Church discipline is not a topic I like. You think, come on, man, you wrote a book on it. I really do not like this topic. It is a tough topic. Recently, there was a close friend of my wife and I, a person in whom we'd invested much time and energy and love, lots. And this friend began making a pattern of very foolish choices. A series of choices that I knew, suspected slash knew, would culminate in excommunication if she did not repent of them. And I talked to her about, my wife and I, we talked to her about this series of choices that she was engaging in, and she just didn't see it as sin. I remember reading a passage of scripture, which could not have defined the sin more clearly. Like, it was just so obvious. What she was doing was so obviously the thing I was reading in the Bible. And I read it to her and I said, well, what do you think of this passage? And she's like, I agree with it. I'm like, can't you see that this is what you're doing? She couldn't see it. And I was losing sleep. My stomach was churning. I did not want to see this woman excommunicated from the church. It was the last thing in the world. Both my wife and I were just deeply distraught over this because the person who's coming forward for potential excommunication is not the strong. It's the weak and wounded. They already got one foot out and you've been wanting nothing more for them to get both feet in and you've been working with them for years to get both feet in. They've had one foot out and they show the scars and they show the scuffling and he's like, no, come on. And then this thing happens and you realize we might have to push them all the way out. That is not what I want to do. So, friends, all that to say this, this is a really hard topic. It is hard for me who's even written on it. And I think it's certainly hard for your brother pastors. As they move into it, it's hard for churches. It's hard because we know that we're sinners. Who are we to say it's hard because. Is now really the time, isn't there more we could do to reclaim them? It's hard because it takes so much wisdom. You know, who has that kind of wisdom? It's hard because, you know, that you can make things worse. They might get really angry and really leave and never come back, and it might Make all of their friends angry in the church and divide the church. It's hard, okay? Church discipline is tough stuff. Nonetheless, we trust that the Holy Spirit is wiser than we are. The Holy Spirit has given us his word. We can trust it. And so we move forward into this tough topic, trusting the wisdom of God, the wisdom of the Spirit, more than we do our own. Turn to Matthew 18. I read this to you before. I'm going to read it again. I want it to sink in. I'm going to go through nine questions here, the outline for my remarks of nine different questions and answers. Question number one, what does the Bible say? Question one, what does the Bible say? Verse 15, Matthew 18. If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen to even the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector. And then, of course, the keys. I tell you the truth. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Okay, so someone is sinning. They're confronted privately, they don't stop, they're confronted a second time, it still doesn't come to an end, he's confronted by the church, still doesn't stop, and so finally he is to be treated as an outsider, excommunicated. So you have this widening circle of knowledge and confrontation, each time raising the stakes a little bit. That quote that you see there in verse 16, so that a matter may be established by two or three witnesses, is grabbed from Deuteronomy 19, where a person in Israel had committed some sin. He's brought for the people and a very careful investigation and consideration goes on. We presume innocent until proven guilty. This needs to be established. We're not jumping to hasty conclusions here in this judicial process. Look, if the state is going to make sure that evidence is presented and there's a trial of peers and a jury, we as a church should be no less careful in establishing something here. And then finally, it is determined, it does look like a credible violation, and it's presented to the church. There's this concern to keep it as small as possible, but a willingness to go finally to the whole church. Why? Well, the church is affirming this person as a citizen of the kingdom of heaven. They're speaking for Jesus. And we need to set the public record straight. If the public record is is finally in error, it's not just Jesus who talks this way. It's Paul to flip over to First Corinthians five. First Corinthians five. Verse one. It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you. Of a kind that does not even occur among pagans, a man has his father's wife. People presume a step-mom. And you are proud. Shouldn't you have rather been filled with grief and put out of your fellowship the man who did this? Even though I am not physically present, I am with you in spirit, and I have already passed judgment on the one who did this, just as if I were present. When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and I am with you in spirit and the power of the Lord Jesus is present. Pause. Interesting phrasing there, isn't it? When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and the power of the Lord Jesus is present, what does that remind you of? Matthew 18, when two or three are gathered in my name, ask anything and. It'll be done. So, he's invoking that institutional authority that he gives to the church gathered in his name. Remember, raising the flag, we're formally constituted as a church. Here we are. And he even has that little phrase, I am with you in spirit. He's invoking his own apostolic authority. Remember I said the apostles had the keys? Chapter 16. See, kind of a double authority going on here. You have an apostolic holding of the keys, and you have the local church. Look, when you're gathered, you're holding those keys. Exercise my apostolic authority. He's saying, verse 5, hand this man over to Satan. Who has the kingdoms of the world? Satan. Hand him back to his kingdom. So that, what's the purpose? So that the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord. It's redemptive. Skip down to verse 11. But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother. Still saying he's a Christian. But is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slander, a drunkard or a swindler with such a man do not even eat. What business is of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside, but But as for you, expel the wicked man from among you. Are we not supposed to judge, doesn't Jesus say, Matthew seven, we're not to judge, lest you be judged. Whatever he means, but yes. But whatever he means by that, he means something different that's going on in Matthew 18, just a few chapters later that Paul has in mind here, we can work out those differences if you want, but Something different is going on. There is to be this judicial process. I talked about binding and loosing. It's a judicial process. I talked about Deuteronomy 19. It's a judicial process. There's this judicial process going on. This person's life and profession are divorced. He's proving unrepentant. Hand them back to the citizenship of the world, the citizenship of the kingdom of Satan. And in this situation, interestingly, Paul doesn't even tell him to warn the individual. He just says, I've already passed judgment. Hand him over. He's unrepentant. Effectively is what he's saying. Declare that he is no longer a member of the kingdom of God. And then in verse 12, he even calls, as I said, for this act of judgment. Are you not to judge those inside? Question two, what exactly is church discipline? What exactly is church discipline? Well, in the broadest sense, church discipline is one aspect of discipleship. Notice the word discipline and disciple are etymological cousins, and discipline is part of the discipleship process. It involves teaching and correcting. And sure enough, church historians will point out that there's a centuries-old practice of referring to formative discipline and corrective discipline. Formative discipline, we're teaching. Corrective discipline, we're correcting mistakes. What would you think of a math teacher who taught the lesson, walked around the class, looked at the papers on the desk as the students are filling it out, doesn't correct the mistakes? He's taught it on the blackboard, but now he's not correcting the mistakes. You're saying that's not a good math teacher. Or what do you say of the nurse or the doctor who prescribes a regimen of health? but then won't call out, point out, cut out a tumor. You need both formation teaching and you need correcting. You need both. Discipline involves both teaching against sin and correcting sin. More narrowly, we refer to church discipline, that word we use to refer to that final stage of disciplining somebody out of the church, excommunicating Different people use the word differently. I recognize that. Some people say there's three steps. Some people say there's five steps. I see four steps in the text. We can quibble about that if you want, but for our purposes here, I'm defining church discipline, formal church discipline, as bringing it to the church, third stage, and then fourth stage, handing them over. Informal discipline, those private confrontations, formal discipline. It's gone public now, and we're putting the person out of the church. Church discipline is not retributive. It's not retribution. It's not enacting justice, not revenge. It is rehabilitative. It's redemptive. It's meant to help the individual Christian and the church grow in godliness, in godlikeness. Paul says, hand this man over to Satan so that the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved. I don't think he's saved. He thinks he is because he's calling himself a brother. The guys who are saved don't do that. The Holy Spirit is not going to be inside of a person and let them do that. The Holy Spirit is more powerful, don't you realize? And he's living like he doesn't have the spirit. Now, it is a small picture of judgment. It's a shadow. It's a shadow pointing to the great judgment to come. The last day, that's when the real judgment and this is just a little warning, it's a little little pointer to sign bridge out ahead. That's what this is. That's church discipline is bridge out ahead. So it's a small picture of judgment now to warn of an even greater judgment to come. And isn't God loving to warn us of what's ahead? Imagine never warning, you know, living that way, you know, smoking those cigarettes. Fine. Is that loving? Oh, it's actually loving to, you know, smoking those cigarettes is going to lead to cancer. You might not want to do it, right? It's loving to warn people. And that's what church discipline does. Okay, I'm jumping ahead. Question three, can this really be loving? My my my first experience with corrective justice was with this was in the late 90s with a friend, a good friend. I thought a good friend, sort of a good friend who was a running partner. We'd have lunch. We'd go jogging. And we were both single. And we were talking about dating relationships and so forth. And I remember one day we were sitting at lunch and it came out that he was involved, engaged in a lifestyle of sexual sin, unrepentant sexual sin. And I said to him, you know what the Bible says about that, right? And he said, yeah. I said, what's wrong? He said, well, yeah, you know, I really prayed about it a lot. And God told me it was OK. He was utterly sincere. And I brought another brother in and the two of us together confronted them and eventually went to the elders. He talked to the elders. And. He said the same thing to all of us, I can have Jesus and my son, and that's just fine. And so on a very sad day, he actually then tried to resign his membership. And we said, well, that doesn't quite work like that. I'll come to that in a second. And so on a very sad day, the church excommunicated this individual. And I've talked to him maybe once since by it was actually by mistake. Anyway, yes, I've pretty much lost touch with this guy. Was that loving? Was that loving to him? Was it loving to the church? Was it loving to the world? Loving to Christ? Was it loving? Friends, we talked about this last night. I think we have cultural ideas about love that need to be radically reoriented. I read this to you last night for Shun 5.3. This is love for God to obey his commands. This is love to obey his commands. And think about Hebrews 12 for a second. This is where we read, For the Lord disciplines the one he loves. Now, I know it's not talking about church discipline in the context. Nonetheless, I think it's a very clear, applicable lesson. The Lord disciplines the one he loves and chastises every son whom he receives. It's for discipline you've had to endure. God is treating you as sons. He who does not discipline his child hates his child, Proverbs says. Discipline doesn't have to be loving. You can do discipline in anger. You can do it abusively, but don't throw the baby out the bathwater. Discipline in and of itself can be and should be A loving thing. Churches should practice discipline fundamentally for love's sake. Love for the sinner's sake that they might be brought to repentance. Love for the church's sake that the weaker sheep might not be led astray. 1 Corinthians 5, a little bit of yeast works through the whole batch of dough. Love for the non-Christian neighbor's sake, that they might not receive a false view of Christianity and of Christ. And love finally for Christ's sake, that his name might be exalted in our personal and corporate life. When we join a church, I said to you last night, we commit to loving one another. And it's a holy love, not the worldly love, not Hollywood love, I said, but a holy love. Church discipline is fundamentally for love's sake. Question four. What are the results of church discipline? I want to point to two results. First, loving church discipline actually grows the church in love and holiness. In the same way that the math teacher walking around the classroom, looking in the decks, oh, you made a mistake there. Let me let me help you see what you did wrong in your math. OK, that that improves the students. Right. When when the when the errors are corrected. OK, so we just read Hebrews 12, the Lord disciplines the one he loves while the passage goes on, God disciplines us for our good that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. I love that phrase. I'm reading from the NIV there. I love the NIV's translation, a harvest of peace and righteousness. You picture golden rolling fields of wheat, right? A harvest of peace and righteousness. What does that look like? Rolling golden fields of peace and righteousness. That's what you get through discipline, informal, formal discipline. It's a beautiful picture. I remember one sister who I knew who cared about me said to me one day, Jonathan, you are so selfish. And I was like, no, I'm not. What are you talking about? And she said, well, there's this and there's that and this happened and you did that. And that, I'm like, OK, see what you're saying. That was a little act of discipline. That was an informal act of church discipline right there. And I trust and love her saying to me, you're selfish, Jonathan. You're always out for yourself. And by God's grace, I grew. I became slightly less selfish as a process or as a result of that, right? That's how it works. At the same time, every time we bring a church discipline case in front of the whole church, and our church probably disciplines, I want to say, four to six individuals a year formally out of the church. We have a church of about a thousand, well, nine hundred members. Three to six, probably a year. Every time we do, the following week, sure enough, phone call of the elders are ringing of young men, young women saying, OK, I've got to talk to you about this sin in my life. I don't want to go down that road. There's a new holy zeal to fight sin in the church. When this happens. Live such good lives among the pagans that though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits. OK, question five, which sins require discipline? Well. One way to summarize the biblical data is to say that church discipline is required in cases of outward, serious, an unrepentant sin, and it needs to be all three outward, serious, unrepentant. A sin must have an outward manifestation. It must be something that can be seen with the eyes or heard with the ears. Churches should not quickly throw the red flag of ejection every time they suspect greed in somebody's heart or pride. You're proud. Well, how do you know? I can just see, I can tell. OK, well, when that shows visible fruit, then we have a conversation to talk about. OK, so it must be outward. Second, it must be serious. So I might observe a brother, exaggerate the details of a story. I know he's kind of fudging the truth a little bit. Now, I might privately say, you know, Are you interested in impressing others? It seems like there's some fear of man going on there because you were trying to make yourself look better in that story than you really were. I encourage you to repent of that. I might do that privately, but I'm not going to bring him in front of the church. He exaggerated the story, you know. No, there needs to be in the place in the church's life where love covers over a multitude of sins, where we forbear, where we're patient with one another, where we forgive, even when it's not asked for. So I think a sin needs to be serious. We could talk about, OK, well, where's the line? Serious, not serious. Very briefly, I would say the line is it doesn't matter. Prudence out of wisdom. It's a sin which basically discredits, disqualifies a person's profession of faith. It's like I don't see how you can be a Christian and live in that. Not that you can't be look, look, I know that Christians sometimes will stumble into fornication. It happens. But then they get up and repent. Right. But. But this is where something like like a little embellishment, I can kind of understand how a Christian is going to is going to do that and maybe not come clean with it. It doesn't shock me. But over here in the fornication category, if if the person is continuing to live in it, it's like I said before, I just don't see how you can have the Holy Spirit of God in you. If you're just going to do that and not even worry about it, that discredits, that disqualifies your profession of faith. OK, this is a spectrum here, right? Somewhere in there, depending on the situation, we do our best to judge, to discern. Finally, and of course, then unrepentant. I've already been implying this. Let me make it explicit. The sin has to be unrepentant. The person involved in serious sin has been privately confronted with God's commands, but he, she refuses to let go of sin. From all appearances, the person appears to value sin more than Jesus. Question six. How quickly should the church act? Well, sometimes the processes of discipline are going to move quite slowly. This is the case, for instance, when a sinner shows some interest in fighting against his or her sin. It's not just the sin that needs to be considered. It's the nature of the sinner, him or herself. Different sinners, to put it bluntly, require different strategies. 1 Thessalonians 5. Paul instructs, admonish the idle, encourage the faint hearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. So I remember working with one brother who was involved in a kind of addiction. And whenever when I was in his life on a weekly basis, calling him weekly, maybe meeting weekly, he would stay out of his addiction. Then I remember an occasion came in which I got really busy. Several weeks went by, maybe even a month went by. We weren't in touch. And I remember one day thinking, Oh, I haven't heard from this guy. I don't know how he's doing. And I called him. No return call. I emailed him nothing. Another call, nothing. Another week goes by. Finally, it's now it's been like five, six weeks. He he calls me. And he's like, Jonathan, it's worse than it's ever been. I'm so deep down in it is addiction. And I don't want out. But I want to want out. You know, So can we get down in the mud with you? Pick you up. Let's keep walking. Let's keep trying. And he walked with me. He would do. So if I was there like an old man crossing the street, if I'm holding his arm, he'll walk with me. He's weak. You know, a decade of this addiction, his brain wiring is, you know, he needs somebody to help him. I'm going to walk for a long time. With a guy like that, he's walking with me, I'm going to walk with him to the end of the days, just keep him inside the sheep pen. If we can get to glory and I've kept him inside the sheep pen success. Right. But if you're not going to return my calls, you're not going to return my emails and you're not going to walk with me. We're going to have to remove you eventually. So, yeah, sometimes it'll be slow, sometimes it'll speed up real fast. In a certain sense, another church... I'm not going to get into that story. There are two situations in which the process of discipline speed up would be in which there's division in the church. Paul seems to warn them once, warn them a second time, have nothing to do with them, he says through Titus. So it moves pretty quickly. Don't let this harm the other sheep. And then 1 Corinthians 5, where the person's sin is so flagrant and strikingly out of a person's profession of faith, and it's unrepentant. I could walk you through the text and make a case for why. I think it's pretty clear that this individual is unrepentant. I won't do that right now. Paul says, hand him over. Okay, question seven, does a preemptive resignation avoid discipline? You might have heard about situations like these. I just described to you one before. This person was involved in sexual sin. I know there are situations where a guy left his wife and the elder says, you've got to come back. We're going to discipline you. And he says, fine, I resign. You know, does that work? Get out of jail, free card. Is that legitimate? Well, no, you join by the authority of the church and you leave by the authority, the consent of the church. You know, look, Jesus is smarter than that. You know, oh, you just preemptive resignation. Wish I would have thought of that. You know, Jesus knows what he's talking about. No. So when people come to us and they're on the way to be disciplined and they they say, well, I resign, we just say, well, thank you. We don't accept your resignation. That doesn't work. Question eight, how should we interact with someone who has been disciplined? Three things, a lot of texts, but let me summarize in three ways. First, we actually, this might surprise some of you, we actually encourage them and tell the church that we welcome them to attend the church. There's no place we'd rather than be than sitting under the preaching of the God's word on Sunday morning. They're not welcome to the table. We've excommunicated them because they're there at the public meeting. They're there, as it were, as a non-Christian. So we do welcome their attendance. Secondly, family members should certainly fulfill biblical obligations of family, getting to the brother's question from before. And then third, we say the tenor of your relationships with the individual should markedly change. You're not getting together to talk about football. Weekend games. You're not just hanging out, chumming around. If you are with them, you're hanging out to talk about repentance. You're not associating with them casually. Paul says, with such a person, do not even eat. We've got to understand that a little bit in the ancient Near Eastern context of hospitality. It's not like two people could get together at McDonald's and share a bite. Rather to eat with somebody means inviting them into your home and extending a kind of covenantal protection and identification with them. That's why the Pharisees, of course, are shocked that Jesus is eating with the sinners and the tax collectors. Because to eat with somebody is to identify with them. So you need to know what does that mean for us? Well, that means make sure you are not identifying with them and letting the world perceive their sin as part of you as the church. And and and so you're going to let a certain awkwardness and a strangeness and an uncomfort uncomfortableness come into any interactions that you have with them. You know, that's that's going to look different case to case. Question nine. When do you restore someone from discipline? Well, simple. When there's signs of repentance. And repentance is going to look different depending on the nature of the sin. Sometimes it's black and white. A man's left his wife. What's repentance? He comes back. Okay, what about addiction? Well, that's harder, right? It's a little, what is repentance? You know, we disciplined one individual for alcoholism. And for him, repentance was really hard to discern. It looked like he'd cleaned up his act, but then he fell again. And he looked like he'd cleaned up and then he fell again. You know, so it's just, it's harder to discern. I will say this, with something like that, it'll be certainly a new vigor, a new zeal in fighting their sin. Man, they're willing to cut off the hand or gouge out the eye. You want them to meet with so-and-so weekly? They'll do it. You want them to read that book? They'll do it. Just tell me what I got to do. I want to be done with this sin. Right. So you see a new vigor in fighting against the sin. And once a church decides to restore a repenting individual to its fellowship in the Lord's table, there should be no talk of probation or second class citizenship. Rather, there should be a pronouncement of forgiveness John 20, 23. The church should affirm its love for the repenting individual. Second Corinthians 2, 8. And you should celebrate. Prodigal son. Luke 15. Question 10, how do we do it? Five quick principles. I'm just going to list the principles. I'm not going to explain them because I want to leave more time than usual for Q&A. Number one, involve as few people as possible. Number two, leaders should lead, especially when you get into the two or three and certainly before it goes to the church. Leaders should lead. Number three, The length, the duration is established by the determining of repentance. That's what you're seeking to determine. Is this individual repentant? However long it takes us to come to a common mind on that, that's how long it's going to take. Number four, give the benefit of the doubt. Presume innocent until proven guilty. Lead out with questions, not, you know, conviction. Did this happen? My understanding was this. Is that correct? Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to become angry, James says. Number five, leaders should instruct and involve the congregation. Now, I'm stating that vaguely for those of you who are elder rule. I know some of you are and some of you are elder led. I'm elder led. So we think the congregation has the final authority, but the elders lead them to use their authority. Elder rule means the elders have the final say. They hold the keys, they exercise and What I'm saying is, whatever tradition you're coming down in, look for ways to, and certainly instruct, and I'd even say involve the congregation. So even if you're over here on the elder rule side of things, I would say, look, Scripture's saying, tell it to the church before this happens. So involve the church, encourage the church to go after this individual. Find some way to involve within your polity structure, look for some way to involve the congregation. You want them to know, you want the members of your church to know they have an ownership. in this. They have a share in this. They're a member of the body. And this person's this person's demise is their demise. He goes down. We all go down. Right. Not the idea of first Corinthians 12. When one part is dishonored, we're all dishonored. We don't want to see. So involve the congregation, even if you, the elders have final authority. I think it's even better to be elder led and congregational because in the churches, experiencing its responsibility in the final vote. But we don't have to have that conversation right now. I can't correct all your mistakes today. Kidding. Most discipline in our church never reaches the church. Most the vast majority is private, informal, a friend saying to me, you're so selfish. You're right. I need to repent. That's the vast majority of discipline in our church. Praise God. And let me say this. If there is not a culture in your church of openness and accountability to relationships in which you're inviting instruction and correction, if that's not a regular part of the relationships in the church and then you come out with the broad sort of discipline and start swinging that people are like, What are you doing? Whereas if your church understands the gospel and they understand it calms causes to repentance and they understand that they're to help one another fight for holiness and they're doing that already. in their their private lives and over lunch and in the home and for walks and so forth and that. OK, then formal church discipline makes sense. You know, OK, yeah, this is the final stage of what we're doing already. This is clearly an implication of the gospel. So if your church doesn't presently practice church discipline, don't go home. And on Sunday, bring somebody in front of the church. It's just that's not the way to to begin. You get a lot of work to do before that. A lot of teaching work, a lot of discipling work, a lot of cultivating a culture work before you jump in with this big thing. On that note, friends, when was the last time you invited somebody to correct you? Just think, this week, this month. When was the last time you invited your brother or sister in Christ to correct you? And when was the last time you had that really awkward conversation that you really prayed about because it made you nervous and just you went to the sister and brother said, I love you so much. Can I share with you an observation? I might be seeing this wrong here, but how when you were talking to your wife that way, it just really made me uncomfortable. When was the last time you This week again, this month. Now, there's probably a small percentage of you in here for whom it's very easy to confront others. And truth be told, I might be in that small percentage. It's relatively easy. Something in me, it's easy for me to be confrontational. Most of us, it's really hard, you know, and So ask yourself, when was the last time you did that? So I'm not speaking to the small percentage of you. You guys can just be quiet, right? You and me probably just need to chill out. But for most of us. Several years ago, our church disciplined a man for stealing from and lying to his employer and he refused to repent. And so we removed him. It was a very sad day for the church because he'd become a Christian through the ministry of the church. And he was he was from Indonesia and he was here in the States and he loved being in the States. And part of his part of the stealing from and lying to his employer had to do with the fact that he was not legally in the States. And he was a sweet, sweet, precious brother. After he'd become converted and baptized and joined the church, he bought a set of dinnerware just so that he could host all the men for dinner that had had an impact on him spiritually. And he he brought them all over and made a meal for them. Isn't that beautiful? Right. So here's this precious, beloved member of the church, new Christian, but now it's three months and six months in and the elders discover that he's lying to and I forget the details, somehow stealing from his employer, having to do with his work status and refuse to repent. They offered to give him money. We'll do we'll help you. Come on, we'll do whatever it takes. You just got to stop this. He didn't. So we excommunicated him. Very, very sad day for the church. A little chick you want a little chick in the nest and I'm going to put it out the walls really sad day for the church. Well, about a year later, he wrote us this email to one of the elders in the church, Andy. Andy, he says, thank you for this encouraging email you wrote. Thank you to the church for always remembering me and continuing to pray for me. Andy had sent him this email and he was replying. I have to confess, I left the church with an unfinished sinful matter. And the sad thing is I took it lightly. I should have learned to humble myself and come to you for a reconciliation. Are we enemies to each other? No, we are Christian brothers. But I was too proud and stubborn. My pride led me to think that God alone would settle the matter without me taking some action. Then I went on my own way. And the result, I did not find peace when I remember the air that I made towards my brothers and sisters at CHBC. But I'm glad now and never regret to obey God by repenting, which he had done by by moving back to Indonesia, quitting his job and moving back to Indonesia. I know it now why and what purpose God brought me home, because they're an eternal opportunity for me away that I wish I can describe to you what kind of relationship I have with him today. It is too beautiful to describe. Despite the hardship I've been facing in the last two years, the Lord has continued to show me his love and his full mercy. Andy, I've been praying for this reconciliation to happen, but please show me how to do it. I'm longing to reunite with my family again. Lastly, please send my thanks to the church members and to the elders. I miss you all. Much Love, Mono And it was with joy several weeks later that the Church of Andes sent this reply. Mano, it's been great to get back in touch with you. I wanted to let you know that last night at the CHBC members meeting, we shared with the membership part of your recent email to me and gave them an update on how you are doing. Everyone was humbled and encouraged by your words and your actions. The membership voted unanimously to affirm the following motion from the CHBC elders. Motion. The CHBC elders happily recommend that the members of CHBC acknowledge with thankfulness to God and the repentance of our brother, Mono, that we formally express to him our forgiveness for his actions toward us and that we publicly renew our expression of fellowship with him and love for him as our brother in Christ. And we do this all with great thanks to God for his faithfulness to his word and to those who honor it by their obedience. Then we prayed for you as a congregation asking God's richest blessing on you and your life and work. May God continue to encourage and sustain you as you follow after him, your brother in Christ, Andy. And Mano is now serving as an evangelist among a Muslim people group in Indonesia. So he repented and God was glorified and the witness of his church extended to the other side of the planet, to a Muslim people group. Friends, is God not wiser than we are? Let me close in prayer and then we'll see what questions there are. Father God, we give you all praise and glory because you are merciful and kind and you discipline us. We don't like it in our individual lives and in our church life. And no, no discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. But later on, we know that it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trying by it. And we give you praise. Help us now to be faithful churches in our private. confrontations and conversations and in our public ones as well. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.