THE HAPPY RESULTS OF GODLY SORROW
Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on March 21, 2021 under 2021 |
Bethany Bible Church Sunday Message; March 21, 2021 from 2 Corinthians 7:8-12
Theme: Godly sorrow that results in repentance leads to joyful comfort.
(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).
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In the apostle Paul’s letter, it was the kind of comfort that came after a time of sorrow.
Do you remember the times when you were disciplined by your mother or father? (If you’re at all like me, then of course you do! How could you forget?) After that time of discipline is over, and the bad behavior has been corrected and the hard lessons are learned, a good parent always takes the child up and holds them, and wipes away the tears, and gives comfort. If it is done right, then not only do both parent and child feel the sorrow of that discipline together, but they also share the joy of the comfort—after the sorrow is over.
When we come to this portion of Paul’s letter, I think of it as describing that kind of comfort. It’s a joyful letter; because it’s essentially ‘the big hug of comfort’ that came after a difficult time of discipline was over and done with, and after true repentance had occurred.
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Now; Paul had a good reason for talking about this kind of comfort. He had written a letter to the Corinthian church some time back—a letter that was rather harsh. It had been, in fact, a real ‘spanking’ of a letter.
There had been a man in the church who was carrying on an incestuous relationship with his own step-mother. It was a horrible, scandalous sin. And the real problem was that the church family was letting this unholy behavior go on within its midst—and was not doing anything to confront it or deal with it—and was even becoming proud of how they were being very tolerant toward it. Paul had written this harsh letter to rebuke their sinful negligence and to urge them to take immediate steps to make things right in God’s holy household.
It must have been a hard letter for the Corinthian Christians to receive. It was definitely a hard letter for the apostle to have written. He certainly didn’t want to have to make them feel bad. He was even afraid that he would lose them all as friends. Looking back on the experience—in 2 Corinthians 2:4—he wrote;
For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote to you, with many tears, not that you should be grieved, but that you might know the love which I have so abundantly for you (2 Corinthians 2:4).
Like a good parent, he had written that harsh letter as if to say, “This hurts me more than it hurts you.” But all of that was in the past now. Paul got the news that the church had dealt with the problem of this man’s sinful behavior; and that, on their part, full and sincere repentance had occurred. And now, Paul was writing like a loving parent who was taking them up in his arms, hugging them, encouraging them, praising them, and sharing comfort together with them.
In 2 Corinthians 7:8-12, he wrote these words;
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. Therefore, although I wrote to you, I did not do it for the sake of him who had done the wrong, nor for the sake of him who suffered wrong, but that our care for you in the sight of God might appear to you (7:8-12).
And then, notice what he adds in verse 13;
Therefore we have been comforted in your comfort (v. 13a).
What a good thing this is for us to study together, dear brothers and sisters in Christ! In all the troubles and trials of life on this earth, our church family—the household of God through faith in Jesus—ought to be a place where we not only deal with sin together, but where we also rejoice in the repentance together, and administer comfort to one another in the process.
And the great lesson of this particular portion of Chapter 7 is that godly sorrow that results in repentance leads to joyful comfort. How important it is that we make sure that it’s truly ‘godly’ sorrow. Only then can we have the joy of comfort that comes afterward.
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Now; one of the great problems we need to overcome is the idea that there should never have to be such sorrow in the church—no sorrow at all. It’s the idea that church ought to always be a place of only comfort ‘period’. But clearly, that’s not a realistic idea of church at all.
Many years ago, my wife and I used to attend a small Baptist church in the South Seattle area. I served as a youth leader; and we lived in an apartment just around the corner from the church. I was excited about our little church; and I loved to invite people to it. There was a woman who lived a few apartments down from us; and she heard that we attended that church. As we chatted outside one day, she asked about it; and I was eager to tell her about what a wonderful church family it was. I invited her to come.
But then, she stopped me and said rather sternly, “But is it one of those churches that try to tell you how to live?”—and the way she asked that question made it clear that she was living in a way that she absolutely did not wish to have confronted. It saddened me to hear that. And it was one of those rare occasions in which I told someone—hopefully in a courteous way—that they probably didn’t want to come to our church after all. “Well,” I explained; “It’s a church family in which we open up the Bible and learn from it how God wants us to live. If you’re not comfortable with that idea, then you probably won’t feel comfortable in our church.”
Imagine telling someone that they probably don’t want to come to your church! But I had to be honest.
The confrontation of sin in our lives—and the call to turn from that sin and follow obediently after God’s will—is a painful thing. It hurts. Many people stay away from church out of a desire to avoid that pain. But that pain is necessary, in the household of faith, in order for things to get better in our lives and for us to grow in Christ. A local church that only offers comfort, but that refuses to open up the hard places of God’s word and inflict the pain of rebuke when it is needed, is frankly not a church worth going to. It would be like going to a doctor who only gives good news and a lollypop—but who never performs painful treatments when they are needed.
In this passage, Paul speaks of the reality of this. In verse 8, he shows us that …
1. SORROW FROM REBUKE HURTS FOR A WHILE.
Looking back on the experience, he told the Corinthians, “For even if I made you sorry with my letter, I do not regret it; though I did regret it.”
When he spoke of how he ‘regretted’ having to do this, he used a very particular word. In the old King James Version, it says that Paul “repented”. But that’s not the best way to translate this word. To ‘repent’ means to have a complete change of mind or a complete change of attitude. But this particular word only means that Paul had a vacillation of ‘care’ or ‘concern’ about a circumstance or an event. And the best way to translate that idea is with the word ‘regret’. When Paul first wrote that hard letter of rebuke, he knew that it would make the Corinthians feel bad and have sorrow. And he was concerned about whether or not that would be the best thing to do to them. Once he sent the letter away, he struggled with regrets about it. But now, after he has seen what happened as a result of his faithfulness in sending the letter, he was no longer concerned. He now had no regrets—no concerns!
And why? As he went on to say, “For I perceive that the same epistle made you sorry, though only for a while.” The sorrow that came from the rebuke was only temporary. It proved to be a sorrow that—in the providential care of God—was only a means to bring about a greater end.
This reminds us that there are times when sorrow needs to happen—particularly when wrong is being done. Whenever sin is embraced by us that displeases our Father—the sin that made it necessary for Him to send His Son Jesus to die on the cross for us—then there should be sorrow. But if that sorrow does the job that it’s meant to do under God’s loving care, then it’s only temporary. It’s only for a time—and always for our good.
The writer of Hebrews put it this way:
And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons:
“My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord,
Nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him;
For whom the Lord loves He chastens,
And scourges every son whom He receives.”If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it (Hebrews 12:5-12).
By the way, dear brother or sister; let me say this to you—and know that I also say it to myself: Don’t despise the chastening of the Lord. If you are under the disciplining hand of God right now because of sin in your life, and if someone has confronted that sin, and if you have sorrow because of it or feel bad because of the rebuke of that sin, don’t run from it. Don’t hide from it, or circumvent it, or seek—in some way—to avoid the pain of it. Receive it as an act of God’s love.
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So then; let’s acknowledge the truth of the matter. The sorrow of rebuke for sin hurts for a while …
2. BUT IF IT’S THE RIGHT KIND OF SORROW, IT LEADS TO JOY.
In fact, if we’re walking in disobedience to God, then going through that sorrow properly is the only pathway to the kind of joy God wants us to experience. In verse 9, Paul put it this way, “Now I rejoice, not that you were made sorry, but that your sorrow led to repentance.”
Here, Paul uses a very different word than the one he used in verse 8. In verse 8, he used a word that meant ‘a change of care or concern’; and it was best to have translated that word as ‘regret’. But here, he uses a much stronger word—a word that means ‘a complete change of mind or of attitude or of inward orientation of heart’. And that word is best translated as ‘repentance’. The sorrow that leads to repentance is what eventually results in joy and comfort; because it involves a complete change of our mind and our attitude toward sin. We no longer embrace it. We no longer try to make it work out in our lives. We thrust it away. We turn from it as that which is an offense to our holy heavenly Father. We turn from it as that which put our Lord Jesus on the cross. In thus turning from our sin, we repent and turn to Him.
And in turning to Him, we turn into the direction of true joy and true comfort.
Paul went on to say to the Corinthians—in verse 9, “For you were made sorry in a godly manner, that you might suffer loss from us in nothing.” When Paul wrote that hard letter to them, they could have rejected him and his co-ministers. They could have rejected the experience of sorrow; and could have told him that they don’t want to go to ‘one of those kinds of churches where they try to tell you how to live’. And if that had happened, Paul would have truly been filled with regret. He would have done the right thing; but they would have responded wrongly—and suffered terrible loss as a result of his letter. But now, they did not suffer loss from him and his co-ministers at all. They gained! And why? It’s because they suffered something that Paul called ‘godly sorrow’.
Paul makes a difference between two kinds of sorrow in this passage. One kind is what he calls ‘godly sorrow’ or ‘sorrow in a godly manner’; and that speaks of the kind of sorrow that is in accord with God’s will. It’s a feeling of sorrow over the fact that we would disobey God and harm our relationship with Him. But the other kind of sorrow is what he calls ‘the sorrow of the world’. It’s the kind of sorrow that grieves over just being rebuked and made to feel bad. It’s the kind of sorrow that was felt by such characters in the Bible as Cain—who was sorry about being under the curse of God for killing his brother; or Esau—who was sorry for the fact that he had despised his birthright, and lost out on the blessing of his father as a result; or even Judas—who was sorry that he had betrayed our Lord … and then went out and hung himself. It’s sorrow over suffering the pain and loss that comes from sin—but nothing more. It’s the sorrow that comes from getting caught—but not repenting. If you want to put it this way, it’s the sorrow that leads to regret—but not to genuine repentance.
And those two different kinds of sorrow have two different kinds of results. In verse 10, Paul wrote; “For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death.” If we follow through and truly repent, we experience forgiveness, cleansing, and the full blessings of salvation. But if we are only ‘sorry’ for our situation—and that’s the end of it—then it leads to guilt, and impurity, and finally, judgment.
Now; you might wonder how much sorrow would I have to experience before my sorrow is truly ‘godly sorrow’. How ‘sorry’ do I need to be? Well; always remember that you and I are never saved by ‘how sorry we are’ for sin. We are only saved by the blood that Jesus shed on the cross for us. So I would say that my sorrow is ‘sorrow enough’ if it leads me to truly turn away from my sin and to whole-heartedly trust in the blood of Jesus. As the apostle John put it;
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.
My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation [that is, the atoning sacrifice] for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world (1 John 1:8-2:2).
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Now then; what does that ‘godly sorrow unto repentance’ look like? Paul went on to demonstrate what it looks like through the way that he praised the Corinthians for their response to his letter. This shows us that …
3. GODLY SORROW PRODUCES LIFE-CHANGING ACTION.
In verse 11, Paul said, “For observe this very thing, that you sorrowed in a godly manner …” And how did that kind of sorrow look in actual experience? He went on to give us seven pieces of evidence. We should be careful of these seven things, though; and not let ourselves think that we’re being given a list of items to check off—as though if we do all seven, we have completely repented. But what these seven things do is show us that godly sorrow demonstrates itself in real, practical, appropriate, ‘life-and-attitude’ repentance.
First, he says, “What diligence it produced in you”, or as the New International Version has it, “what earnestness …” When they saw that they sinned, they didn’t just shrug it off. They diligently sought to turn from it. Then he says, “what clearing of yourselves …” They worked hard to give clear, measurable evidence that they had turned from their sin and had put it out of their lives. He said, “what indignation”; but it wasn’t that they were mad at Paul for having written a harsh letter to them, or even that they were mad at the man who was having an inappropriate relationship with his step-mother. Rather, it was that they were mad at themselves. “How could we have let this happen? How could we have been so foolish and disobedient?” He also said, “what fear …” And this may speak of the way that they might have been shocked and fearful at how easily they had slipped into sin. But I think instead that it speaks of their reverent awe of a holy God—and their sense of how horrible it was that they behaved that way in front of Him! Paul then said, “what vehement desire;” or “what longing …” They had no rest in their hearts until things were made right. They very much wanted to do it. Then Paul says, “what zeal;” and this speaks of their passionate concern over the matter, and their ‘godly jealousy’ to rededicate themselves to the lordship of Jesus. And finally, Paul says, “what vindication …” The King James Version has it, “what revenge”; but it’s not the idea that they took vengeance on the sinning man. Rather, it’s that they took ‘vengeance’—as it were—on themselves, and took pains, and made all the sacrifices that were necessary to bring about full justice and righteousness.
At the end of it all, Paul wrote, “In all things you proved yourselves to be clear in this matter.” As far as he was concerned, the matter was done. They had given all the evidence that he could ever want that their sorrow was truly ‘godly sorrow unto repentance’.
As I say; this shouldn’t be seen as a rigid list to follow. What repentance really means in each individual case may be different. But what it does show us is that true ‘godly sorrow’ isn’t just a matter of ‘feeling bad’. It’s a matter of taking decisive action. Do you remember the story of the chief tax collector named Zacchaeus? He was a crook and a thief—a real scoundrel. Yet when Jesus met him and changed his heart, he told the Lord;
“Look, Lord, I give half of my goods to the poor; and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore fourfold.” And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house …” (Luke 19:8-9).
You wouldn’t be left to wonder whether or not Zacchaeus had experienced ‘godly sorrow unto repentance’; would you? You could tell by the evidence of life-changing action.
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So; we see that the sorrow that comes from rebuke for sin does—indeed—hurt for a little while. But we also see that if it’s ‘godly sorrow’—the kind of sorrow that leads to repentance—then it’ll lead to life-changing action. And finally, notice that …
4. THE END RESULT IS MUTUAL JOY AND COMFORT.
In verse 12, Paul says, “Therefore, although I wrote to you, I did not do it for the sake of him who had done the wrong (that is, the man who was having an affair with his own step-mother), nor for the sake of him who suffered wrong (that is, perhaps, the man’s own father), but that our care for you in the sight of God might appear to you.” Or, as it’s put in the New International Version, “that before God you could see for yourselves how devoted to us you are.”
Whether it’s best to see Paul writing in order to show before God how much he cared for them, or to make it plain to themselves how much they cared for him, is a little hard to say. But one thing is very clear: The motive was love. He wanted to share in the comfort and joy with them, and they with him. That’s why—at the end of it all—in verse 13—he adds, “Therefore we have been comforted in your comfort ..”
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Dear brothers and sisters; the whole process of confronting sin, and rebuking it, and calling one another to repentance, is hard work. It’s painful. It results in some of us experiencing bad feelings for a time. It may even result in some of us feeling a little offended. But in the household of God, that sense of ‘feeling bad’ is the first sign of getting better—that is, if it’s truly ‘godly sorrow unto repentance’.
Let’s not run from that ‘feeling bad’ experience, then. Let’s not hide from the sorrow. Let’s let it lead us to repentance—which leads to joy and comfort in the body of Christ. As Pastor James once put it;
Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up (James 4:7-10).
EA
