This message was given at Grace Community Church in Minden, Nevada. At the end, we will give information about how to contact us to receive a copy of this or other messages. Well, please remain standing for God's word. Second Corinthians chapter 7. Second Corinthians chapter 7. Starting at verse 8, this is God's holy and inspired word. This is God's dangerous word. For though I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it. Though I did regret it, for I see that that letter caused you sorrow, though only for a while, I now rejoice. Not that you were made sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful unto repentance. For you were made sorrowful according to God, so that you might not suffer loss in anything through us. For the sorrow that's according to God produces repentance without regret unto salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death. For behold, what earnestness this very thing, this godly sorrow has produced in you, what vindication of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what avenging of wrong in everything you demonstrated yourselves to be innocent in the matter. This is God's word. Amen. You may be seated. You might have noticed that we opened up with a song of declarative praise to the Holy Trinity, and then we sang two songs of confession of sin. We sang Psalm 51, the great penitential psalm, and then we sang that we have not known thee, love thee, serve thee as we ought, and then we closed with proclaiming the gospel, not what my hands have done. And as we think about that pattern, that really is what we come to at the Lord's Supper, a declaration of praise to the God three in one and confession, confession of sin that's in our hearts. confession, and not only of sins that we've committed, but sins of omission. We've never, ever loved God as we ought, ever. We've never served God as he deserves. And it's under that sense of the guilt of our sin that we run gladly to the cross and to the empty tomb His cross dispels each doubt buried in His tomb. And we declare the excellencies of the God of grace who has saved us through the gospel. That's what we do at the Lord's Supper. And so before we consider this passage for a few moments, let's pray and ask for God's help. Father, we come to you and we acknowledge that you are the thrice holy God. Father, we recognize that your word so clearly tells us that you are light and in you there's no darkness at all. And yet, Father, we know that there's a lot of darkness in us still. And so we thank you, Father, for the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you for his blood that cleanses us from all of our sins. all of our sins. Father, we thank you for an enthroned Christ who now ever lives to make intercession for us. And we thank you for the Holy Spirit, the blessed comforter, the one who comforts us in our affliction and afflicts us in our comfort and faithfully, faithfully applies your word to our hearts. We pray that you draw near to us now and prepare us for the Lord's table. Father, we're reminded even by the tone of the songs that we've sung that this is a sober thing. We pray that your spirit would be at work in us. Father, we thank you for your word, which is at work in those who believe. Do a work today. In Jesus' name, amen. The conviction of sin is actually a grace that comes from the Holy Spirit. Jesus, in fact, tells us that one of the roles of the Spirit is that when He comes, He will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment. Of course, when the spirit comes and brings conviction to an unbeliever, that conviction is designed to drive that person under conviction to trust in Christ for peace with God and for the forgiveness of their sins. We're thankful for the grace of that conviction. It's that conviction that many of us remember that God used to bring us to put our faith and our trust in the only one who could relieve us of all of our sin and guilt. But the Holy Spirit also brings conviction to the believer. Now, some believers cannot or don't discern between conviction and condemnation. So every time they feel conviction, they feel condemned. And I would suggest to you today that this is actually a very, very dangerous confusion because conviction is actually a merciful act of our faithful God for the good of our souls. So Kevin DeYoung writes, God wants you to feel guilty when you're guilty. When people say to me, I feel guilty, the question is, well, are you? And if you are, thanks be to God that you feel it. And so, what is the conviction of the Holy Spirit? Well, this is my definition. The conviction of the Holy Spirit is a work that convinces us of our sin. So there's a convincing work and produces grief for our sin, that's a feeling of conviction that compels us to confess our sins and compels us to true repentance which results in the assurance of divine forgiveness for those sins. That, by the way, is how you know it's from the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit convinces us of our sin, but he also produces that sense of grief, but that sense of grief compels you to something. And what it compels you to is to confession and repentance, and the result is the sense of divine forgiveness of those sins. This experience that I've just described for you is actually recorded for us in the penitential Psalms, but primarily Psalms 32 and Psalm 51, where we actually see these very dynamics at work. We're about to observe the Lord's Supper. And as we come to the Lord's Supper, there's something about conviction and repentance that go hand in hand with monthly gathering around the Lord's table. And so Paul actually, or I'm sorry, part of the means of grace in the Lord's supper is that God by His Spirit through His Word actually brings to mind our sins so that we have a sense of the grace of conviction and therefore seek the grace of forgiveness. And so I want to suggest to you conviction is good. Grief, sorrow for sin is good. But here's the question that we need to ask, and that is, is all grief for sin good? Does all grief for sin actually come from God's grace and God's spirit? Does all grief for sin actually lead us to repentance? And the answer to that question is a resounding no. In fact, Paul here outlines for us a fundamental distinction that is critical for us to understand, and that is the difference between worldly sorrow and sorrow that's according to God. And in this passage, what we see is the profound difference between the two. And the reason the difference between the two is so profound is because the outcomes between the two are so radically different. And so I tell you right up front. It is not simply enough. To feel remorse. or regret for our sin. God actually designs in true spirit wrought conviction repentance unto salvation. Now you might notice in this text that I read that Paul says very clearly at the end of verse 10, the sorrow of the world produces death. So Paul talks about a worldly grief. So this sermon just has two points, very simple, worldly grief and godly grief, that's it. Worldly grief, so Paul had sent off this severe letter to the Corinthians in which he rebuked the Corinthians for their sin. We won't go into that, we've talked about that background many, many times. As Paul writes, this little section, verses 8 to 11, is actually just charged with emotional words, words like sorrow or grief, both noun and verb form, seven times. Repentance or better, regret, three times. And by the way, that term that we translate regret is not the same word that Paul uses for repentance in verses 9 and 10. In other words, there's a difference between regret and repentance. Now, Paul rejoiced, obviously, that the Corinthians were made sorrowful, but of course, that's not his goal. So he can talk like this, was I happy that you were sorrowful? Well, no, I really wasn't, but you know what? I kind of was. Because what happened as a result of that was that God worked through that and that grief, that grief that was wrought by the Spirit was actually used to lead you to repentance. So what is this sorrow of the world that produces death? I wanna know that. I wanna know that because I grew up in a certain church tradition where the stock and trade of keeping the engine running was guilt. Okay? I mean, everything revolved around guilt. And so I grew up feeling guilty that I was just breathing. You didn't have to do much to make me feel guilty. And in fact, I'd feel guilty for not feeling guilty. And so we need to understand this fundamental distinction. And so when we talk about the grief of the world, Kevin DeYoung again says, in a really excellent little article, he says, worldly grief is an expression of regret over opportunities lost, painful present circumstances or personal embarrassment. Worldly grief has to do with pride, ego, and humiliation. It cares more about man's opinion instead of God's. There are a lot of people that feel bad about their sins. But what they feel bad about is the results of their sins. the fruit of their sins. What they feel bad about is that their sins actually have put them in a position of losing opportunity or putting them in present painful circumstances or a place of personal embarrassment. And so DeYoung is absolutely right. Worldly grief has to do with pride and ego and humiliation. Why? Because it cares more about what man thinks than what God thinks. Now Paul very clearly says that this worldly sorrow, it leads to death. And what he means by that is that worldly sorrow is actually an enemy to true repentance. The reason worldly sorrow is an enemy to true repentance is because worldly sorrow distracts us from the true nature of our sin as an offense against God, and therefore it circumvents us from seeking forgiveness from God himself. Well, that's a recipe for death. In fact, the devil would be more than happy to have us immersed in worldly sorrow that is focused on ourselves and actually never brings us to the cross because worldly sorrow or flat out indifference to our sin actually accomplishes the same thing. And that is we never deal with our sin. And so worldly sorrow focuses on the fruit of sin, not the heart. therefore it leads to death. It may be filled with regret. Piper makes this comment, he says, feeling rotten is not the same as repentance. And in fact, here's the scary thing, is that worldly sorrow may actually even morph into bitterness, but it does not drive me to God. And so because the grief of this world is more concerned about man than God, and it's not concerned about actually leading me to repentance and leading me to the cross, therefore, the apostle says, it is that that leads to death. These are sobering words when you think about it. Kevin DeYoung makes this point, he says, I found this to be so convicting. Most of us are content with regret. We want to feel bad for a while, have a good cry, enjoy the cathartic experience, bewail our sin about how selfish and sorry and stupid we are. But we don't really want to change. We don't really want to live different than we have been. And that leads to death. What about godly sorrow, godly grief? There is, obviously, from what Paul says here very clearly, a grief or a sorrow that leads to repentance. Now notice, notice in the passage, grief is not equivalent with repentance. There is a grief that is good that is unto repentance. And so the good, godly, fruitful emotion of grief or sorrow for our sin that is God-ward produces repentance. Paul describes this sorrow as just according to God. New American Standard puts according to, and then he's noticed the will of, in italics, according to the will of God. Paul is a little more terse than that. This is godly sorrow. This sorrow is just simply according to God. This sorrow is a sorrow that comes from God and produces a repentance for which there is no regret. Now, if you think about it, real repentance is a painful thing. There's nothing easy about it. But when Paul says that there is a repentance that is without regret, what he means is that there is a cleansing and there is a change that happens inside that makes all of the grief worth it. There's no second guessing. Should I not have said anything? There's no second guessing because somebody snubs their nose at you. Maybe I shouldn't, maybe I shouldn't have confessed my sin because now that person looks down on me. There is something about true repentance that has absolutely no regret in it. And that is the internal sense of cleansing and forgiveness and change that comes from God. And so regardless of how painful it was and regardless of the, of the, um, of the horizontal implications of it, there is a sense in which we don't regret it for one single solitary moment. Paul also says very clearly that true repentance has real fruit. In verse 11, there are seven characteristics of true repentance. This is the way verse 11 goes. For behold, this very thing, to be grieved according to God, it is worked in you. What zeal! And not only that, not only that, but defense, indignation, fear, yearning, a readiness to do right, and in everything you demonstrated yourselves to be innocent in the matter. So Paul actually lists here what we could call seven fruits of repentance, and the first one is earnestness. You see it in the text very clearly. For behold what earnestness this very thing, this godly sorrow, has produced in you. One of the marks of real repentance is a seriousness of purpose in regard to repentance. Martin Lloyd-Jones tells a story of when he was still pastoring in Wales before he had moved to London. And he was preaching in that little Welsh chapel. And while he was preaching, the town drunk came and sat in the balcony. And it was a little town, and this is Wales in the early 1900s. And so everybody kind of noticed the town drunk sitting up in the balcony. And Lloyd-Jones was the evening service. And of course, back in those days, the pattern was is that evening services were evangelistic services. And so Lloyd-Jones is preaching the gospel. And as he's preaching the gospel, he notices the man sitting in the balcony seemed to be under conviction. And he knew that no doubt people in the church were praying for him and as he closed the service and he gave the invitation, and that invitation of course was not come to the front or anything like that. but it was an invitation to believe in Christ, to trust in Christ for the forgiveness of sins. And so after the sermon, Lloyd-Jones went and he stood at the back door and shook hands, he says, in that tradition, and he sees the man coming to him, streaming out with everybody else, and he's thinking in his head, should I actually ask him if he wants to go back to my study and pray with me? And while he's having this conversation in his head, he decides, no, I'll let this man take the initiative. And the man walked by and said, nice sermon, pastor, and left. Well, all night, Lloyd-Jones as he agonized whether or not he did the right thing. Well, the next afternoon, Lloyd-Jones was walking through town, saw the man, inebriated, and the man said, you know, pastor, if you had asked me to go back to your study, I'd have gone with you. And Lloyd-Jones says, well, why don't you join me right now? And he says, no, that's all right. And Lloyd-Jones says, I'm glad you didn't go with me last night. Because conviction that won't last more than 24 hours is not the conviction of the Holy Spirit. When real repentance isn't working us, there is a seriousness of purpose. There is something that has gripped us. It's not this will of the wisp kind of thing where we feel a little bad. Conviction of sin is not like overeating. You know exactly what I'm talking about, right? You know how when you eat and you eat too much? Okay, like some of you did at lunch. I can tell because you're like, You know when you eat too much and your stomach kind of hurts? You ever had this experience? Yeah, okay. Now, you know what you tell yourself? I'm never gonna eat again. Really? Don't we say things like that? Oh man, I'm not gonna eat for 48 hours. Yeah, then dinnertime comes along and you're like pigging out all over again. Okay? Conviction of the Holy Spirit that produces repentance has a seriousness of purpose in it, an earnestness that lasts longer than just, oh, my stomach really hurts, I'm never gonna eat again. You know, you can't just, oh, my conscience is bothering me, I'm never gonna sin again. That's not what this is talking about. It's talking about a determination, an earnestness of purpose, seriousness in the repentance. Notice the second fruit, and that is defense. Now, New American Standards puts it like this, what vindication of yourselves. The word that Paul uses is just the word for defense, and Paul does not mean defensiveness, because defensiveness is almost surely a sign that a person is not repentant. When there's real repentance, there's not a sense of me needing to defend and ward off all attacks upon myself. Real repentance actually makes me utterly vulnerable. So what does Paul mean? What defense? I believe the idea is you demonstrate, talking to the Corinthians, you demonstrated a desire to clear yourself from the blame by making things right. That's why the NAS translates it the way that they do in terms of what vindication of yourselves. The idea was is that their repentance actually was not only seriousness of purpose, but their repentance was they wanted to do everything to vindicate themselves by doing whatever it took. In other words, they were taking the initiative in doing the right things to show that they really were repentant. Number three, what indignation. I think Paul has in mind here probably indignation towards the sin of the wrongdoer and indignation towards themselves. So the idea is, you know what? When that kind of indignation is at work in real repentance, guess what? There's no blame shifting and there are no excuses. If your repentance looks like this, I'm really sorry I did this and I know this was wrong, but if you wouldn't have done that, the minute you get to but, you're actually doing something that's not showing indignation at your own sin, it's showing indignation at somebody else's failure, which you are now at least putting some blame on them for it. Real genuine repentance understands that, you know what? Whether my mother breastfed me or not, I am morally culpable. Right? Oh, you know, boy, I could go on about this for a little while. We live in a culture of perpetual victimization. We're always the victim of something. And you watch. We have an expert among us. Give us, what, 10 or 20 years, and people will start getting off for robberies and rapes and other violent crimes because there will be some sort of genetic excuse or some sort of psychological malfunction for which they're not responsible. It's already happening in some places. Listen carefully, real repentance has a sense of indignation towards yourself, towards the sin. Next, what fear? What fear? Now, you know, this isn't gonna fly on Dr. Phil. I mean, this is not what we wanna hear. But what fear, I believe, that what Paul has in mind here is that when that severe letter came to them, and they were rebuked by Paul's severe letter, and it produced a sense of conviction, there was a sense of holy fear that went right with that. That sense of holy fear is the idea that, you know what, I've done something and there are effects for my own failing and that primary effect is the way that has disrupted my relationship with God. And so there's a godly, there's a holy fear in real repentance. You read this, for instance, you see David in 2 Samuel 12-13, you read David's penitential Psalms in Psalm 32 and Psalm 51, and there was a sense in which he trembled before the Lord, not because he was uncertain as to whether or not he'd be forgiven. That's not what this kind of fear is. This kind of fear is not a cowering kind of fear of, well, you know what, maybe this is the last time, and God's not going to forgive me, and I don't know what I'm going to do, and surely I'm just going to go to hell, directly to hell. Don't pass go, don't collect $200, just go straight to hell. And this is what I'm afraid of. That's not what Paul's talking about. What Paul is talking about is a godly emotion of fear that actually is not trembling because I'm wondering whether I'll be forgiven, but there's a sense of trembling because I consider the effects of my own sin. He says, what yearning. What yearning, Titus brought back this report, and I have no doubt that the idea of yearning is the idea of yearning of restoration with God and with Paul at that point, right? There was a yearning, Paul, there was such a yearning for them to make things right and to be right with God and to be right with you. And then notice the sixth fruit, zeal. This is actually a synonym for the first word that was used, earnestness. And I think that what Paul's doing for us is that he's emphasizing what he perceives to be an indispensable fruit of true repentance. There's a zeal, there's an earnestness about this. Back in the Roman Empire, after the time of Constantine, It was common for some of the emperors to profess Christianity. One particular emperor was a professing Christian, and as he went to church and went to receive the Lord's Supper, of course, this man was a notorious womanizer and a cold-blooded murderer. Anybody who opposed him, he just took them out. And as he went to the Lord's table, Ambrose stood in front and said, you will not partake and defile the table. At which point the emperor said, I've done nothing more than sin in the likeness of King David. And Ambrose says, Until your repentance is as notorious as your sin, like King David, this bread will not touch your lips. Until your repentance is as notorious as your sin. Paul has envisioned here fruit of repentance that is filled with a sense of zeal. And then the last one, he says, and this is odd, the way that the NAS does it, you demonstrated yourselves to be innocent in the matter. Now, we might read that and think that somehow they actually weren't guilty in the matter, but that's not what Paul's saying. I think that Paul is actually making, oh, I skipped one, didn't I? What avenging of wrong, okay? What avenging of wrong. And so there, the sense is not vengeance in the carnal fleshly sense, but rather vengeance in the noble motive of righting the wrongs. Readiness to see justice done, readiness to do what is right. And then Paul says, in everything you demonstrated yourselves innocent in the matter, and I think that Murray Harris is right when he says, by their repentance and subsequent conduct, they demonstrated that they are now in the right. It's not that they were innocent when the matter was going on, but now their resultant repentance has demonstrated that they're now in the right. Paul Barnett says, by their repentance, they were now effectively blameless. There's two things about repentance that stand out here as we look at this fruit and we look at this passage. Follow me on this first one. Repentance is not about the past. It's about the present. It is not, how bad did I feel when I committed the sin? What it is, is what is happening now. By the way, this, you could say the same thing about faith, right? Faith is, you don't go back to the beginning and try to sort out and parcel out whether faith is saving or not. What do you do? Look at faith right now. Look at his demonstration right now. Look at repentance right now. This is not about how bad I felt at the initiation of all of this. This is about what's happening right now. But notice also there's a sense where repentance is specific. It's not only in terms of what's happening right now, but there's also the profound sense that it is specific. And I get that because Paul says in that last phrase in verse 11, in everything you demonstrated yourselves to be innocent, notice this terminology, in the matter. Were the Corinthians probably guilty of lots of other sins? Duh. What Paul's looking at is not just sort of a all around generic kind of repentance, but a repentance is specific. John Piper, I love this. A vague bad feeling that you're a crummy person is not the same as conviction of sin. It's just a vague feeling, I'm a crummy person. We agree. I'm a crummy person, you're a crummy person, we're all crummy persons. But that vague, bad feeling I'm a crummy person is not repentance. In fact, it's not even conviction of sin because real repentance is actually specific. It's identified, not just the symptoms, but the root. Real repentance is specific in that it's not just dealing with the fruit of a bad heart, but it deals with the root of a bad heart. And then notice Paul says that this kind of repentance, verse 10, which is without regret, is unto salvation. Now, we've been falsely conditioned to think about salvation in just a very, very narrow way. When you hear the word salvation, oftentimes what we think of is what? That initial act of God? whereby He justifies, makes us right with Him, and we look at salvation as if that's the whole picture. But you have to understand that the Bible speaks about salvation in a way that's broader than just an initial change of status into a state of grace. The Bible talks about salvation in no less than three tenses. There's a sense in which you can say, past tense, I have been saved. Typically, what we think of when we think of that has to do with justification, right? Because justification is that once for all forensic declaration whereby God says that our sins have been forgiven and Christ's righteousness has been imputed to us. And we look at that, and that's absolutely crucial. And so we rejoice in being able to say, I have been saved. But there's another sense, and this is throughout the New Testament, where salvation is not just a past tense reality, it is an ongoing present tense reality, so that I can also say, that I am being saved. If you're saved, you need to be saved today. Oh, I knew Borgman was a secret closet Nazarene. Not true, not true. I'm not talking about getting justified over and over and over again. What I'm talking about is the ongoing saving work of the Holy Spirit that is what we typically call sanctification. Paul says it like this, to us who are being saved, Christ, wisdom of God and the power of God. So guess what? I need to be saved today. I need the deliverance of God today. And then I'm looking forward to the day when I will be saved. You realize that I'm gonna be saved one day in a way that I'm not saved now? Right? That's our glorious prospect, right? And what do we call that? We usually call that glorification. There's a sense in which that salvation will be consummated and it's still future. And so that's what I'm moving towards. And so I have been saved. I'm being saved. I will be saved. That is good, sound, biblical theology. So when Paul says, to Christian Corinthians that there is a repentance which was without regret that is unto salvation, I take him to mean something like this. Listen, true repentance is a sign of life. true repentance is actually not only what what what what brings you into life but true repentance is a sign of life and the fact is is it without repentance there is no salvation and so this is not a matter of the Corinthians getting saved or even the Corinthians staying saved. It is a matter that where there's no genuine repentance, there is no salvation. And so ongoing repentance is a part of me presently being saved. so that one of these days, when the trump sounds, and we're glorified and reunited with the Lord Jesus Christ, there's going to be something that we'll be able to look back on. And that is, at a point in time, at the moment of faith, God justified us, declared us righteous, put his spirit within us, and then began to work out that salvation, Philippians 2, 12 and 13, with fear and trembling, so that I was a believer and I was a repenter and I was a believer and I was a repenter from beginning to end. Do you just say, you know what, I believe the gospel once, I don't need any more faith. Jason said it this morning about faith, right? This faith is, you know, that faith that's birthed by the Word of God is also the same faith that's sustained by the Word of God. So I am a believer, I'm a believing one, or I'm a repenting one. If I stop being a repenting one, I'm in trouble. I am in trouble. And so Paul says that that true repentance is repentance unto salvation. It's an indispensable part of what it means to be being saved. How often do you need to repent? I mean, does anybody want to guess? Like once, once, what? Once every 25 years. That would work. Yeah, it's like prayer. You do it without ceasing, right? In fact, here's the irony. Frequently, I need to repent of my pathetic repentance. So I'm a repenter. Paul says it looks like something. And so as we come to the Lord's table, let's be sure that we're not duped by worldless sorrow that produces death. You'll be sorry for sin and never intend to change. And God says, that's not what I'm looking for. Proverbs 28, 13, he who confesses and forsakes his sin finds mercy. So as we come to the Lord's table, let's not be duped by by worldly sorrow. You know, we do the same thing every month, right? And so there's a time where I give an exhortation and we pass out the bread and I say that this is the time for us to confess our sins. Well, this is a time for us to actually confess our sins with the intention, by God's grace, of turning from our sins. And you'll say, I did that last month. And I'll tell you, so did I. And you'll say. I confess the same things last month. I said almost the exact same words that I'm about to say now to Jesus and asking Him for forgiveness. Maybe I wasn't as intent and determined and zealous to turn from those things, but you know, I realized that there's a lot of sin still left in me. May the Holy Spirit give us the grace of real conviction, but may the Holy Spirit also, in turn, give us the grace of real forgiveness. You cannot exhaust the mercy of God. You cannot deplete the power of the cross. And so you repent, and you repent again, and you repent, and you repent again, and your ultimate hope is not in the efficacy of your repentance, your ultimate hope is in the one who came to save you. Your ultimate hope is not that you're so determined this time that I'm never gonna sin again. Your ultimate hope is the one who bled and died for you. That's where your hope is. He calls you to turn, he calls you to repent, but he tells you don't trust in your repentance, trust in me. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the clarity of your word. We thank you that you don't leave us in the dark to know what repentance is. And we do pray that you would give us all the grace of conviction that leads us straight to the cross. We pray that you would give us true repentance. But, Father, no matter how much we repent, our hope and confidence is always in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so, Father, we pray that you would give us a holy hatred for our sin, a love for our Savior, and every confidence that our sin has been washed away. In Jesus' name, amen. We hope you've enjoyed this message from Grace Community Church in Minden, Nevada. To receive a copy of this or other messages, call us at area code 775-782-6516 or visit our website gracenevada.com.