 Good evening. Welcome back everyone. It's good to see you. Thankful for our Sunday evening service. Thankful to be back with you and back in the word of God. Our sermon this morning, this evening, the practice of church discipline. We're in the study of the essentials. So working through part two of the essentials, dealing with the doctrine of the church, one sermon, one subject, as we say, essential to the maturity, growth, health of the Christian. And so now in our study of ecclesiology in part two, we come to the practice of church discipline. Turn with me in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter five, 1 Corinthians chapter five. What I'd like to do tonight is just give you a basic overview of this. It's probably been a little while since we've gone through an overview of this subject. This is something that we're familiar with in our church in terms of practice. But it's been a little bit since we've had an opportunity to consider an explanation or an overview of its biblical basis. And that is the practice of church discipline. Our text, 1 Corinthians chapter five, verses six through 13. So hear the word of God with me. In verse six, your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Therefore purge out the old leaven that you may be a new lump since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast not with old leaven or with the leaven of malice and wickedness but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. I wrote to you in my epistle, not to keep company with sexually immoral people. Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world or with the covetous or extortioners or idolaters. Since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother who is sexually immoral or covetous or an idolater or a reviler or a drunkard or an extortioner, not even to eat with such a person. For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside? Those who are outside, God judges. Therefore put away from yourselves the evil person. This is the word of God, amen. Amen, let's pray together. Father in heaven, very grateful to you for how clear and instructive your word is with respect to these practices in your church. We're very grateful, Lord, that you've outlined this very clearly for us because apart from good, clear instruction from your word, we confess and acknowledge, Lord, we'd have difficulty. And so we need your help. We want to understand our responsibilities with respect to this practice. We want to be faithful to you in this, knowing, Lord, that you love your church far more than we do, Lord, and we love your church. We're so grateful for it, grateful for her. And Lord, we want to be faithful to you in this practice, knowing that it's for our good and for your glory. So help us, Lord, to understand. Help us to consider the seriousness of this, the weight of this, the necessity of this, our responsibilities to these things, and help us, Lord, to live faithfully as members of the household of God, living for you, doing what you've called us to do in love for the sake of your body, the church. And pray these things in Christ's name, amen. The time of our sermon this evening, the practice of church discipline, our primary text, First Corinthians, chapter five, verses six through 13. Well, tonight in our study of the essentials, we're gonna be talking about the subject of church discipline. And the practice of church discipline might be thought by some to be an antiquated relic of a bygone age, not overly popular in our day and age today, and embarrassing anachronism to most, better left in the dark corner of Christian history alongside inquisitions and witch trials. It's the way that most people would view this subject. In our day, it's seldom, if ever, that you actually hear of a church practicing any form or degree of church discipline. It's exceedingly rare. Confrontation at any level is simply not an option for most people. It's to be avoided, as they would say, avoided at all costs, despite the obvious scriptural commands to the contrary. We live in a day and age where people don't like to get invested into one another's lives. We don't like confrontation. And so most people would just choose rather to take the easy way out and avoid confrontation at all costs. And that means avoiding church discipline. A vast majority of pastors today don't make it a regular practice to have meaningful relationships with the people in their churches, meaningfully involve themselves in the lives of any church members. And so they will certainly avoid involving themselves in the lives of those who actually need correction or rebuke or reproof or instruction or exhortation or even encouragement. There's scarcely today, if you've listened to many sermons, there are scarcely today any of that kind of correction going on in the pulpit. And so as you can imagine, there'd be much less of that kind of correction going on face to face and heart to heart where the Lord intends us to start. So if someone causes trouble, for example, and they believe that some type of accountability can't be avoided, then maybe, if accountability can't be avoided, if a conversation can't be avoided, then they'll meet, they may talk about it behind their back, they may talk about it in their staff meetings, and then when it gets really bad, when they can't avoid that person, they'll send that person an email and hope they just leave the church, right? That's the way, most frankly, that is the way most church discipline today is taken care of. There's simply an email and a hope the problem will just disappear and go away. When there's so much good that the Lord intends that could be done, if you and I would be faithful to obey God's word in this practice of church discipline, there's so much good that the Lord intends, so much grace at work by His Spirit through this practice when a church is invested in one another's lives and they labor in this practice of church discipline when they endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Now there are so many examples I can think of in our own experience over the years of the neglect of this necessary practice, marriages in real peril, real peril, the elders of the church refuse to deal with the sin to save the marriage and it just gets worse, right? Ongoing fornication, these are real examples, ongoing fornication that leads to pregnancy for a baptized member of the church and no conversation takes place, much less any kind of practice of faithful accountability or church discipline. A serial predator adulterer is put out of our church under discipline, goes down the road to another Reformed Baptist church who welcomes him in. I see a picture of him with his arm around another sister in that church. I warned the pastor, they knew nothing about it, he commits adultery with her. Elders accuse a brother of division, won't talk to him, they send him an email. We put a man out of the church under discipline after a year long process of dealing with his unrepentant drug use, he's being discipled by the pastor of another Reformed church six months later. A professing Christian woman leaves her professing Christian husband, goes down the road to another Reformed Baptist church who welcomes her in, they refuse to do anything about it and the marriage ends in divorce. You can see in the wake of this neglect, in the wake of a lack of faithfulness in practicing church discipline and doing what the Lord has simply called us to do, we see destruction and division and discord and disharmony and problems left and right. The abhorrent list goes on and on and on all because of a lack of attention to, a lack of faithfulness in the practice of church discipline. And if the leadership of the church won't get to know the people, right? If the leadership won't invest in the lives of the people, won't lovingly confront, convince, correct, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and teaching, as Paul tells us to do, if they won't faithfully deal with this sin then the people certainly won't do it. We need good examples, we need faithful leaders. And listen, superficiality is easy. Meaningful, accountable relationships are hard work. And we, don't we, tend toward being easy, tend toward taking the easy road out. Taking the easy road out, being superficial in our relationships, being superficial in our interaction with one another, neglecting confrontation or neglecting church discipline is a form of man-pleasing. It's a form of the fear of man, fueled by a fear of man rather than fueled by a fear of God. And Paul says, if I still pleased men, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ. It reminds me in the Old Testament example of Eli, where Eli refused to restrain the sin of his sons. God intended to judge Eli for that and to kill Eli's sons for their sins, but God says to Eli that you have esteemed your sons more highly than me, right? Well, brothers and sisters, may it never be that we esteem one another, esteem someone else more highly than God. That God has admonished us, has commanded us in this good practice. You and I, for the sake of the Lord's church, for faithfulness of the Lord, out of love for the Lord, and out of love for the Lord's people, we need to be faithful in this practice of church discipline. The record of feckless failure in this practice has not been the history of Baptist churches. There's a record of faithfulness in this amongst the Baptist churches. It really has been in recent history that this practice has fallen out of faithfulness, fallen out of favor. That's not been the case in our history. God's people have long recognized the biblical mandate that we have in the church for accountable relationships in church discipline. Our forebears staunchly held to the necessity for discipline in the Lord's church and thought the practice of church discipline was one of the marks of a true church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Apart from a faithful practice of church discipline, you don't have a true church. Listen to this, the Belgic Confession, 1561, that's shortly after the beginning of the Reformation, in Article 29 of the Belgic Confession, of the marks of the true church, wherein she differs from the false church, listen to what the confession states. We believe that we ought diligently and circumspectly to discern from the Word of God, which is the true church? Why? Since all sects, those churches in error, which are in the world, assume to themselves the name of the church, right? So what's the situation that they're addressing? We need to diligently, circumspectly, wisely discern from the Word of God, what's a true church? Why? Because there are all kinds of groups out there, sects out there who claim for themselves the name of church that aren't true churches. How do we tell the difference? The confession goes on to say this. The marks by which the true church is known are these. If the pure doctrine of the gospel is preached therein, if she maintains the pure administration of the sacraments as instituted by Jesus Christ, and if the church practices discipline, if church discipline is exercised in the punishing of sin, in short, if all these things are managed according to the pure Word of God, all things contrary thereto are corrected, and Jesus Christ acknowledged as the only head of the church, this is the mark of a true church. You see, of those listed, of those marks listed was the practice of church discipline. Stephen Davie, in his primer on church discipline, asks this, what can the average church today claim in relation to these three distinctives? First, the preaching of doctrine, pure doctrine, has all but disappeared from pulpits. The average ministry expounds on life and illustrates occasionally with scripture rather than expounding the scriptures illustrating occasionally from life. Second, attention to the ordinances of the church is woefully lacking. They're meaningless any longer, mindless, heartless rituals. And finally, the final distinctive of a biblical church is virtually forgotten, the practice of church discipline. The average church has never practiced church discipline and the subsequent restoration process of a prodigal saint now reconciled is all but forgotten. The professing church today virtually never practices church discipline. It really is rare to come across a church that is faithful in this work, this good work, this necessary work. The absence or the neglect of this healing grace, this healing balm in the Lord's church in our day has left unchecked a spreading and a deadly malignancy. That combined with a deplorable neglect of sound doctrine, the loss of any meaningful understanding of the ordinances of the church has consigned many professing church to the stinking garbage heap of Gehenna. They're just not true churches. Churches packed full of weeds, churches impure, churches disunified. The unity that they have is the social club atmosphere they enjoy in a sunny morning, but it goes no deeper than that. A true church of the Lord Jesus Christ regularly, faithfully practices church discipline. So what is church discipline? How do we define it? Church discipline may be broadly defined, listen, as obedience to the word of God on the part of an individual Christian, the elders of a church or the congregation of a church to lovingly confront sin in the life of a professing believer among them and to take corrective biblical measures afforded them by the word of God to seek the repentance and restoration of the sinning member and to preserve our witness in the world. I wanna read that to you again. I want you to think about each of those statements and we're gonna work through each of those statements individually, listen. Church discipline may be broadly defined as obedience to the word of God on the part of an individual Christian, the elders of a church or the congregation of a church to lovingly confront sin in the life of a professing believer among them and to take corrective biblical measures afforded them by the word of God to seek the repentance and restoration of the sinning member and thereby to preserve our witness in the world. Now notice first with me from our definition that church discipline is in obedience to the word of God. A practice of church discipline is in obedience to what God's word clearly commands us. Listen to this from various texts in scripture. Matthew chapter 18, beginning in verse 15. Listen, moreover, if your brother sins against you go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you've gained your brother but if he will not hear, take with you one or two more that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. But if he refuses even to hear the church let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector. I went to a lunch with a guy one time from a church across town and he began to ask me about church discipline and how to practice church discipline. I simply explained to him read from Matthew chapter 18 verses 15 to 20 and he turns to me and said if we did that in our church we wouldn't have anybody left. We're to practice that, the Lord commands it in his word. Romans chapter 16 verse 17. Now I urge you brother and note those who cause division and offenses contrary to the doctrine which you learned and avoid them. For those who are such do not serve our Lord Jesus Christ but their own belly and by smooth words and flattering speech deceive the hearts of the simple. If you're concerned about the hearts of the simple you'll refuse to allow anyone to deceive them with false doctrine. You see, we have a responsibility to protect our beloved brothers and sisters to protect the Lord's church to protect the Lord's doctrine. First Corinthians chapter five verse 12. What have I to do with judging those who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside? Those who are outside God judges therefore put away from yourselves the evil person. We have a responsibility, don't we? Second Thessalonians chapter three verse six. But we command you brethren in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that you withdraw from every brother who walks disorderly and not according to the tradition which he received from us. Verse 13 he goes on to say but as for you brethren do not grow weary in doing good. And if anyone does not obey our word in this epistle note that person do not keep company with him that he may be ashamed. Yet do not count him as an enemy but admonish him as a brother. We're commanded, commanded to admonish one another to exhort one another to correct one another to rebuke one another, right? We're admonished to, we're commanded to be faithful in this work. Titus chapter three verse nine. Avoid foolish disputes, genealogies, contentions, strivings about the law for they are unprofitable and useless. Reject a divisive man after the first and second admonition knowing that such a person is warped and sinning being self-condemned. First from our definition, church discipline is in obedience to the word of God. One text would be enough. We have multiple texts that instruct us and inform us as to how we're to faithfully practice church discipline. Notice second from our basic definition of church discipline, that church discipline involves individual Christians in the church. Church discipline may involve the elders of the church. Eventually church discipline may involve the congregation as a whole. We saw that represented in several, represented in several of those texts, didn't we? According to one example, we've come to call an outline, if you will, of church discipline, an outline of one process of church discipline. In Matthew chapter 18, the whole process begins with the individual. Turn there with me to Matthew chapter 18, where the whole process begins with the individual Christian. Listen, brothers and sisters, when there's sin in the church, the responsibility is laid upon you and I to faithfully follow the Lord's command, faithfully follow the Lord's lead here and deal with sin in our midst in a loving biblical way according to this process outlined for us in Matthew chapter 18. It all begins with you. We have to be responsible to do these things. Listen, Matthew 18 verse 15. Moreover, if your brother sins against you, go tell him his fault between you and him alone, private conversation. If he hears you, you've gained your brother, okay? Individual believers are often the first to be sinned against, right? Individual believers are often the first ones involved in this kind of a confrontation in this kind of a situation. The first to become aware of personal sin in the life of another brother or sister and the Lord then calls for a private conversation. You go to him alone. If he hears you, if he repents, turns from his sin, you've won your brother, you've gained your brother. If there is no resolution to the matter, the Lord calls for a private corroboration from a private conversation now to a private corroboration, verse 16. But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more that by the mouth of two or three witnesses, every word may be established. If the matter is established by the involvement of impartial and unbiased witnesses to the sin, the person remains unrepentant, then the Lord calls then for a public confrontation, private conversation, private corroboration, now for a public confrontation, look at verse 17. And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. Going to the church would involve first going to the elders of the church, depending upon the circumstances, the elders may then need to announce the matter to the entire church publicly. And according to the Lord's instruction, if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector. Let him be to you like an unbeliever. You're to treat that person as an unbeliever. This whole process leads to a public condemnation. You can see how with the discipline that the Lord very patiently, very lovingly continues to ramp up the discipline, ramps up the discipline until it leads to this very public condemnation. You notice there's no timeframe on these steps. This could take a very long time to work through a process. It may not take a long time. We have discretion. We have wisdom that the Lord gives us to work through a process like this and we have that liberty to consider our circumstances. But this process leads eventually to, if unchecked, if the brother does not repent, leads to a very public condemnation. We're to treat that one as an unbeliever, one having no rights or privileges in the Lord's church and condemned in his sin. Now notice third, notice third from our basic definition then of church discipline. Church discipline may be broadly defined as obedience to the word of God on the part of an individual Christian, the elders of a church or the congregation of a church to lovingly confront sin in the life of a professing believer among them. We live in a culture that absolutely excoriates any notion of judgment, right? Don't judge me. I don't wanna be judged. And the hypocrisy with that is staggering, isn't it? Worldly wisdom dictates that we can and that we should make very broad sweeping judgments with regard to anything that offends our personal morality. But as soon as you apply an external objective morality, the external objective morality of God's word and you impose that morality on the heart and mind of a person, all of a sudden judgment is a filthy word. That's a standard that a sinful, rebellious person does not wanna be held to. And so they'll revolt against being held to that standard and judgment becomes a filthy word. Contrary to all their offense, the Bible commands that the people of God make righteous judgments. We're to judge rightly. First, the Bible says that we're to judge ourselves. First Corinthians chapter 11, verse 28. Let a man examine himself. For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord that we may not be condemned with the world. We're to judge ourselves. We're to examine our own hearts, examine our own lives. Two, we're to judge someone who is living in open sin. First Corinthians chapter five, Paul rebukes the church at Corinth for refusing to judge a person in open sin in the church, and rather rebukes the church for pride, for being arrogant, for glorying in the sin because they refuse to deal with the sin in their midst. I guess they knew better how to deal with the sin. That's what it comes down to, right? We, by default, imagine that we somehow know better how we ought to deal with that sin than God does. And so we choose in disobedience to God's word, many churches choose to neglect confronting that sin or neglect dealing with the sin because somehow they know better how it ought to go, right? They believe themselves to be, or put themselves in the position of being more loving than God by avoiding what God commands by refusing to confront sin in the church when Paul says, deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. You see there, there's a hint, we'll talk about it in a moment, but a purpose of church discipline. Discipline is not to be punitive. Discipline is restorative. There is a purpose to God's plan to the Lord's instruction with respect to discipline, and it is the salvation of that one who is under discipline. And apart from a faithful process of church discipline, we don't know what the spirit of God is going to do, right? We don't know how things will turn out for that person. We need to be faithful to the word of God because their soul is being dealt with, and the Lord himself has determined that this is how their soul is to be dealt with. The spirit of God is to work through this process of church discipline. The judgment of the church is to be then a physical or a temporal display or manifestation of the impending judgment of God. When someone goes through the process of church discipline and they're unrepentant, they don't turn from their sin, they refuse to turn from their sin, they continue to live in unrepentant sin, then the increasing discipline of the church is meant to be a physical or a temporal, a circumstantial, if you will, picture of the impending future judgment of God that hangs over their head. This is to be a picture of that, and we are to turn, brothers and sisters, we are to turn from our sin to faith in Jesus Christ to flee that wrath to come. The wrath we talked about a lot this morning. Thirdly though, we are to judge someone according to the doctrine that they profess to believe. Romans chapter 16, verse 17, Paul says, I urge you, brethren, note those who cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which you learned and avoid them. To obey the Lord there, you have to make a judgment, make a determination about the doctrine that they are professing to believe and the doctrine that they're teaching. It needs to be sound biblical doctrine. Davy quotes an Episcopal bishop who voted to ordain sodomites into the ministry of the Episcopal church. And this bishop said, if you have to choose between heresy and division, always choose heresy. It's a direct quotation. When exactly and precisely the opposite is taught in the Bible, if you find yourself in the position of having to choose between heresy and division, you always choose division. Lord's word, God's word, is not to be trifled with. And we don't construct and pursue a man-made false sham unity at the expense of truth. We're to labor for the truth and preserve our unity in the truth. Fourth, it's right to judge the wicked and immoral actions of our government. It is right as we see in the example of John the Baptist. It's right as we see in the example of the apostles in Jerusalem, in the early church, in the book of Acts. John the Baptist lost his head doing that very thing. Fifth, it's right to judge the wicked and immoral beliefs and actions of our culture. The church is to be salt and light to this world. And I'm afraid that with a failure to confront culture, much of the professing church has lost its savor. Notice forth with me then from our basic definition of church discipline. Church discipline may be broadly defined as obedience to the word of God on the part of an individual Christian, the elders of a church or the congregation of a church to lovingly confront sin in the life of a professing believer among them and to take corrective biblical measures afforded them by the word of God to seek the repentance and restoration of the sinning member. In other words, this is how we care for a sinning brother or sister in our midst. This is how we care for them. The extent of God's grace in the process of church discipline may involve treating them as an unbeliever as we saw in Matthew chapter 18. Withholding from them Christian fellowship, no longer close and intimate but guarded and evangelistic, as one put it. No longer close and intimate fellowship but guarded and evangelistic fellowship, civil and loving but unattached. In other words, that person becomes an object of evangelism. We're to preach the gospel to that one, calling them to repentance, calling them back to faithfulness in the Lord's church, calling them to repentance. Now that involves our church and that involves every other church. This is commanded by the Lord. We have to think about what is being communicated to us from God's word. What is most loving? What is most loving? I would submit to you, what is most loving is obeying the Lord in these things. The Lord knows what we need. The Lord does this for our good. He works all things together for our good. That includes for the Lord's church. What is unloving? What is unloving is neglecting or avoiding the commandments of God with respect to this practice and thinking somehow that we know better and avoiding what the Lord has clearly commanded us to do and letting that one trail off in their sin. We want to see them restored to the bride. We wanna see them restored to fellowship with the Lord's church and with restoration comes great rejoicing, amen. We've seen people restored here. It's a great source of rejoicing in our church. And we're gonna see them restored to the Lord's church. Notice fifth then, fifth from our basic definition of church discipline. Church discipline again may be broadly defined as obedience to the word of God on the part of an individual Christian, the elders of a church or the congregation of a church to lovingly confront sin in the life of a professing believer among them and to take corrective biblical measures afforded them by the word of God to seek the repentance and restoration of the sinning member and to preserve our witness in the world. It's through that process, brothers and sisters, that we labor by the spirit of God among us to maintain a pure testimony in this world to maintain a pure church. First Peter chapter two, verse 11, listen. Beloved, I beg you, Peter says, as sojourners and pilgrims abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul, having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they observe, glorify God in the day of visitation. We need to maintain our good testimony among the lost. Biblical church discipline then is a rescue up. It's a rescue up. We're laboring for the Lord's church, we're laboring for the soul of a sinning brother or sister, laboring to restore a wayward brother or sister. It's also a valuable, valuable necessary means of God to our purity, to our peace, to our protection, to our preservation. It is a necessary practice. The commitment level expected from most church members today at most churches is so deplorably low that as long as you're a body in a chair for an hour on Sunday morning, then you've done your duty, quote, unquote, right? That can't be the case among us. Our duty goes far beyond. It's a duty of love, it's a duty of necessity, it's a duty of obedience, it's a duty of faithfulness. Our duty goes far beyond just being a body in a chair for an hour on Sunday morning. We have a responsibility to one another. We saw that in the communion of the saints and in the unity of the church. And now we follow up that we see that necessity in the practice of church discipline. Actual discipleship in the local church today is virtually non-existent. And so people are invested in one another's lives. And many times in a church, especially in churches, reform Baptist churches, typically churches inside our own camp, because there's no intimate investment in one another's lives, we don't know how we're doing spiritually. There's no meaningful way that we can hold one another accountable or look after one another. There's no meaningful way that I can be my brother's keeper if I don't know my brother and know how he's doing. If I'm not in conversation with my brother, if I'm not having an invested relationship with him, I don't know how he's doing and this doesn't get done, right? This gets done when the body of Christ acts like a body together, right? Knit together, join together by what every joint supplies, each part doing its share, then invested in one another, we know how we're doing. We can hold one another accountable. And you know what? In a practice of church discipline, most of it ends at step number one, go and tell your brother his fault between you and him alone and never goes any farther. Praise the Lord, right? It works that way in the Lord's church. Most of the time today, discipleship in churches is replaced by programs, replaced by events. Instead of meaningful relationships, it's just another class. We'll put on another class, we'll do another thing. And classes can be good, but brothers and sisters, it doesn't replace us having meaningful relationships together in the Lord's church and being faithful in this practice. Professing churches as a result, by and large fail to deal with sin anymore. And church devolves into little more than a weekly production, maybe at best a series of programs. You and I though, we have responsibility in the Lord's church to love one another, to love the Lord, to love the Lord's church and to be faithful in this practice for the sake of the Lord and for the sake of one another. We have a responsibility. And as with Matthew 18, that responsibility begins with you, amen? All right, let's pray. Father in heaven, Lord, thank you for this good instruction. Apart from your word, we would be negligent to do these things, but because your word so clearly lays them out before us, Lord, we're grateful for that instruction. Grateful because we see your wisdom in it. We've seen the fruit of a faithful practice of this. We long to see sinners restored to our fellowship restored to the faith. And Lord, we see your goodness, your love, your mercy, your forgiveness, that work by your spirit through this process. And Lord, we wanna honor you, esteem you more highly than ourselves or one another. We wanna esteem you in a faithful practice of church discipline. And I pray, Lord, that you would find us faithful to this good work, that you would help us strengthen us, give us wisdom. This is a process in which we must labor with great wisdom to be faithful to you. So Lord, we ask you without doubting that you would supply us with the strength and the wisdom that we need to faithfully practice church discipline. And Lord, you would, for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ and His bride, you would cause us, Lord, to be fruitful and effective in this good work. And help us to be loving, help us to be patient, help us to be kind, help us to bear long, to be long suffering with one another. Help us to act in love toward you and act in love toward one another, laboring to see a person restored rather than viewing this in any way as being punitive. And Lord, help us to honor you above all in these things, knowing, Lord, how much you love your church, how much you gave to redeem her. We're grateful for your instruction. Thank you for your word. Thank you for this time tonight. Thank you, Lord, for the peace and the unity that we enjoy here. Pray that you would preserve us in it and cause us to abound in this grace for your glory. In Jesus' name, amen.