I'm gonna ask you to turn with me in your Bibles to 2 Corinthians. You thought I was gonna say Exodus. Maybe you were hoping I would say Exodus, but I am saying 2 Corinthians. 2 Corinthians 7, 8 through 11. I have something on my heart to share with you this morning that's a detour from Exodus, but it fits in with what we're studying, what we're about to study in Exodus. If you remember, last time we studied Exodus chapter 19, which means that the next time we're in Exodus, it'll be what? chapter 20, which is the Ten Commandments. And we're gonna take our time with the Ten Commandments, but as we study the Ten Commandments together, there will no doubt be times when the Holy Spirit convicts your heart of sin. I know He will convict mine as I'm studying it and then as I'm preaching it each week. So what is the right response when I am convicted by the Holy Spirit? What am I supposed to do at that point? to repent, to obey. But I'm concerned that there could be someone or more than one someone in our congregation that we use that term all the time, to repent, but you may not know quite what that means or what that looks like. There are others of you who you could give me a biblical definition of repentance, nail it, get it right on the test, but do we know how to do that? Do we know what to do? Do we know what it looks like? How do I know when I have repented? How do I know when someone else has repented? Those are the questions that I'm going to attempt to answer through this passage today. I'm going to ask you to stand. Hopefully, you've had a chance to find 2 Corinthians 7. And I'm going to read for us verses 8 through 11. You follow along, please, as I read. For even if I made you sorry with my letter, I do not regret it, though I did regret it. For I perceive that the same epistle made you sorry, though only for a while. Now, I rejoice not that you were made sorry, but that your sorrow led to repentance. For you were made sorry in a godly manner, that you might suffer loss from us in nothing. For godly sorrow produces repentance, leading to salvation, not to be regretted. But the sorrow of the world produces death. For observe this very thing that you sorrowed in a godly manner. What diligence it produced in you. What clearing of yourselves. What indignation. What fear. What vehement desire. What zeal, what vindication? In all things, you proved yourselves to be clear in this matter. We'll stop our reading there, but let's pray before we go any further. Our Lord, we are thankful for your word, we're thankful that it meets us where we are, that it shows us. What we need to do next. And Lord, I ask that in these moments together today that you would give us understanding. That you would show us. Your holiness. Your purity, your sinlessness. That where necessary, you would show us our sinfulness. Lord, if there is someone here who has never had his or her sins forgiven, has never come to you for cleansing, for salvation, I pray that today would be the day of salvation. If there is a believer here who has been living in any type of public sin or private sin that we may not be aware of, But Lord, you are aware, you see. Would you please, by your Holy Spirit, convict of that sin, that that person would repent, that this message on repentance would be helpful to know how to do that. And Lord, there is no one among us who does not sin. So I pray that this would be practical for us the next time that we learn that we have sinned, that we see it through your Holy Spirit, we see it through your word, that we would know how to respond, that we would know what we should do as you grant us repentance. Holy Spirit, I ask for you to anoint me to say exactly what you once said this morning, and that you give us ears to hear your word, and hearts that are ready to obey. In Jesus' name, amen. Thank you, you may be seated. It's always hard for me to jump into a passage. For a while I was thinking I'll read the entire chapter and I'll preach about seven verses of it and then I kept honing it in because I didn't think y'all wanted to be here until three o'clock this afternoon. But I do want to tell you what the key words, the most important and often repeated words are in this passage, at least in these four verses. First, sorry, sorrow, sorrowed, and those words appear a lot. And then regret or regretted, those appear in verses eight and 10. And some of you are thinking, man, this sounds really uplifting and encouraging, Bob. This is gonna be great. Sorry, regret. But then we have rejoice in verse nine. And then that word, the word that I'm after most of all today, repentance, appears in verses nine and 10. So here are the main ideas I'd like you to understand and remember today. First point, godly sorrow leads to repentance. That's very clearly stated in verses nine and 10. Beyond that, number two, repentance leads to salvation. That's in verse 10. And joy, which is mentioned briefly in verse nine. If you read the surrounding verses, you'll see a lot more about joy and rejoicing. But then there are two Psalms that I'll refer to at the end. Psalms 32 and 51 are both confessions of David. And I think they're instructive here as well. But there is the mention of joy there too. Now I'd like to clarify some ideas before we get to our text so that we're all on the same page. First, who needs to repent? Who needs to repent? What do you think? We all do. Your first inclination might have been, well, unsaved people, people don't have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ, need to repent, and you're absolutely right, they do. God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. But those of us who are saved, while we are in this flesh, while we are in this fallen world, we still sin. And there are occasions that we also need to repent. I really liked what I read from John MacArthur this week. He said that repentance is at the very heart of and proves one's salvation. Unbelievers repent of their sin initially when they're saved. Yes, we know that. And then, as believers, repent of their sins continually to keep the joy and blessing of their relationship with God. So let's understand up front that the information we're about to explore is for all of us. It's not just for unbelievers. Now here's another question I think we need to know the answer to. How do I know when I need to repent? I need to repent when the Holy Spirit shows me something specific that needs to change in my life. So let me define that a little bit. There are times when Satan accuses me. One of his names is the accuser of the brethren, brothers and sisters in Christ. And when he accuses me, I feel shame and condemnation. And my response to that should be to claim the promise of Romans 8 1, which says there is therefore now no what? Condemnation, or you could say shame. There is now therefore no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. There are other times when my own conscience condemns me. I feel this low-grade guilt. Some of you can relate to that. You just always feel guilty about something. And it's you yourself talking to yourself, oh, you shouldn't have done that, oh. Well, in those moments, I can and should claim the promise of 1 John 3.20. For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our hearts. And he knows all things. So what I'm trying to get at is that there's a difference between guilt and shame and conviction from the Holy Spirit. That guilt and shame is gonna be general. And here's the thing about guilt and shame. They're gonna push me away from God. They're gonna cause me to hide. They're gonna cause me not to want to be around other people who are believers. but the Spirit's conviction is going to draw me toward God, going to draw me to repent, to draw me to turn back, to return to God. Does that make sense? There's a big difference in those things, and I want us to know that before we talk about what repentance is. The conviction of the Holy Spirit is very specific. I will know what sin I've committed, and I will know what God wants me to do about it. He will lead me. He will show me what to do. Now, just a little bit of background, since we're about to jump into the middle of 2 Corinthians, and some of you may not have read it before, or maybe you haven't read it in a while, so here's a little bit of context, a little bit of background for you. When you study the books of Acts and 1 Corinthians, and the first two chapters of this book of 2 Corinthians, you learn the following. Paul wrote, I believe, Paul wrote at least three letters, there are some people who believe he wrote four, to the church at Corinth. And two of those have been preserved for us in our Bible, we call them 1 and 2 Corinthians, right? So these are letters, but he was in correspondence with this church at Corinth. He started the church at Corinth during his second missionary journey, that's in Acts chapter 18, and he stayed there about a year and a half. He was there a good long time, establishing the church there, dealing with them. And then he wrote a letter after that first visit, and we call that 1 Corinthians. He addressed topics such as divisions in the church, immorality, spiritual gifts, the resurrection of Christ. At some point after that, he visited briefly and saw that there were all kinds of problems. They had not obeyed a lot of what he had written to them in 1 Corinthians. But he didn't stay long. He left and then wrote another letter, and that's sometimes called the sorrowful or the severe letter. We don't have that recorded in Scripture. But it was one in which he probably came on kind of strong and rebuked them. And by God's grace, it had its desired effect. They repented. And he sent Titus to see how did it go? Did they repent? Did they respond? Are they obeying? And Titus came and brought back word. Yes, they repented. And Paul's response to that was what? Joy. He rejoiced that they had obeyed, that they had read, that they had responded to the letter that he wrote. He described that joy In this chapter of 2 Corinthians, chapter 7, he talks about the comfort he received that they responded in a biblical way. He talks about the joy that he received when Titus came and said, they turned. They have turned back to God. They have obeyed what you wrote. And that's part of the joy that we're going to come back to here at the end. For right now, though, I think we're ready. Let's go to verse 8 and 9, and I'll read those together. For even if I made you sorry with my letter, I do not regret it, though I did regret it. For I perceived that the same epistle or letter made you sorry, though only for a while. Now I rejoice that you were made sorry, Not that you were made sorry, but that your sorrow led to repentance, for you were made sorry in a godly manner that you might suffer loss from us in nothing. What's going on? He's saying, my letter made you sorry, and for a while I regretted sending it, but then I found out that the Lord accomplished his purposes through it, and you repented, and then I wasn't sorry anymore that I'd sent it. That's my paraphrase of what he wrote there, mostly in verse eight. But then in verse nine, we get to the idea of repentance. That's where I've been headed all along. And I've referred to that word a few times, but I haven't defined it yet. So let me begin here. Our New Testament was written first in what language? Not a trick question, come on. Greek, thank you. It was written in Greek. And the Greek word that we have translated here as repent or repentance, it's methanoia or some form of that, and it means to change your mind. That is the simplest, most straightforward definition of the Greek word that we have as repentance. But I submit to you that as we read the New Testament and see how that word is used, it means more than just changing my mind. The definition of repentance I've offered to you many times over the years is a change of mind and heart that results in a change of action, a change of behavior, a change of direction. and we've called it a U-turn. I'm gonna turn around and I'm gonna go the other way. That is accurate, but I wanna expand on that. One pastor put it this way, repentance includes sorrow, regret, and remorse, but it's more than that. It's not just an emotion that I feel. Repentance includes a change of mind, but it's more than that. It's not just a thought that I think. True biblical repentance must include a change in behavior. It's something that I do. So biblical repentance includes my heart, my mind, and my will. We have these words sorry, sorrow, regret, all over verses eight and nine. But those are different from repentance, I've already mentioned that. David Guzick said, one can be sorry for sin without repenting from sin. Sorrow describes a feeling, but repentance describes a change in both the mind and in the life. Or, put even more simply, Dan Sexton said, sorrow is an emotion, repentance is an action. We need to understand that. Because there have probably been times in your life, I know there have been times in my life where I was sorry for sin, but I wasn't repentant. You can be sorry you got caught. You can be sorry that you've hurt yourself or others without changing. Repentance is being sorry enough about your sin that you change, you turn from it, you stop doing it. That's repentance. So there's a difference between sorrow and repentance. And Paul expands on that in verse 10, because there's also a difference between godly sorrow and worldly sorrow. Let's look at verse 10. For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted, but the sorrow of the world produces death. Some of you might have an ESV translation with you. If you had that, then you have the word sorrow as grief. and that might help us in our understanding. Why do you grieve for someone or something? Think about it for a second. There's a loss, right? If I grieve a person who died, I'm separated from that person, I might grieve over a life event, like I lost a job. I might grieve over a broken, damaged relationship, Those are things that I've lost, things that have changed in ways that maybe I can't repair. And so I grieve over them. What we see in verse 10 is the difference between godly grief and worldly grief. When I experience godly grief, it's because God disapproves of what I did. And if I'm a child of God, I will want to restore fellowship with him, regain his approval, live for him. That's what that would look like if I am his child, and if I'm repenting. We'll get there in a second. However, when I experience worldly grief, it's because people disapprove of what I've done. They think less of me because they know what I did. I'm sorry because I got caught, or I'm sorry because I hurt myself or others. If I'm not God's child, or if I'm not repentant, I will want to regain the world's approval and continue to live for the world. I'd like to illustrate this with two well-known Bible characters. I think I've used this before, but we're going to talk for a moment about Peter and Judas. Godly sorrow, that's the first one. That's the one that leads to repentance. Godly sorrow or grief produces repentance, leading to salvation. Peter sinned against the Lord by publicly denying him three times on the night Jesus was betrayed. And most of you know that story. Here it is from the Gospel of Luke. This is just the end of it. So he has already denied Jesus three times. Immediately while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed and the Lord turned and looked at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said to him before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times. What does verse 62 say? So Peter went out and did what? Wept bitterly. Peter blew it. There's no question about that. He knew he blew it. He was very sorry for his sin, and there's no question about that either. But he also repented. How do we know that? How can we tell? Well, for one thing, in his case, Jesus prophesied that Peter would come back. That's another way to describe turning around, repenting. This is Luke 22. This is a little bit earlier in that same chapter. Verse 31, and the Lord said, Simon, Simon, indeed, Satan has asked for you that he may sift you as wheat. that I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail, and pay attention to this, when you have returned to me, another way of saying repent, when you have come back, when you have returned to me, strengthen your brethren. So Jesus predicted you're gonna fail, you're gonna deny me three times. Jesus also predicted you're gonna come back, you're gonna repent. And another way we know is that Jesus restored Peter, and you can read that on your own later in John chapter 21. Second type of sorrow, or grief. The sorrow the world produces death. Human sorrow, John MacArthur wrote, is nothing more than the wounded pride of getting caught. Getting caught in a sin and having one's lusts go unfulfilled. Here's how I would describe that. Imagine a kid. I get caught with my hand in the cookie jar, I'm in trouble, and I don't get the cookie. That's what John MacArthur just said with my paraphrase. That kind of sorrow leads only to guilt, shame, despair, depression, self-pity, and hopelessness. People can die from such sorrow. So here's our second illustration, Judas Iscariot. He sinned against the Lord by betraying him. Remember, he arranged to turn Jesus over to the religious leaders. He, too, acknowledged his sin. He, too, was sorry. But the result was different because he never repented. This is from Matthew chapter 27. Then Judas, his betrayer, seeing that he had been condemned, was remorseful, sorrowful, and brought back the 30 pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders saying, I have sinned by betraying innocent blood. And they said, what is that to us? You see to it. Then he threw down the pieces of silver in the temple and departed and went and hanged himself. He committed suicide. He was in a very dark place because he knew he'd sinned, and he was sorry he had sinned, but he didn't turn back. He didn't repent. So here's a little chart to help you summarize this, to see it visually. It might help some of you. Godly sorrow produces repentance, which brings us life, or you can say salvation. On the other hand, worldly sorrow, worldly grief brings death, or we could say judgment. Just because I know I sinned, just because I'm sorry for my sin doesn't mean I've repented. I'm saying this just about every way I can so that we're clear. Remember, our primary goal here is to learn how to repent, to recognize what repentance looks like. And verse 11 provides eight descriptions of true repentance. And I'm gonna spend some time explaining each one. I will tell you in advance that I am very thankful for two resources I was using this week. One is my MacArthur Study Bible. I had a lot to say about each of these terms. But then also, What first put me on this, and I've shared this handout in the past with some of you, is our first pastor in Georgia, this is going back 20 years now, preached a sermon on this, and it was the first time I'd ever heard anybody go through what does repentance look like, and it made an impression on me. And I've used that worksheet with people ever since. And I used some of what he has in that study in what I'm gonna share with you today. Would you read verse 11 aloud with me? We're gonna put it on the screen so we're all looking at the same translation. Let's read it out loud, please. For observe this very thing, that you sorrowed in a godly manner. What diligence it produced in you. what clearing of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what vehement desire, what zeal, what vindication. In all things, you proved yourselves to be clear in this matter. Thank you. The first one is diligence. Or if you have a different translation, you might have the word earnestness or eagerness. MacArthur called this the initial reaction of true repentance. It is to eagerly and aggressively pursue righteousness. This is an attitude that ends indifference, ends complacency. It ends our indifference to sin and complacency about evil and deception. What does he mean by that? He means that you care enough about your sin to do something about it. You will not remain passive to it. Years ago when we lived in Georgia, I would listen to the Dave Ramsey show. It was on the radio in the evening, and I would listen to it. And one of the phrases he used a lot when he was talking about financial debt, he would say, you get sick and tired of being sick and tired. If godly sorrow is producing repentance in your life, you will be sick and tired of your sin. You will be sick and tired of it enough to do something about it. On the other hand, if someone confronts you about your sin, and I'm talking about something that is clearly a sin in the Bible, and you're not really concerned about it, you just don't see it that way. You don't think it's any big deal. You haven't repented. Someone who hasn't repented will be too busy to make life changes to deal with his sin. He won't have any sense of urgency about it. Here's a question to ask yourself. What am I doing or willing to do to make sure I don't commit this sin again? But that's just the first one. Paul didn't stop there. The second one is clearing yourselves. This is the same Greek word that gives us the word apologetics. It means a defense. The NIV translates it this way, what eagerness to clear yourselves. Or we could say an eagerness to prove your present innocence. So let's be clear, this is not being defensive about your sin. You're not defending yourself. Rather, you're restoring the trust and confidence of others by demonstrating your repentance to others. It often requires the help of others. It requires that accountability we were talking about a couple of weeks ago in our study in Exodus. What am I doing? or willing to do to regain a righteous testimony. You say, Bob, I'm not quite clear yet, so let me offer you an illustration or two. This week, I heard a true story I'm about to share with you, and it did not have anything to do with anyone in this congregation. It was not this church, just to let you know, lest you wonder. A man was struggling with the sin of viewing pornography. How do we know? We know this because his wife found out about it while she was at the hospital giving birth to their child. And he was a pastor. Now, I fear that there could be some of you in the room that when I made just the first statement, There was a man struggling with pornography. He thought, okay, yeah, that's bad, but a lot of people struggle with that. Which is a true statement that a lot of people struggle with that. But then I added that other information and it probably made you a little bit angry inside like it did me. Much more concerned. Yes, the circumstances of his wife finding out about it were unfortunate, and yes, his position in ministry was a factor, but first and foremost, we've got to get in our heads that it was sin against a holy God. And it is. Lust is a sin. Pornography is a sin. So this man sought counsel from another pastor. Remember, he's a pastor, he's seeking counsel from another pastor. And most of the pornographic material he was viewing was on television. So the counselor pastor asked him, are you willing to get rid of cable in your house for a while? He said, no, why would I do that? Some of the pornographic material he was viewing was on his smartphone. So the counselor then asked him, would you be willing to get some filtering software on your phone or even get a flip phone for right now? He said, no. I would never do that. I'm not a child. Do you think that this man had repented of his sin? I don't either. We don't know his heart. God knows his heart. But based on the information we do have, this man had not repented. If anything, he seems defiant. He didn't take his sin seriously. There was no diligence. There was no earnestness. to rid his life of that sin. He had no desire to prove his present innocence by being accountable to others. His sin simply didn't bother him that much. He didn't want to be inconvenienced by getting rid of it. And that brings us to our third characteristic, indignation. We could say outrage. The question to ask here, how much does my sin really bother me? Someone said repentance leads to anger over one's sin and displeasure at the shame it has brought to the Lord and His people. Did you catch that? If you're repentant, you will be angry with your sin, perhaps angry with the devil, and certainly angry with the harm that you have done to God, His name, and His reputation. Would you like a quick test to know whether you've repented? Ask yourself, am I angrier with my sin or with the person who caught me and confronted me? If you're still angry that you got caught or that someone told your spouse or your parent or your boss, and you're not angry with the sin that you committed against a holy God, you haven't repented. If in your heart you're plotting a way to do it next time so that you don't get caught, you haven't repented. Number four is fear. This could be the fear of the Lord. Or it could be the fear of our own weakness towards sin. Either is possible. First, let's consider the fear of the Lord. And by that, I mean a respectful awe of the Lord. MacArthur said, repentance leads to a healthy fear of the one who chastens and judges sin. Psalm 19.9, David's writing, he says, the fear of the Lord is clean or pure. Truly fearing God in the right way has a purifying effect on us. Let's also consider the fear of sin, a healthy dread that will cause me to stay as far from temptation as possible so that I won't fall again. Here's the question to ask. Do I fear sin enough that I will be aware of its danger at all times? How can I keep from falling into the same sin again? What steps should I take? Well, that depends on the sin, but let me give you some possibilities. If you struggle with drug addiction, you should stay away from certain neighborhoods. You should never go into them alone. If you struggle with alcoholism, don't hang out at a bar. Don't even go there. I heard a story years ago, again, not anywhere around here, a man who lived in a big city and he had two options for his daily commute. One of them had him drive by a strip club. And after driving by that strip club day after day, he eventually decided he would go check it out. He knew that was wrong. He went to his pastor and confessed that and said, I need help. So as his pastor talked to him, he said, you realize that you're gonna need to go the long way home from work from now on. He said, but that'll take me more than 30 minutes. He said, do you love God? Do you love your wife? Yeah? Then it'll be worth it. We have to have an accurate view of sin. And the Bible will give us, both of what I'm about to say, we need an accurate view of God and his holiness, and we need an accurate view of ourselves and our sinfulness. And if you open your Bible each day, you'll start getting that. And that man needed a wake-up call. He needed to spend the extra time on his commute to avoid putting himself in harm's way, in the way of temptation. As we wrestle with temptation, and all of us do, as we seek to avoid returning to past sins, we need to remember Joseph's strategy. Remember Joseph in the Old Testament? Potiphar's wife was tempting him day after day after day. And what did he end up doing? Say it again. Run! New Testament version. 2 Timothy 2.22. Flee youthful lusts. This isn't something for us to toy with. This isn't something for us to treat casually. This is sin. What does sin lead to? Death. So let's need to get a lot more radical about the choices that we're making in our personal lives and demonstrate the type of repentance that this passage talks about. Number five, vehement desire. That's probably not a word you've used this week, I haven't. Vehement desire, we could say longing. My study Bible said, the desire of the repentant sinner to restore the relationship with the one who was sinned against. Who is that? Ultimately, it's God. When the prophet Nathan confronted David about his sin of adultery and murder, and David finally repented, here's what he wrote in Psalm 51 verse 4. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done this evil in your sight. Now I ask you, Had David sinned against Bathsheba? Yes. Had he sinned against Uriah? Yes. But first and foremost, he had sinned against God, and the Holy Spirit led him to that truth. Now what about the people who were affected by your sin? You need to ask God to forgive you. No question about that. But there may be people in your life that you need to ask forgiveness of. Your sin always affects other people. Does the sin of drunkenness, a drug, alcohol addiction, does that affect your family, friends, and coworkers? It does. Does the sin of reckless spending on shopping or gambling affect those around you? Yes, it does. Does the sin of constant anger or a violent temper affect your family, friends, and coworkers? Yes, it does. Does the sin of gluttony, constantly overeating, affect your loved ones? Yes, it does. If the Holy Spirit is convicting you of a specific sin this morning, you need to talk to God, you need to confess it to Him, you need to forsake it. But then you need to take stock. Are there people that I've been harming? Are there people that I need to ask forgiveness from? That's part of true repentance. Number six is zeal. Or we could say concern. We could also say dedication. I read that this refers to loving someone or something so much that one hates anyone or anything that harms the object of that love. Do you love God and your family enough to hate the sin that displeases God and hurts your spouse and children? Here's the question. Am I truly dedicated to ridding my life of sin? Number seven is interesting. The word is vindication, or your translation might say punishment. Another translation says, readiness to see justice done. MacArthur said, the repentant sinner no longer tries to protect himself. He wants to see the sin avenged no matter what it might cost him. Back in 2015, there was a Kendrick Brothers movie called War Room. Maybe some of y'all have seen that. If you've seen it, you might remember that one of the main characters had a sales job at a pharmaceutical company. And he'd been lying. He'd been fudging his numbers. And he got fired over it. And that was one of the wake-up calls that led him to repentance. But in the way they wrote that script, one way that we can easily believe that he repented is that he didn't stop there. Because in addition to cooking the books a little, fudging his numbers, he also had been stealing samples and then selling those on the black market. And he took those And he took them back to his employer. He'd already been fired. But he believed that he needed to make it right, and he took those back and said, I've been stealing these. Knowing that he could have been prosecuted, he could have gone to jail. That's the picture of this one. That whatever it takes, I'm gonna make it right. With God's help, if it's within my power, I'm gonna make it right. Number eight, clear in this matter. Innocent in this matter. This is what we can call an aggressive pursuit of holiness. What was Paul rejoicing about? That they had turned around, they had made an about face, they dealt with the sin that was in their church, and they themselves began to obey again. They were pursuing holiness. They were willing to do whatever it took to pursue holiness. Are you willing to do whatever it takes to pursue holiness? So that's the picture of repentance. If you've repented, you will hate your sin and what it did to your relationship with God and others. You'll feel sorry enough not to do it again. We've spent a lot of time this morning talking about godly sorrow and repentance, and we've talked a little bit about salvation. But where does joy come in? We haven't talked much about it yet. Throughout this chapter, we can read that Paul rejoiced greatly when the Corinthians repented, that's for sure. If you read David's prayer of repentance in Psalm 51, it included a request that God would restore to him the joy of his salvation. And I believe that because he was repentant, because he was asking God, restore my joy, God absolutely did. So there's joy there in Psalm 51. Another classic example from the Bible of joy when someone repents is the story we usually call the prodigal son or the younger brother. That's a picture of repentance. He came to himself, he changed his mind, but then he did what? He acted on it. He returned to his father and he had that speech prepared and his father saw him and came out and hugged him and said, get in the best road, we're gonna throw a party. Why? Because he has repented and there was rejoicing in that household because that younger brother had changed his mind, had come back, wanted to be reconciled with his father. Godly sorrow leads to repentance. Repentance leads to salvation and joy. Now, I'd like to point out those Psalms. I mentioned at the beginning Psalm 32 and Psalm 51. If the Holy Spirit is convicting you this morning of a sin that's in your life that you need to confess, you can confess it, but what is repentance gonna look like? I would encourage you to look at those two Psalms, Psalm 32 and Psalm 51. and start praying those back to the Lord. See what God shows you from David's example of repenting, of turning back to the Lord. There may be somebody here this morning in the room, somebody who's joined us online, you've never repented, you've never received forgiveness of sins the first time by coming to God through Jesus Christ. You can do that today. You say, I don't know what you mean. I would love to talk with you. I'd love to show you from the Bible how you can know that your sins are forgiven. That's the first time we repent. There may be believers in the room Maybe there are other people who know about your sin. Maybe nobody but God knows about your sin. But God knows about your sin and he's convicting you about it this morning. What should you do? We said at the very beginning, you should repent. What does that look like? We just spent a lot of time looking at it. Are you willing to do that this morning? Are you willing to turn your back on your sin and turn your face to God and return to him? That's what he's inviting you to do. Would you bow your heads and close your eyes? Father, you know our hearts. Your word, according to Hebrews, pierces into our hearts. Everything in our lives is laid bare. It is naked and open to your eyes. And Lord, I pray that we would be people of repentance. that we would be people who have turned from our sin and turn to you and are turning on a regular basis as you reveal sin to us, that we confess it, that we forsake it, that we move on. Lord, I pray for my brothers and sisters in this room, for the one who indicated there's a specific sin. Lord, grant us repentance. Pour out your grace, your enabling power, to say no to sin and to say yes to you. Lord, we are not going to achieve sinless perfection on this earth. We know that. But we desire to be people of your word. We desire to be people who are obedient to what you have shown us to do. May we be faithful. May we seek you in your word. May we be sensitive to your Holy Spirit. May we be listening as you lead us to make changes in our lives. We pray all of this in Jesus' name, amen.