Recently, actor/director Mel Gibson was arrested for drunk driving, cursing the police with profanity and racial slams against Jews.  On the Internet, people began to debate about the incident in chat rooms.  Comedians made video clips, mocking him.  Famous Jewish actors began to publicly express their rage.  The news media started to carry the story daily.  People seemed to enjoy his agony and relish in his embarrassment, wanting to prove that the director of The Passion of the Christ was anti-Semitic after all.  It’s hard to understand how people can want to kick a guy in the ribs once he’s already fallen!  Sadly, a similar attitude of exposé has gotten into the church, with well-known Christian magazines publishing the stories of every fallen minister and leader, an attitude that we must fight by getting hearts to restore people. 

1) What we sow in the lowest point of another person’s life, we will reap in our own lowest moment.  Thinking about man’s desire to expose sin, two stories come to mind.  The first story is about how when Saul and his son Jonathan died, David wept for both of them – not just for Jonathan, his friend, but also for Saul, his enemy, who had been chasing him for years.  “How the mighty have fallen!” he lamented (2 Sam 1:25). That’s why years later, when David fell into much more serious sin than Saul had, committing adultery with Bathsheba and killing her husband, he found grace with God. 

The second story involves Noah, many years after he built the ark.  Being a farmer, he planted a vineyard and got drunk from its wine.  When his son, Ham, saw his father lying naked in his tent, he went and found his two brothers to tell them.  When the two others came, they wouldn’t even look at their father but covered him with a blanket (Gen. 9:20-27).  “Love covers over a multitude of sin” (1 Peter 4:8).  We must have the hearts of the other brothers – not to expose, judge, or gossip about someone who has fallen. 

2) God has a heart for restoration. Amazingly, when He restores something, He makes it better than it was originally.  Mankind was created as sons of God, fell into sin, and can now be restored to the Body of Christ.  The temple was ransacked, but was restored in the time of Ezra to be twice as big as it was originally.  God promised, “The years that locusts have eaten, I will restore” (Joel 2:25).  Locusts in the Bible represent plagues resulting from the curse of sin and enemy armies.  So God was saying the years that you have lived under the curse of sin and the oppression of the enemy, I will restore. 

3) To restore people, we must be able to hear from the Holy Spirit, for every problem with every person is different.  Galatians 6:1-2 is one of our favorite portions of scripture: “Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”  The law of Christ is following the Holy Spirit in every area of our lives.  When the Pharisees had brought the woman caught in the act of adultery to the feet of Jesus, according to the Law of Moses, she should have been stoned to death.  But by the Spirit, Jesus could see that the woman had a repentant heart and said, “Let him who has no sins throw the first stone.”  He wasn’t fulfilling the Law of Moses but the Law of Christ (John 8:1-11).

4) To restore people, we must have the anointing of the Holy Spirit.  One time at a church, a pastor had fallen into sexual sin, and a team of ministers were there to help restore him.  They got up and announced, “We’ve been in five churches where the pastors had fallen into sin and lost all five churches…but we believe that this one’s going to be different!”  That’s reassuring.  The church did survive but not because of the team of ministers who were there – in spite of them!  Another time, an apostle was working with a pastor who had fallen into sin.  He told him, “If you do everything I’ll tell, you will be restored.”  Within 3 months, the pastor had been completely restored.  That apostle was marked with an anointing, the ability to restore a man in record time.

5) Churches should be places where people can be restored.  If Jesus is the Great Physician, then churches should be like hospitals.  He didn’t come to call the righteous but sinners.  The healthy don’t need a doctor – sick people do (Mat 9:12-13).  And He calls us to go out quickly into the streets and bring in the poor, the lame, and the blind (Luke 14:21).  People shouldn’t feel that they have to bury their problems for the fear of being exposed; they must feel the freedom to come into the light.