The Habit of Godly Sorrow - August 24, 2025

It is my privilege to invite you to today's sermon podcast.

I have made the Apostle Paul's prayer request my own.

When he states in Ephesians 6, 19, pray also for me, that whenever I open my

mouth, the words may be given to me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel.

May today's sermon come alive to you and aid you in your understanding of God's

plan for your life. Hey, I got a question as we start out.

Any of you ever got caught doing something wrong?

Now, the further, the deeper question is, were you sorry?

You were sorry because you got caught, not sorry because you did something wrong.

I think if I was to take that poll less, it'd be a little different story.

I remember it was 1980 something and I was out visiting my grandma and grandpa

Huey out in Fowler, California there, Central California.

We came out and my cousin Nathan came over. Now, my grandma and grandpa Huey

lived in a little trailer just down from the Fowler Cemetery,

but right in the middle of a great big raisin vineyard.

And that was a fun place to go visit. You could just run all through those vineyards

and, you know, every once in a while you find some dirt claws and have a dirt

clawed war. And it was just a fun place to go visit.

And on this occasion, my cousin Nathan came over from Selma just up the road.

And he and my aunt and uncle came over to visit.

And, well, we were bored just sitting in the house, listening to everyone talk.

You know, when you're a kid, you don't want to just sit around, listen and visit.

That's no fun. And so we say, hey, let's go out and find something to do.

And what you know, there's two tractors sitting out there in Mr.

Fromm's barn, but they weren't in the barn. They were out closer to my grandma

and grandpa Huey's house.

And my cousin Nathan thought it'd be a good idea if we just go over and jump on them.

Nathan, what's the matter with him? Here, I'm just some guy from Idaho,

you know, just coming out to visit. but man, we had some fun on those tractors.

We were like green acres all over again. You know, it was the place to be right

there on those tractors until we heard a yell, Michael, Nathan,

what are you doing? Get off of those tractors. Whoa.

The fun meter went down immediately.

Even more so when here came my dad and my Uncle Bruce with the switch.

One for me and one for Nathan. I looked at my cousin, what'd you get me into?

We're just playing, having fun on Mr. Fromm's tractors.

And we were sorry. Man, I was sorry I ever listened to Nathan making me get up on that tractor.

Really had to twist my arm, you know, go have fun.

And, of course, we were disciplined at that point and kind of ended my farming career right there.

I think less until I went to your place and never got on a tractor before again,

you know, since then. And 50-something years later, no, maybe not that long.

You know, there's this idea that, well, we can get caught and we get caught.

Sometimes we're sorry because we got caught.

And other times when we get caught, there's a deep down sorrow because we realize

that what we did was wrong.

And we need to take some kind of responsibility for that.

I joke that it wasn't all Nathan's idea. He probably figured that out.

But we had a lot of fun until that point. And the scripture says sin is fun for a season.

But then there's a payday that comes. You know, we've been talking this month

about developing habits of a healthy heart.

And, you know, we say if you want to change your life, change your habits.

And if you want to change your habits, you've got to let God change your heart.

And so we've talked this month about self-examination, lining ourself up with

the Word of God and seeing if there's any wayward way within us.

We talked about simplicity and just simplifying our life to concentrate on what is really important.

And what's really important is not all the stuff that we have,

but it's the people and the relationships. And most importantly,

the relationship we have with Jesus Christ in our own life.

Talked about slowing down last week and solitude. And next week,

we'll talk a little bit about steadfastness.

That's an old school word, but I want to break that down for us next week as

we round out this sermon series.

But today's habit is important.

It's the one habit. If you don't develop any of the rest of these in your life,

I want you to really grab hold of this one.

Because this is the one that the devil does not want you to adopt.

This habit today is one that your spiritual enemy, the adversary, wants to keep you from.

If he can keep you from this habit, then he can keep you living in shame today.

If he can keep you from developing this habit in your life, he can keep you distant from God.

And if he can keep you from developing this habit within your own life today,

he can keep you from fulfilling the calling that God has placed upon your life.

See, today I want to talk about the habit of godly sorrow.

And really, I want you to get rid of your guilt.

Get rid of it. When we look at 2 Corinthians 7, verses 9 through 10,

2 Corinthians 7:9–10

there's two kinds of sorrows that Paul talks about.

Now, the Apostle Paul writing a second letter to the church at Corinth,

Here he is. He's already had to scold him once.

And there's probably some other letters he wrote in between.

But we just know right here that Paul is just, he's talking to him.

Hey, I'm sorry that I wrote you such a harsh letter before because there is

some serious sin in the church.

But then at the same time, he's kind of like, I'm not sorry because of what

it's brought about within the church.

You know, kind of like dads, you know, you don't really want to discipline your

sons because you don't like to inflict pain upon them.

But at the same time, you do want to inflict that so that they will learn and

so that they will grow from that.

And I don't just mean physical pain from a switch on the backside.

I mean, sometimes it's just going through what you got to go through in order

to learn from your mistakes. And it's hard. And Paul was kind of like that with this church.

And he was, in a sense, saddened that he had to be so harsh with them.

But at the same time, it got rid of the sin.

And now they could learn and now they repented and now they could grow from that.

And so listen to how Paul lays this out for him in verse 9.

Yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance.

For you became sorrowful as God intended.

Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret,

but worldly sorrow brings death.

Father, thank you for your word. I thank you for those that stood and Lord,

to honor your word. And God, we just want to say thank you.

Thank you, Lord, for this lesson this morning.

Thank you, God, for your word that first went to the Corinthian church,

but Lord, it comes to us today.

God, may we benefit as a result of this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Thank you for standing. I forgot to invite you, but you all know what to do.

We think about what the scripture just said about godly sorrow.

Godly sorrow, it leads to repentance, which leads to salvation.

It also said worldly sorrow leads to remorse, but yet there's still a spiritual

death that results in that.

You know, I can't speak for you or speak for all of you, but some of us might

be experts in finding fault with others.

What? In a church? Really?

And the ironic thing is we might be good about finding fault in others,

but when it comes to ourself, we're kind of blinded to anything that's wrong with us.

You know, there's things in our life that we just don't see.

We're quick to point out something that's wrong in other people's lives,

but when it comes to our own life, We don't know.

And some of you might be thinking today, boy, I know who needs to hear this message today.

And I'll tell you, yeah, we all need to hear it.

But Jesus kind of mentioned something when he talked about the brother seeing

a speck in another brother's eye, but he couldn't get past the log in his own

eye. He couldn't see that.

You know, what we do is we tend to accuse others and we tend to excuse ourself.

We overlook our shortcomings to point out What's wrong with somebody else And

if you've had multiple children At the same time, in the same family You know

what I'm talking about Hey, you don't even need multiple children You just need one child,

They'll point out your shortcomings.

When we think about this, especially today, and the tendency to see what's wrong

with everybody else but not ourselves, it leads to something that our culture

is guilty of, and that's just basically what we call rebranding sin.

We rename things. Some of you might not like the word sin today.

I know our culture doesn't.

Maybe it's too strong. Pastor, what are you preaching about sin?

And, you know, a lot of us, maybe even, or some people that we know,

when we sin, we didn't sin.

No, I just made a mistake.

I didn't sin. It was, it's my truth. It's the way I see things.

It's I. It's about what I see.

Some might react, well, who are you to tell me that that's a sin in my life?

I see what you're doing. I see what your life is all about.

Some might say, well, I just don't feel convicted about that sin.

We try to water it down. That's the nature. The old nature tries to just say it's not that bad.

Really what happens is we try to sanitize it, especially if it's our own.

We try to make it not as big as something else. You see this with children too.

Mom, dad, so-and-so is getting into something they're not supposed to.

And then the one getting accused said well you just did it five minutes ago

yeah but you're doing it now and you just got caught you know kind of like this

we don't lie i just told a fib,

it was only a white lie it didn't really hurt anybody well maybe i just exaggerated

the truth a little bit what's wrong with that.

We water things down, we sanitize it, we make the lie not seem so bad.

We just stretch the truth a little bit. After all, when your wife asks you a

question, does this dress make me look fat, how are we supposed to answer it?

Always have a snicker bar ready, according to commercial, to put that in your

mouth so you can't answer anything.

We think about other sins. We think about sex outside of marriage.

In the scripture, it calls it fornication.

Ouch, you went from lying to fornication?

Man, you did not sleep well last night. Well, just an example.

We tend to water it down and we call it cohabitation. It's easy for us to rationalize.

Well, let's just move in together and save some money. Let's just move in together, see how it goes.

Let's give it a test drive. After all, you wouldn't buy a car if you didn't

go test drive it. some people would say.

Some people said something else about a cow and milk, but I'm not going to say that today.

Scripture says that drunks won't inherit the kingdom of God,

but we see how that's just kind of poo-pooed in today's culture.

I got to unwind. It's my only outlet is to party.

Hey, we even see the sin of gossip. Sometimes we see it in churches,

what we call prayer requests.

Oh, Lord, I'm really burdened for my cousin, Joni.

You would not believe what she is doing right now. Let me just tell you.

And they tell what Joni's doing right now.

But let's just pray for her.

Or my cousin, Sam. Oh, you need to really pray for him.

He's involved in all kinds of sketchy things. And we just share things under

the guise of prayer. But really, it's gossip.

If we're not careful, we can even take the sins we're involved with publicly

and what we participate in and the movies we watch and the music we listen to

and what's on our social media feed.

And when it comes down to it, if we're not careful, we can show everyone,

hey, we're really being entertained by sin.

It's a serious thing because here's what Isaiah says in Isaiah chapter 5 verse 20.

Isaiah 5:20

Woe to those who call evil good.

When we water down sin, when we take that which is opposed to God,

God's will, God's plan for us, and we say, no, this is okay,

well, then we get in trouble.

Then we're guilty of what Isaiah said, because you got to understand that changing

the wording doesn't change the sin.

Changing the label we slap on it doesn't mean that it's not sin anymore.

When we think about the word sin in the Greek, the sin, the root word hamartia,

and it's an old archery term for shooting at the target but missing the target altogether.

You missed the mark. You're shooting for the bullseye, but you don't get it.

That's the scope of what sin is all about. God has a bullseye for us to hit.

It's a very gracious bullseye.

It's a bullseye where the target is huge, but we shoot at it and we miss altogether.

The scripture says this in Romans 3, verse 23, For all have sinned and fallen

Romans 3:23

short of the glory of God. Or another way to say it, fallen short of God's glorious standard.

In other words, we have aimed at the target and missed completely.

All the good things that we could ever try to do did not hit that target.

We tried to be right with God by earning our salvation, by doing things that

will buy favor with God when we don't need to do that because God's favor has

already been given to us.

It's called his grace, but yet we try.

And we see examples, especially in the Old Testament, how that just blows up.

Now, some of you are, Mike, what are you talking about sin today?

I just wanted to come to church, have some coffee, have some good conversation,

maybe find a donut somewhere around the church. I didn't see any donuts today.

Well, why am I bringing this up? Because until we first see ourself as a sinner,

you won't see your need for a Savior.

Remember the verse I just said? Romans 3.23, for all have sinned.

I'll be the first one to raise my hand. For all have sinned and fallen short

of what God expects, have missed the target that God has put up.

You know, when you sin and you get caught, are you sorry for the sin?

Or are you sorry because you got caught? Right?

There used to be this show on TV, shows called Cheaters. I won't ask you if you ever watched it.

Because it finds people at the lowest spot in their life and it busts in with

video cameras and the spouse saying, what are you doing?

Cheating on me. I got 12 kids at home and here you are.

A sad show but man it

just captivates you and you're wondering who's next in this program saw one

episode a guy got stabbed one of the producer guys and it's very violent we

see in those moments they got caught oh honey i'm so sorry take me back take me back.

See people at the lowest, and they definitely have remorse, most of them, some didn't.

But you got to understand remorse, feeling bad is not the same thing as repentance.

And it goes back to the scripture verse I said a little bit ago.

You know, when you have remorse, you feel bad.

You might feel bad that you got caught. You might feel bad that you hurt somebody else in the process.

You might feel horrible that it's all ended up this way because of what you

did. But that's not repentance.

In repentance, you do feel bad about what you did.

But repentance has an extra step, not just feeling bad, because repentance is

turning away from what you did,

turning your back on it, going the other way, not doing that anymore, no longer.

Some, when they get caught, when they've done something wrong,

they're still defensive.

Some will make excuses for what they've done. Some will blame somebody else.

Some will blame something else. It's not my fault, they say.

Again, I reference Genesis.

Go back and see Adam and Eve and how the first marital fight unfolded.

Well, it's that woman you gave me, Lord.

And enough said there. We won't go there today. But I know that we're sorry.

We're sorrowful that things ended up this way. Sorry we got caught. Sorry that it hurt you.

But a lot of times we revert back to seeing the speck in someone else's eye,

but not seeing the log come out of our own eye.

Because while we see how it hurt someone else, we're blind to really how it

hurt someone else so deeply.

Instead of drawing you to God with remorse, it makes us run from Him because

we don't know how to deal with our sorrow.

We don't know what to do with it. We feel so bad.

Sometimes we feel so bad that we can't escape whatever the sin is that has us trapped.

And so we just continue in that. Yeah, we're sorry. Yeah, we say sorry, but we go on.

When I was growing up for a while, we lived out, It's, boy, almost out to where

the old penitentiary was.

Not the old penitentiary of Boise, but the old one. I don't know if it's moved.

But anyway, we had a guy, a family come live with us.

They were homeless kind of at the time. They were moving into the area.

And so we let them stay with us for a while.

Biggest regret my dad ever made. I had to break up a fight between my dad and this other guy.

I was just a little kid. And the pastor even came over. That's how serious it got.

Hey, if you're fighting, look at me. don't call me over I'm not gonna be able

to break nothing I could tell you who to call in the church.

Anyway, all that to say, he had this boy about my age, and this kid was something else.

He had this habit, not a healthy habit.

Man, he had a potty mouth on him. And we used to have, it was like an acre we

had, and my dad had dug out some trenches.

So we were riding dirt bikes and jumping everything back there.

And this kid, he would always do this.

He would say a cuss word, bleep.

Okay, I'll just bleep it. And they would go like this.

And then you go along for a while. Oh, bleep.

And I'm like, dude, what are you doing? What are you doing after you cuss all the time?

Well, I'm asking God to forgive me. I said, what?

If you know that God doesn't want you to do it, why do you do it? I don't know.

I just do it. And he just had this habit that he was quick to say,

Lord, forgive me because he didn't want to go to hell, but nothing changed in him.

Because as soon as me and my brother got on a motorcycle he wanted to ride,

he would be cussing us out and then praying about it.

He didn't learn what, didn't make the connection, I guess. But some of us are like that.

We don't learn. We don't recognize that.

We're doing. And sometimes that becomes the habit, is we know that we're doing

what's wrong, but we just can't get out of it.

And we don't realize how we got here. As Christians, we can't wake up to say,

okay, I need to discover that God and I aren't close anymore.

Or maybe we do wake up one day and we do discover, God, I just don't feel close to you anymore.

God, I don't hear your voice. God, reading the scripture is a chore rather than a joy.

God, I used to be really close to you, but I just don't feel that anymore.

We find that our heart has grown cold toward God.

So why don't we feel close to God? Well, it comes down to this.

Sin separates us from God.

And the more sin we participate in, the greater the separation is.

Jesus had to come to bridge that separation between us and him.

Jesus made the way for us to have that connection with God. And what did Jesus do?

He died on the cross for the sin of all humanity, for time and eternity.

It's kind of like when you're out in the cold, you can stay out there for a

little bit, but if you're going to be out in the cold for an extended period

of time, what do you do? You layer up.

Hey, do you remember that the Christmas story movie? You with Ralphie,

you remember his brother Randy.

He's the one that mom was so worried about him getting frozen walking to school

that she just put all these layers on him, so much so that he had to walk like

this, look kind of like the Michelin man, right?

But wrapped in clothes, he was so insulated. As a matter of fact,

the scene in that one, that one scene in the movie, he falls over,

he can't get back up because he's so well insulated.

His mom wanted to protect him from the cold.

If we think about it ourselves, sometimes Sometimes we can't feel the cold when

it comes to sin because we're out in the world and we're just covered by it.

We're so covered with sin that we can't feel the warmness of God anymore.

Insulated ourself from him and our hearts do become cold.

Kind of the opposite effect of what mom wanted Randy to feel in that movie.

There's a story a pastor talks about that when his boy was little,

growing up in Oklahoma, he was so excited one day and he was jumping around

like kids do and squealing and jumping around.

And his dad was over saying, what's going on? And Pretty soon,

the little boy ran over. Daddy, daddy, I have a new friend.

Come see my friend. He's my best friend. And he ran back over and he's jumping around.

My friend, my friend. And the preacher says he walked over there and his new

friend was this little tiny rattlesnake that he'd been playing with.

Jumping around, little rattle going on. The preacher says he took care of his

new friend really quickly.

But how about us? Do we have those kind of friends sometimes?

Maybe you have before. We befriended a sin.

Boy, it looks fun, and it strikes out, and we dodge, and we play games like that.

But it's really so dangerous for us. So dangerous if we're not careful.

If we befriend sin, if we become comfortable with sin in our lives.

Some people are, boy, they're just so jealous. Man, not just people,

but there's pastors that are jealous, I found out. Wow.

Jealous of this pastor over here and their church there.

And, you know, it's not just about being jealous because someone else has perfect

hair or perfect kids or a perfect house.

More shoes than who knows who.

Sometimes we deal with hurt in this way. we just befriend hurt in our lives

and our whole life becomes about that hurt remember that one time you looked

at me that one way I've never forgotten that since first grade.

We just let the hurt sit there in our lives. We hold on to the anger.

Sometimes materialism becomes the sin that we befriend.

We just can't get enough stuff and it has to be the newest and the greatest and the best.

We like to have nice things. I don't know young people in here would,

but sometimes there's cheating in school.

Sometimes people like to use the name of the Lord in vain. And sometimes we

like to eat to be comforted. There's all these things.

Sometimes there's self-medication that happens with various substances.

And what we do, and I've said this before this month, is that we rationalize it.

We try to say that it's no big deal. It's not a problem. I can quit anytime.

And we know when we get to that point that perhaps it has become a problem.

Perhaps it is something that needs to be dealt with right now.

Sometimes we'll say, well, it's not my fault. Kind of like Adam in the Old Testament.

It's that woman you gave me, Lord.

If you hadn't created that woman, I would have never been in this position.

So God, it's really your fault.

We kind of turn the blame around. Some of you are great at that.

I've heard some of you are great at that.

Some of you will say, you know what? I'm not as bad as most people.

Well, let me tell you about my neighbor down the road.

You want to know someone really bad?

See, what we do is we start to rationalize sin again.

And when we rationalize our sin, it's the first sign that our heart is growing cold, ice cold.

So what have you done with that sin you've befriended? Do you have worldly sorrow

like the scripture says? Do you feel bad about it?

Okay, then have you repented of it?

Godly sorrow is different. It's not just feeling bad about what you fall into. it's a way out.

You see, godly sorrow, talking about repentance, it's a deep,

honest, or sincere brokenness over our sin against God.

It's that we are really sorry, so broken over the sin that has come between us and God.

It's kind of why David, in the Old Testament, after having sinned several times,

but especially with Bathsheba, he cries out to God and said,

Oh God, only against you have I sinned. Well, wait a minute, David.

No, I think you killed Uriah. He would have a different opinion.

I think Bathsheba would say something else.

There's others that would say something as well.

But why could David say it's only against you, God, have I sinned?

It was because he was broken over that sin that separated he and God.

Yeah, he sinned against Bathsheba. He definitely sinned against Uriah.

He was like us that Romans 3.23 says For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

Repentance comes when you have that brokenness over the sin,

not just because you got caught or not just because it's become a sore spot

in your life and you're sick and tired of it, but you can't figure out how to get rid of it.

It's only when that brokenness comes, when your life feels shattered because

of your sin, your sin against the holy God.

This repentance, this godly sorrow is a genuine humility.

It's not trying to cover up your sin. It's not trying to say,

I didn't do that. It's somebody else's fault.

It's saying, no, I did that. It's humbling yourself before a holy God.

It's a deep grief that you've sinned.

It's this heartfelt repentance that God wants, that God requires.

Literally, repent means to change one's mind that results in a change in your actions.

You were going one way, which was not the way God wanted you to.

And as you were proceeding along, something happened.

You felt a brokenness for the way that you were going. And so you turn around

and you go the other way, which God really wanted you to go.

You turn your back on that sin. There's a change of course, a change of action.

The other night I was heading home and I was going down, well,

right by the Winchester shop there on the boulevard. And there was a car parked and...

A dad frantically running after something. I'm like, dude, did he just rob the Winchester shop?

Noah, get his license number. See if you can. He wasn't robbing anything.

He was chasing his child that was like a 40 or 50 feet in front of him,

a little toddler with black clothes on.

You can't see a kid in black on the boulevard over there.

For some reason, he was chasing him. He was yelling at him. I can only figure

he's saying, stop, stop.

How many times has God done that with us? We're headed the wrong way.

Just like a little toddler, just having fun. Freedom! Woo-hoo!

And God's chasing after us, yelling, stop. And we finally get the message.

We repent, we turn around, and we run to our Father.

That's repentance. It's turning away from that, which we've been doing,

which we've been a part of, and saying, not any longer.

I'm not going to do that. And so the habit I want you to practice is this godly

sorrow. So how do you do that? And there's just two steps to it.

Simple for me to say, easy for me to say, but just two steps.

First, confess quickly.

Now, don't be like my friend. You go off saying cuss words, Lord, forgive me.

I want you to be that quick to recognize the sin in your life and realize that

this is not what God wants for me.

To recognize where you've gone wrong and say, God, I need forgiveness for this.

This is separating me from you, God.

Yeah, I'm under grace. So grateful for that. But I've got a responsibility to deal with this.

Jesus Christ died for my sin, for your sin. So we've got to do something about it.

Jesus did something so that we could give that to him and be free from that.

Confess quickly. 1 John 1.9, if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just

and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

There you go. That's what your friend did. He confessed quickly and God forgave him. Yeah.

But two minutes later, he forgot he asked for forgiveness.

And sometimes we're like that. It might be not two minutes later,

but maybe two days or two weeks or two months.

If we confess our sins, God is faithful. means God will always be there.

God is just. That means he's fair beyond fairness, I believe.

And he will forgive us of those sins and he'll purify us.

That's a great part, the purification.

But you see, it's that second part we have to do as well, and that is repent wholeheartedly.

When you confess in that confession, you're lining up with God's standard.

You're coming into alignment with the truth of God that says,

that lie that you told, you bore false witness.

You did that thing that hurt so many people, you violated the law of loving

your neighbor as yourself.

We could go down the list and that gets dangerous when you try to delineate

every single kind of sin and what it violates.

I think when we sin, we know it violates something with God because the Holy

Spirit convicts us of that. We know that.

We know that we're on the outs with God.

Man, I could tell you, in my relationship with my wife, I might do something

or say something I know when I'm on the outs with her She's a lovely woman I'm

treading carefully, honey, don't worry Okay,

I know by, is everything okay?

Yes Are you sure? Everything's fine Everything is not fine, what did I do? What did I say?

Some days it is fine Some days it is okay But it gives me a complex one And what did I do?

Eventually, she'll hint around to what I did And then I can say, oh yeah Oops.

Confession. Godly sorrow comes about.

An extra cup of coffee in the morning. Coming her way.

Other stuff. I'm in deep already, so let's change to another point.

Because much like my wife, when we confess, God forgives us.

When we sin, we confess. It leaves the door open for us to repent wholeheartedly.

That means with all your heart. We receive God's undeserved mercy His grace

is upon us God changes us We're different How do you practice godly sorrow?

You confess quickly You line yourself up with what's out of alignment with God

and His will And then we turn away from that which got us there in the first

place And we start to go in that direction.

A serious story here in the time I got left. A pastor tells about his friend

that was battling a serious sin.

This pastor had a friend that was just captivated by pornography.

He just could not break free of it. And in his counsel with his friend,

this pastor said he was defeated, not the pastor, but the man.

And he was discouraged and he tried everything he could and he just could not

break free from what called him to this, what drew him to this.

And he admitted to the pastor, he says, man, I'm struggling.

I'm still fighting. And the pastor says, well, it's good news that you're still

fighting because there's still

hope for you. You haven't given yourself surrendered fully to it yet.

But then the man came back with the question saying, well, why haven't I overcome it?

And after he and his friend talked a little bit, he said, where are you at when

you're looking at this stuff?

So you're going down to the Circle K and grabbing some bad magazines?

What's going on? And he reaches into his pocket and he pulls out his cell phone. Says, it's here.

It's just right here. A few taps and I'm there.

He said, so you're carrying that around with you everywhere you go?

Yeah, it's a phone, but he said, no, you're carrying that around with you wherever you go.

You're scooping up your little buddy here, and you're carrying around that little

baby rattler with you wherever you go.

Yeah, it's cute. Yeah, it's fun to show people, but it's going to bite you,

and the poison that comes with that bite.

Well, it was a few weeks later after they talked, they prayed together.

The pastor continued to counsel, but he lost track with him a few weeks,

and he saw him walking down the road and the pastor's friend saw him and waved him down.

Hey, hey. And he comes running over, grabs something out of his pocket and starts

waving it at the pastor. And he's like, what are you doing, man?

And from the distance, he hears dumb, dumb. And he's like, what?

And as the guy gets closer, the pastor hears him and says, dumb phone, dumb phone.

I got me a dumb phone. And he's like, okay.

It's like, no, you don't get it. You know what I struggled with?

Well, guess what I haven't looked at since I got this dumb phone?

He had a dumb flip phone, you know?

What this showed was the man took repentance seriously.

He recognized he was out of sorts with God, that there was something that needed

to be repaired in the relationship with God, but he kept being defeated by that.

Well, no longer because he found a way to turn his back on that.

When we think about this, it doesn't have to be pornography.

There's other things that can captivate us.

There's other things, there's other traps of the enemy that are always out there.

Some of them are kind of good things, but we get too much of in our lives,

and it really becomes a hindrance between us and God, and really it can become a sin.

But remember what Jesus said in the Beatitudes, blessed are those who mourn,

for they will be comforted, Matthew 5, four.

Blessed are those who mourn. Oh, the thought here that God comforts those who mourn a loss.

Hey, flat out, sin gives us something. It might be short term,

but it gives us something.

But what it gives us is temporary and it's not eternal.

And like I said earlier, sin lasts for a season, but then comes the payday.

Jesus says, blessed are those who mourn. Mourn over those losses,

not like, oh man, I wish I had some pornography right now.

Oh man, I wish I had this sin right now. No.

Mourning is that you're dealing with that loss. What was missing in my life

that I had to have pornography?

What was missing in my life that I had to have those substances that gave me a short-term high?

What was missing in my life that I tried to fill it with something that only God could fill.

Says, we mourn that. We get over that. But it also means something else.

When we look back, blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

In the Greek, it says, Jesus comforts those who mourn their sin.

Hey, they're glad the sin is dead.

They're excited that that is no longer in their life. Jesus brings that comfort

to fill in the gap of what we used to get from the sin,

but now what we could receive from God and those restored relationships, the restored health.

Do you remember this story in the New Testament?

Jesus is out teaching, and while

he's with his disciples, some very angry men drag this lady to Jesus.

They throw her down in front of him, and they begin to demand that Jesus do

something about this lady.

They say, Jesus, this woman was caught in adultery.

The law says we should stone her. And I can just imagine some of them guys had

some of them ragged rocks ready just to be the first one to chuck it at this lady.

And here as the lady is sprawled out in front of Jesus, the scripture tells

us that Jesus begins to write in the dirt, right in the sand there.

Scholars speculate maybe some of the things he was writing. An intriguing one

was maybe Jesus was writing out the sins of those men that had brought her to Jesus?

That's going to be an interesting question someday to ask. Jesus, what was you writing?

Nevertheless, he did. And remember what Jesus said? He, without sin, cast the first stone.

The only one there without any sin was Jesus. He wasn't picking up any rocks.

What did Jesus do? What was the outcome of that? Jesus took this woman.

Interesting, the guy wasn't there that was involved in this.

Another sermon for another day. But what did Jesus do?

He told the woman something very, very powerful.

Where are your accusers? Well, Lord, they're not here.

Get up and go and sin no more. He'd forgiven her for that. He was comforting. Had she sinned? Yeah.

Was she seeking forgiveness? Well, she was kind of forced to seek forgiveness there.

Death or forgiveness? Which one do you want?

Well, Jesus forgave her, sent her on her way. But what did he say?

Go and sin no more. That's repentance.

Don't do it anymore. Now, not like you say with your kids, you know they're

going to go fight again after they just duked it out over a Twinkie or something.

And the serious things, no, you don't do that anymore.

Eventually your kids do get that. They make healthier choices other than Twinkies, I'm sure.

But Jesus knelt down to this woman. Can you see how much God loves you?

The law demanded this lady be stoned, be killed because of the sin she was caught in.

Jesus offered grace and forgiveness.

Confession leads to repentance. Here's what it says in Romans 2, verse 4.

Romans 2:4

Don't you see how wonderfully kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you?

Does this mean nothing to you?

Can't you see that His kindness is intended to turn you from your sin?

The scripture doesn't say it's God's anger, it's God's wrath,

it's God's justice that leads you to repentance?

He says it's God's love. It's God's grace. It's God's kindness that leads you to repentance.

Remember, this is the one habit the devil does not want you to develop in your life.

He wants to keep you living and lying in the dirt in shame, distant from God.

Guilt. He wants to keep you from fulfilling the calling that God has to rise

and sin no more and live that holy life that he has planned for you.

Life above the fray of sin, where you've taken care of the sin in your life,

you've given it to Jesus, and

you're living into the fullness of who God really has created you to be.

Not to get entwined anymore with that kind of stuff.

To overcome temptation to live as the person that Jesus died for you to live to be.

Remember, worldly sorrow, it just covers, it minimizes, it rationalizes,

and you feel sorry and the guilt just keeps piling up.

But with godly sorrow, when you confess that quickly, when you repent wholeheartedly,

it leads to your salvation.

It leaves no regret in your life because your old sins are underneath the blood

of Jesus, where it's blotted out, where no one can see what it was. Hallelujah.

You can then live in freedom from that.

How do you do that? Well, the scripture tells us. It's as simple as ABC, right?

First of all, you admit. Admit what Romans 3.23 says, for all have sinned and

fallen short of the glory of God.

We admit that we're a sinner in need of salvation.

That's hard for some people to do these days, to admit that they've blown it,

to admit that they need someone to save them.

Some of you guys know what I'm talking about.

You're working on your car, you're busting your knuckles.

We don't like to admit that we need help with some things.

Luckily, we have YouTube and we can just look it up if we're stuck,

but YouTube doesn't cover everything.

People don't like to admit that they've done wrong, admit that they've sinned.

But that's the first step.

If we're going to live as God wants us to live, is to admit.

The second is to believe. What do we believe?

Well, we believe what the Romans Road continues to say.

And the Romans Road said, not only have all sinned and fallen short of what

God expects, but the scripture says,

that the wages of sin is death, that what we get because of our sin is death,

not just physical death, but eternal death and separation from God.

But there's an interesting end to that verse in Romans 6, 23.

It says, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

So we admit that we're a sinner, but we believe that we deserve death because of that sin.

But the other side is that we believe we can have eternal life through Jesus.

And even Romans 5.8 says, but God demonstrates his love in this.

While we were still sinners, means all of us, Christ died for us.

There's an old song. I know you guys know it. When he was on the cross, I was on his mind.

An expression of this verse, Romans 5.8, that God died for you because of his

love for you, because he does not want to be separated from you for all eternity.

Admit and we believe, well, what's the next thing we do? The scripture says that we confess.

Man, you don't know all the sins I've done. I'm going to be here for a while, pastor.

Well, you're confessing that you're a sinner. That means someone who sins.

And so I think everything else is inherent in that.

But like I've said, confession is not just saying I've done wrong,

but it's the attitude that says, well, I've really done wrong.

I need to line myself up with who you are, God.

Listen to what Romans 10, 8 through 10 says.

But what does it say, the word is near you. It is in your mouth and in your

heart. That is the word of faith we are proclaiming.

That if you confess with your mouth, what do you confess? Jesus is Lord.

And you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead.

You will be saved, the scripture says. It doesn't say you might be saved.

Only if you keep doing this 20 times.

It says you will be saved. And get the rest of the verse here.

For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified.

And it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.

Do you want to be saved? Yes. I confess that I need Jesus, that I need a Savior,

that I'm a sinner and that Jesus died for me.

And he's the only way I could be saved. In verse 11 of Romans 10,

as the scripture says, anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame,

for there is no difference between Jew and Gentile.

The same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all those who call on him.

For, in verse 13, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

Get this, for all have sinned and fallen short of God's perfect ideal,

his standard. But then what did that say?

Everyone, the same all that call upon the Lord will be saved.

Jesus provided the remedy for you and for me. Now, Christian,

I don't know if you're stuck in one of these cycles today.

Well, yeah, you feel bad for your sin, but you're not overcoming. You can overcome.

You've got to turn away from the sin. You can't love the sin more than you love God.

You've got to love God wholeheartedly enough that you know that your sin breaks his heart.

You teach your kids to do what's right. They don't always do what's right.

Sometimes they make stupid choices and it breaks our heart because,

man, we talked for like five hours about this the other day,

why it was wrong and why you shouldn't do this.

And then they just go and do it well how does that make god feel when he instructs

us time after time don't do this and we end up in the same boat.

Point, folks, we've got to get back to repentance. I'm not talking about penance.

You don't need to put sackcloth and ashes on and sit out in our parking lot or something.

If that helps you, I know where some ashes are out here. I don't know about

sackcloth, but we can find some gunny sacks.

Whatever you need to do to turn away from your sin, do it.

Hey, we've been talking about habits. There's some things in our lives that

are habitual. Hey, there's ways to overcome those. You're not alone.

There's people that are going to pray and support you and help you.

A, B, C, admit, believe, confess. It's in that that we repent.

We turn away from that and we're saying, we're not going back.

We're not going back anymore.

This morning as we close, we're going to close with a hymn of invitation.

And I just want to invite you to come forward if that's what God's calling you to do.

To repent, to make that change, to confess.

If you're not comfortable coming down, I get it. I was a kid that came down like every Sunday.

People thought I was the worst kid ever. I always had to repent from stuff.

But as you've already experienced from our prayer time this morning,

there's power in that humbling of yourself.

Would you come this morning as we sing, I surrender all. Confess.

Repent. Turn away. Ask God to give you the power to do that, and he will.

Folks, your life with Jesus is so important, so great, that you don't want anything

to get in the way of that for all eternity.

Jesus already paid for your sin. Quit holding on to the check. Give it to Jesus.

Give it over to him. Let him forgive you. Would you stand this morning?

And as we sing this, I just invite you to come as God moves you.

If you come here or stay there, just deal with what the Holy Spirit's telling

you this morning. Let's sing together.

I want to thank you for joining today's sermon podcast. You can find a copy

of today's sermon as well as other sermons and the sermon outline from today

on our church's website,

www.mvcnaz.org.

It is my prayer also that you will seek out a church home that recognizes the authority of the Bible.