In Alaska, Eskimo wolf hunters will capture their prey by coating the blade of a knife with another animal's blood, and they will secure that knife in the snow and in the ice, and they'll then remove themselves and wait. And the alluring scent of that blood draws the wolves to that site. And there they find a feast, a feast of blood on that knife. And they begin to lick that knife. And they find a seemingly endless supply of blood, unbeknownst to them. that it is their own. And soon, the wolf becomes so weak that they just simply fall over and die. Rather gory picture, but a poignant picture of exactly what sin does to us. It appears to be so alluring, so so enjoyable, so pleasurable, and yet all the while completely destructive. Sin may appear to be pleasurable for a time. Sin may have the appearance at the moment to be even right, appropriate, something that should be done and we should be involved with. All the while, it is destructive. It is destructive to our relationships around us, our relationship with God, our relationship with one another. We're in a study in the book of 2 Corinthians, but in chapter 5 of 1 Corinthians, Paul shows us the experience of sin in this particular church. 1 Corinthians chapter 5, we get some of the flavor of what is going on that Paul is then responding to in 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 1. It is actually reported that there is immorality among you. And immorality of such a kind does not exist even among the Gentiles, that someone has his father's wife. and you would become arrogant and have not mourned instead so that the one who had done this deed would be removed from your midst. Verse 11, same chapter. I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person or covetous or an idolater or a reviler or a drunkard or a swindler, not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church? But those who are outside, God judges. Remove the wicked man from among yourselves. Now I can see that some of these people, maybe in Corinth, were looking at this particular messy situation. A man involved with his father's wife. And I can hear some people saying, Listen, we all make mistakes. Why are you making such a big deal about that? We need to tolerate this. We need to love this brother back into a relationship with God. But I am very grateful that Paul did not take that tactic. He looked them straight in the eye and he rebuked their sin the sin of the man involved, and the sin of their church, the sin of the church because they were tolerant. They had this laissez-faire, hands-off, don't-want-to-rock-the-boat kind of an attitude. And the Scripture makes it very clear. that God, when He calls us unto Himself, calls us away from a style of self-destruction. He calls us away from a lifestyle of sin. Now, in 2 Corinthians chapter 7, where we'll be looking at this morning, Paul talks about the topic of repentance. Because that rebuking letter that he wrote did its effect. And that man repented. And that church repented. So it's here in this particular section, chapter 7, beginning of verse 5, that we find Paul rejoicing over repentance. But he reviews with them what God's expectation is for us as habitual repenters. For we are, as we'll find from this passage and others, we are people, that is, God's people are people that are repenting repenters. It is a habit of our life. Now in 2 Corinthians chapter 7, beginning at verse 5, Paul tells us that repentance restores relationships and repentance results in rejoicing. Read with me, beginning at verse 5. For even when we came into Macedonia, our flesh had no rest, but we were afflicted in every side, conflicts without fears within. But God, who comforts the depressed, comforted us by the coming of Titus. And not only by his coming, but also by the comfort with which he was comforted in you, as he reported to us your longing, your mourning, your zeal for me, so that I rejoiced Even more, 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 to the point of repentance. For you were made sorrowful according to the will of God, so that you might not suffer loss in anything through us. For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to 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. So although I wrote to you, it was not for the sake of the offender nor for the sake of the one offended, but that your earnestness on our behalf might be made known to you in the sight of God. For this reason, we have been comforted. And besides our comfort, we rejoiced even much more for the joy of Titus, because his spirit has been refreshed by you all. For if in anything I have boasted to him about you, I was not put to shame, but as we spoke all things to you in truth, so also our boasting before Titus proved to be the truth. His affection bounds all the more toward you, as he remembers the obedience of you all, how you received him with fear and trembling. I rejoice that in everything I have confidence in you. Now you might remember as we looked now a couple of months ago at chapter 2 verses 12 and 13. that Paul, as he concluded that little section, that paragraph, he stopped. And beginning at chapter 2, verse 14, through chapter 7, through verse 4, Paul has an excursus, a footnote, if you will, describing the privilege and the responsibility of ministry. Chapter 2, verse 12 and 13, He talks about finding no rest for his spirit. He was in Troas, and because he longed to have information about how the Corinthians were faring and what they were doing with this letter of rebuke that he sent to them, he longed to find Titus. And so he left Troas and went into Macedonia. Now, in chapter 7, verse 5, it says that he had no rest in Macedonia either. He was looking eagerly for Titus, and then he found Titus. And there was joy in his soul at Titus' report of what the Corinthians did, how they responded to the letter Paul sent them. The most important words to underline in verse six are the first two. Paul's discouraged, he's depressed, he is anxious for the welfare of these Corinthians. Verse six, but God. Doesn't matter what the anxiety is. Doesn't matter what the depression is and its source. But God, He does what? He comforts the depressed. And He comforted Paul in the midst of that very discouraging time for him, just as He comforts you in the midst of whatever circumstance brings discouragement and depression into your life. Paul was comforted by the coming of Titus, verse seven, not only by his coming, but because he had a smile on his face when he arrived. Because the Corinthians comforted Titus. He no doubt, bearing that letter by Paul, walked into that congregation with fear and trepidation. Imagine some young man walking in here saying, I have a letter from the Apostle Paul to you. And that letter was a stirring rebuke. That letter smoked with the pen from the Apostle's hand. And yet, they were cut to the quick. And they realized their sin. In response, they repented. And that repentance brought a smile and the joy and delight to Titus. And as soon as Paul saw Titus' face, Paul said, phew, the discouragement and the anxiety lifted because I simply saw the comfort that was on Titus' face. In verse 8, Paul tells us that he regretted first writing that letter because it was hard, because it was harsh, because he knew that it would cut them to the core. Do you ever regret saying words or writing a letter? saying to yourself, oh, I wish I hadn't said that. Or I wish I hadn't have said it that way. But you can't pull those words back. This is what Paul understood. He said, I did regret it, for I see that the letter caused you sorrow. He was simply conscious of his own feelings and his own thoughts. What he was not conscious of is how the Holy Spirit would use those to sovereignly touch the lives of those believers in Corinth. It was only after the fact, and it was in that looking back that Paul said, now I see what God was doing and what God accomplished, and I rejoice in that. In verses 9 and 10, Paul talks a little bit more specifically about this idea of repentance and what happened in the lives of these believers. Let me read that again. Verse 9, I now rejoice, not that you were made sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful to the point of repentance. For you were made sorrowful according to the will of God, so that you might not suffer loss in anything through us. For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation. But the sorrow of the world produces death. Paul talks about two kinds of sorrow here. He talks about a worldly sorrow, and he talks about a godly sorrow. A worldly sorrow is pain without a purpose. A worldly sorrow brings tears of regret, tears of failure, tears of remorse. But worldly sorrow do not bring tears of transformation. A person who is sorry, according to the ways of the world, is regretful or remorseful that they got caught. But there's no change. There's no transformation. The Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, when he was apprehended by the authorities, was one who continually blamed the system and felt he was justified in his attack of the system. He said these things. Do I have guilty feelings? Yes, a little. Occasionally I have a bad dream where the police are after me or in which I'm threatened with punishment from some supernatural source, such as the devil. But these don't occur often. I am definitely glad to have done what I have done. The testimony of a man who suffers only a worldly sorrow. I want you to turn with me to Book of Revelation, chapter 16, illustrating this worldly sorrow Revelation chapter 16, we find one of the bowls of wrath poured out. And in verse five, we find the description of what happened after the fifth bowl of wrath was poured out. Now I want you to notice what happens to these people that are the recipients of God's wrath. Revelation 16.10, Then the fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and his kingdom became darkened. And they gnawed their tongues because of pain. And they blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and they did not repent of their deeds. Godly or a worldly sorrow does not produce goodness. What it does is it produces greater evil. It produces a greater anger toward God. Godly sorrow, however, is much different because it is not a purposeless pain. It is a purposeful pain. Godly sorrow leads to repentance. And that repentance is what establishes restored relationships with God, with other people. Paul says here in 2 Corinthians that their sorrow was according to the will of God. He says that in verse nine, and then again in verse 10. What that means is that this sorrow is, that these Corinthians, rather, were sorrowful because they saw their sin as God saw their sin. they realized that they had offended a holy God. And as such, they were destined to incur God's wrath. And yet they repented of that according to the will of God. They saw their sin for what it really was, and they changed. I printed John Piper's words In your notes, genuine contrition for sin is sorrow for not having holiness. However, we must be careful here. Many a criminal will weep when his sentence is read, not because he has come to love righteousness, but because his freedom to do more unrighteousness is being taken away. To cry over the punishment for wrongdoing is no sign of hating wrong, but only hating pain. This is not true repentance and does not lead to radical Christian obedience. Worldly sorrow. It's like the man who enclosed a letter with his check for $150 to the IRS. He says, if I cannot sleep, then I'll send you the rest of the money. Godly sorrow results in a changed life. Tears with transformation. Now verse 11. Paul gives us some very helpful things because he shows us, in that verse, seven marks of genuine repentance. I printed them in your notes. I've got the New American Standard with me. And in this particular translation, the little word, what, precedes each of these marks. Let me read it. 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 this matter. Seven tests for true righteousness. What earnestness is a part of this godly sorrow? This earnestness is a longing, a yearning to correct the evil, to right the wrong. And the Corinthians experienced that. Genuine repentance has at its core a desire to correct that which is wrong. Secondly, Paul says, what vindication. These people admitted personal responsibility for their deeds. Rather than pushing the responsibility off on somebody else, when they said, we're sorry, they meant by that, we are personally responsible for what we have done. Paul says, what indignation. Genuine repentance is characterized by an anger for past sin. There is a recognition, I have offended a holy God, and I hate that about what I have done. Paul says that there is a fear that accompanies true repentance, a fear of punishment A fear of having a severed relationship with God, with other people. There is a longing that accompanies true repentance. A longing to correct the evil. To correct the consequences, if possible. There is a zeal that accompanies true repentance. A zeal for restoration. first with God, then with other people. There is an avenging of wrong. What Paul means by that is that there is an awakened sense of justice, a realization that sin must be punished. And all of these things characterized that Corinthian church. There was an earnestness, a vindication, indignation, a fear, a longing, a zeal, an avenging of wrong on their part. Now, the question is, is that a part of your life? Is there a hatred of wrong in your heart? Is there a zeal, a yearning, a longing for justice? Is there an avenging of wrong? Is there the desire to restore and make right? These are a part of a person who is in a right relationship with God. So you can take that verse and ask yourself, are these things true of my life? If they are not, true repentance is not now a part of your life and your walk with the Lord. And yet that's what God earnestly desires. I'd like you to turn with me to Acts chapter 26. In so doing, I'd like to show you from just two passages of Scripture that it is God's most earnest desire that we be repenting repenters. That is, we live in an habitual state of repentance. we're very quick to think that repentance is part of that one-time occurrence that establishes a relationship with the Lord. And certainly repentance has its place at that point. But repentance is my response to sin. It is my response to wrongdoing. It is a response to injustice, not only in my life, particularly there, but also as I see it around me. I want to promote God's holiness in every way. This verse in Acts chapter 26, beginning of verse 19 illustrates that. Paul, giving his defense, says, so, King Agrippa, I did not prove disobedient to the heavenly vision, but kept declaring both to those of Damascus first, and also at Jerusalem, and then throughout the region of Judea, and even to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds appropriate to repentance. Now the key words to focus on here are the words repent and turn. Paul says, this message is something that I have preached, I have taught from the very first time that God called me unto himself. You may not know it simply by looking at that word, that's why you have me. But the word repent and the word turn in the original language means to keep on repenting and to keep on turning to God. Paul says, that's what I've always taught. That's what I've always preached. Not that you have a one-time response to God. You have a habitual response to God. This is your continuous life. Repenting, turning to God, turning away from sin, turning away from that destructive habit, and turning back to the Lord, turning back to the Lord, turning back to the Lord. One other passage of scripture that shows this, Paul teaches the Romans chapter eight of that particular epistle in verse 12. Verse 13, middle of the verse, he says, Romans 8, 13, if by the spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. This is in contrast to what he says in the earlier part of that verse, if you are living according to the flesh, you must die. Now again, the same kind of verb in the original language, if you are habitually, continually, ways of the world, contrary to holiness, God says you must die. Why? Because God is a holy God. God is offended by our sin. We are indebted to Him. We have committed a crime against Him. God says, you must die. Well, then how can He say that simply those who are putting to death, that is, those who are habitually, continually putting to death the deeds of the body, must live? Only this. Those people can say that because Christ has stepped into their place and God's justice has been satisfied by Christ's death on our behalf. And so in response to that super magnanimous gift that Christ has given to us that we receive by faith, We respond by continually, habitually putting to death the deeds of the body. That is repentance. Then we will live. So what Paul tells us here is that we, that is believers, live in a continual, all the time, state of repentance. When sin is revealed to us, as it is by the Holy Spirit, we confess that. We repent of it. We turn from it. It doesn't mean we're sorry. We say we're sorry, meaning that we're sorry that we got caught. No, we say, we are sorry. God, I have offended you. And I know that whenever I do this deed, think that thought, say those words, I offend you. God, I turn from that. See, that habitual response of repentance is a sign to us. that we are a part of God's family. When we don't see that, we have great reason to question, am I genuinely a part of the family of God? I put this in your notes from Charles Spurgeon, you and your sins must separate or you and your God will never come together. No one sin, not one sin, may you keep, they must all be given up." Remember what we talked about in the earlier part of 2 Corinthians 7, talking about perfecting holiness in the fear of God, in the light of who God is, before His face? We are continually in that process of perfecting holiness in our life that comes through the discipline of repentance. Let me vary from where I was going to go in light of time. Glenn referred to this earlier this morning, 1 John chapter, oh there's only one chapter, or 3 John, sorry, verse 4. It says, I have no greater joy than this, to hear my children walking in the truth. When you see people responding in repentance, knowing that they are right with the Lord, that brings joy to people's hearts and that bonds relationships together. I was reminded this week of a family that left our fellowship a little over a year ago where there was not the repentance that needed to be in place. And I was reminded again this week of the sorrow and the sadness and the lack of joy that accompanies a lack of salvation. And that brokenness in our relationship with that family continues to this day. Many years ago now, maybe two decades, I read a book called Up With Worship by Anne Ortland. Short little book, not a lot of depth there, but some wonderfully helpful things. This illustration was in there. She writes, Mary broke her vase. Broke it? How shocking, how controversial. Was everybody doing it? Was it a vase-breaking party? No, she did it all by herself. What happened? The obvious, all the contents were forever released. She could never hug her precious nard to herself again. The need for Christians everywhere, nobody is exempt, is to be broken. The vase must be smashed. Christians have to let the life out. It will fill the room with sweetness and the congregation will all be broken shards mingling together for the first time. God can do wonders with a broken heart if you give Him all of the pieces. God looks for us as His people to be broken. Broken because of our sin. Broken before Him that He might put us back together again. restored to himself, restored to one another. My friends, this is a unique collection of people from different walks of life, different socioeconomic levels, different stages of life, different ages, different priorities. And God brings us together for this unique thing that we call fellowship. A sharing of life. Something that we have in common together. It's sad. It's tragic. when we find others wandering away, licking bloody knives. My friends, we must be a broken people, a repentant people, so that sin does not drive its destructive blade into our hearts. Is that kind of repentance, humility, a part of your life? Pray with me. I am thankful for what you have accomplished in my heart and the hearts of my brothers and sisters here by revealing to us our sin giving us that gift of repentance, that we might no longer be a slave of sin, but become Your slave of righteousness. Father, I'm grieved when people pursue that life of sin that we know leads to nowhere other than complete destruction. God, bind us together. Bind us together with your love that we be in a restored relationship with you, with other people. For we ask these things in Jesus' holy and precious name. Amen.