Messy Christianity Week 1

Remorse that leads to Repentance

The Christian life is not a life that is going to be perfect and seamless. The christian life is a messy life because we are messy people. We are going to sin and we are going to royally mess up in our lives. We are going to be called a hypocrite and we are going to be fall short of living for Christ. This is going to bring about guilt and feeling of inadequacy. That feeling is a good thing when it draws us to repentance. Guilt is going to happen if you sin as a Christian because that guilt draws us to the love of our savior.

One of the most messed up churches in the bible was the Corinthian church. They had not 1 but 2 letters written directly to them correcting issues that the church was dealing with. These issues include adultery, division within the church, people suing church members, and arrogance within the church.

We are going to pick up 2 Corinthians 7:3-13

2 Corinthians 7:3–13 NLT

3 I’m not saying this to condemn you. I said before that you are in our hearts, and we live or die together with you. 4 I have the highest confidence in you, and I take great pride in you. You have greatly encouraged me and made me happy despite all our troubles. 5 When we arrived in Macedonia, there was no rest for us. We faced conflict from every direction, with battles on the outside and fear on the inside. 6 But God, who encourages those who are discouraged, encouraged us by the arrival of Titus. 7 His presence was a joy, but so was the news he brought of the encouragement he received from you. When he told us how much you long to see me, and how sorry you are for what happened, and how loyal you are to me, I was filled with joy! 8 I am not sorry that I sent that severe letter to you, though I was sorry at first, for I know it was painful to you for a little while. 9 Now I am glad I sent it, not because it hurt you, but because the pain caused you to repent and change your ways. It was the kind of sorrow God wants his people to have, so you were not harmed by us in any way. 10 For the kind of sorrow God wants us to experience leads us away from sin and results in salvation. There’s no regret for that kind of sorrow. But worldly sorrow, which lacks repentance, results in spiritual death. 11 Just see what this godly sorrow produced in you! Such earnestness, such concern to clear yourselves, such indignation, such alarm, such longing to see me, such zeal, and such a readiness to punish wrong. You showed that you have done everything necessary to make things right. 12 My purpose, then, was not to write about who did the wrong or who was wronged. I wrote to you so that in the sight of God you could see for yourselves how loyal you are to us. 13 We have been greatly encouraged by this. In addition to our own encouragement, we were especially delighted to see how happy Titus was about the way all of you welcomed him and set his mind at ease.

Paul begins this section of the letter praising the Corinthians. This brings up the first point tonight:

1. Pride in God working

2 Corinthians 7:4 ESV

4 I am acting with great boldness toward you; I have great pride in you; I am filled with comfort. In all our affliction, I am overflowing with joy.

So many times in the world we get to a point where we begin to become cynical if God begins working in a place but is not working in our places. We need to learn to be thankful and prideful that God is working in people’s lives in order to draw them to Him!

We can get into this mentality of our church or our youth group vs yours when we need to realize that we are all on the same team working towards the same goal.

Our goal as a church is for Christ to be magnified throughout our city, state, nation, continent, and world! If God is being magnified then we should rejoice!

Paul is prideful of a church that was bad mouthing him because people were growing in Christ.

2. Joy in the Conflict

2 Corinthians 7:5–7 NLT

5 When we arrived in Macedonia, there was no rest for us. We faced conflict from every direction, with battles on the outside and fear on the inside. 6 But God, who encourages those who are discouraged, encouraged us by the arrival of Titus. 7 His presence was a joy, but so was the news he brought of the encouragement he received from you. When he told us how much you long to see me, and how sorry you are for what happened, and how loyal you are to me, I was filled with joy!

Paul faithfully shared the Gospel to all people and he wrote saying that even though it was difficult both mentally and physically God still brings deliverance.

Paul was dealing with depression throughout this part of his ministry!

Paul was a normal human! Paul was a christian who got discouraged! Paul was a christian who struggled!

But God comforted Paul. God is the one who comforts the depressed! God is the solution to Paul’s depression.

Paul was encouraged through God sending Titus to him.

Titus was the encourager to Paul by proclaiming the turn of heart and repentance of the Corinthian church.

The church was eager to see Paul which intensified his rejoicing because the Church is turning and following after Christ. Paul is rejoicing in their repentance and their growth in Christ.

We need to become encouragers of repentance and rejoice when repentance happens. We need to become a church that is encouraging other Christians to grow in Christ.

3. Growing Grief

2 Corinthians 7:8–10 ESV

8 For even if I made you grieve with my letter, I do not regret it—though I did regret it, for I see that that letter grieved you, though only for a while. 9 As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us. 10 For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.

Paul then writes about the reason for the Corinthians repentance. Paul called out their issues in letter because of his love for them and the sinful way that they were heading.

Paul is able to write this letter because he is the reason that the Corinthian church was founded to begin with. When he wrote the letter he confronted difficult issues that hurt but that was not his sole intention in writing the letter.

Paul did not want to grieve them in a way that would push them further away from God. His letter actually did the opposite and caused them to grieve in repentance. Understanding the God that they were sinning against was the God that brought them salvation and sacrificed himself for them.

Cutting Ties with Darkness: 2 Corinthians Grief that’s Worth It

Not all grief is a bad thing; grief from God that brings about a real change in our hearts and actions is well worth it. It is a passing grief that leads to transformation. It means cutting ties with darkness and walking in the light with Jesus instead.

The grief that is caused happens to each and everyone of us when we sin and are convicted of that sin. The remorse/ grief that we experience good if it leads us to repentance but in vain if it does not.

Godly grief is grief because we understand our sin grieves God so we grieve because of this action.

Psalm 51:4 ESV

4 Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.

David experienced this Godly grief whenever he was confronted by Nathan and the realization of who he had sinned against weighed down on him!

Repentance is not a one time thing but a continual state that Christians should stay in. We must continually turn from our sins and back to Christ. Godly grief is grief that happens from understanding that you just sinned against a Holy God and you hate that you did it!

This brings you to a place in which you turn towards God and away from that sin knowing that God will forgive you.

This grief brings about life because you are repenting of sin because of your love for Christ.

Worldly grief is the grief that happens because the sin you commited hurts someone else or you have been caught in the act. Worldly grief happens naturally and is the common response to sin.

Worldly Sorrow is saying sorry because you got caught where you will return to the sin because there is no substance with the grief.

Worldly Grief is grief because you got caught. This grief brings about death because there is not any repentance involved with it.

The opposite of Worldly Grief is Godly Grief.

Godly grief brings about turning away because you realize the hurt that you have caused a Holy God.

4. Godly Grief is Necessary

2 Corinthians 7:11–13 ESV

11 For see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you, but also what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what punishment! At every point you have proved yourselves innocent in the matter. 12 So although I wrote to you, it was not for the sake of the one who did the wrong, nor for the sake of the one who suffered the wrong, but in order that your earnestness for us might be revealed to you in the sight of God. 13 Therefore we are comforted. And besides our own comfort, we rejoiced still more at the joy of Titus, because his spirit has been refreshed by you all.

Godly grief brings about repentance in which we fully repay whatever wrong we commited. True repentance is repentance without excuses.

We need to be a group of people that takes repentance seriously in which we understand that sin grieves God and we should grieve over our sin because of that.

Tonight there might be some of you that are just now realizing the weight that sin has especially when you look at it through the scope of God grieving over it!

What is it that you are involved in that is grieving God?