How to Deal with Backsliders

Jesus Refused their Fellowship
Jesus Revealed his Person
Jesus Restored their relationship
Jesus Remembered his promise

1. While you individually, or the church collectively, might stray from faithfully serving the Lord, and though he may be angry with you for straying for a time, Jesus will never abandon his church. He paid for your freedom! He preserves his honor. So he will find those who stray. (Ezekiel 34)

2. But he only brings them back to fellowship with him when there is an appeal back to his sacrifice for them personally. There is no other way of coming back to God. This is repentance.

3. The straying will only return through faithful preaching of the sacrifice of Jesus. Without preaching of the sacrifice of Jesus, the church will continue diving into the abyss of irrelevance, dressed in a 3 piece suit.