Please turn with me in your Bibles to 2 Corinthians 7, verses 10 to 16. That's on page 967 in the blue Bibles provided there for you. As we pick up, remember that the Apostle Paul is reflecting on how the Corinthians have received the letter that he sent to them by the hand of his messenger Titus, And in that letter, Paul had reproved the Corinthians for the way that they had behaved during his last visit. Piecing together what we know from 2 Corinthians, it seems that apparently someone has wronged the apostle Paul. From chapter two, verse 10, it seems like Paul was the one who was wronged. And the Corinthians really didn't do anything about it. They just kind of stood by and let it happen. And now Paul is, having corrected them in his letter, he's now reveling in the good news that Titus has brought back to him, that the Corinthians being confronted in his letter are genuinely sorry and they're very eager to set things right. So that's where we pick up chapter seven, starting in the 10th verse. For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death. For see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you, but also what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what punishment. At every point you have proved yourselves innocent in the matter. So although I wrote to you, it was not for the sake of the one who did the wrong, nor for the sake of the one who suffered the wrong, but in order that your earnestness for us might be revealed to you in the sight of God. Therefore, we are comforted. And besides our own comfort, we rejoiced still more at the joy of Titus, because his spirit had been refreshed by you all. For whatever boasts I made to him about you, I was not put to shame. But just as everything we said to you is true, so also our boasting before Titus has proved true. And his affection for you is even greater as he remembers the obedience of you all, how you received him with fear and trembling. I rejoice because I have perfect confidence in you. Let's pray now. Our Father in heaven, we thank you for this passage which so clearly shows your spirit at work in the church. And Father, we pray that as we consider it this morning, you would also be at work among us. Grant us this, we pray, in Jesus' name, amen. It is no secret that the technology we currently have brings a mix of pluses and minuses. You can size that up for yourself. I'm going to say that a clear plus is having a map on your phone for when you drive. That's a nice thing. Part of that, I think, has been a decrease in marital discord. We forget, I think, how it used to be. As dad would drive and mom would say, are you lost? No. Maybe you should stop at the gas station. I don't need to stop. And then, you know, it's a stereotype. And that has basically gone away, because Siri speaks up in a non-threatening manner and says, make a U-turn in the next light. When you're traveling somewhere, of course, getting where you're going, but also the ability to turn around when you're wrong, is crucial. You know, repentance is the most crucial U-turn you will ever do. And that's what our passage is about. Repentance means when you're heading away from the Lord toward sin, selfishness, that you turn back to Him. And you travel in a direction that's in accordance with the eternal life that Jesus has purchased for you. Paul is rejoicing in the Corinthians' turnaround. And we're gonna look at this this morning, and we're going to see two things, how repentance looks, and then where repentance leads. How it looks, what are its characteristics, where does it lead, what are its blessings? So first, how it looks, and you see it play out here in verses 10 through 12. Last time, the Apostle Paul says, you were grieved into repenting. Do you remember that in verse 9? He says, you felt a godly grief. That's where we left off. This week, as we just read, he starts by saying in verse 10, for godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation. That expression leads to salvation, tells us, as he puts that in the future, tells us he's thinking about salvation, capital S. When Jesus comes again and raises us up and makes all things new, that is the end point of our salvation. So repentance, godly grief produces a repentance that leads to that salvation, Jesus coming in his kingdom without regret. And that wording causes us to reflect that if we are grieving over our sins today, so that we turn to God's grace, we get a salvation, we will never regret. In other words, regret today, and you won't regret for the rest of forever. It's a repentance, at least a salvation without regret. When we talk about repentance leading to salvation, we are, of course, not implying that we somehow earn our salvation by the great repenting we do. Scripture is very clear in many places that we are saved by grace through faith. We don't earn anything by how well we repent. But as Christ leads us to glory, we walk down that path as disciples or followers of Jesus Christ. to engage in a thankful obedience to Jesus, and also to turn around when we're wrong. That's part of the path that he puts us on, and there's no other path for Christians. That is the path. Everyone who is truly turning to God also has grief over sin. Everyone who turns to God also has grief over sin, but then Paul clarifies The reverse is not necessarily true. In other words, not all grief over sin signals someone turning to God. You could think of how a fever is helpful in killing off a virus, but a fever can also kill a person. Is it positive? Depends. Grief over sin is a sort of distress. It may be a very good sign if it's godly grief, but if it's a worldly grief, that is a grief that is kind of enmeshed in us and our doings and our own powers and never looks up to heaven. If it's a worldly grief, it produces death. In verse 10, we'll keep going with that kind of grief where our sins lead, the wages of sin is death. In that sense, worldly grief is a prelude, we could say, to a kind of eternal grief. And that's, Paul's just using very blunt language here. What is worldly grief? That's worth unpacking a bit. We could say that worldly grief is grief over sin that is nevertheless a kind of self-centered or self-dependent grief. And this comes in various modes. Scripture talks about grief over sin that is really grief over consequences. This is like Cain saying to God, my punishment is greater than I can bear. He wasn't turning to God, he was distressed for his punishment, and that's a pretty common mode of operating. I think when I was a young man, or boy, I received quite a number of grievous consequences for my misdeeds, and I think very seldom was that tied into sort of like a... It was usually pretty much grief of getting caught and being punished, pretty much every time. That's a pretty common mode of being, and some people never graduate from that mode. So there's that. Then there's another kind of grieving which we could call a pretend grief or a sort of show. And this is a darker thing, but it's when someone grieves over sin because that's what they ought to do, but it's strategic. It's like, I know I'm going to be criticized because I did the wrong thing. So I'll get out in front of it and say, yeah, I was wrong. I'm sorry. I said I was sorry. It's not really grief over sin. It's to do the right thing in form to sort of cushion yourself against criticism. The prophet Joel talked about this kind of grief when he said, rend your hearts and not your garments. God doesn't want a show of grief because that's good form. He wants the genuine repentance. So there's the grieving over consequences, there's grieving for show, there's a kind of grief as well that's a sort of self-punishment. It's like to tear at oneself in your disappointment and rage in yourself. It's a sort of Feeling that now you need to feel really bad because of all the bad things you did. And it's like you're going to address your sin by feeling really bad for your sin, and you're going to sort of be your own torture chamber. That is like Judas who went and hung himself. He was punishing himself. That is a worldly grief that is ineffective. We don't God never called on us to punish ourselves. We're not supposed to be, I mean, the conscience can kind of torture us, but it's not our calling to be our own torturer. What you need is the innocent Lamb of God who suffered the agonies of the cross for you, and only Jesus can drain the cup of suffering to the very bottom, and He does it for us, and self-loathing accomplishes in itself, nothing. So there's a worldly sort of grief that might seem positive, but on closer inspection isn't. Godly grief is, as the name implies, a God-oriented grief that sees sin as hideous and grievous because it's against God's character. There's real sorrow there. But it turns toward God, and for the sake of Christ, our great sacrifice, trust God for pardon, and for the power to follow Him once again by His Holy Spirit. It is God-oriented grief through and through. That is repentance, and that is a great blessing and gift, is a turning around and turning back to God. No show is needed. No self-torture. is needed. You may feel like you are standing in the wreckage, in a pile of ruins that you made. And you wonder, what do I do now? And the answer is, move toward God from where you are. That brings to mind a story, it's an alleged joke, which I heard once. I don't think I laughed when I heard it, but I thought about it a lot. It has to do with a tourist or a traveler who's going around seeing sights, and in the days before Siri, he got lost out in the country, and all turned around, and then he sees a farmer in a field, and he stops the car, and he says, excuse me, can you tell me the way to New York City? And the farmer says, If I were going to New York, I wouldn't start from here. And I guess that whole joke turns on, you kind of know what the farmer is saying, but there is no way to start for New York except from where you are. Repentance is the same way. It's like, what do I do about the mess I'm standing in? Turn your nose toward the Lord and toward the truth. With grief for your sin, turn toward the Lord Jesus Christ. The next step you make is toward the Lord. Start from where you are, and that's repentance. Repentance is not just the negative side of grief for sin, but it has this positive side then too. See here in verse 11 how Paul is talking about the eagerness of the Corinthians. They hear this letter that Titus has brought, and they realize how much their passivity hurt the Apostle Paul. They were kind of like that stereotypical crowd, seeing a crime in the city and then everyone just gathers around and sort of horrified and waiting for someone else to do something and no one does anything. That's like how they treated Paul from what we can tell. And they hear this letter and they just, they feel alarmed. Like, oh my goodness. and they do actually impose some censure on the wrongdoer. Paul has heard about this from Titus, and so he says in verse 11, he says, what indignation, talking about their response, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what punishment. They get fired up to fix it. They actually do bring some sort of censure to bear on the wrongdoer to the point where they actually kind of overdo it. Paul says back in chapter two, Verse 7, in essence, that's enough. The guy is sorry. You know, forgive him and receive him. We're not trying to crush this man. We're just trying to correct the wrong. But they have this eagerness in their repentance, and you notice what the result is in verse 11. Paul says, at every point, you have proven yourselves innocent in the matter. And that requires some thought and some unpacking. You can see how in their reaction they're showing, we never agreed with this guy in the first place, but on the other hand, you can't say they're totally free from fault. Their passivity was a fault. So, at every point you're innocent in the matter. God, in this expression, I believe, God wants us to see that in a sense, our renouncing of our sins produces a kind of new innocence. Because we're turning away from our slip of allegiance and we're turning back to God. We're reestablishing by God's grace our loyalty to Him. One of the Puritans described repentance by saying, You know, prove your loyalty to God by telling all the devil's secrets. In other words, as you turn to the Lord, confess what you did and depend on His clemency and His mercy and the Lord Jesus Christ, and turn your loyalty back to Him. And that, in terms of our heart orientation, in a sense, it renews our innocence. And the Lord sees that loyalty that He has renewed in us by His grace, and He marks it. It is a precious thought to think that in being reconciled to us, God never puts us on probation. He just receives us back. Now, people put other people on probation, but we can't see into their hearts. you may put somebody under scrutiny for a period to try to understand if they're sincere. As they say, forgiveness can be granted, but trust must be earned. And in some ways, that's how we have to relate to each other, because we don't. You don't always know how to assess somebody's contrition, but the Lord knows your heart, and he doesn't say, like, you feel miserable for another five minutes, and then I'll forgive you. He just receives you back. And that is a blessed thought. He doesn't put us on probation. Moving on to verse 12, we see here how repentance also reestablishes harmony with other people. And we'll talk about the specifics of verse 12 in a second, but I think what Paul is getting at as he says verse 12 is the fact that when conflict between people where sin is involved, as it almost always is. It always contains untruth that then makes relationships foggy. So as the Corinthians fail to defend Paul, although they don't really agree with what the wrongdoer is doing, By not resisting it, they kind of allow that untruth to get a foothold. They're not pushing it out. And then it has all kinds of, that lie brings all kinds of, it brings disruption and sort of like fogginess into their relationship. So Paul leaves and he's hurt. And then, no doubt, they feel bad. Meanwhile, there are people who are slandering Paul, so as they feel bad about him, they're probably more inclined, if they feel bad about what they did to him, they're probably more inclined to believe slander about him because that would tend to alleviate their guilt a little bit, maybe. In other words, there's a kind of rift that sets in, and it has a lot to do with non-repentance and the obscuring aspects of falsehood. And so they're just kind of cut off in their relationship. Sometimes when we cut someone off, when we feel kind of, quote unquote, glad to be rid of them, and we tell ourselves that we don't care anymore, the whole reason we're cutting them off is because we do care. And it's so painful to be at odds with them that that's why the distance creeps in, you see. The tension caused by sin is almost too much for us to handle. And so here, see what Paul says in verse 12, just considering that. Paul says, and here I paraphrase, he's saying, I didn't primarily write to you because of the wrongdoer or the person he wronged, which I take Paul to be referring to himself in the third person. He says the point is, As you realize what you did, you will also be able to realize your, what does he say, your eagerness for us, right? Or your earnestness for us. In other words, as we get this cleared up, you'll be able to see once again how much you do actually love me. How much you value our relationship. Again, when we get into a conflict with someone else, and there's that kind of sin in play, there's a need for repentance, there's kind of untruths have entered into the picture, and everything gets hazy. And when you're at odds with somebody, you don't really see them, and you don't really hear them. I mean, you do, but you don't, because you're not really inclined to listen to them. And so the only thing I think that can lift that cloud is repentance, wherein confessing sin before the Lord and admitting wrong, Truth comes back into the room. We reflect on what happened. We own those things that we regret. And then we start, as it were, seeing and hearing one another once again. Because the affection enters back in. In other words, in the words of verse 12, our earnestness for one another in the sight of Christ is revealed to us. by our repentance. That's interesting wording, isn't it? Our earnestness for one another in the sight of God is revealed to us by our repentance. It is our repentance that tends to lift the haze. And with that in mind, When you are in some sort of a conflict with someone else, even though it's 90% their fault, it is always 90% their fault, isn't it? Pretty consistently. Still, your own fault is never absent and to start there and see if you can let truth back into the room and start to see one another more clearly, what a blessing that is. So that's, about repentance, what it is. And then just more briefly here, where repentance leads. So if you look at verses 13 to 15, you see that comfort and joy also come into the picture because turning back to God promotes a renewal in relationships. And as Paul expresses how he feels, I mean, he strikes me as almost giddy. He's so tickled at the results of this, and he and Titus are both so happy in verse 13. He says in verse 14, in effect, I told Titus you would listen. It's like I knew it. I was always hopeful, and you proved me right. And then he goes on to say in verse 15, Titus loves you, he is so appreciative of how you received him. In this little story, God is showing us what repentance can unleash in the church. As we're willing to admit our faults to God, but also to one another, the restoration and therefore the comfort and joy that can happen is remarkable. Refreshing. And Paul sums up in verse 16, he says, I rejoice because I have perfect confidence in you. That also needs to be unpacked. I mean, you can see how his confidence in them has shot up since Titus' report. But perfect confidence? I mean, we have already seen, for instance, back in chapter 6, verse 13, Paul says, you need to open your heart to me. Like, that's not right. The next verse, verse 14 says, do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. So there's things still amiss. So this perfect confidence must mean that as he sees God's work in them, he is confident in what the Lord Jesus Christ is going to do to them and bring to completion on the day Christ comes. Back in chapter one, verse 14, he spoke about how on the day of our Lord Jesus, you will boast of us as I will boast in you. And as we see God enabling the church to repent, He gives us confidence that Jesus Christ will finish that glorious work. Again, Paul is not saying, you have made me confident. He's more saying, your repentance shows that Jesus' work in you, and I'm confident in you, in the sense that Jesus will certainly finish that good work. A day will come when we will boast in one another in the Lord. So glad for his work. in each one of us. All right, a couple things as we close. One is I just want to underscore to you the healthiness of repentance. I think sometimes we might be a little reticent to sort of moan and groan over sin too much. Like, well, if we do too much of that, we're not really doing credit to the gospel that Jesus has forgiven us. So we might see repentance in some way as at odds with gospel joy. And what I'm saying to you is, For godly grief and for true repentance, that's not at all the case. Godly grief is gospel through and through because it is to not just see the hideousness of sin, but turn from it to Jesus and trust in his pardoning grace and the power to live anew. It is about Christ all the way through. I don't think, I mean, we need it so badly. At so many points every day, we need to do a U-turn. I don't think we can really overdo it if we're talking about true repentance. Now, there is such a thing as a kind of exaggerated emphasis on repentance, and I think this is sometimes what we kind of think might be a little off the mark, but I think when the grief over sin seems to be overdone, it is probably more likely that that's a sort of worldly grief that has crept back in. In other words, it's probably There's probably some aspect of show there, or there might be some aspect of self-laceration that is kind of like a self-torturing that's not really godly grief at all. Also, Some who talk about sin a lot, if you listen carefully, are more talking about other people's sins than their own. And we, sometimes we hear that, we think that's a little over the top and off the mark and not quite on the gospel. It's not because repentance is questionable, it's because not all grief is godly grief. See, we need to keep that clear. Here God is showing us that repentance is most necessary. It's most healthy. It is a gift. And it is a way in which as we reoriented toward Christ, we, in a sense, our innocence is reestablished. If I could just borrow that language from our passage. And it leads to salvation without regret. So healthy. And then secondly, building on that, just the emphasis here on earnestness. Paul says you were eager, he says you were full of longing, you showed zeal. Let us repent with eagerness. Repentance is never pleasant, but to move into it with straightforwardness and without hedging and without kind of euphemizing or varnishing what is actually happening is really good. So when you repent of your sins, and I encourage you to do this daily, not just confess your sins as you go through the day and it encouraged you, but really in a time of prayer to confess your sins to God and just think about it Something I've been trying to do lately is to put actual true labels on things. That's painful. So instead of saying like, well, I think I was a little too eager to get this thing or whatever, just call it greed. I was greedy. That's what it was. Or I wasn't really happy about the honor that this person got. Well, that's envy. Just put the label on it. In a way, that's kind of like telling the devil's secrets. It's like, that was bad. I'm not going to hide that, Lord. You know it anyway. And I'm just going to speak straightforwardly. And I'm going to turn back to you with all my heart by your grace. And that is a kind of earnestness that promotes restoration with God. And then the same is the earnestness in making things right with others. You know, you might have somebody where you realize they deserve an apology. Like, I'm sorry that I did X. I committed this sin. But what about earnestness in doing that? Did you grieve them? Did it cost their time? Did it waste their resources? Did it present them with a bad testimony? You know, just think about it a little bit more and that way when you apologize, you can make a fulsome apology that's earnest. And as that kind of truth comes back into the room again, it's like the fog kind of goes away and there is a restoration. See, as the Corinthians were earnest, Paul was greatly comforted and filled with joy. And as we lean into repentance, God does a great work in us and among us. It's such a gift. It is something to be treasured and pursued. And as the Lord Jesus Christ does this great gift work in the church, It gives us confidence. We see that Jesus Christ is really among us and that he will finish what he started. Let's pray and ask the Lord's blessing. Our Father in heaven, we do confess before you that we do need your forgiveness in ever so many ways. Help us, we pray, to be prompt and diligent to confess our faults and to turn to your grace and so experience the joy and comfort of reconciliation with you and also with one another. We pray for these blessings in Jesus' name, amen.