A Grief That Leads to Repentance

2 Corinthians chapter 7, that's in the New Testament,

2 Corinthians 7 · chapter mention

close to the back of your Bible. We'll start

in verse 2. Accept us, we have wronged no one,

corrupted no one, defrauded no one. I don't say

this to condemn you, for I have already said

that you are in our hearts. to live together

and to die together. I have great confidence

in you. I have great pride in you. I am filled

with encouragement. I am overcome with joy in

all our afflictions. In fact, when we came into

Macedonia, we had no rest. Instead, we were troubled

in every way. Conflicts on the outside, fear

inside. But God, who comforts the humble, comforted

us by the arrival of Titus, and not only by his

arrival, but also by the comfort he received

from you. He told us about your deep longing,

your sorrow, and your zeal for me, so that I

rejoiced even more. For even if I grieved you

with my letter, I do not regret it, even though

I did regret it since I saw that the letter grieved

you, yet only for a little while. Now I rejoice,

not because you were grieved, but because your

grief led to repentance. For you were grieved

as God willed, so that you didn't experience

any loss from us. For godly grief produces a

repentance not to be regretted and leading to

salvation. But worldly grief produces death.

For consider how much diligence this very thing,

this grieving is God's will, has produced in

you. What a desire to clear yourselves. What

indignation, what fear, what deep longing, what

zeal, what justice. In every way you showed yourselves

to be pure in this matter. So even though I wrote

to you, it was not because of the one who did

wrong or because of the one who was wrong, but

in order that your diligence for us might be

made plain to you in the sight of God. For this

reason we have been comforted. In addition to

our comfort, we rejoiced even more over the joy

Titus had, because his spirit was refreshed by

all of you. For if I have made any boast to him

about you, I have not been embarrassed. But as

I have spoken everything to you in truth, So

our boasting to Titus has also turned out to

be the truth. And his affection towards you is

even greater as he remembers the obedience of

all of you and how you received him with fear

and trembling. I rejoice that I have complete

confidence in you. Let's pray. God, we come to

you. We thank you for this good word and the

reminder that it is, dear Lord, that sometimes

we... need to be corrected. And so I pray, dear

Lord, that we would have a right response to

your word when they convict us, dear Lord, or

maybe when other people point out things in our

life that are not the way they should be. God,

I pray that we would not grieve ourselves to

death, but that we would grieve ourselves to

repentance, dear Lord, that we would see the

things in our life, the sin in our life that's

not... It's not right, dear Lord, and that we

would turn from it and turn to you. I pray that

your Holy Spirit would be with us tonight, that

you would lead me in the words that I'll say

for these next few minutes, God, that you meet

us where we are. I pray that we'd be free of

distractions and worries, and I pray that everything

here tonight will be for your glory. And I ask

these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Now, throughout

this book, we've seen... kind of this theme of

Paul really defending himself. It appears as

though the people in Corinth, maybe they're being

swayed away by other people teaching different

things. Maybe they're talking bad about Paul.

Maybe there's a little bit of tension there with

Paul. After all, when you read 1 Corinthians,

he was pretty stern with them on a couple of

things that were going on, a couple of things

that needed to be corrected. And that's a hard

part of being a brother or sister in Christ because

certainly grace is what Christianity is. And

so we want to be those who show mercy and grace.

But then there are also times in Scripture that

we see Jesus or we see Paul talk about that sometimes

things arise in the church amongst brothers and

sisters in Christ. And sometimes those things

have to be addressed. And sometimes we kind of

go too far one way or another. Sometimes we say,

well, I want to be gracious. I'm not going to

say anything. I'm just going to give grace. And

other times we say, ah, that person's doing wrong.

I'm going to point out everything they're doing

wrong. And sometimes we can go too far one way

or another, and we don't want to be guilty of

either. We want to give people grace, but at

the same time, we don't want people to continue

to live in sin, especially not in a... group

of believers, not in a church. We want to keep

a loving spirit. We want to be obedient to God.

We want to do as God wills. We don't want any

drama or any trouble, or we don't want to do

anything that's going to make God look bad. We

are God's representatives, and so we want people

to see the Lord in us. We don't want to just

give grace and let people get away with everything,

but on the flip side, We don't want to stand

at the door and point out, well, I saw what you

did and I know what you did and I know what you

said and just start making a list of people's

sins and calling them out. Both of those things

can be dangerous. And so we need to be very prayerful

in life because there are times in life that

we step out of line. There are times in life

that other people step out of line. But our desire

should be for brothers and sisters in Christ

to not live in a sinful way. And that should

be... others desires in our life we do it out

of love when we see someone that's harming themselves

or doing something that's not healthy we don't

want to see them continue down that path no more

than you would allow a child or a grandchild

to do something dangerous i say that maybe you

would i don't know there's some some parents

and grandparents they let their kids do stuff

and i think man i don't know that doesn't seem

like a like a healthy thing to do it seems like

maybe you need to step in and say no That's a

hard word to say, right? You've got to say no

sometimes. And that's kind of what Paul did in

1 Corinthians, is there were some things going

on, and he stepped in and he said no. Now, it's

believed that Paul probably wrote several letters

to the Corinthians. Maybe what's being referenced

here was something that was said in 1 Corinthians.

Maybe it was in one of these lost letters that

we don't have. It really doesn't matter. Whatever

was said... was a problem that had to be addressed.

And Paul said, look, here's how this problem

needs to be dealt with. Now, how did they respond

to that? Well, that's what Paul was worried about.

How do people respond? How do we respond? Have

we ever been called down by somebody for something

that we did? A way that we were living. A way

that wasn't right. And somebody that loves us

and cares about us, not somebody that was just

passing judgment and condemning us like they

were holier than thou, but they really cared

about us and they sat us down and they said,

look, I'm really worried about you, brother.

I'm really worried about you, sister. I'm worried

about the way you're living and the things you're

doing. Maybe you've had that happen to you before.

Maybe you were the one on the receiving end.

Maybe you were the one on the giving end. But

when people come to us and point things out that

we're doing that aren't right, what's our response?

Well, maybe there's a lot of responses we could

have, but I think we could sum it up probably

in three responses that we would usually have.

Maybe we hear what they say, and it just kind

of depresses us, and we just kind of dwell on

it. It just kind of gets us down, and we just

don't really do anything about it. Or maybe we

get defensive. Maybe that's probably our first

thing. If somebody comes and says, hey, you need

to be careful. You shouldn't say this. You shouldn't

do that. And our first response may be, oh, yeah,

we'll hear about this thing that you're doing.

Okay, well, maybe they are doing something too.

But as Jesus said, we need to take the log out

of our own eye before we try to take the speck

out of our brother's. Now, Jesus doesn't say

don't take the speck out of your brother's eye.

But I think what Jesus says is, if we're going

to try to love and restore people and get them

in the right place, then before we ever start

that process, then we need to check our heart

and make sure we're in the right place and let

God work on us first and make sure we're coming

at this from a position of love and caring about

the person. And so sometimes people may point

out to us, hey, man, you shouldn't have done

that or you shouldn't have said that or maybe

these choices you're making are not healthy choices.

And we may be quick to be defensive and say,

oh, yeah, well, I think what you're doing is

not healthy. And that's not a good response either.

We don't want to just take what somebody tells

us and just give up. We don't want to take what

somebody gives us and become defensive. Perhaps

it'd be good for us just to not say anything

and just think about what they say. And maybe

we think about it. We look to Scripture. We kind

of gauge, okay, here's what my life is. Here's

what the Scripture says. And maybe we really

think about what they say and pray about what

they say. And maybe the accusations or the concerns

that they have, maybe they're not, maybe they're

unwarranted. Maybe you look at it and you say,

no, I don't think I'm doing wrong in this area.

But then again, maybe somebody comes to you and

says, look, brother, look, sister, I love you.

And here's some stuff going on and you can't

keep living this way. And maybe our response

is we hear that. We think about that, and we

say, you know what? He's right. She's right.

This isn't healthy. And that's the response that

Paul got. Paul had told them some pretty tough

things, and what was their response going to

be? Well, what he told them grieved them, and

that hurt Paul. Paul said, look, I didn't want

to grieve them. I don't want to grieve you no

more than I don't. I don't have a child, but

I would assume no more than a parent wants to

discipline a child. You probably don't have pleasure

in that, I would imagine. Most people don't have

any pleasure in punishing their child or whipping

their child. There's no joy in that. You know

that brings some amount of grief to your child,

and as a parent, it brings some grief to you.

But you have to do it. If you love them, you

have to. If you don't discipline your child,

then you have to ask yourself the question, do

you really love your child? If the child is doing

something dangerous and deadly and they continue

to do it and they're over there and they're playing

by the fire and you say, don't get too close

to that fire and they keep getting closer to

the fire and you say, don't get close to that

fire, well, you know the result. If they get

too close to that fire, they could be burned,

they could be killed. And so at some point, if

they don't listen to your warnings, you may have

to get stern and you may have to get on to them

pretty hot and heavy. And you may have to say,

don't get near that fire and pop them a couple

times. And then they'll probably cry. And it'll

hurt their feelings. And you don't want to do

it. But what's better? To have a child that's

going to cry for five minutes and get over it?

Or to have a child that falls into the fire?

Paul didn't want the Corinthians to fall into

the fire. He saw that they were making some decisions

and choices and doing some things that believers

shouldn't do. And so he had to address it. And

that's what we see in these verses. In verse

8, he says, For even if I grieved you with my

letter, I do not regret it, even though I did

regret it since I saw the letter grieve you,

yet only for a little while. He says, look, I

don't regret what I did. I did a little bit because

I knew it was going to grieve you, but I knew

it was going to be short -lived. But I had to

do this. I had to do this. I had to get you to

this point. I had to get your attention so that

you realized what you were doing was sinful.

But what does he say in verse 9? Now I rejoice.

Now, why is he rejoicing? He's not saying, oh,

I got on to you and it hurts your feeling so

bad and now you just got the molly grubs and

you feel so bad about what you did. No, that's

not why he's rejoicing. He says, now rejoice,

not because you were grieved, but because your

grief led to repentance. Now, Paul wasn't just

some big meanie. He wasn't just saying, I don't

want these Corinthians to do anything fun. I'm

just going to go and tell them don't do X, Y,

and Z and whatever they like, I'm going to tell

them not to do it. That wasn't Paul's desire

at all. He wasn't trying to be judge of the world

and judge of Corinth. He was seeing the people

who were living in a sinful way and he was concerned

about them and he says, I must address this.

And he did address it. And the result was a good

result. They listened to what he had to say.

And what does he say? He said that your grief

led to... Repentance. That's the goal right there.

That's the goal. Restoration. We don't want to

just call people out for their sin and make them

feel guilty. We want them to really be changed.

We want them to know that we love them. We could

go get a megaphone today and go stand out on

the street corner tomorrow in Liberty, and we'd

see a lot of people that come by and a lot of

people that we know things that they did, and

we could just call them all out. You did this,

and you did that, and you did the other. But

what's the goal in that? Is there any love in

that? Is there any restoration that's going to

take place in that? Absolutely not. And that's

not what Paul's doing. He said, look, you got

some problems and you need to deal with these

problems and you need to deal with these people

and you need to try to restore these people.

And when they heard what Paul said to them, they

listened to what he said and it led to repentance.

What is repentance? Repentance is simply turning

from your sin. It's not just saying, okay, God,

forgive me, and going back to it, but saying,

okay, I'm going in this direction towards sin,

and now I realize Paul has taken the blinders

off and shook me and woke me up, and now we realize,

wait a minute, I'm going in the wrong direction.

I'm going to turn and go the other way. That's

repentance. To say, okay, I'm living for the

world, I'm living for myself, but wait a minute,

I realize that I'm going in a bad path, but over

here is Jesus, and so I'm going to turn from

my way into the world's way, and I'm going to

turn to Jesus. And that's what the gospel is.

It's that Scripture tells us what sin is, that

we are sinners. The Holy Spirit convicts us.

Are we grieved by our sins and the things that

we do and the way that we act? Does that bring

grief into our life? Probably so. I think it

does for everybody. The question is, how do you

respond to that grief? He said, your grief led

to repentance for you were grieved as God willed

so that you didn't experience any loss from us.

For godly grief produces a repentance not to

be regretted and leading to salvation. Okay?

So you were grieved as God will. Isn't that beautiful

to know that God's part of this process? That

sometimes God allows us to go through things

that are really difficult and really uncomfortable

that make us feel pretty ashamed and make us

feel pretty rotten. God allows us sometimes to

have those life experiences and not because he

doesn't love us, but because he does love us.

God chastens or God disciplines those that he

loves. We look at the story of Job. That's the

story of great suffering. Did God do that because

he didn't love Job? Nope, he did it because he

did love Job. And Job was a pretty righteous

guy. But even still, Job grew in the Lord through

that whole process. There's nothing that happens

in our life that God does not allow to happen.

God is in complete control of everything. There

is not a thing in this world that does not happen

that God does not know about and God does not

allow. Even in the story of Job, Satan wanted

to go get the best of Job. But what did he have

to do? He had to get permission from God. The

devil can't just do what he wants to do. He couldn't

in the story of Job. He can't today. And God

uses sometimes even things that are pretty rough

and bad decisions that we've made. And sometimes

he uses those things to shake us up, to get our

attention so our eyes will be open. And what

did he say? That godly grief produces repentance.

Praise the Lord. That's the kind of grief that

we want to have. Godly grief. We want to see

the things that we do that we're made aware of

that aren't good, that aren't right. And we want

to go to the scripture and we want to go to the

Lord and say, okay, God, I need you to help me

with this. I need you to help me to really look

at my heart. I need you to open my eyes, dear

Lord. I don't want to live this way. Show me

these things. God, I want to repent of these

things. I want to turn from these things. And

Paul says that godly grief. leads to repentance,

or excuse me, produces repentance not to be regretted

and leading to salvation. So that's the goal.

The goal is not just to point out other people's

sins. The goal is not just to be a big meanie.

The goal is I love you and I'm worried about

you and I don't want to see you going down this

path. I want you to turn from this path so that

you can receive salvation. That's the goal of

God. That's the goal of Paul. But what's the

opposite? But worldly grief produces death. Now,

there's a lot of people who are grieving decisions

that they made and things that they've done,

but it's not a godly grief. They're not seeking

God in that. They're just living with that grief.

People go to the grave with that grief. Some

people never seek the strength of God and the

comfort of God. It's some people you've probably

heard or said of folks that they grieve themselves

to death. Sometimes you see that, that people,

they'll lose a loved one and they just never

get over it. And I'm not saying that they're

not Christians, but I'm saying that God doesn't

want us to live in that kind of grief. He wants

us to, in the midst of our grief, trust in Him

and be strengthened by Him and know that He loves

us, whether it's grief of our sin or grief over

a lost loved one or whatever that grief may be.

As the scripture says, we don't want to be those

who grieve like those who have no hope, right?

So grief in and of itself isn't a bad thing,

but grief shouldn't have the final say in our

life. We shouldn't grieve over our sin and just

let it drag us down. We should know that there

is forgiveness through Jesus Christ if we would

only call out to him. And godly grief will lead

to repentance, but worldly grief will lead to

death. He continues on in verse 11. For consider

how much diligence this very thing, this grieving

as God wills, has produced in you. What a desire

to clear yourselves. What indignation, what fear,

what deep longing, what zeal, what justice. In

every way you showed yourself to be pure in this

matter. So there was a change. There was a change

in these people's lives. Paul had called out

some things that they had done. Obviously, they

had listened to those things. They had repented

of those things. And Paul was rejoicing because

he loved these people. He loved that their life

had been changed. And it changed how they acted.

There was a feeling of guilt that was gone. He

said, you have a desire to... Clear yourselves.

I think maybe there he's just saying you've got

a clear conscience. Your whole attitude has changed.

You have been transformed. You have been made

into a new creation. You are on fire from God,

and that's the goal. We don't want to just go

through the motions. We don't want to be those

who are just kind of dragging along in sin. And

maybe there are some things in our life that

shouldn't be the way they are, and maybe there

are times that somebody who loves us... pulls

us aside and say, hey, brother, hey, sister,

I'm worried about you. But if that's ever the

case, we always need to be prayerful about that

if we feel led to do that. We always want to

be prayerful and let that be led by God that

we go into these things with the right attitude.

If we're ever the one that's pulled aside, we

always want to listen to what they say, and that's

hard. We might have to bite our tongue, but we

have to think about who's the person telling

us this. It's probably going to be somebody that

loves us. So we need to listen to our brothers

and sisters in Christ and take what they say

and pray about what they say and see what the

Word of God says so that if we are grieved by

our sin, that we would have a right response

to it. The people of Corinth had a right response

to their grief. They repented. They turned to

God. And as a result, Paul rejoiced over what

had taken place. Let's pray. God, we come to

you. We thank you for your word. I pray that

you would help us to examine our own lives, dear

Lord. Maybe there are some things in our lives

that shouldn't be there. And I pray that you

would point those things out to us, dear Lord,

that your Holy Spirit would convict us. Maybe

even tonight, coming into this building, there

are some things that have been grieving us, dear

Lord. And I pray, God, that your word would...

spoken to us tonight that we would repent of

those things that we would seek you and and not

let the grief get the best of us dear lord not

let our grief cause despair but let our grief

lead us to jesus christ where there is hope and

so i pray god that you would help us to be those

who experience your grace who give that grace

to others those who are corrected by your word

and maybe even by our brothers and sisters in

christ when we need it and god help us to pay

attention to those areas in which you try to

reach out to us and speak to us and make us into

the men and the women that you want us to be.

And I ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.