in the context, so you do unto me. Love one another as I have loved you, or as James puts it, this is true religion, that you love the orphan and the widow. Or do not neglect meeting together, as some as in the habit are doing, or as Galatians says, carry each other's burden, and in this way you fulfill the law of Christ. Or as Paul puts it in Romans, rejoice with those who rejoice, mourn with those who mourn. The Bible is saturated with the calls to love one another, because it is ultimately how you show your love for God. It's an absolute myth that you can be disconnected from God's people and be connected to God. There's a story I like of a man in Britain who was wrestling with this notion of I really love Jesus but I don't love his people and he went to an older man that he trusted who he felt was wise and kind of said will you help me think through this question and so they set up a tea time appointment. The guy came over for tea and After a brief level of chit-chat, they sat in front of a coal-burning fireplace and the conversation ceased. They just sat in quiet for a while and then the older man took a pair of tongs and he took one of the coals that was glowing hot and red out of the fire and he set it on the hearth. And they just sat and silenced and watched until it went from glowing red to a cool black. And then he took the tongs and placed it back into the fire and they watched it come back to life. And he simply said, here's your answer. Right. It's a clear object lesson of disconnected from the body. You can't help but grow cold and wither away. But connected is where life is found because it's where Jesus is found. It's where Jesus is found. So, brothers and sisters, what you do with your brother reveals what you're doing with God. The second thing I want us to see from our text is this. Is that what you do with your brother reveals your need for the gospel. What you do with your brother reveals your need for the gospel. This is what's going on in Genesis 4 where there should have been knowledge and intimacy. These are the first two brothers in scripture where there should have been a joyful relationship between two brothers that's marked by delight and reflection of the harmony of the Trinity. Instead what we find is there is anger and there is hatred and there is murder. Sin has devastated our relationships with one another, not only alienated from God, but now alienated from one another. We sin against each other, we're sinned against, we lie, we steal, we lust, we manipulate, we abuse, we neglect, we destroy. And this is what Moses is trying to help us see, I suggest, in the chapter of Genesis 4, is that you find all these parallels in Genesis 4 to what's happened in Genesis chapter 3. If you remember the story in Genesis Chapter 3, Adam and Eve sin and God comes and he asks a question. He says, Where are you? And they were hiding because they were naked and afraid and ashamed. Here in Genesis 4, Cain slays his brother Abel and God comes and asks another question. Where's your brother? with the same intention of exposing his deep need for the gospel now that he has rejected and rebelled against his creator. After these two questions of where in Genesis 3, God says, what is this you have done? In Genesis 4, the same question, what is this you have done? The response in Genesis 3 is for Adam and Eve to shuck and jive, right? For Adam to say, well, it was the woman you gave me. And for Eve to say, well, it was the serpent that I listened to. And here, when God asking, what is this you've done? Am I my brother's keeper? Is it my responsibility? The same shucking and jiving. In Genesis 3, the ground is cursed and relationships are cursed as a consequence for sin. If you look at the curses in this passage, in verse 11 and in verse 12, you find the ground being cursed. because of Cain's sin, and in verse 12, Cain says of himself, I will be a wanderer, both cut off from God and cut off from his people, a fugitive. Relationships and the ground are cursed. In Genesis 3, There is an act of mercy as God slays the animals and covers Adam and Eve with the garments and in Genesis 4 he once again covers his rebellious sinners. This time with a mark that's placed upon Cain that spares him from the consequence of immediate justice of people taking his life. In Genesis 3 Adam and Eve are kicked out of the garden and a flaming sword is placed. At the end of our text it tells us that Cain moved to Nod which means wandering east of Eden. It's always movement in Genesis further and further and further away from the garden eastward into separation from God. Moses is trying to make a point here. The fall is progressing outward. It started in the garden with Adam and Eve and now it's fruit is being born in their children and sin has devastated not just our relationship with God but it's devastating our relationships with one another. Is that there is a breakdown in these horizontal relationships because there's been a breakdown in the vertical ones. We don't and can't seem to get along with one another. because we don't get along with God. Think for a second of the seventh grade science project that depicts the planets. There are eight planets now? They took one away, I think. Are there eight now? I can't keep it straight. It seems to change every week. So the eight planets, I think there were nine when I was growing up, but the seventh-grade science fair, you've all seen these big styrofoam balls, and at the center is always the big, the sun, and the little planets hanging in coat hangers around it. It helps to communicate the idea that each of these individual planets orbit around the sun, that the sun is what holds the center with its gravitational pull. And what keeps Mercury from colliding with Venus or Mars is that they are kept in their proper orbit by their relationship to the gravitational center. But what if you take that center out of the illustration, out of the equation, and the planets begin to orbit around themselves, what inevitably happens is that there is collision and there is destruction. And that's what's going on in Genesis 4. This man has rejected the gravitational center of his relationship with God and the inevitable consequence is collision with one another and destruction of creation. It exposes that there is a deep need for the gospel. The answer for the question of why can't we all just get along is because we have rejected our creator. You see the problem of human relationships. We've been asking this question for as long as the earth has been in existence and yet we seem no closer to a sustainable world of peace or of joy or of love, not just kind of in the out there, but in the in here and our relationships with one another. The problem is not fundamentally ignorance that needs to be educated. It's not inequality in need of opportunity. It's not an ideology that needs to be rejected, which is often what people say of Christianity. It's not a fragile self-esteem that needs to be built up. There's a measure of truth in each of those things. But fundamentally, what the Bible tells us is that none of these is our deepest problem. We don't get along with other people because sin has devastated your heart and mind. It is a rejection of God and a bondage to sin that we are in desperate need of being rescued from. Here's what I want you to see, not just sin though in the abstract, but sin in the concrete and the personal. Your sin has devastated relationships. and other people's sin against you has done the same. If you were from a home of abuse or of divorce or of some sort of bad, broken relationships, you know the weight of other people's sin against you. But the biggest threat I think that this story points us towards, this question of where is your brother and what is it you've done, is that the biggest threat to your relationships is not other people's sin, but it's really your sin. There was an essay competition back in the 1800s, I think, or early 1900s, that a man named G.K. Chesterton, an author and essayist in the UK, responded to it, called for Britain's leading intellectuals to write essays in response to this question, what is wrong with the world? And Chesterton sent in his essay, which was by far, I think, the most profound and certainly the shortest. This was Chesterton's essay, Dear Sir, I am sincerely yours, G.K. Chesterton. What's wrong with the world? Me. Me. It's that kind of attitude that I think starting to see your need for the gospel exposes is that the biggest threat is my sin, not so much other people's sin. It's what's happening in verses 10 and 11. And the Lord said, what have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground. And now you were cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. is you can't get away. from the reality of our sin and the way in which it calls out against us. There's this series of questions to teach your children about God, the children's catechism that we do with our children. One of my favorite questions is one that says, can you see God? The answer is no, I cannot see God, but he always sees me. It's the sentiment here. Cain, God has always seen. Brothers and sisters, God sees you and he sees me. Whose blood? is crying out against you. Who have you murdered with the anger of your heart? For me, it was my children this morning, getting ready to come to church, and I lose my temper because they're keeping me from what I want, which is to get ready and get out of the house without a hassle. Who have you gossiped about, spread malicious details for your own gain? You won't believe what this girl did. Who have you slandered? Who right now are you storing up anger or bitterness towards? Jesus says love your enemies and pray for them. Is this what you're doing towards your spouse? Towards the boss at work that's making your life miserable? Where are you seeking revenge? How exactly are those lustful fantasies that you engage in loving towards someone else? Or maybe it's not what you've been doing. It's what you've left undone. We heard that John passages. We see your brother in need and don't have pity on him. How can the love of God be in you? Who are the brothers in need that have stirred up love in your heart, the poor people that you've been involved with? What have you done about genocide and Darfur? When's the last time you visited a prisoner? Where are you being cost something in your relationships with other people, time or energy or money or or sadness? Mourn with those who mourn. You see, often we look at the world's needs, and I think our response to God's question is like Cain. We say, I don't know. Am I my brother's keeper? Why are you asking me? I don't have any responsibility for what's going on out there. You see, there are generational patterns of sin that plague Cain's family like they do mine and yours, and he, like his parents before him, is trying to escape God's judgment and get out from under his responsibility. It's not my responsibility, or maybe our more popular version of, it's just none of my business what's going on in the lives of other people. We don't think we bear responsibility for one another. Your friend, who you're pretty sure is about to enter into an adulterous relationship, that's just none of my business. The timid or shy person that you work with that's a bit awkward and everyone else just avoids, it's not my responsibility. The neighbor, whose name you may or may not know, I have no responsibility. Am I my brother's keeper? The implied and implicit answer throughout scripture is you better believe that you are your brother's keeper. Yes, we are. Here is one of the places I think we so often minimize sin that devastates our relationships with one another. I want you to see the responsibility that we have, not just for our peers and our geographical neighbors, but there really is a call. You know, to love the poor, the outcast, the orphan, the widow, these are not just categories you can casually sidestep. But my goal is not just to make you feel guilty. I want you to see, is that even when you do those things, blood still cries out against you. Back to the story I started with, of me helping the hungry man in the Panera, oh great, I helped the poor person. What was going on in my heart the whole time I'm hearing this question of where is your brother? What will I do if I have to teach on this passage and I don't get involved here? a response to God's love for me, but it is rather a response to my own desire to kind of elevate myself or protect myself from some sense of shame or some sense of embarrassment. The real motivation is I've got to stand up and talk about this passage. Is that even where maybe I do what seems to be the right thing, there is still blood that cries out against me, even when I do what seems right. The goal is not that you would be motivated by guilt. That will get us like 10 minutes after church and then we'll forget all about things. But it's rather to help you have some sense of the very real guilt that you and I have. That there is blood that cries out against us. Our guilt is real. And you may not be thinking in particular terms of someone that you're involved in a relationship with now that you're not loving well. But brothers and sisters, make no mistake about it. Your sin has led to the murder of your brother. Christ himself on the cross. It was there that our sin ultimately expresses itself in the murderful, murdering act towards our elder brother Christ. As the passage that we read from the very beginning of the service this morning, Hebrews chapter 12, which you can see at the top of your bulletin, the author to Hebrews is making an argument to those facing persecution about the superiority of Jesus Superior over the temple, superior over Moses, superior over priests. And here he talks about Jesus being superior place of God's presence to Mount Zion. And he says these things. He says, you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem and to innumerable angels and a festival gathering into the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven and to God, the judge of all and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant. and to the sprinkle blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. Abel's blood speaks of vengeance and separation. Jesus' blood speaks of forgiveness and reconciliation. You see, every place that God curses Cain, In this text in Genesis four, the New Testament points us towards Jesus restoration and reversing of the curse. The ground is cursed. And Jesus says, behold, I am making all things new. Relationships are cursed. And Jesus comes and he says, love one another as I have loved you. The promise and the call towards restoration and renewal is that Jesus reverses the destruction. He reverses the curse and his blood cries out not against you, but for you. And what it cries is your sin is covered. Your guilt is wiped away. You are righteous in the sight of God because of what Christ, your brother, has done. Not murder you, but be murdered for you. That gives to you the place not just of a guilty response towards seeing your sin, but of a joyful response that now has the power to actually motivate you to love. and all the places that you want to walk away from the responsibility towards your brother and sister. Let me try to bring this home with one final story as we close to see something of how seeing yourself as a sinner who's covered by Jesus' blood can start to motivate you towards a renewed response towards God and his people. I want you to imagine for a second that you were along a four-lane highway and you were gridlocked in traffic. You're not here, you're actually in Washington, D.C., and next to you on your right-hand side is the Potomac River, and it's wintertime. So the river is cold. It's not frozen completely over, but it is filled with blocks of ice that are kind of floating down the river as the water is quite frizzed. And you're sitting in the right-hand lane of traffic, and on the left you see a man in his car who undoes the seatbelt buckle, and he gets out, he opens his door, and he runs across his car, across in front of yours, and he jumps into the river, and he drowns. What would you think of such a man? The elevator doesn't go all the way to the top floor. He's not one of the brightest Crayolas in the crayon box. You would think something's a little off. This man is rather foolish to do such a thing. Now, let me add one fact to the story. A few moments before, there is an Air Florida jet that has taken off from Dulles International Airport. Shortly after takeoff, it crashed into the Potomac River The fuselage is broken open. There are people that are still alive, but they are stuck in the cold water. Their bodies are cramping because of the cold. They're unable to grab the rescue ropes that are being thrown to them. Their eyes are blinded by the airplane fuel that is in the water. And this man, Lenny Skutnik, undoes his seatbelt. He runs across in front of you, and he jumps into the river, and he drowns, saving people from what was their certain and sure destruction. Now what do you think of him? Well, he's a hero. And he's one that you would probably look at and you would start to say, would I do that? I didn't. I stayed in the car. Maybe I should love a little more like him. And I think for many of us, this is kind of where we stop in the story. But that's not where the gospel stops. Let me add another fact. You were not in the car, but you were in the water. It's your eyes that are blinded by the airplane fuel. It's your body that is cramping up with the cold. It's you that is sinking and dying, utterly unable to rescue yourself. This man jumps into the water and saves you at the expense of his own death. How will that affect your response to him? When you get out of that water, do you think you're going to want to know who his family is? that you're going to want to somehow show your appreciation, your gratitude, your thanks, your love for them because of the way he's shown his love for you. Brothers and sisters, you have been rescued by the blood of Christ that cries out on your behalf. Love your brothers and sisters, love one another as he has loved you. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you that you loved us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Would you renew us by this love, enable us to love one another? For your namesake and for our good, we ask these things. Amen.