If you have spent any considerable amount of time in the church, you know that life with others and even other believers can get quite messy. It can get problematic. It can get hard. It can get difficult. We can sin against one another. There are personality rubs and we can hurt and offend one another. And for the most part, All of this can be normal, all of this can be overlooked. You know, Proverbs 1911, you should commit it to memory, learn it, store it up in your heart. It's the glory of a man to overlook an offense. Right. Good sense makes one slow to anger, but it's the glory of a man to overlook an offense. That's the way that we operate. I mean, the the the heart of a Christian towards other Christians is forbearance and forgiveness. Be kind and tenderhearted to one another. forgiving one another as God in Christ Jesus has forgiven you, Ephesians 4.32. But there are times, though, when someone wanders off into transgression that is so grievous and hurtful that the reputation of Christ is really at stake in the church. And we've seen this happen. If you've been in church, you know, this happens like I've been a minister for a dozen years or so. And the range of these kinds of experience varies so much. But I could tell you I was there when, you know, a pair of siblings in my youth group told me that their mother was leaving their father because dad didn't make her happy anymore. I've been in that elder board where a wife pleads with the men in the elder board to come and speak to her husband because he is in some sort of addiction or habit that's just ruining their marriage. I've been in those churches where maybe it was an influential group of people in the church built up a false witness and a false case against someone, maybe even a minister, and ruined that person's reputation. Or that, or you've seen it, maybe even it's a, maybe it's a more practical matter, maybe it's a more practical matter where, I've seen this too, where two parties were at odds with each other because a business deal had gone wrong in the church, a big business deal, and the community knew that someone in the church stole from someone else in the church. These things happen. Or maybe it has been someone in the church has, maybe it's a teacher in the church, has wandered into spiritual error. They've started asking those questions or posing those questions, or maybe it's maybe in a corner Bible study somewhere, and they say, hey, you know what? I know the Bible teaches this, and I know our church doctrinal standards say this, but I'm not so much against the idea that evolution is how everything came to be or that the Bible's. Is that really the word of God? I mean, hasn't the Bible been corrupted down through the ages? And we don't really know what the Bible means. And you start to hear this kind of teaching in this kind of enticing error spread throughout the church. Well, what does Jesus want when these kind of offenses take place? What is Jesus' expectation for the church? I mean, we just read this, and the penalty that we see this passage come to is one word. It's the word excommunication. Does Jesus really authorize excommunication from the church? Does He indeed give power to a local assembly to remove people from the church who are in a course of sin? And the answer to those questions, most assuredly, is yes, He does. Not just that, but He in fact commands it, as you'll see in these verses. These verses are full of imperatives and full of commands. These verses make up the rules that Jesus gives for healing offenses, for healing sins and errors in the church. They make up the rules. And that's why I've titled this sermon Church Discipline 101. But admittedly, that title is very clinical. And these verses are not really clinical. In a sense, they're clinical because they're easy to follow a set of progressive rules that are easy to follow, driven by clear commands, imperatives, But as you read this passage, you'll see that these are not cold commands. They're not simply things written on a chalkboard. There is a beating heart to these commands. There's an affection that drives them and a pain that you move through as you move through these commands, which makes these verses very noble. So let me go ahead. And right off the bat, declare to you the main thing for this sermon, what I want you to take away from this passage here. It's this. Jesus has given His church His authority. So keep this in mind. It's His authority. Jesus has given His church His authority to rescue one another from sin and error. So that's the first part of this. He's given His church His authority to rescue one another from sin and error. and to excommunicate false confessors. A confessor, what I mean by that, is someone who professes that they are a Christian with their mouth, but their lives and their living, their conduct, would betray that confession. It's a false confession. And I wish to explain this point with four observations, or four aspects about church discipline. So the first thing I want you to see here is the heart of church discipline, the heart of church discipline. And I want to say this about it. The heart of church discipline is love and pursuit, love and pursuit. You really have to have this instinct in mind as we come to this passage, that there's a heartbeat, as I mentioned, and it is a loving heartbeat and a pursuing heartbeat. The context of Jesus' words here is really important to lay hold of as you come to this passage. Because in Matthew 18, Jesus has been preaching the expectations, the personality characteristics of His church. His church, as He's showing His disciples, His church is to be the visible manifestation of the Kingdom of Heaven on the earth. What does the Kingdom of Heaven look like as we walk around? It's supposed to look like The church and what is the church supposed to look like? Well, the church is to be Christlike. That's the big mark. Jesus wants his church to be like him. And if you're reading Matthew 18 from the first verse until now, it's this magnificent sermon that Jesus gives and he's giving it to his disciples because they're going to be the ones who really father and pastor that first church. And he's telling his disciples first that you disciples have to be small in your own eyes. You have to be little ones. You have to be humble and childlike. And then he tells them in verses 7 through 9 that you need to be fighting sin. You need to be worrying about your own stuff. You need to be pursuing holiness. You need to be striving for spiritual progress, making war against the flesh, doing whatever it takes to become more and more consumed with godliness. Self-discipline always comes before church discipline, right? I mean, it's what I said last time, and even in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, how can you tell a brother or a sister to remove a speck out of their eye when you have a log sticking out of your own eye? You can't do it. You can't do it. First, take care of the log that's in your eye. And then as we learned last week, Disciples must be big hearted and not despising any of Christ's little ones, his other followers. They must have a big heart like Jesus, who is the good shepherd who will leave the 99 sheep to go after the one to rescue the one. And if your heart is like that. If your heart is like that. Looking after one another because you know that your father in heaven wills that none of his little ones should perish. then when someone in the church sins against you or when there's this grievous thing that takes place, what must your attitude be when another disciple does that wicked thing, that evil thing? What should it be? What do you do when there's that sin in the church that it can't just be overlooked? It can't just be like, oh, I'm not going to worry about it. It's not an offense to me. It's a problem. Well, here's what you should do. You should go around town, knock on doors, and say, hey, did you hear what so-and-so did? Did you hear what they did? You try and rope people onto your side of things. No, you don't do that, by the way. That's not what you do. You don't go into the prayer meeting and say, hey, you know, we need to be praying for so-and-so because there's some trouble that's come up. I can't get into it right now, but you just need to be praying for that person. No, you don't do that either. You don't go grab the proverbial torch and pitchforks. That's not the attitude that you have when it comes to someone who has sinned. You don't like for someone to be in sin. What is it that you do? What's the attitude? What must your heart be? Your heart must be having the offender's best interests in mind. You must be having the offender's soul in mind. You must be soft-hearted, wanting their best. Be thinking, my brother or sister is in error. That grieves me. I'm worried. I'm concerned. They're in danger. They need help. They need a rescue. That's the attitude, the heart that comes at the front end of discipline. If you look at this passage, you'll find the whole goal, right from the beginning, is to gain a brother. Not to brutalize someone because they've messed up, but it's to gain a brother. It's not to punish someone because they've messed up, it's to gain, it's to restore. That's the whole point of discipline. God already declares this, Old Testament and New, vengeance is mine, God says. I will repay, is what Jesus says, is what the Lord says. You don't have to worry about being vengeful. What you need to worry about is gaining that brother or sister who's in error. The entire thing, this whole thing is a pursuing process that pleads and labors for the one who has gone astray to listen and come back. It's all about rescuing and saving one from danger. A great verse, as I think I mentioned it to you last week, is James 5.19. James 519 James says, my brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from wandering will save his soul from death and cover a multitude of sins. So that's the heart of church discipline, isn't it? I mean, that's it. Right. You are trying to save someone from death. So the heart of discipline is loving and pursuing, loving and pursuing. This is something you have to remember, because It's similar to home discipline or family discipline, right, because churches historically, and even today, They we fall into one of two errors when it comes to discipline in the church, right? Either there's negligence, right? And churches just don't do it saying, hey, we're not the Holy Spirit. We can't get up in people's kitchens and we can't convince people or, you know, we just got to be a forgiving law and go with the flow. Right. There's that negligence. Right. And that's where sin rolls through the church. And you have all sorts of destructive behaviors and accepting of just acceptance of sin and perversions in the church. Or the church could be extremely severe, like historically we know about, where churches would excommunicate for anything or go on witch hunts for sin in the church, getting way too nosy or way too heavy handed. But if you just read this passage, I think it solves that in that you're supposed to have a heart for rescue. Like I said, it's the same in the home, right? In the home, parents discipline their children not because of a desire to punish, but because of a desire to rescue, to spare, to spare a child from getting into more danger. Just because there has been abuse or neglect somewhere else doesn't justify the non-use of discipline. We're supposed to have that loving and pursuing heart. Second thing, second thing you need to know. I wanna bring this up. Oh, Proverbs 11.30, just going back to that, Proverbs 11.30 says, the one who is wise gains souls, or one who gains souls is wise. But number two, I want you to see this. The admirable rules of church discipline have merciful regard for poor human nature. So Jesus knew that should the process of discipline start, that both sides, you know, the offender and the one offended, when they come together, Jesus understood that both sides have a nature that could get things wrong and things could go out of whack when it comes to this process. So Jesus gives these very admirable rules. Here's the process for rules. Rule one, go yourself to the airing member. Tell him his fault between you and him alone. Say, hey, can we talk? I need to speak with you. You have a face to face conversation. Why is this? Because Maybe this person has done something in error, and maybe they have committed a fault, and you're like, okay, I need to get understanding of this. Or maybe they haven't, and you've just misinterpreted it, right? God knows you can be wrong in your interpretations of someone's actions. And he also knows, too, that you can be way too easily offended, doesn't he? We can be way too easily offended. But you go to your brother, right? And you say you've seen something wrong. But the point is, you don't have a voice of accusation. You open up the sin. That's what it means. It says, show him his fault. Tell Him it's His fault. Bring it to light. Bring it up. It's the action that I've seen you do. I'm bringing it up because I want understanding here. You say, hey, I see this sin. I've heard this trouble. This error. Help me understand what you did. What you were thinking. Why go through this? Or maybe this would be a good way to approach it. Say from one sinner to another, Tell me what you're doing or why you did that or why you think that's okay. And you might have an opening there where someone could say, yeah, I really messed up. I messed up and I'm really grieved that I messed up and I'm sorry for that offense. I wish I didn't do it. Forgive me. Right. If that happens, you've gained a brother. Discipline's over. Don't need to bring it up. Don't need to go to anyone else. All is well. Hey, there's joy in the house of the Lord. But if not, maybe it's another thing. Maybe you go to that brother and that brother says, hey, you're right. Me and my wife, we're in a bad spot right now. and I'm leaving. And now it's like, okay, you plead. Hey, come back, repent. Well, let's get some pastors involved. Let's get some counseling involved and let's figure this out, right? It's an opportunity for healing. But let's say that brother says, no, I'm out. I've made my decision. I've made my peace. God wants me to be happy. And I'm pretty sure of that. And this isn't making me happy and I've got to go. All right, so what do you do? What do you do then? Next step. Next step, it's to bring in another witness. This is the lawful standard, the standard of justice in terms of trials, in terms of testimony. Whenever a charge has to be established, it always has to be established on two to three witnesses, at least two witnesses. That's Deuteronomy 19, verses 15 through 21. You've got to have another witness. Bring another witness. It still could be the chance that you're overreacting or not hearing your friend correctly. And you know, Proverbs 18, 6 says, a fool's lips walk into a fight and a hasty mouth invites a beating. And you don't want that, right? Bring another witness. The other witness will help verify and establish the charge of error. And now the one in error has another chance to repent, another opportunity to say, hey, oh, goodness. Now there's two witnesses. There's two friends, two of my friends, two people who care about me, two people who have been pursuing me. They brought these charges. They obviously see something's wrong. You know what? Something must be wrong. I'm going to give up running. I'm going to repent. I'm going to turn back at that point. Guess what? You've gained a brother. You can stop the process. Restoration happens. You have to keep on going. But if not, the pursuit is still on. That's the thing, the pursuit is still on. If the one refuses the rescue still, then you tell the church, the local body of believers. By the way, this is the second time Jesus has used the word church in the Bible. The second time in the New Testament that Jesus used the word church. The first time is when Jesus says to Peter, after Peter confesses him to be the Christ, the son of the living God. Jesus said, you are Peter. And upon this rock, this confession, I will build my what? My church, right? So here we have the confession, which is what Jesus builds the church on. Right. And now he talks about is that confession true? The church has to examine this confession in its members. Is that confession true? And the church brings it up. The charges have been justly established by the law of God with two witnesses. And the one in error is getting hardened. So you don't stop. You keep the pursuit. A rescue can still happen. There is still a greater shepherd, Jesus Christ, through the body of Christ, the church. Her pleas and summons are powerful. And that's step three. The whole church reaches out. The whole church says, hey, we've heard about this thing that's going on in your life, in your family. It's bringing shame on the body of Christ. It's bringing shame on the church. It's bringing shame on Christ's name. You need to repent. You need to come back to the fold. You know, this is great. It deserves a heavier measure of accountability. This is why we should thank God for these rules. I mean, they're just pursuing. This is just pursuing love. But sadly, Jesus knows that even then the church may not convince that sinner then. That sinner may still be stiff-necked, still be hardened. And think about how dangerous that is at this point. How dangerous it is to be stiff-necked and hardened in sin that you won't even listen to the bride of Christ. That authorized group of people to come at you with a rescue and you would refuse the very body and bride of Christ. What is there left to be done? Well, now the church must stand together, because the one in error has proven that he or she has no true confession of Jesus Christ. There is a greater love for sin in this person than there is for Christ. All of this reveals that. And but again, I want to focus on just the justice and the righteousness and the patience of these rules. Right. I mean, it's step by step. And in every step, there is an opportunity for full restoration. And by the way, even if someone is excommunicated from the church, should they go into a period of wandering in the world and in the slavery to Satan, even if they should turn then and come back to the church? Guess what? You are still to restore and receive that person as a member and a brother or sister in Christ. Isn't that amazing? Isn't that amazing? That even still, and we know this from 1 Corinthians 5 and 2 Corinthians. But these rules just are so patient. They're so just. They're so fair. And if a church goes through all this and patiently lives out these steps, then a church can know that she has done a good work of sending out that rescue party. And the sinner will know. that he has no charges, or she has no charges to lay against the church. They have had every opportunity to repent. As much as they go and shout, oh, those people are judgmental, or those people don't want me to be happy, or I already made my peace with God and the church is just interfering, the bottom line is, these verses prove that the church has been just and fair and patient. So third, the penalty for church discipline is rightly terrifying. It's rightly terrifying. So this is an interesting statement. Jesus says to let the non-listening, the unwilling and unrepentant one, to be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. And you might think, but didn't Jesus receive Gentiles and tax collectors? Didn't he love them? Weren't some of those people saved and brought into the church? Yes, they were. They were saved. They were saved out of the world. They were saved out of worldliness and paganism and all that. Why is that? Because they turned and repented and came to Jesus. But this statement that Jesus is using is really a figure of speech that Jesus used to help the church understand that when it comes to the process of discipline, that could sadly result in the final penalty of excommunication, And when it comes to that process, here's the thing. You are to view and understand that person as being outside of the covenant fellowship of God. That's ultimately what you're saying if it reaches that point of excommunication. You're saying they are not part of the family of God. They are foreign to the people of God. And in fact, when Jesus uses the word Gentile, some of your Bibles might even use the word heathen or pagan. Let them be to you as a pagan, as an idolater, as someone who is not with the living and true God. Regardless of what they say, they live as though God isn't true and that Jesus is not their Lord. I mean, ultimately, what Jesus is saying is, Church, if it comes to this point, You cannot have any confidence that this one who is so unrepentant, unwilling to listen, hardened in sin, you can't have any confidence that this person is a Christian. You can pray that they would be, but ultimately, that's the statement of excommunication. And I say, well, that is severe, right? Isn't that severe? Isn't that that is rightly terrifying? Look, I'll take you to first Corinthians five. First Corinthians five. And you'll see a passage like this. You'll see what happens. 1 Corinthians 5. It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans. 1 Corinthians 5. For a man has his father's wife, and you are arrogant. Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you. For though absent in body, I am present in spirit, and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing. When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus, and my spirit is present with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. Your boasting is not good. See, the Corinthian church could have been boasting that, hey, we have this sin issue that's not even tolerated among the pagans, but we're forgiving, we're growing, we're happy to be together. And Paul's like, no, no. This is bringing shame on the body of Christ. And not only that, but this kind of thinking and behavior is leavening the whole lump of bread. He goes on to say that in a few moments. You were to hand them over to Satan. Hand them over to Satan. And Paul, the great hope is that by handing them over to Satan, that they would face all the accusations and all the condemnations of Satan, that they would rush back to the Lord and rush back to the church and be saved. But that is a terrifying penalty, isn't it? That when you have hardened yourself and you're hardening this sin, whatever it is. That you would be thought of, that a church would name you not a Christian, not a true believer. You are outside of the fellowship of God. We do not have confidence that you are a Christian. Finally, and fourthly, the foundation for discipline is Christ's presence in the church. Christ's presence in the church. You know, if this is true, if this passage is true, I think we must always remember how closely joined Jesus Christ is to his people. Right? I mean, look at this. Look at what he says, this high calling. He says, whatever you bind or loose on earth shall be bound or loosed in heaven. This is talking about discipline, right? If you are to remove or excommunicate a member because of some unrepentant sin or grievous shame being brought on the body of Christ, Or, if some repentant sinner who's lived the worst, most despicable kind of life comes to fall on their face before Christ and says, I want to be joined to Christ, I want to be forgiven, and I want to be in the family of God, and you say yes and amen, we baptize you in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, and we give you bread and wine so that you'll never forget this sacrifice. If you do that to that person, or if you remove that sinner, that other sinner, Guess who agrees with you, Jesus says, if you are the local church, if you are that body of members who are joined to one another. Guess who agrees with you? Jesus says, I agree with you and all of heaven agrees with you. That is a powerful, powerful calling. You see this verse, these verses show that it's the work of the people. It's the work of the church to bring about discipline in the church, the whole church. It's not simply the work of the pope or the priesthood in Catholicism, right, that base having the keys to the church as something that Jesus only gave to Peter, right? Jesus doesn't say that. He says that the process of discipline in Matthew 18 is that any brother can go through this process. Two or three, two who are gathered, two who agree on this subject, right? Where I am, I'm right there. Jesus gave the keys to heaven to his church on earth. This should help you esteem the local body of believers. It should make you really want to join in the church. It should make you want to be a part. It should make you want to be unified to a local body. This is really at the heart of church membership, you know, when you join the church and you fill out your membership form and you go through the class and then you tell about the gospel and how Jesus came to save you and then you sit down with me and we talk about your salvation and we talk about how God has saved you. And you say, I want to join. And then we say, OK, take this vow, the member vow, and you join in the church. One of the things we're doing is we're binding and loosing right there. The church is binding and loosing, saying, yes, you are a true believer. You are one who is a citizen in the kingdom of heaven. And when the church has to say no, Right. You're not a believer. You're not you're not you're not a believer in Jesus. You don't live by his his word. You don't believe in his truth. You you love sin. You you you've been destructive in another church or whatever it is. We're binding and loosing. That's the work of the church. I should help you see that there really is no more important spiritual institution than the church. Nothing on earth is like it. Jesus says. You church have the keys. You church when you are together, when you are unified, when you are when you have to make these decisions and you're in agreement. I am in agreement with you because I am there in your midst. Look, It's not simply because the church has the high calling to bind and loose. That's not why the calling to bind and loose is not what makes the church so amazing and incredible. Look at the final verse. This is what makes the church so esteemed. It says this, for where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them. It's Christ's very own presence in the midst of the church that makes the church so wonderful. So, I'm not sure if I said this. Did I say this? The foundation for church discipline? I think I said this. Number four, the foundation for church discipline is Christ's presence in the church. The fact that Christ is with us, in us, joined to us, working through us, is why discipline takes place. It's his very own presence in the midst of the church. I want to read to you a passage I came across this past week, and I thought this summarizes so well what it almost is repeated. It's Zechariah chapter 2, verses 10 through 13. He says this. He says this, Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion, for behold, I will come and I will dwell in your midst, declares the Lord. And many nations shall join themselves to the Lord in that day and shall be my people. And I will dwell in your midst, and you shall know that the Lord of hosts has sent me to you. And the Lord will inherit Judah as his portion in the holy land and will again choose Jerusalem. Be silent, all flesh, before the Lord, for he has roused himself from his holy dwelling. Don't you see this is this this prophecy has been fulfilled in Jesus Christ. He lives in and among his people reigning from his throne of grace in heaven. By his spirit. Jesus is right in the midst of us at all our weak attempts in our singing, the weak attempts that we offer to God in our praying, our prayers, in our repenting, in our service, in our giving, in our preaching. All of this might just be so small in our fellowship and we just have meals together. All of this is so small. But what does it say? What's the incredible thing? Jesus is right there in the midst of us as long as two or more are gathered in His name. It is not the size of the program or the ministry of the church, the budget of the church that makes a church wonderful and great. It's the very presence of Christ in and among the people that makes a church great, that makes a church wonderful. Jesus is gathered with us when we come together. So why do we discipline? Why do we do this? Why does Jesus want us to look out for one another this way? Because Christ, who lived a perfect life. And died and shed his blood, it was raised to rule and give us new life. He is among us. He is among us. He is our perfect God. He is our victorious King. He is our. He is our shepherd. We are to fear Him, love Him, seek Him, find all our joy in Him, and submit to the Spirit, as the Spirit makes us more like Jesus. This means, people, this means that Jesus will not join Himself to worldlings. He will not join Himself to those who go after the world. He will not join Himself to those who will not hear His voice and live by His Word. He will not abide with those who relish and revel in immorality. He will not abide with the hardened and those who don't listen to His voice. And so it is at His command with all His authority that we have to go hotly to our brothers and sisters when they fall short to pick them up and to see them restored in Christ. And it's at His command with all His authority that we painfully, and I mean painfully, remove those who tarnish the reputation of Christ among us. You know, as I mentioned earlier, it is self-discipline that comes before church discipline. It's always important. I'm thankful we have yet to have an issue like this blow up here at Nelson's while I've been the pastor, but we cannot shy away from this. in order to prepare, in order for when that day comes, one of the things I have to charge you with is you look out for yourselves. Every day, look out for yourselves. Watch out for your own heart and your own progress in holiness. Watch out for it. Be growing, be attentive to God's Word. Watch out for one another then. Be on that regular lookout for one another. This is one of the things that just the churches, the New Testament commands, you know what most of the New Testament commands revolve around? They revolve around two words. They revolve around two words. When you see the commands of the New Testament, they almost all revolve around two words. You know what they are? One another. Love one another. Serve one another. Watch out for one another. Don't devour one another. Be at peace with one another. Show hospitality to one another. Outdo one another in showing honor. If we abide by these commandments, and just regularly be involved in each other's lives, then this discipline, this care is built in. You can say to that brother or sister, hey, you know what, I saw this going on, or I heard you say this, and it sounds like there's some sort of root of bitterness taking place in your heart. Is that what's going on? You need to confess that to God. Because if you let that go on, it's going to fester and it's going to be ruinous. You say, hey, brother, you know, you seem very harsh in your tone with your wife or your kids, or or maybe it's to a mom. You say you say that to moms to one another. Or maybe it's just. That regular ongoing, hey, I haven't seen you in church in a while. Where have you been? You're missing from God's people. Just checking in, these regular acts of looking after one another, this is the regular discipline that God expects of us as His people. And Hebrews chapter 12 says, do not despise that discipline. Because when you despise that discipline, right, when you despise that discipline, And then you don't do it or you don't submit to it, then you have to be, you have to go through the harder work of being disciplined directly by God's hand as his son or as his daughter. I tell this to my kids, you know, as they're growing up and teaching them self-control and right attitudes and these things, I say, hey, you're out of control. Do you know what happens if you don't control your behavior, if you don't control your attitude? Do you know what happens when that happens? And then my kids know what to say. They say, yeah, Dad, you get to control my attitude. If you don't do it, then I have to do it. And that's when things, that's when the discipline is more heavy handed. That's when the discipline hurts. But it is the discipline of the Lord. If you are his child, you will receive his discipline as a child receives discipline from a loving father. A father, that's one of the key tests the Bible says, whether you truly are a son or a daughter, or you're a bastard child, is if the Lord disciplines you. Because the Lord disciplines those whom he loves, the Bible says, as a father disciplines his son. If you don't have discipline, if you despise the discipline of the Lord, you run off and do whatever you think is right, whatever you think makes you happy, there's a clear sign. There's a clear sign that something is incredibly dangerous in your heart and soul in regards to your relationship with Jesus. And you need to come back. And God in his mercy, thankfully, gives you a brotherhood, a sisterhood, a membership who have the heart of their shepherd to come and say, hey, help me understand. Come be restored to the fellowship. You've been away for a while. You've been wandering. And we want to gain you back. Listen and submit and be restored to the fellowship of God. Amen.