2 Corinthians chapter 7, that's in the New Testament,
close to the back of your Bible. We'll start
in verse 2. Accept us, we have wronged no one,
corrupted no one, defrauded no one. I don't say
this to condemn you, for I have already said
that you are in our hearts. to live together
and to die together. I have great confidence
in you. I have great pride in you. I am filled
with encouragement. I am overcome with joy in
all our afflictions. In fact, when we came into
Macedonia, we had no rest. Instead, we were troubled
in every way. Conflicts on the outside, fear
inside. But God, who comforts the humble, comforted
us by the arrival of Titus, and not only by his
arrival, but also by the comfort he received
from you. He told us about your deep longing,
your sorrow, and your zeal for me, so that I
rejoiced even more. For even if I grieved you
with my letter, I do not regret it, even though
I did regret it since I saw that the letter grieved
you, yet only for a little while. Now I rejoice,
not because you were grieved, but because your
grief led to repentance. For you were grieved
as God willed, so that you didn't experience
any loss from us. For godly grief produces a
repentance not to be regretted and leading to
salvation. But worldly grief produces death.
For consider how much diligence this very thing,
this grieving is God's will, has produced in
you. What a desire to clear yourselves. What
indignation, what fear, what deep longing, what
zeal, what justice. In every way you showed yourselves
to be pure in this matter. So even though I wrote
to you, it was not because of the one who did
wrong or because of the one who was wrong, but
in order that your diligence for us might be
made plain to you in the sight of God. For this
reason we have been comforted. In addition to
our comfort, we rejoiced even more over the joy
Titus had, because his spirit was refreshed by
all of you. For if I have made any boast to him
about you, I have not been embarrassed. But as
I have spoken everything to you in truth, So
our boasting to Titus has also turned out to
be the truth. And his affection towards you is
even greater as he remembers the obedience of
all of you and how you received him with fear
and trembling. I rejoice that I have complete
confidence in you. Let's pray. God, we come to
you. We thank you for this good word and the
reminder that it is, dear Lord, that sometimes
we... need to be corrected. And so I pray, dear
Lord, that we would have a right response to
your word when they convict us, dear Lord, or
maybe when other people point out things in our
life that are not the way they should be. God,
I pray that we would not grieve ourselves to
death, but that we would grieve ourselves to
repentance, dear Lord, that we would see the
things in our life, the sin in our life that's
not... It's not right, dear Lord, and that we
would turn from it and turn to you. I pray that
your Holy Spirit would be with us tonight, that
you would lead me in the words that I'll say
for these next few minutes, God, that you meet
us where we are. I pray that we'd be free of
distractions and worries, and I pray that everything
here tonight will be for your glory. And I ask
these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Now, throughout
this book, we've seen... kind of this theme of
Paul really defending himself. It appears as
though the people in Corinth, maybe they're being
swayed away by other people teaching different
things. Maybe they're talking bad about Paul.
Maybe there's a little bit of tension there with
Paul. After all, when you read 1 Corinthians,
he was pretty stern with them on a couple of
things that were going on, a couple of things
that needed to be corrected. And that's a hard
part of being a brother or sister in Christ because
certainly grace is what Christianity is. And
so we want to be those who show mercy and grace.
But then there are also times in Scripture that
we see Jesus or we see Paul talk about that sometimes
things arise in the church amongst brothers and
sisters in Christ. And sometimes those things
have to be addressed. And sometimes we kind of
go too far one way or another. Sometimes we say,
well, I want to be gracious. I'm not going to
say anything. I'm just going to give grace. And
other times we say, ah, that person's doing wrong.
I'm going to point out everything they're doing
wrong. And sometimes we can go too far one way
or another, and we don't want to be guilty of
either. We want to give people grace, but at
the same time, we don't want people to continue
to live in sin, especially not in a... group
of believers, not in a church. We want to keep
a loving spirit. We want to be obedient to God.
We want to do as God wills. We don't want any
drama or any trouble, or we don't want to do
anything that's going to make God look bad. We
are God's representatives, and so we want people
to see the Lord in us. We don't want to just
give grace and let people get away with everything,
but on the flip side, We don't want to stand
at the door and point out, well, I saw what you
did and I know what you did and I know what you
said and just start making a list of people's
sins and calling them out. Both of those things
can be dangerous. And so we need to be very prayerful
in life because there are times in life that
we step out of line. There are times in life
that other people step out of line. But our desire
should be for brothers and sisters in Christ
to not live in a sinful way. And that should
be... others desires in our life we do it out
of love when we see someone that's harming themselves
or doing something that's not healthy we don't
want to see them continue down that path no more
than you would allow a child or a grandchild
to do something dangerous i say that maybe you
would i don't know there's some some parents
and grandparents they let their kids do stuff
and i think man i don't know that doesn't seem
like a like a healthy thing to do it seems like
maybe you need to step in and say no That's a
hard word to say, right? You've got to say no
sometimes. And that's kind of what Paul did in
1 Corinthians, is there were some things going
on, and he stepped in and he said no. Now, it's
believed that Paul probably wrote several letters
to the Corinthians. Maybe what's being referenced
here was something that was said in 1 Corinthians.
Maybe it was in one of these lost letters that
we don't have. It really doesn't matter. Whatever
was said... was a problem that had to be addressed.
And Paul said, look, here's how this problem
needs to be dealt with. Now, how did they respond
to that? Well, that's what Paul was worried about.
How do people respond? How do we respond? Have
we ever been called down by somebody for something
that we did? A way that we were living. A way
that wasn't right. And somebody that loves us
and cares about us, not somebody that was just
passing judgment and condemning us like they
were holier than thou, but they really cared
about us and they sat us down and they said,
look, I'm really worried about you, brother.
I'm really worried about you, sister. I'm worried
about the way you're living and the things you're
doing. Maybe you've had that happen to you before.
Maybe you were the one on the receiving end.
Maybe you were the one on the giving end. But
when people come to us and point things out that
we're doing that aren't right, what's our response?
Well, maybe there's a lot of responses we could
have, but I think we could sum it up probably
in three responses that we would usually have.
Maybe we hear what they say, and it just kind
of depresses us, and we just kind of dwell on
it. It just kind of gets us down, and we just
don't really do anything about it. Or maybe we
get defensive. Maybe that's probably our first
thing. If somebody comes and says, hey, you need
to be careful. You shouldn't say this. You shouldn't
do that. And our first response may be, oh, yeah,
we'll hear about this thing that you're doing.
Okay, well, maybe they are doing something too.
But as Jesus said, we need to take the log out
of our own eye before we try to take the speck
out of our brother's. Now, Jesus doesn't say
don't take the speck out of your brother's eye.
But I think what Jesus says is, if we're going
to try to love and restore people and get them
in the right place, then before we ever start
that process, then we need to check our heart
and make sure we're in the right place and let
God work on us first and make sure we're coming
at this from a position of love and caring about
the person. And so sometimes people may point
out to us, hey, man, you shouldn't have done
that or you shouldn't have said that or maybe
these choices you're making are not healthy choices.
And we may be quick to be defensive and say,
oh, yeah, well, I think what you're doing is
not healthy. And that's not a good response either.
We don't want to just take what somebody tells
us and just give up. We don't want to take what
somebody gives us and become defensive. Perhaps
it'd be good for us just to not say anything
and just think about what they say. And maybe
we think about it. We look to Scripture. We kind
of gauge, okay, here's what my life is. Here's
what the Scripture says. And maybe we really
think about what they say and pray about what
they say. And maybe the accusations or the concerns
that they have, maybe they're not, maybe they're
unwarranted. Maybe you look at it and you say,
no, I don't think I'm doing wrong in this area.
But then again, maybe somebody comes to you and
says, look, brother, look, sister, I love you.
And here's some stuff going on and you can't
keep living this way. And maybe our response
is we hear that. We think about that, and we
say, you know what? He's right. She's right.
This isn't healthy. And that's the response that
Paul got. Paul had told them some pretty tough
things, and what was their response going to
be? Well, what he told them grieved them, and
that hurt Paul. Paul said, look, I didn't want
to grieve them. I don't want to grieve you no
more than I don't. I don't have a child, but
I would assume no more than a parent wants to
discipline a child. You probably don't have pleasure
in that, I would imagine. Most people don't have
any pleasure in punishing their child or whipping
their child. There's no joy in that. You know
that brings some amount of grief to your child,
and as a parent, it brings some grief to you.
But you have to do it. If you love them, you
have to. If you don't discipline your child,
then you have to ask yourself the question, do
you really love your child? If the child is doing
something dangerous and deadly and they continue
to do it and they're over there and they're playing
by the fire and you say, don't get too close
to that fire and they keep getting closer to
the fire and you say, don't get close to that
fire, well, you know the result. If they get
too close to that fire, they could be burned,
they could be killed. And so at some point, if
they don't listen to your warnings, you may have
to get stern and you may have to get on to them
pretty hot and heavy. And you may have to say,
don't get near that fire and pop them a couple
times. And then they'll probably cry. And it'll
hurt their feelings. And you don't want to do
it. But what's better? To have a child that's
going to cry for five minutes and get over it?
Or to have a child that falls into the fire?
Paul didn't want the Corinthians to fall into
the fire. He saw that they were making some decisions
and choices and doing some things that believers
shouldn't do. And so he had to address it. And
that's what we see in these verses. In verse
8, he says, For even if I grieved you with my
letter, I do not regret it, even though I did
regret it since I saw the letter grieve you,
yet only for a little while. He says, look, I
don't regret what I did. I did a little bit because
I knew it was going to grieve you, but I knew
it was going to be short -lived. But I had to
do this. I had to do this. I had to get you to
this point. I had to get your attention so that
you realized what you were doing was sinful.
But what does he say in verse 9? Now I rejoice.
Now, why is he rejoicing? He's not saying, oh,
I got on to you and it hurts your feeling so
bad and now you just got the molly grubs and
you feel so bad about what you did. No, that's
not why he's rejoicing. He says, now rejoice,
not because you were grieved, but because your
grief led to repentance. Now, Paul wasn't just
some big meanie. He wasn't just saying, I don't
want these Corinthians to do anything fun. I'm
just going to go and tell them don't do X, Y,
and Z and whatever they like, I'm going to tell
them not to do it. That wasn't Paul's desire
at all. He wasn't trying to be judge of the world
and judge of Corinth. He was seeing the people
who were living in a sinful way and he was concerned
about them and he says, I must address this.
And he did address it. And the result was a good
result. They listened to what he had to say.
And what does he say? He said that your grief
led to... Repentance. That's the goal right there.
That's the goal. Restoration. We don't want to
just call people out for their sin and make them
feel guilty. We want them to really be changed.
We want them to know that we love them. We could
go get a megaphone today and go stand out on
the street corner tomorrow in Liberty, and we'd
see a lot of people that come by and a lot of
people that we know things that they did, and
we could just call them all out. You did this,
and you did that, and you did the other. But
what's the goal in that? Is there any love in
that? Is there any restoration that's going to
take place in that? Absolutely not. And that's
not what Paul's doing. He said, look, you got
some problems and you need to deal with these
problems and you need to deal with these people
and you need to try to restore these people.
And when they heard what Paul said to them, they
listened to what he said and it led to repentance.
What is repentance? Repentance is simply turning
from your sin. It's not just saying, okay, God,
forgive me, and going back to it, but saying,
okay, I'm going in this direction towards sin,
and now I realize Paul has taken the blinders
off and shook me and woke me up, and now we realize,
wait a minute, I'm going in the wrong direction.
I'm going to turn and go the other way. That's
repentance. To say, okay, I'm living for the
world, I'm living for myself, but wait a minute,
I realize that I'm going in a bad path, but over
here is Jesus, and so I'm going to turn from
my way into the world's way, and I'm going to
turn to Jesus. And that's what the gospel is.
It's that Scripture tells us what sin is, that
we are sinners. The Holy Spirit convicts us.
Are we grieved by our sins and the things that
we do and the way that we act? Does that bring
grief into our life? Probably so. I think it
does for everybody. The question is, how do you
respond to that grief? He said, your grief led
to repentance for you were grieved as God willed
so that you didn't experience any loss from us.
For godly grief produces a repentance not to
be regretted and leading to salvation. Okay?
So you were grieved as God will. Isn't that beautiful
to know that God's part of this process? That
sometimes God allows us to go through things
that are really difficult and really uncomfortable
that make us feel pretty ashamed and make us
feel pretty rotten. God allows us sometimes to
have those life experiences and not because he
doesn't love us, but because he does love us.
God chastens or God disciplines those that he
loves. We look at the story of Job. That's the
story of great suffering. Did God do that because
he didn't love Job? Nope, he did it because he
did love Job. And Job was a pretty righteous
guy. But even still, Job grew in the Lord through
that whole process. There's nothing that happens
in our life that God does not allow to happen.
God is in complete control of everything. There
is not a thing in this world that does not happen
that God does not know about and God does not
allow. Even in the story of Job, Satan wanted
to go get the best of Job. But what did he have
to do? He had to get permission from God. The
devil can't just do what he wants to do. He couldn't
in the story of Job. He can't today. And God
uses sometimes even things that are pretty rough
and bad decisions that we've made. And sometimes
he uses those things to shake us up, to get our
attention so our eyes will be open. And what
did he say? That godly grief produces repentance.
Praise the Lord. That's the kind of grief that
we want to have. Godly grief. We want to see
the things that we do that we're made aware of
that aren't good, that aren't right. And we want
to go to the scripture and we want to go to the
Lord and say, okay, God, I need you to help me
with this. I need you to help me to really look
at my heart. I need you to open my eyes, dear
Lord. I don't want to live this way. Show me
these things. God, I want to repent of these
things. I want to turn from these things. And
Paul says that godly grief. leads to repentance,
or excuse me, produces repentance not to be regretted
and leading to salvation. So that's the goal.
The goal is not just to point out other people's
sins. The goal is not just to be a big meanie.
The goal is I love you and I'm worried about
you and I don't want to see you going down this
path. I want you to turn from this path so that
you can receive salvation. That's the goal of
God. That's the goal of Paul. But what's the
opposite? But worldly grief produces death. Now,
there's a lot of people who are grieving decisions
that they made and things that they've done,
but it's not a godly grief. They're not seeking
God in that. They're just living with that grief.
People go to the grave with that grief. Some
people never seek the strength of God and the
comfort of God. It's some people you've probably
heard or said of folks that they grieve themselves
to death. Sometimes you see that, that people,
they'll lose a loved one and they just never
get over it. And I'm not saying that they're
not Christians, but I'm saying that God doesn't
want us to live in that kind of grief. He wants
us to, in the midst of our grief, trust in Him
and be strengthened by Him and know that He loves
us, whether it's grief of our sin or grief over
a lost loved one or whatever that grief may be.
As the scripture says, we don't want to be those
who grieve like those who have no hope, right?
So grief in and of itself isn't a bad thing,
but grief shouldn't have the final say in our
life. We shouldn't grieve over our sin and just
let it drag us down. We should know that there
is forgiveness through Jesus Christ if we would
only call out to him. And godly grief will lead
to repentance, but worldly grief will lead to
death. He continues on in verse 11. For consider
how much diligence this very thing, this grieving
as God wills, has produced in you. What a desire
to clear yourselves. What indignation, what fear,
what deep longing, what zeal, what justice. In
every way you showed yourself to be pure in this
matter. So there was a change. There was a change
in these people's lives. Paul had called out
some things that they had done. Obviously, they
had listened to those things. They had repented
of those things. And Paul was rejoicing because
he loved these people. He loved that their life
had been changed. And it changed how they acted.
There was a feeling of guilt that was gone. He
said, you have a desire to... Clear yourselves.
I think maybe there he's just saying you've got
a clear conscience. Your whole attitude has changed.
You have been transformed. You have been made
into a new creation. You are on fire from God,
and that's the goal. We don't want to just go
through the motions. We don't want to be those
who are just kind of dragging along in sin. And
maybe there are some things in our life that
shouldn't be the way they are, and maybe there
are times that somebody who loves us... pulls
us aside and say, hey, brother, hey, sister,
I'm worried about you. But if that's ever the
case, we always need to be prayerful about that
if we feel led to do that. We always want to
be prayerful and let that be led by God that
we go into these things with the right attitude.
If we're ever the one that's pulled aside, we
always want to listen to what they say, and that's
hard. We might have to bite our tongue, but we
have to think about who's the person telling
us this. It's probably going to be somebody that
loves us. So we need to listen to our brothers
and sisters in Christ and take what they say
and pray about what they say and see what the
Word of God says so that if we are grieved by
our sin, that we would have a right response
to it. The people of Corinth had a right response
to their grief. They repented. They turned to
God. And as a result, Paul rejoiced over what
had taken place. Let's pray. God, we come to
you. We thank you for your word. I pray that
you would help us to examine our own lives, dear
Lord. Maybe there are some things in our lives
that shouldn't be there. And I pray that you
would point those things out to us, dear Lord,
that your Holy Spirit would convict us. Maybe
even tonight, coming into this building, there
are some things that have been grieving us, dear
Lord. And I pray, God, that your word would...
spoken to us tonight that we would repent of
those things that we would seek you and and not
let the grief get the best of us dear lord not
let our grief cause despair but let our grief
lead us to jesus christ where there is hope and
so i pray god that you would help us to be those
who experience your grace who give that grace
to others those who are corrected by your word
and maybe even by our brothers and sisters in
christ when we need it and god help us to pay
attention to those areas in which you try to
reach out to us and speak to us and make us into
the men and the women that you want us to be.
And I ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.