[David Jones] Well, as I said just a moment ago, the topic that I want to speak about today was actually brought up in one of our open Bible studies that we had a while back. The question that was originally submitted asked if we as a church, not only congregationally but as the United Church of God, practice the admonition of Christ in Matthew 18:15-18? And I thought well, yeah, of course we do. You know, that's just... if you're a Christian that's what you do, and it has to deal with dealing with conflict. And we talked about it in our open Bible study. It was interesting because the way I was thinking about it – I think we all did – was like, yeah, there's a conflict, you go to your brother, you know, and then you get that done.

But here's the really difficult part is how to go to your brother in love. And in both congregations, as we talked about it, that was what we really focused on, was how do you correct or deal with conflict in love and doing it the right way. So I want to go ahead, and if you would, take a look at Matthew 18, and we'll begin in verse 15 with me.

Matthew 18:15, Christ again is speaking and He says, "Moreover if your brother sins against you…" Now if you have a King James Version Bible, it will say “trespass.” "If your brother trespasses against you." That word can mean sin, or it can mean trespass. It can mean offend, something that you feel hurt by, offended by, sinned against. It says, "Go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother."

See that's one of the admonitions here is that God gives us is that there's always a blessing. If we do this, we gain back our brother. There's something that's a problem, there's a conflict, there's a division, something separating us, and if we do this, then we gain back our brother. Now verse 16 says, "If he will not hear..." which is sometimes reasonable. You know, you go to somebody and say "You know, I think you've got a problem with such and such." And they go, "No, I don't. No, I don’t. I don't."

Well, sometimes they need to hear it from more than one mouth. It says, "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." Christ is again quoting from the Old Testament here and the law, which is why it's capitalized. And He says, "If he refuses to hear them, then tell it to the church.” Now, this is to go to the ministry, go to the elders, the pastor, the shepherd. "And let them intervene. But if he refuses even to hear the church..." – and that's not just me, that's not just the shepherd, the pastor, but the other elders, the other brethren – "then let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector." Like a heathen and a tax collector.

Well, it doesn't mean that they are excommunicated, you know, as if they do not exist, you know? The Jews that He was talking to still had to deal with tax collectors. A tax collector would come to their business, their door, they'd be coming into town and be like, "All right, come on. We’ve got to do business." They still did business with them. They were surrounded by heathens. You know, you still had people around you. Get along with every man as much as you are able. But you weren't to fellowship with them. That's where there's a difference.

After this question was asked again, I thought, well, of course, we do that. I mean, that's just straightforward. If you're a disciple of Jesus Christ, if there's a conflict, you go to your brother. That's what we do. The only thing is, in the last several months, I've come to realize that we don't. We really don't. Amongst all the churches of God, amongst most Christians, even in our local congregations, we don't truly practice this statute.

I also have a confession. As God has been showing me things, and this plays into my desire to fix things, as I said, you know, trying to help my sister and wanting to fix things, and being a pastor. I hope that each and every one of you knows that I love you dearly. I truly do. You're my family. You're who I have. And my desire to fix things has... God's been showing me how, “You can't fix it, Dave. It's not your job,” over and over again.

Whether it's my wife's cancer, or my sister's cancer, or sometimes problems between the brethren, I can't fix it. And the confession is that I am an enabler. I have been an enabler. Now some of you will be familiar with that word. It's used a lot in popular modern psychology. I'll give you the definition which I took from the internet. That way we know that it's absolutely true, you know? [laughter] But the definition of an enabler as a noun is “a person or thing that makes something possible.” You’re making something possible, except it's not in a positive way. It says, “a person who encourages or enables negative or self-destructive behavior in another person.”

Now, most often when we hear of someone being an enabler, we talk about, again a modern psychology term is a codependency relationship. Some of you, I see some heads nodding going, "Oh, yeah." And very often it involves a relationship where there is someone with an addiction. Maybe it's a married couple one of them has... we'll just say they're an alcoholic. They have a problem. And the other one loves them, and the person who's an alcoholic, they drink, they have all the problems, they fall down, they get in trouble. And their spouse who loves them comes along and picks them up faithfully every time. And they try to restore them, and they try to clean up the mess and fix all the problems.

And then a little bit of time goes by, and the addict, the alcoholic, drinks again, and it's just a cycle. It goes on and on and on. It is never-ending. And even amongst alcoholics, amongst those who are Alcoholics Anonymous, they will say that it wasn't until I was allowed to hit rock bottom that I could finally see that I had a real problem. And the people who loved me, you know, they kept picking me up, so I never hit rock bottom. I never had to deal with all the consequences of my own actions. They always swept in and took care of it, and so I drink a little bit now and then. Big whoop, no harm. But yeah, there was harm. They just weren't the ones paying the bill.

It enables someone to continue on with a negative behavior. What I realize now is that we have differences, we have disagreements, we have contentions within the body of Christ, family. And in my desire for the family to all love each other and get along, someone will come to me and say, "I've got a problem. There's an issue, something with this," and so I counsel them. And then I run over and I counsel the other person, and I try to get them together. And then I run back to this other person, and I say, " Well, you know, they were unaware of this,” or “There is this thing going on,” or you know, “I know a lot of background and history on this issue and on this problem, and so maybe you could be more forgiving and maybe, you know, understand it from their perspective." And then I go back to this other person and say, "Well, you shouldn't be offended because they were offended because they didn't know." And all this other stuff, and I just... It's exhausting, and it's never really worked.

Which is another thing God has been pointing out to me this year. It's like, "So did you fix it, Dave?" "No." He’s like, "So are you going to let Me?" It's been a good year that way for me, I guess. God’s showing me all the things that are not my job, the areas where I've actually been interfering and enabling everybody.

So that's what I want to talk about today. If you haven't figured out the title to my message today, it is "Go to Your Brother.” Go to Your Brother. See, just like when we were talking about this in our open Bible study, it's like well, yeah, I mean it's right there. This is what you do. You got a problem, you go to your brother. You tell them, and if they don't want to hear, you have a couple of witnesses, and you know, that's what you do. Only we don't! We really don't do that. I don't think we do that in any of the churches of God, let alone any professing Christians because it's not human. That's not what we want to do. It's not how we were raised. It's not how our society acts. Oftentimes we would just as soon not have to deal with it.

It's funny, for somebody who used to fight and enjoy it, you know, wrestling and sparring and fighting sometimes, I hate conflict. I just... You know, your gut goes into a knot, and you’re worried how is this going to work out, how am I...? You know, it's just the anxiety. And we can make ourselves sick over how to go to our brother, and so we don't.

And instead, we try to bury the offense or say we're going to forget about it, only we don't, because it's almost virtually impossible. So we tuck it away someplace where hopefully, we're not thinking about it all the time, and it sits there until something reminds us. Somebody does something, somebody says something, and we go [exploding sound effect]. Because we never went to our brother to begin with. We didn't deal with it in the way that God said to deal with it. And we do it the way we learned.

We learned it from our childhood. You have two siblings, a brother and a sister, or brothers or sisters, and they get in an argument. What's the very first thing they do? “Mom! Mom, Timmy took my bike without asking, and then he wrecked and now there's a scratch. Get him.” “Mom, Jennifer is in my closet. She has taken my stuff, I can tell, because I had it all arranged perfectly, and it is not the same anymore.” And we want mom or dad to come in and lower the boom. Right?

Well, it continues on because as children, oftentimes, we then go to school. And especially today, they're very strict about if you have a conflict with another child in your class or in your school, if there's an issue, if there's a disagreement, if there's some bullying, don't do anything. Go to your teacher. Tell your teacher, and then they will deal with it. And so there's a problem, and we're like, "Teacher! Teacher! So and so is doing such and such." We grow up with it. You know, if we're at work and we have a problem with a coworker, we go to the boss, we go to our manager, and we say, “Fix it.”

They tell us that that's what we're supposed to do because moms and dads are supposed to be able to settle arguments. Teachers are supposed to be able to settle arguments; they've been trained. Same thing with bosses and managers, so much of their training is actually conflict resolution. But man's way is not God's way. You know what happens when there's a conflict between brethren in the church? It sounds a lot like the first two. “Mr. Jones! Mr. Jones, you will not believe what happened while you were gone. You would not believe what this person said or did, or this thing that's going on, and it’s a problem.”

And me, as a natural-born fixer and enabler, I go, "Oh, okay, okay, okay. Here, let me go in, and I'm going to deal with this. And I'll talk to that person, I'll talk to this person, I'll try to smooth this over, and I'll try to do all this and everything.” And I keep wondering why it doesn't get any better. It's because I've been enabling, and we have not been going to our brother, our sister in Jesus Christ.

I believe that in order to be disciples, true disciples of Jesus Christ, we have to obey not only the law, not only the commandments and His Holy Days, but what He tells us to do as disciples – to take up His cross daily and live it and do what is uncomfortable, what does not come natural to us, like going to our brother. We have to do this. It's not an option, if you are a follower of Jesus Christ, if you're baptized, you received God's Holy Spirit, repented of your sins. He doesn't say, “If you want to, if you think it will help, then go to your brother.” He says, “Do it.” It's not a choice that we're given. He says, "This is what you will do."

This is something which we, as a church, as a corporation, with the other bodies or the other parts of the body of Christ, have to figure out. Because historically, it's not what we've done. I can even look at the ministry, the ministry throughout the history of the church going back to Worldwide, and I can tell you there's so many ministers who left the church angry, took brethren with them, because they didn't go to their brother. It's a part of our culture, our history. It's an easy place for Satan to slip a dagger in between the armor and divide it, and then hit the heart.

As disciples of Christ, we are to obey Him, and the Holy Days are approaching. Oftentimes we think about preparing ourselves for the spring Holy Days, particularly Passover, but what about Trumpets and Atonement? Atonement, Yom Kippur, is about reconciling ourselves to God through Christ's sacrifice and His blood being a covering for our sins, so that we may be reconciled. Well, we have to be reconciled to each other. That's the way we work this out. We have a short time. In many ways, this is a preparatory sermon message for Atonement. As I said, it's like 19 days away. It's coming upon us very quickly, and human nature will be like, "Eh, I've got time. I don't need to do this. It's fine." No, because then we just put it off, and we continue to put it off, and we never get it taken care of.

And if God as our heavenly Father is telling us as His children that we need to be reconciled, what would us as parents do if we said, "Timmy, you need to go and apologize to your sister." You say, "Yes, Dad. I will, when I'm ready." Oh no, no, no! Parents? "Ooh, no. You will go and apologize now. You're going to sit down and figure this out, not when you're ready – we're dealing with it now." Well, we have this admonition. Turn with me to Matthew 5.

Matthew 5 and verse 22, Christ is saying how important it is that we deal with conflict within the body of Christ, with our brethren, our brothers, our sisters in Christ, and how dangerous it is if we don't. Matthew 5:22, "But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment." Now again, this part of “without a cause,” sometimes yeah, there really is no cause. Someone's just angry; they like conflict. But typically, there's a reason. Typically there's a reason that we have it, but to be without cause may mean that we just haven't dealt with it.

"And whoever says to his brother, “Raca!” shall be in danger of the council, and whosoever says, “You fool!” shall be in danger of hell fire." It says, "Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First, be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift."

Brethren, the day of Atonement is coming. We're told, "Three times a year you shall come before the Lord your God, and you shall not come empty-handed." This is one of them. We are to humble ourselves, we are to fast, we are to praise God for His covering over us, and we're to bring an offering. Only He says, if you have a conflict, something against your brother or they have something against you, He saying it's more important for you to go and deal with that, and then come back and I will accept your offering. That's important.

You know, this makes me think of Cain and Abel. Cain was angry with his brother. His offering hadn't been accepted. He was offended. He was also offended with God but blamed his brother, and he allowed that to grow into bitterness. And God even said, "Is it right for you to feel this way? To be angry like this?" He said, "If you're not careful, then sin lies at the door." We have to deal with these things for our offerings to even be honored.

2 Corinthians 5 and verse 18. Now you have to remember that 1 Corinthians was all about correction, right? The Apostle Paul is writing to the Corinthians, and he's saying "You have forgotten everything I taught you. These are your faults, and these are your sins." He's confronting them not only as a pastor but as a brother in Jesus Christ and as an apostle. And then 2 Corinthians is he's reconciling them. He's bringing them back into the fold because they responded. They heard him, and they changed.

2 Corinthians 5:18 says, "Now all things are of God who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. That is that God, who in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them and has committed to us the word of reconciliation." Brethren, that's our ministry. That is our ministry, is to be reconciled with one another. And not even just with our brothers, but so much more with those of the faith. We truly don't have a choice.

So if we don't have a choice, and it's not something we're used to, how do we do it? Well, I've got a few points, and these are important. Point number one, we are told to go to our brother, but before you can go to your brother, you must actually see him as your brother. I want to repeat that. Before you can go to your brother and offer correction, you must actually see him as your brother. It implies a loving relationship. And just like Cain and Abel, we are indeed our brother's keeper. We are obligated to do this. We are here to serve one another. It is how the whole world will know that we are His disciples, if we have love for one another. If we love each other, we will seek resolution, reconciliation.

And I want to say this: before we start that process of going to our brother, when we approach them, if we cannot look them in the eye, and say, "I love you," then we have a bigger problem. If you cannot look them in the eye and say, "I love you," then we've got to go back to the drawing board. Because we're not proceeding correctly. We're not getting off even starting on the right foot.

I think I've told this story before, but it had happened on quite a few occasions. My siblings, particularly my sister, and I, 18 months apart, we would be fighting. And one of my cousins commented on Facebook the other day because she was just saying "You know what, it's so encouraging to see how much the two of you love each other." And she said, "But I remember 1979" and she said, "and I remember some mega fights about cereal." [laughter] And I said, "Well, I may have been a little cereal obsessed at that time, and she was wrong any way.” You know?

So mom would have to deal with us. And like kids, siblings we would fight and it would get bad, and mom would say "That's it, enough. I have had it. You are brother and sister, and you will love each other. Now you go into that room, and don't you come out until you do." Well, eventually we wanted out, and I remember my sister once saying, because literally it had gone from late afternoon to early evening, and the sun had moved and it was getting dark. And she said, "You know, if we don't do something, she's just crazy enough to keep us in here, and you know, we’d better do something."

And so we said, "All right, okay, right, whatever she says, we'll just do. It's not settled. This is not settled because I'm still right and you're wrong," "No, no…” [sound of squabbling] You know. “Okay, we want out, so we're going to work together, and we're going to get through this. We just have to get past mom." So we go out and mom says… I remember her sitting on the couch reading and going, "So have you all learned to love each other yet?" "Yes, ma'am." She said, "Okay, David, Sherry, face each other." She says, “Now say, ‘I love you.’” "Ugh! I love you." And mom goes, "No, no, no, no. That is not an ‘I love you.’ Say it again, but say it like you mean it." "I love you." "No." “I love you!” "Okay, that was better."

And then she took it another step, and she said, "Now, hug." “Ugh.” She's like "No, that’s not a hug, and you know it. Give each other a real hug." So we had to stand close, put our arms around each other and squeeze. Mom says "Now hold it." “Ugh, okay. [sighs]” She said, "Now, say I love you." "Oh, I love you." And my sister said, "I love you, too, but I still know where you sleep." [laughter] But we took it as a win. The odd thing is that actually helped. I did love my sister. I always have. And the cereal wasn't really that big of a deal, and I wish I hadn't let it get to be such a big deal, and I wish I hadn't gotten so angry, and I wish we hadn't fought. Because it really did kind of wreck our night and we missed Disney, you know, so it wasn't worth it.

That really is the way that we have to start out. If we can look at our brother and sister in Christ, and say and mean, “I love you,” it has a way of taking the issue, the conflict, the offense, and making it lighter. Makes less of it. And then we can actually proceed and kind of talk about it, and deal with it. It's the best way to start.

Christ actually gives us point number two in how to proceed. If you turn back to Matthew 18... Remember we started in Matthew 18:15. If we turn back to Matthew 18 and pick up in verse 18, He says, "Assuredly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." Well, what this means is that the two parties who, the brother who has gone to his brother to talk about the problem, the conflict. Maybe there was a contract, maybe there was a promise, a vow, "Hey I need help. If you'll do this for me, then I will do this for you," and then they dropped the ball.

And we're going to him and saying, "Hey, you've actually put me in a bad spot. You promised," and here's a conflict. But in seeking resolution, we can loose that vow, that bond, or if we, as the brother who offended say, "No, I'm going to fix this. I'm going to do it better. I am going to pay you back," whatever it takes, then it's bound. God says it will be bound in heaven or loosed in heaven. Because if we have a covenant with them, an agreement with them, and they don't keep it, God will hold them accountable. It will happen, unless we ask Him to be a part of it, then it can be loosed. We are to keep our word and keep our vows.

Verse 19, "Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered..." remember if you go to your brother and it doesn't work, then take a witness or take two witnesses. So He's saying, if you do this, and "Two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there in the midst of them." This is how God will bring us to reconciliation.

I want to make a point here, because oftentimes when you hear this quoted, people are taking it out of context. This has nothing to do with the Sabbath day. I want to say that again: this has nothing to do with the Sabbath day. Oftentimes people say "Well, I don't need to go to church. I mean, if Bob and I get together on the Sabbath and we talk about God, then we've kept the holy convocation." No, you haven't. The whole chapter isn't talking about that at all. It is about going to your brother and asking God to be there in the midst of you, binding you together and reconciling you to each other and to Him.

If you go... because human resolution very rarely works, but if we ask God to bless it, then He will be there in the midst of them. And He will work it out in a way that we can't even imagine. Usually, it's in a way that we couldn't have any foresight of, but God works it out. This even works out with people who are not of the faith. Oftentimes, if there's a conflict and you go to your brother, this is what you should do, is say, number one, “I love you. There's an issue. We have a conflict,” and they're probably going to go, " Yeah, yeah, we do." And say, "Let's pray," and when you hear each other pray, and you ask God to be there and lead you by His Holy Spirit and the Spirit within you, you are truly asking for His presence, and He says, "I will be there."

And the reconciliation is miraculous. Like I said, it even works with those who are not of the faith. You pray, you come together, and oftentimes the person who is the antagonist, the problem-maker, God says He'll just kind of befuddle them. And the thing, they're like, "Well, I was really angry about such and such, but you know, since you did that thing, I guess it really doesn't matter anymore, and so okay." And you're like, "That's impossible. This person, this should not have worked out." But if we ask God to lead it and His reconciliation, then He will.

And that's what He's telling us to do, to be our Mediator. In the world, in legal disputes, let's say a business is breaking up, a marriage is breaking up, there's some sort of a legal dispute. People pay a whole lot of money to stay out of the courtroom, and they have a mediator come in, who is supposed to bring them to some sort of happy dividing and parting of the ways. We have a better Mediator. You don't have to hire Him. You don't have to pay Him. And He will work things out in a way that is a blessing for all.

The word “mediator,” – again a definition taken from the place you can trust the most, the internet – is “one who brings estranged parties to an amicable agreement.” Well, that's pretty good. This one I actually got from the Catholic Dictionary, and it says, “In New Testament theology, the term, again ‘mediator,’ invariably implies that the estranged beings are God and man. And it is appropriate to Christ as the one Mediator.” Every place that word is used in the New Testament mediator, mesítēs in Greek, it means reconciler. So it actually means “reconciler.”

In step three – we have a third step here – step three is we have to acknowledge whatever part that we have played in the problem or the offense. Now depending on what the issue is, we may be saying, “No, I didn't do anything. It's all this other person's fault. So frankly, I have the upper hand in this dispute.” Okay, right there, we've got a wrong attitude, but that's the human attitude. That's human nature. We want to win. We want to come out on top and have the other person have to apologize. But no matter what, there's some part in it that we are responsible for.

It may not be the actual offense, the trespass, the sin that was done, but maybe how we responded to it. That we chose to be offended, that we chose to be hurt, that we became angry. And unfortunately, that is not righteous. There's only one righteous, God. If we are to become new creations and to becoming like Christ and having His mind in us… He wasn't even offended by those who killed Him. So whatever the issue is, we still have a part to play in it. And it takes humility to come to terms with it. If we go to our brother thinking that we are completely righteous, then it's just like going to our brother and not being able to say ‘I love you.’ We've got another problem. It's a much deeper issue.

Again, I think of splits that we've had in the church, in the ministry, arguments, and we have a whole history of this sort of thing. I'm not even just talking about with the brethren, I'm talking within the ministry, the ordained ministry, the elders of the churches of God. Years ago, we used to keep Pentecost on Monday, right? Some of you will remember that, because we weren't counting it properly. We counted… You know, we didn't start on Sunday, we started on Monday. We got 50 days after Passover after the Last Day of Unleavened Bread, and so Pentecost was on Monday. And there were a lot of guys, ordained ministers, evangelists who were like, "Mr. Armstrong is wrong." Mr. Armstrong didn't usually take that very well. He was human. He was a man, and he would say "Get out of my office,” you know? “How dare you? I am head of this church. I've been shown this, and this is what we do." And there were some who got really offended, and they're like, "I'm right. I know I'm right, and you're wrong." And you know what? They would leave and they would take people with them. Does anybody remember what happened to them? They disappeared. They were just gone. They dwindled away and disappeared.

And what's funny is it only took like a couple of years for another secretary of Mr. Armstrong’s to come to him and say, "You know, Mr. Armstrong I think we might want to look at this. I think, you know, historically and from a Jewish perspective." And he thought, "Well, I know a rabbi. I'll talk to the rabbi." And the rabbi was like, "Oh, of course, you start counting from the Sunday after." And he goes, "Oh, I was wrong," and we changed it. But how many people left because of it? Because we were offended, and we were convinced, “I'm right and you are wrong.” So what? You can be right and still be wrong.

And I'm talking about the ministry who have left and taken brethren with them. I said they weren't blessed. They're not around anymore. God didn't do a great work through them. They had the wrong attitude when they went. And again, Satan has a way of finding that chink in our armor and prying at it and getting it in. And we all have our own pride. We all have our own beliefs and our thoughts, and it doesn't matter what it is. It could be calendar issues, it can be Sabbath issues, it can be tassels, it doesn't matter what it is.

If we go to our brother or sister in Christ, we cannot go with the attitude that I am right and you are wrong; I am righteous, you are unrighteous; I am lawful and you are a sinner. It won't work. There will be no reconciliation. God doesn't bless that. We must think less of ourselves and more of the other. That is godly. Galatians 6. Galatians 6:1, "Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass," again this word means offense or sin, "you who are spiritual," those of us led by God's Holy Spirit, and who are concerned in love for our brother, it says, "restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness."

You know, again as kids, when we went to mom and dad, you know, sometimes we were like, "Oh you're going to get it now. Oh, you're getting a whooping." And there's a part of us that really wanted that. That's human, but that's not God's way. He says, "Restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself, lest you also be tempted." Meaning that we can be right and have a wrong attitude. We can fall short and lose our own crown. It says, "Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the Law of Christ." That's not just coming alongside someone and comforting them, it's putting up with them. You know, it's me being able to hug my sister and say, "The cereal really didn't matter," and her being like, "You're still a jerk."

We put up with one another because we love one another, and we are family. We bear with each other. And all of us have baggage. Each and every one of us has baggage, something that we carry that is a burden, and it frankly affects our relationship with God and with each other. But as God is working with us and making us a new being, a new creation, He's going to bring that baggage up, and He's going to give us an opportunity each time to take a little bit out of it, to make that baggage a little bit lighter, a little less cumbersome.

And we're probably going to be working on that baggage until He returns and we are made spirit beings, until our fight is over. And we have to bear with one another during that time because if you've got baggage, I've got baggage. If you have an attitude, I've got an attitude. And Satan will find it. And if we think that we don't, we're setting ourselves up for failure, and that's what He says: "Consider yourself, lest you also be tempted." Skip down to verse 3. "For if anyone thinks himself to be something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one examine his own work, and then he will have rejoicing in himself alone and not in another."

Because you can go to someone, and they have the choice not to listen. They have the choice to slam the door in your face. They have the choice to reject you or to continue to sin against you. But if you have gone humbly and with gentleness and love, then you will have nothing to be ashamed of. And you can stand before God and rejoice in yourself alone, even if it didn't work, even if you weren't reconciled.

And verse 5, "For each shall bear his own load." If I do my part and I go to my brother and I, in love, I talk with them, I pray, and we ask God to heal this, to reconcile us, and we seek Him and we're willing to forgive. And we've even then brought a friend because they wouldn't listen to us, another witness who also loves them, and they still reject us, then we can take peace in that, "I did what my God told me to do. I will stand before Him,” and I pray that we will all hear “Well done, My good and faithful servant." But the other one? That's on their head. They didn't want to hear it, they didn't want to take part in it, they didn't want to try. Well, that's them.

There, in the Church of God, are divisions. There will always be divisions, contentions, arguments, personalities that just don't get along. You know, it's just the way it's going to be. You know, I don't remember all the type A and the B, C, D. Some of them just clash, and God calls us all. There's going to be problems. But if we are disciples of Jesus Christ, we must go to our brother. And I want to also say that it's important for us to do this, because there are divisions within the church, within our family that we know. Maybe it's recent, maybe it's something that's been there a long time, and we just need to get it out, to let go of it, to be restored.

When we had our 50th anniversary, there was a lot of reconciliation going on, and humanly, that shouldn't have been possible. I know there were people that said, "You know, it sounds great. I'd love to be there, but if that person's going to be there, I don't think I can go." And of course, me being me, I'm also talking to the other person going, "We'd like you to be there,” and “Please come." And they're like, "I don't know. It sounds nice, but that other person is going to be there, and I don't know if I can be there with them in the same room." I didn't fix that – God did.

There were people that were reconciled on that evening, on that day. Something started, something happened, and that was blessed. That's what God wants. That is what He desires of His children, that – we're going to have arguments, we're going to have disputes – but that we love one another enough to try and fix it first. Not just once, but twice, before it ever gets to the minister. That we have sought them out of love.

And we have to do this. We need to make a start, and I would encourage each and every one of us… We have 19 days before Atonement. Doesn't mean everything's going to be fixed or that we're going to be the perfect family. We won't be. We'll still be kind of messed up. There's a plaque that I saw that somebody had inside their motorhome, and it said, "Remember, as long as anyone else is aware, we are a perfect, normal, happy family." [laughter] So it's like, “Don't blow it.” But we have this time to go and seek reconciliation before the day which pictures our reconciliation to God through the humbling of ourselves, our repentance, and the covering sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Again, we don't really have a choice, but we have to try. We have to start making amends. One of the traditions that many of the Jews keep, and I kind of like this tradition, it's neat. When they practice Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, traditionally... This is actually the one that I like, because there's another one where they hold a chicken over their head, and they say their sins and it goes on the chicken, and then they sacrifice the chicken. They give it to somebody to eat, somebody poor. And I'm thinking they might know that you had a chicken over your head, because the chicken might drop your sins on you. You know, I'm not willing to do that. It's not biblical.

But this other one sounds kind of neat. But traditionally, what they would do is they would go on the Day of Atonement, they would go to a secluded place, a quiet spot by themselves, and maybe they would take stones, and nowadays most likely is paper. But they would sit and in a prayerful way they would write down their sins. And they would confess their sins to God. Not only their sins, the laws that they have broken, but their sins against each other. And they would write those down and they would cast them into the water, and ask God to take that sin away from them in the same way that the water took that piece of paper away. And in a way, that's very picturesque and I could see where that would be very cathartic. Especially if there's no possible way that you can go to your brother anymore. It's gone. Maybe they're not even alive anymore, and you can't go to your brother now.

But God requires something more if we can. It's not enough to write it down in our journal. It's not enough to write it on a piece of paper and just stick it in the mail. We have to go to our brother. And it won't be easy. But if we humble ourselves and we make sure that we're going in love, brotherly love, sisterly love, seeing them in agape love? If we ask God at the onset to bless it, to be there in the midst of us, leading us with His love and grace and mercy and Holy Spirit, then He will, and we can be restored. And it's not about winning the battle or the argument. It's about being restored, reconciled to each other as on the Day of Atonement, we are reconciled to our Father. And there's a blessing that will go along with it.

Any time there's something like this, there's a healing that happens within. James 5:19 says this, "Brethren, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone turns him back, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins." And cover our own sins. That love, that outflowing concern for them will be like the same covering of Jesus Christ for us and our sins. And we can be reconciled to our Father. Let's make that a priority. Let's learn to walk as Christ walked, and do it soon.