Good morning, everyone. That was pretty good. Anybody hot in here? Surprised I didn't get any amens on that one. Amen. It's hot. Pastor, it's hot. I remember a summer camp that I was preaching at, and it was so hot out, and we were meeting in this room that was absolutely zero air conditioning. Do you remember this? And several of the meetings were like right after dinner, one of the hottest parts of the day. And we're all in this room, and there's these giant fans just droning, and everyone is sweating and hot. And I must have looked really bad, like sweaty and gross, because someone came up to me in the middle, and they're like, are you OK? Here's some water. It's bad in here. It's not that bad. Maybe this is one of those sermons where it's kind of like a nudge you sermon, not because like, hey, he's talking to you, but more like, hey, wake up. You know, hopefully we won't fall asleep in here today. Well, welcome. Glad you're here with us. Welcome to guests that I see with us. Glad you're here worshiping with us. Will you bow your head before we go to God's word? Let's pray. Let's ask for God's help this morning. Heavenly Father, I thank you and I praise you for your Son, Jesus Christ, this morning. We're here because of Him. We're here because of what you have done through Him to call us out of darkness and into your marvelous light, giving us Christ's righteousness, which we do not deserve and cannot earn. freely as a gift, calling us to yourself, that we might have relationship with you, God, that we might have the hope of eternal life with you, Lord. And God, we thank you and we praise you for that at the front end of this sermon. And Lord God, we just ask and pray now that your spirit would continue to be at work among us. God, I pray that you would open up our hearts and minds to see from your word what you have for us. God, I just confess to you my own weakness right now. I know no good will come apart from the work of your spirit, and so I just pray and ask God that you would speak through me. God, we desire to grow as a church in our faithfulness to you, and I pray that you would use this sermon to do so. Use your word to do so as you promise, and God, above all, that you'd be glorified as a result of this. God, we lift up all this to you in the name of our savior, Jesus Christ. And everyone here said amen. Well, We started a two-week series last week on church discipline, and we spent last week talking about the purpose of church discipline. Today we're gonna talk about the process of church discipline. And, you know, as we think about this subject, Hopefully, last week was enough to make it clear to us that we need this practice in the church, that this is good for the church, especially as we look around our country and we see the state. of many churches in our country and how they've compromised on the truth. Churches also who have failed to discipline and the scandal that has ensued and the damage that has been done and wreaked havoc on the church. So hopefully we've seen enough to know that this is a necessary process for us. Now, I wanna take a minute and just review some of the things that we saw last week. Last week, we saw that church discipline begins with God. God disciplines those he loves for their good that they may share in his holiness. And even though it's not pleasant, it brings about righteousness. And our discipline in the church is to be patterned after God's discipline. We do it out of love for the other person, so that it's for their good, that they might share in his holiness, and so that the church might be holy. Now, we saw that there are two kinds of church discipline. Formative discipline, that's the kind of discipline that shapes us and trains us. It's like diet and exercise. It's the things that we do to stay healthy. So this would include things like Bible study and prayer and all those sorts of things, all the things that we do to maintain our spiritual health. The other kind of discipline is corrective discipline. This is more like medicine. It's meant to heal what's been damaging the body, to set things right again so that the body can get healthy. In the church, This kind of discipline is to set things right among the body of believers, and so it includes things like exhortation, admonition, rebuke, and excommunication. Now, in a healthy church, we saw that that kind of corrective church discipline, that's the norm. That's usual, that's typical, that's how it's supposed to be. And mature Christians welcome this kind of discipline in their lives knowing that it's for their good and they pray to God asking that they would be receptive to it. That's what we saw in Psalm 141 verse five. He's praying this rebuke, let my brother rebuke me because it's a kindness to me. It's like oil for my head, let my head not refuse it. I wanna be open and receptive to it. I wanna be humble and teachable so that I can grow and change. Now, 1 Corinthians 5 focuses on the final step in the process of church discipline, which is excommunication. We saw last week that excommunication is the removal of a believer living in persistent, unrepentant sin from the fellowship of the church and its privileges by the authority and will of Jesus Christ for the restoration of the individual, the purity of the church, and the glory of God. It's led by the pastors of the church, it's carried out by the church as a whole, and it's done in his authority. It's done in his name and with his power. That definition of excommunication comes out of 1 Corinthians 5, and we're gonna be looking at it more today. Now, last week we saw there's several purposes. To restore the individual sinner to God, to maintain the purity of the church, to protect people from the damaging effects of sin, Sin hurts people, so disciplining sin helps limit that, to deter other believers from sin, being warned, to maintain the corporate witness of the church, and to glorify God. So having seen the purpose of church discipline, today we wanna focus on the process. How exactly do we do this? What is the process of church discipline? What does that actually look like? Well, it's a four-step process. And today that's what we want to look at. At the end, if there's time, I'll address a couple of objections potentially to church discipline if we have time. We're gonna look at two texts today, which is not typical. We're gonna look at Matthew 18, verses 15 through 20, which we just read, and we're gonna look at 1 Corinthians 5, 9 through 13. The reason that we're doing this is because, as I mentioned, the text in 1 Corinthians focuses on the last step, step number four. It's Matthew 18 that shows us the whole picture, all the steps. So, Let's look at this process. Hopefully you still have your Bibles open to Matthew 18. If not, turn there with me. We just read this text, so let's dive in. Step number one is to confront the sinning believer in private. This is coming right out of verse 15. Look there with me. Jesus says, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. Now there are several things for us to notice here. Jesus commands, first of all, the sinner, or excuse me, the one who is sinned against, to go and take the initiative here. He doesn't say, now if you're sinned against, just wait for your brother until he comes to you. No, he says, go. This is a command, it's an imperative. You go and seek out this conversation. If they come to you first, great, that's great, but don't wait for that to happen. Understand then, this isn't optional, this is about obedience. We're not allowed to ignore sin, we have to deal with it, we have to face into it, even though it's not comfortable for us. If we ignore sin, it ends up only creating greater bitterness and resentment in our own hearts. It becomes harder to deal with, and in the end, we're not really making peace, we're faking peace. because we're refusing to step into it and deal with the situation. What happened? Jesus wants us to pursue real peace. Real peace is found on the other side of the process of reconciliation. It's more difficult, but it's real. So Jesus says, go and tell him his fault. The word translated tell him is a strong one. It means something like bring to light, or expose, or convince, or convict. It's a strong word here. In other words, we're to be clear and make them fully aware of what they did. We use... We use the light of God's word, which is a lamp to our feet, we shine it in on the darkness and expose their sin to try to convince them of wrongdoing and call them to repentance and renewed obedience. So we use the light of God's word to try to convince them of their wrongdoing and then call them to repent and to obey God. We don't dance around the truth here. We don't soft pedal, in other words. Why is that? Well, if we do, then they might not see their wrongdoing, and they might not repent as a result of it. And if they don't repent, then we have to go to step two. So, we need to be as clear and direct as possible. The first step, is between you and him alone, Jesus says. This is a private conversation between individual believers. What is the first thing, however, though, that we typically wanna do when someone sins against us? Exactly. First thing we typically wanna do is run off and tell someone else. We just need to vent about it. But that's not what Jesus says. Jesus doesn't say if your brother sins against you, go and tell a close personal friend about what this other person did to you. He says, go and tell him and it's between you and him alone. Now, I'm guilty of this. I think we all are. But Jesus is telling us not to do this because if we do, it's gossip. And what gossip does about sin is it tends to magnify the offense. The reason for this is because we tend to exaggerate our own innocence and exaggerating the offense against us. I mean, let's be honest. It's only natural that we take our own side, right? So just don't do this. When you do that, it ends up nurturing bitterness and resentment because you've magnified what's happened in your own heart. And you become even more upset, more angry, more bitter about the situation. Moreover, if word gets out to this person that you've been going around and blabbing about it, you run the risk of making it impossible to have meaningful relationship with that person, even if they do repent, because you've destroyed trust. So Jesus says, go you and him privately at step one. Now, if they repent, then It doesn't need to go beyond that. The purpose here is not to score points or to get even, but to gain our brother, to win him over. If they repent, if they're acknowledging their guilt and they're declaring their sorrow and they're asking for forgiveness, then the matter is ended. The proof of genuine repentance is gonna be a changed life. that matches their changed mind and their changed heart. You're gonna be able to see that over time. Now, it doesn't mean that if a person repents, they're gonna be suddenly perfect, like all of a sudden, they've got it all together. That's not what it looks like. There's gonna be true sorrow for what they did, and there's gonna be a desire to live in a different way, to live in a way that pleases God, but it's a process. It's gonna take time, so we're patient. Now, I should mention here. that God commands us to confront sin in the church in general, not just when we're personally sinned against. And Jesus says, when you're sinned against, you personally go and talk to that person. So the question might come to our minds, well, what about if I see my brother or sister over here who's sinning against this other person or is living in sin, but they're not sinning against me? Do I just wash my hands of it because I'm not a part of it? No. we engage as a church in confronting sin in general. So we read in Galatians 6, one. Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. This is a general principle here. We need to act to restore our brother when we know that they're caught in sin, even if we're not the one who they're sinning against. Now this same process from Matthew 18 applies to those situations as well. In fact, it implies to all of our Christian relationships, including our families. Now, Galatians 6.1 does more than that. It also gives us the attitude that we're supposed to have when we confront a brother or sister in their sin. It says, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. This word gentleness here, it's often translated in the New Testament as meekness or humility. It's this idea that you don't have an exaggerated sense of your own self-importance. You don't go in thinking that you have it all together. You go in with a loving humility. Why? Because we know that we're sinners too. that we are just as much in need of God's grace and God's mercy as this brother or sister who's caught in sin is. This is the attitude with which we go. We don't go self-righteously, thinking that we're better than them. We don't go in as a superior, as if somehow we're over them. We go in as a brother, right beside them, locking arm in arm with them, saying, We're no different than you. So we're told to correct our opponents with gentleness, for God may grant them repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth, 2 Timothy 2, 25 and 26. We speak the truth in love, Ephesians 4, 15. We don't go in to beat them down with the truth. We go in to build them up. with the truth. You see, our heart's desire is that our brother or sister in Christ would abandon that sin and live sold out for Jesus Christ. If we actually have that as our motive, it's gonna change the way that we approach the situation. We can go in with humility because the object of our confrontation is not to bring the smack down, it's to build them up. In order for us to be successful in that, we go with humility and we speak the truth in love. Now let's face it, it is hard to accept a rebuke. Amen. Am I the only one who thinks it's hard to accept a rebuke? I'm like, no, I got this, man. Next verse. It's tough, because we're prideful. And you know what, we want to pretend like we're perfect. I don't know what it is with us. We wanna pretend like we're shocked when someone confronts us about a sin, like, oh, wasn't me. Yes, it was. It's hard to receive a rebuke, even when it's done in private, it can be hard. But you know what, it's even harder to deliver one with humility. Especially when you're the one who's been sinned against. Because there can be anger there. There can be self-righteousness there. It's this wrong spirit, this get-even spirit there. But if we really wanna win our brother back, then we have to understand that if we go and we rebuke them in anger or with pride, we make it that much more difficult for them to receive the truth that we're to be bringing them in love. And so we need to watch ourselves closely and pray for God to give us the right motives and pray for a spirit of gentleness and humility. So step one is to confront them in private. What if step one fails? We go to step two. We go again with one or two witnesses. We see this in verse 16. Jesus said, look there, but if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. Now, These witnesses do not have to actually have witnessed the sin that has taken place. That's not the point. Let's think about this for a minute. The sin already happened. The person sinned against has already gone and confronted them once before these witnesses are even brought in. They're not there to try to witness the sin. They're there as a witness of the next confrontation. They're there providing an impartial witness in order to confirm the person's response, either brokenhearted repentance or hardhearted rejection. So that if things go to the next step, it's not one person's word against another. They're also there in order to help convince the person of their sin. We know this because Jesus says if he refuses to listen to them meaning the two or three together Meaning they're they're all now trying to get the person to acknowledge their sin and turn back to God in faith The pressure has been increased. This is more serious because there's already been one refusal to repent and And now there are multiple people who come and try to convince the person to turn back to God. But notice something here. It's not just that the pressure is increased, the concern, the care for the individual is also taken to the next level. Because now there are multiple people who are pursuing them, who are praying for them, who are trying to persuade them. It's important for the person to select spiritually mature people. individuals to go with them. We see that in Galatians 6.1 as well. He said those who are spiritual, these are spirit-led believers, they have to be mature enough in their faith to go in loving humility. They have to be mature enough to bring the truth of God's word to bear on the situation. They need to have spiritual discernment and wisdom because they're gonna be the ones who render judgment based on the facts of the case and the person's response. So they need to be trustworthy because they're gonna provide a witness to this confrontation in case it goes before the whole church. Does it have to be a pastor or a deacon? No, it just needs to be someone who's spiritually mature. Again, if the person repents, then there's forgiveness, and these individuals are called to work towards full reconciliation with one another. Now, if the witnesses who are taken with, they watch what happens, they establish the facts of the case as best as they possibly can, and the person repents, if they're satisfied with the person's repentance, then that ends the matter, even if the person who was sinned against is not personally satisfied with that person's repentance. They have to trust the people that they took with them, trusting their wisdom, trusting their discernment and their impartiality. Now, Time will tell whether or not the person was genuinely repentant, if it was real. If not, then the discipline process will need to be renewed. And we might ask the question, well, how long do we wait in between steps? As long as the person is making progress in their faith, We wait, but if we see that they're not, that they're refusing to repent, then we move on to the next step. So if step two fails, if they refuse to listen to two or three, then we tell it to the church. This is the most public and most serious step because now it's a matter for the whole congregation. We see this in the first part of verse 17. Jesus said, if he refuses to listen to them, that's the two or three, then tell it to the church. At this point, the pastors of the church are getting involved, if they're not already involved, and they're leading through the process. You see, the pastors have the responsibility of maintaining the discipline in the church. This is part of their role of exercising oversight over the church, 1 Peter 5, 2, paying careful attention to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made them overseers, Acts 20, 28. Pastors are called to reprove, rebuke, and exhort with complete patience and complete teaching, that's 2 Timothy 4.2. If that applies to the public preaching of God's word, then how much more does that apply to private home visits and individual conversations with people as they deem necessary? Pastors encourage, and they counsel, and they admonish, and they rebuke, and when necessary, they rebuke publicly in order to try to affect repentance and faith, and if all of those things fail, then they lead through the excommunication process. All that's part of their responsibility as a part of their calling as shepherds who watch over and protect the flock of God. But it's important to see here that the congregation is not just an audience when it comes to church discipline. The congregation, the body of Christ, is intimately involved, essentially involved in every step of the process from beginning to end. Because you're the ones who were called on by Jesus to do step one and to enter into this process. Moreover, it's kinda hard to excommunicate someone if everyone's not on board. Do you see what I mean? So from beginning to end, the church is involved as a whole. What is the church to be told when it says tell the church? What do we tell them? We tell the facts of the case as it stands. We tell them about the person's sin that was committed or that is currently being committed. And we talk about their refusal to repent. and now the whole church confronts the person. Jesus is gonna say, if he refuses to listen, even to the church, meaning the whole church is now trying to get this person to turn away from sin and be reconciled to God. This is extremely serious. They've already refused to listen twice. In a sense, they've doubled down on their sin, and the church is now giving them a final chance to acknowledge their sin. and to turn back to God. Depending on what happens, there are two ways this goes. If step three is successful, then the pastors of the church call upon the church as a whole to welcome them and not to alienate them, to forgive and to comfort him, 2 Corinthians 5.7, and to reaffirm love for him, 2 Corinthians 5.8. But if step three fails, if the person refuses to listen, then the pastors call the church to step four. Either way, The church is acting not merely to punish, but to restore. If the person repents, we've gotta be ready, we've gotta be ready with open arms like this if the person repents, to welcome them back into fellowship. If they don't repent, then we need to be ready to remove them, to pray for them, and to take absolutely every opportunity with them to persuade them. So let's look at step four. Step four, we excommunicate them as a church. This is the final and most serious step. and it comes right out of the text. In the last part of verse 17, Jesus says, if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Gentiles were outside of God's covenant people, outside the people of God. Tax collectors were considered traitors because these were people who had chosen to profit through extortion by working with the Roman government to exact taxes from their fellow Jews. So they're seen as these traitors. Jesus says, this is how you should treat them. You should treat them as you would a non-believer, someone who does not belong to Christ and who cannot be trusted. What that means then is that we should have no close fellowship with them. And that's what we see in 1 Corinthians 5, 9 through 13. Paul commands the church not to associate with them, not even to eat with such a one, but to purge the evil person from among them. So both Jesus and Paul are calling for the same thing, excommunication. Now what does that actually look like? This is where our other text comes in and is very helpful to us. So turn over to 1 Corinthians chapter five. Turn in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter five. I wanna read our text, follow along as I read this. I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people. Not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world or the greedy and swindlers or idolaters. Since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I'm writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother. If he is guilty of sexual immorality, or greed, or in his idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler, not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you were to judge? which has been the subject of this entire chapter, God judges those outside, purge the evil person from among you. So Paul tells them not to associate with sexually immoral people. And he clarifies, look, listen, I am not talking about the sinful people in the world. Otherwise, you'd have to leave the world. That's not possible. He's talking about those who bear the name of brother, in other words, believers. And verses 12 and 13 make that clear. God judges those outside the church, we judge those inside. We discipline those within the church. He says, don't associate with anyone who claims the name of Christ, who's guilty of these sins. Sexual morality, greed, idolatry, who's a reviler, a drunkard, swindler. Now, if we're honest with ourselves this morning, Every single one of us in this room is guilty of at least one of those sins in one form or another. Right? So does that mean every one of us in this room needs to be excommunicated? No one would be here. There wouldn't be a church. Not even the pastors would be here. They'd be gone. No, that's not what he's saying. He's not talking about people who struggle with sin. He's talking about people who choose to stay in their sin. Look, it's not that the church is a place that's full of perfect people or that only perfect people are welcome in the church. That's not it at all. Every single one of us in this room, why are we here? Why are we here? We're here because every single one of us understands that we are a sinner in need of God's grace and mercy and forgiveness. We're here because of what Christ Jesus has done for us. He died on the cross for us. That's what we sang about all morning. God and his mercy, when we were dead in our trespasses and sins, when we were enemies with him, called us out of darkness. called us to himself in relationship with him. The church is not full of perfect people. It's full of sinners who have been saved by God's grace, who continually throw themselves on the grace of God, understanding, I don't deserve this. I cannot earn this. That's why we're here. He's not talking about people in the church who are in the process of fighting against their sin, people who wanna be free of their sin, who wanna be faithful to God. You see, as Christians, we should be growing in our reflection of God's standard. Notice I didn't say that we should be a perfect reflection of God's standard. We should be growing in that. We battle against sin. The difference is is that we battle. We fight for righteousness, to put sin to death in our lives. That's the normal Christian life. That's not who he's talking about. He's talking about people who make a practice of sinning and refuse to change. Remember, we're taking this step after a person has been confronted multiple times by multiple people and refused to turn back to God. After repeated efforts to get this person to repent, we come to this place. We excommunicate believers who are living in persistent, unrepentant sin for the sake of the person and for the sake of the church. The church is meant to be a holy temple. It's meant to be distinct from the culture around us. So we don't just do it for them, we do it for the church. And we're told not to associate with them and not even to eat with them. What does that mean? 2 Thessalonians 3 helps us to clarify what that means. In that chapter of scripture, in verses 14 and 15, Paul tells the church this. He says, if anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person and have nothing to do with him that he may be ashamed. Now, the phrase that's translated, have nothing to do with him, in 2 Thessalonians 3.14, comes from the same word translated, do not associate with him, in 1 Corinthians 5. Now, on first appearance, this seems pretty strict, like don't at all have anything to do with him. But we get some clarity, and we see that it's tempered by what Paul says in the very next verse, in verse 15. He says, do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother. It's interesting here to me as a side note that the purpose for this process is to shame him, that he may be ashamed. Shame is a dirty word in our culture and we do everything we possibly can to avoid feeling shame. And as a result, we live in a culture that is largely shameless. Not all shame is bad. It's a natural byproduct of sin and godly sorrow is meant to lead us to repentance. It's meant to lead us to God. That's the point of this here. So he says not to associate with them, have nothing to do with them. He can't mean completely shun them and have absolutely nothing to do with them at all. Why? Because he immediately says to warn him as a brother. You can't warn someone if you never see them and never talk to them. So this helps us to see that not associating with them, it's not an absolute prohibition of all contact whatsoever. Instead, the contact with them is limited to further admonitions to repent. So, excommunication then means treating the person as you would an unbeliever and not having close fellowship with them. They're excluded from Christian fellowship. Fellowship in scripture is so much more than friendship. Fellowship is locking arms with our brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ on mission with Jesus. Our purpose is to take the gospel to the world. Our purpose is to serve Jesus Christ and to help one another in that pursuit. But how can we have fellowship? It's this... Fellowship is about, it's centered on Jesus Christ and his word. How can we have fellowship then with someone who is in the process of rejecting Jesus Christ and rejecting his word? The point for us then is that we can no longer have fellowship in the full biblical sense of the word with this person who is living in persistent, unrepentant sin. So they're excluded from the fellowship of the church and its privileges. That means they're excluded from communion, just as any non-believer is excluded from the Lord's Supper. They're excluded from fellowship meals, for they would be a blemish on our love feasts, Jude 12. They're excluded from the privileges of the church. That means if they were a member, they're no longer allowed to vote. It also means that we in this church, we prioritize our care, our practical helps for fellow believers, including financial assistance. So it means that the level of help that they would receive from us would also be limited. And it means that they would be excluded from Christian fellowship because it's about being on mission and we can't do that with them if they're living contrary to Christ and his word. There are a few caveats. This does not mean that the person is not welcome to come to church. Even non-believers are welcome to attend church. We want them to come to church because we want them to hear the gospel. We want them to hear the truth of God's word being proclaimed. Why? So that they might repent. This does not mean that we don't talk to them at all. The church is still to bear witness to them, to warn them. Practically speaking, though, this means that we don't pretend like everything is normal when we interact with them. We can't pretend like nothing is going on. So can we meet with them and talk with them? Is that okay? Yes, provided you make sure to admonish them and encourage them to get right with God. This is not a social visit. We don't resume the relationship as normal. We take every opportunity that we can to call this person back to God in repentance and faith. That's what we're about. That's the focus. And this doesn't mean that we don't love them. Again, the goal is not to punish, but to restore. And if they repent, then we need to be ready to welcome them and affirm them in love. I was gonna talk about a couple of potential objections, but I'm gonna skip them. Let's look at a couple principles of church discipline. These things apply at every step of the process. First, we confront the person on the basis of God's word. Remember, we're bringing God's truth to bear on their conscience to try to convince them of sin and call them to repentance and renewed obedience. Second, we do it in a spirit of gentleness, with humility and love for the person. We're not there as a superior, we're there as a brother. The goal is always, third, to restore them and maintain the purity of the church. And number four, every step needs to be covered in prayer. Oh. I want us to be a praying church, brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ. So much of what we do in the church, we take on in our own strength. And I'm guilty of it too. We need to pray. over everything that we do, praying for our motivation, praying for our methods, and praying like crazy that the person responds. We bathe everything in prayer, even after they've been excommunicated. We never stop praying for them, never stop pursuing them, because we love them. So, with that in mind, I wanna give you two personal applications. First, pray for a readiness and a spiritual gentleness, a spirit of gentleness. Pray that God would make you ready to engage in this process, beginning with step one, with admonition on an individual level, because it's not comfortable, and it's not easy, it's messy, because people are involved, like us, and we're sinners, and we mess up, and it's gonna be that way, and you should expect it to be that way. This isn't gonna go perfectly, so we need to pray that we would be ready to engage in this process, and we need to pray that we would be spiritually humble when we go. And second, we need to pray for receptivity to corrective discipline. Because, as I said in the last sermon, every single one of us is in need of this kind of corrective discipline in our lives. We need to be like the psalmist that prays, God, don't let my head refuse this when it comes. God, make me humble and teachable so that when my brother or sister comes and rebukes me, I change, I respond, I turn. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I thank you and I praise you for your word. God, I thank you above all for Jesus Christ. Jesus, thank you. Thank you, God, that you prove your love for us and that you'd die for us while we're still sinners. God, thank you that we have righteousness, not in ourselves, but through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. God, I just lift up gospel fellowship to you. I lift up our church to you right now, Lord. I pray, God, that you would move in our hearts to be a people of prayer. God, that you would make us a people who are humble and teachable. God, that we are ready to do what you call us to do. And God, that we would be receptive when our brothers and sisters admonish us. God, I pray above all that when we do this, when we engage in this, God, it would be done with loving kindness, with tender care. God, with earnest concern for the other person. so that our church might reflect your holiness for your glory. It's beyond us, Lord, so we pray for your help. We ask for your spirit, Lord, to help us. We ask it and we pray it with faith in Jesus' name. And all God's people said, amen.