It's a wonderful privilege to be here again, and it's a delight to serve the conference in this way. And I want to thank my dear friend Scott Brown for the privilege of preaching to you this afternoon. Before we do so, let's pray together. By your birth, your cross, your passion, by your tears of deep compassion, by your mighty intercession, Lord and Savior, help us. Amen.

Savior help us. Amen. It had been a terrible and anxious few months for the Apostle Paul. He had made a quick trip from Ephesus to Corinth, probably by the short sea route between Ephesus and Corinth across the Aegean, to resolve some serious church problems. The trip had proved useless and worse than useless.

He returned to Ephesus both deeply burdened and righteously indignant about the condition of the church in Corinth, and he'd written a stinging letter to that church, which had cost him dearly in the emotional impact it had made on him. It cost him when he wrote it, it cost him after he wrote it, as he worried that the letter would bring no good results. And he worried that perhaps he had been too harsh. Titus had taken the letter to the church in Corinth, But Paul was filled with concern about its effects. What report would Titus bring to him about the church when he returned?

Would it be a report that would fill his soul with even more sorrow? Would he be forced to learn that his great work over several years in Corinth was all coming to nothing. But in the midst of those worries, persecution had arisen in Ephesus. He had almost lost his life in those persecutions. And finally he had left Ephesus for Greece and Macedonia, traveling overland.

He had hoped to meet Titus north of Ephesus in Turkey, in Troas, and there to receive his report. Hopefully for better, but also Paul feared for worse. But Titus was not in Troas when he arrived. Why, Paul wondered. Was this more reason to be concerned?

In spite of an open door for the Gospel in Troas, he traveled on into Macedonia. Once more Titus was not present where he expected to meet him and his heart sank even lower. But then finally somewhere in Macedonia, Titus arrived and brought his report to the Apostle and all praise the Lord he brought wonderful news of the repentance and obedience of the Corinthian church to the Apostle. Paul's heart rose to heights of relief and joy which he had known few times in his life. All this is the very emotional backdrop of one of the most important passages on repentance in the Bible and certainly in the New Testament.

And that passage is 2 Corinthians chapter 7, and I want to read there verses 5 to 13. Please look at the passage. 2 Corinthians 7 verses 5 to 13. For even when we came into Macedonia, our flesh had no rest, but we were afflicted on 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 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, And 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. What does repentance look and feel like in real life?

Well the past has just read in your hearing gives us a portrait of this crucial grace of repentance. And there are six observations on repentance as it occurred among God's people at Corinth, which I want to share with you this afternoon. They provide many important lessons about repentance, and before we begin to look in detail at each of those points of interest, let me tell you what they are. We will see the necessity of repentance, the unity of repentance, the causality of repentance, the identity of repentance, the utility of repentance, and then finally the fertility of repentance. So the first point is this, the necessity of repentance.

Two questions under this point. First, what was their sin? Well it's crystal clear from this passage that the church in Corinth had grievously sinned against Christ in the person of his apostle Paul. Sinning against Paul was sinning against Christ because he was Christ's apostle. Remember what Jesus made so clear in the gospels, Matthew 10.40, he who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives him who sent me.

Or Luke 10.16, The one who listens to you listens to me, and the one who rejects you rejects me, and he who rejects me rejects the one who sent me." Well, they had rejected Christ's apostle, and so they had rejected Christ the Savior. And this is clear from verse 9, which says that they experienced a godly sorrow for their sins, which led them to repentance. So what was their sin? Well, they had failed to obey, really refused at first to obey, the apostles dictates with regard to the discipline of someone who had sinned in the church at Corinth. Look at verse 12.

"'So though I wrote you, it's not for the sake of the offender, nor for the sake of the one offended. So there was this offender. He had gone there. He had written them a letter. He had told them to put the person under discipline and they had refused.

That was their sin. And we need to connect with this one other passage in 2 Corinthians. So please look in your Bibles at 2 Corinthians 2 verses four to 11. 2 Corinthians 2, four to 11. It'll give some more background to what we're seeing in our own passage.

For out of much affliction and anguish of heart, I wrote to you with many tears, not so that you would be made sorrowful, but that you might know the love which I have especially for you. But if any has caused sorrow, he has caused sorrow not to me, but in some degree, in order not to say too much to all of you. Sufficient for such a one is this punishment, which was inflicted by the majority. So on the contrary, you should rather forgive and comfort him. Otherwise such a one might be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow.

Wherefore I urged you to reaffirm your love for him, for to this end also I wrote, so that I might put you to the test, whether you are obedient in all things, but one whom you forgive anything, I forgive also. For indeed what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, I did it for your sakes in the presence of Christ, so that no advantage would be taken of us by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his schemes." What was their repentance then if this was their sin? Well it's clear from the passage isn't it? Oh we have read how Titus finally reported to Paul that they had taken action. They had changed their minds about their original stubbornness and disobedience, and they had taken the action needed as a church and punished the man.

All of this tells us that sometimes we need special times of repentance even as Christians. And thus we learn that even Christians need to repent. And out of that simple thought a number, at least a couple of important lessons flow and need emphasis here. Let me say first of all what I'm sure most of you believe, but which needs to be said very clearly in our day. It is a false doctrine which says that Christians do not need to repent and be forgiven of their sins after they are justified at the beginning of the Christian life.

That's a false doctrine. Do what I did. Search the internet. Find all the people on the Internet that are telling Christians, well, you're justified, you don't need to repent again. That was for the Old Testament.

That was for someplace else and somebody else. Christians don't need to repent. They're already forgiven of all their sins. But According to our text, Christians do need to feel sorrow for their sins and repents. Assuredly, you cannot repent without this being expressed in confession of sin.

And it's clearly of repentance that the wise man is speaking when he says in Proverbs 28, 13, he who conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will find compassion. The notion that Christians need only repent and be forgiven at the beginning of their Christian life is of course flatly contrary to the confession. Chapter 15, paragraph 4, as repentance is to be continued throughout the whole course of our lives upon the account of the body of death and the motions thereof, so does every man's duty to repent of his particular known sins particularly. The notion that Christians do not need to repent is both a dangerous and a confusing doctrine. It's dangerous because one of the marks of being a true Christian is ongoing confession of sin.

If we go on confessing our sins, he goes on forgiving our sins and cleansing us from all unrighteousness, And in the context there in 1 John, read it for yourself, someone who does not do that raises questions about the very validity of his Christian profession. And it's a confusing doctrine to Christians because every Christian has planted in him by the Holy Spirit, the instinct, the spiritual instinct to repent when he sins. Put your fingers in your ears and run from the person who says that Christians don't need to repent after they are first justified. But here's another thing we learn. It is necessary for Christians sometimes to feel sorrow for and repent of specific sins against God and his people.

Now of course we have everyday sins we have to confess. Every day we have sins of infirmity and weakness that we have to confess, and we should confess in our daily times of prayer. But here in Corinth there was a serious, specific, and outward sin that the church there had committed. Here was a sin for which they had to feel sorrow, repent, and take specific actions to correct the wrong they had done. This was not a little sin.

It was not a sin of infirmity. This was a big sin. And the confession tells us what must happen. Whereas there is none that doth good and sin is not and the best of men may through the power of deceitfulness of their corruption dwelling in them with the prevalence of temptation fall into great sins and provocations. God hath in the covenant of grace mercifully provided the believers so sinning and falling be renewed through the repentance on to salvation." Is there someone here with a big sin that they've hardened their heart over and that you need now to recognize and see and engage in deep and specific repentance for that sin?

It is possible for Christians to commit these big sins, and it is necessary for them to feel sorrow for such sins, repent, and take care of them. And the last thing, and I won't say a lot about it, is that it's very clear from our passage that it's possible for whole churches to sin corporately. We don't often think about corporate sin, but it's clear that the church at Corinth has sinned corporately. We may be overtaken not only by our own personal sins, but by the sins of the families, organizations, and churches of which we are a part. And when we are overtaken by such sins, when there is corporate sin, there must be corporate repentance.

But think of the second place of the unity of repentance. Do you see how Paul describes the sorrow and repentance of the Corinthians in verse 10? He says, Therefore 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. Repentance in God's people is the same kind of thing as repentance which leads to life in the unsaved. Both are the sorrow which leads to salvation.

Both are the repentance which leads to salvation and not death. And thus we are not to think that the repentance to which the unconverted are called is somehow different in kind from that to which Christians are called in order to continue on the narrow way that leads to life. This is what marks life on the narrow way for the believer. Both, both the repentance of the unbeliever and of the believer are the sorrow which leads to repentance and which in turn leads to eternal life. And again, important lessons here.

The repentance and faith which bring men to salvation are not one-time acts, but continuing paths. There is a saying that goes, the faith of a moment brings life for eternity, not if it lasts only for a moment. And the same thing goes for repentance. It is the ongoing experience of the Christian. The repentance, which is only a one-time act, is not saving repentance.

Some of you are young Christians. You've joined the church. You've been baptized. You're saying to yourself, wow, I'm glad I've got repentance over with. I'm sorry.

It's not true, young brother, young sister. Repentance is a path in the Christian life and not just a gate to the Christian life. But then you must not wonder if you are a Christian because you have to keep on repenting. There are brothers and sisters who get down on themselves and question their salvation because they have to repent so much. Pastor, I just have to go on repenting.

What's wrong with me? Nothing! You're a Christian! The path of the Christian life is the path of ongoing confession of sin. When you are saved, God gives you the hoe of repentance to hoe the garden of your heart.

And you will have to use the hoe of repentance to hoe up the weeds of your heart all the way till harvest time. And here's another lesson. Never get tired of repenting because to get tired of repenting is to get tired of being a Christian. Have you ever heard a little voice in your heart rising up, whispering to your soul, aren't you sick and tired of all this groveling and repentance? Can't there be a better way than this?

No, not according to the Bible, because the narrow way that leads to life is the narrow way of ongoing repentance for sin. But then look at what I call, I'm not sure this is the best word to use, but I'll give you a couple of others, the causality of repentance. The causality of repentance. Paul does something very interesting here in our passage. He talks about what we might call the psychology of repentance or the cause of repentance.

In fact this is one of the most important passages in the Bible on the psychology of repentance and what causes repentance. This cause of repentance is closely related to it, so closely related to it, because it always leads to repentance and always precedes repentance. The cause of repentance is what Paul calls sorrow according to God. The word will is not in the original. It's simply sorrow according to God.

Since, however, the preposition translated according to means by the standard of, the idea is that this sorrow is according to the will of God. That is, it is a sorrow which meets God's standards. It is therefore a sorrow for conduct which has violated the revealed or perceptive will of God. It is a sorrow for things which one has done and about which one really should be sorry. All this is confirmed by the contrast Paul draws here between a sorrow according to God and a sorrow according to the world.

The term sorrow as used here simply means in the Greek, grief, sadness, or anxiety. The phrase sorrow of the world means the sorrow caused by the wrong priorities of the world. We have an example of this. The same word is used of the rich young ruler who left Jesus having heard the demands of the Gospel sorrowing. We also learn, by the way, from our text that it is possible to be too sorrowful.

Of the man who was finally disciplined by the church at Corinth, we read in 2 Corinthians 2.7, so on the contrary you should rather forgive and comfort him, otherwise such one might be overwhelmed by what? Excessive sorrow. Now I deduce on the basis of this text that such overwhelming sorrow is spiritually dangerous. I think this is because it might destroy the newfound repentance of someone. It is also then a kind of sorrow of the world.

And we also learn related to us the fact that the goal of godly sorrow is not godly sorrow. That is, neither Paul nor his Savior wants you to feel bad just for the sake of feeling bad. Look at 2 Corinthians 2, 4 again, For out of much affliction and anguish of heart, I wrote to you with many tears, not so that you would be made sorrowful, but that you might know the love which I have especially for you." He wrote to make them sorry, but not to make them go on being sorrowful. You see, a godly sorrow is a sorrow for the right things, in the right measure, for the right time, and for the right reason. It's one of the great causes or ingredients in true repentance.

And in verse 10, Paul says that it produces repentance. And in verse 11, Paul says that it produces all the fruits of repentance of which we will speak when we come to that verse. And all of this again teaches us important lessons. The first one is this. Where there is no godly sorrow, There can be and will be no true repentance.

This should make you feel really bad for anyone who can do stuff for which they ought to feel really bad, and yet they feel nothing, No regret, no sorrow, no desire to change. One who cannot feel sorrow for their sins cannot repent, and one who cannot repent cannot be saved. Weep for your children when they do bad and cannot feel bad for their sin. Weep for your friends who do not grieve when they sin. Weep for yourself if you can sin and feel no sorrow for it.

Here's something else we learn. True religion is unavoidably experiential. True religion is unavoidably experiential. There is no true religion where there is no repentance, and there is no repentance where there is no godly sorrow, and that is an experience. No experience of sorrow, then no true religion.

Now I want to qualify that in a certain way or make sure you understand what I mean anyhow. I know that different people feel and express sorrow in different ways. Sorrow does not always mean outward weeping. It may mean inward anxiety. It may mean silent grief.

But when a person is saved, he feels something that moves his soul toward God in repentance. I'm not calling then for any particular expression of sorrow. I am only saying what the text says, that only godly sorrow can produce repentance. But then we learn this as well. Feeling miserable and sorry for your sins, while necessary, is not the goal or destination of feeling sorry for your sins.

The goal, Paul says, is not to make you feel miserable. God is not a sadist, and He does not want His people to be masochists. While the Christian life is not feeling happy, happy, happy all the time, that's a lie, It is also not, however, feeling bad and miserable and worse all the time. Sorrow for sin is not the end in itself. Repentance, forgiveness, and then joy and peace in believing is the goal.

Well, the Christian always looks back with loathing on himself and his former lifestyle with shame. That does not mean that his present feelings may not be joy and peace in believing because of felt forgiveness of sins and hope of certain glory. Here's something else. Not every kind of sorrow or every degree of sorrow is helpful or even a hopeful sign of repentance. The rich young ruler was sorry and left Christ.

The man in Corinth was sorry, But too much sorrow, Paul feared, might swallow up and destroy his new repentance. Being continually miserable and sad is not a mark of grace, and it's not a sign of a healthy spiritual condition. Repent, this is the message of Scripture, believe the Gospel. Receive the forgiveness of your sins. Know then peace with God and be happy in Jesus.

This is the life which the Bible calls the Christian to. Repentance is not just feeling bad. Some kinds of feeling bad, Paul warns us, lead to death. But then in the fourth place I want you to notice the identity of repentance. So the great question is What is this repentance which Godly sorrow leads us to?

And Scott warned you at the beginning of this conference how many times you would hear this. Repentance is a deep-seated change of mind. The word used in Greek here for the repentance is the major word for repentance, of the three used for repentance in the New Testament, and it literally means a change of mind. It's composed of two Greek words, after and thought. And so repentance is an after thought.

But let's make sure what the New Testament means by that. The great illustration of this comes back time and time again in the book of Acts where the Jews are again and again and again accused of crucifying the Prince of life whom God raised then from the dead. The point is they're being called to think differently than they did before about what they had done. For them repentance would mean saying, That was wrong. That was enormously wicked when I cried out in that crowd, crucify him, crucify him.

I must confess my sins to God. I must seek forgiveness for the awful defiance of the divine will which I myself and the rest of my fellow Jews committed there. Repentance meant, you see, an inner reversal and revolution of that whole sequence of events. And there are here two equal and opposite danger which other men have warned you about this week and which I want to bend the nail over again with regard to this whole matter of repentance being a change of mind and afterthought. First, when we look at the biblical word for repentance and see that it means a change of mind or afterthought and trivialize what it means.

When we talk about changing our mind or having an afterthought, we mean, oh, Maybe I better pack an extra pair of socks for the NCFIC conference. Or we might have some other trivial change of mind. But this is not what the Word and the Bible is talking about. Such changes of mind as repentance refers to must be in our basic and life-shattering. There's a change of mind about Jesus and our entire worldview, but sometimes people just don't get that.

But the fact is repentance means a mental earthquake arising from a basic shift in the tectonic plates of our mind. It is life-changing. But having said that, that brings me to a second danger. Since repentance is life changing and produces works, some people then begin to think of repentance as defined by penance or good works. Then the subtle danger is to think that forgiveness, which repentance brings, is a reward for the works which we do in repentance.

If I say the Lord's Prayer a hundred times over, if I don't eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner today, maybe then God will forgive my sins because that's a good work showing that I'm really sorry for my sins. It is true, listen to me, It is true that repentance produces good works. It is true that if it does not produce works, it's not genuine repentance. Clearly repentance produced great changes in the Corinthian church, But repentance is fundamentally something in the heart and in the mind. Forgiveness is given because of that change of mind, before that change of mind ever produces any good works or changed lifestyle.

We must not allow the doctrine of repentance to lead us subtly into work salvation. We must not reason. Repentance means good works. Repentance is the condition of forgiveness of sins. God forgives me on the condition that I do good works." No.

No. No. Forgiveness is granted not on the basis of works done in penitence, but only because of the change of mind which makes us seek refuge from our sins in Christ. But that brings me in the fifth place to the utility of repentance. The utility of repentance.

I've already noticed that repentance is the path that leads to life and salvation. I want to emphasize that now in a different way. Notice verses nine and 10 again. And 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 is at pains here to say that repentance does not mean loss but gain. Repentance does not mean damnation but salvation. He is a pains to say here that you'll never repent of repentance, You'll never regret the regretting of repentance. The godly sorrow which leads to repentance is a feeling bad, and you'll never feel bad about that feeling bad. That's what Paul is saying.

You'll never regret to repentance because it brings you life and salvation. Now let me apply that. We live in a very, very emotional and subjective generation. Everything has conspired to make us think that if something makes us feel bad, it must be bad. If something makes us feel bad, we must avoid it at all cost.

Our generation really believes that there is nothing good about feeling bad, and thus there is a tremendous resistance to feeling bad. But that resistance to feeling bad will be the death of our generation. That is because the Bible teaches that you can never feel good until you feel bad. It teaches that for the wicked children of Adam, the path to feeling good must be the path to feeling bad. That it teaches that the path of salvation for the wicked children of Adam is always down the path of feeling bad for your sins.

And so, related to that then, do not sit there resisting because you're immersed in this subjectivism of our generation, resisting any rising feeling in your heart to feel bad for your sins. Those bad feelings my friends don't mean loss, they mean gain. They do not mean damnation, they mean salvation. They do not lead to death but life. Accept that feeling, nurture that feeling, Deepen that feeling by thinking about the evil of the wicked things you have done.

And do that with no fear of the consequences. Let that feeling bring you to a new view of yourself and of your past. Let it bring you to repentance and consequently to forgiveness of sins and thus to salvation and then to life and then to true joy. Do not let Satan scare you away from feeling godly sorrow." Well, all of that brings us to our sixth point, which I have, you may think it's a little bit funny or whimsical, I don't know, called the fertility of repentance. Now, I think people at this conference believe in fertility, right?

I mean that repentance, when I speak of the fertility of repentance, I mean that it is a womb which gives birth to many babies. The godly sorrow of which our passage speaks gives birth not to quintuplets, not to septuplets, but to septuplets. There are seven, seven repentance babies mentioned in verse 11, and when I have briefly commented on each of them, we will be done. So notice first of all the first thing that true repentance gave birth to in the Corinthian believers. Paul says, The term earnestness is frequently translated diligence.

Godly sorrow produced diligence or earnestness in the Corinthians. Maybe some of the Corinthians do at some level. We should do something about that guy, but you know, life is busy. There's lots of stuff to do. We have other priorities as a church.

We've got to worry about all this other stuff we're doing in the church. And this church discipline case, well, it's just not much of a priority. But when Paul wrote them, they replaced that laziness and that lackadaisical-ness with diligence. Paul's letter straightened out their priorities. Their godly sorrows straightened out their priorities.

It revealed their laziness, and they got busy making things right in their lives and churches. And the question is, for us, What do you need to get busy doing? What earnestness should be produced in you? But here's the second baby. What vindication of yourselves?

The term vindication means a defense. It's used to making a defense in a courtroom or making a defense of the gospel. Now how did the Corinthians make a defense of themselves in their godly sorrow? Well clearly they were not defending their sins, were they? Exactly the opposite.

So what does Paul mean by saying that their repentance gave birth to making a defense? Well, think about what happened in Corinth. Their rejection of the commands and wishes of the Apostle Paul implied something very terrible about them when you understood Paul's apostolic status. It implied that they were departing from the apostles of Christ for a false gospel and for different false apostles. In fact, Paul warns them against these false apostles a few chapters later.

The poor way they had treated Paul badly reflected on them, Badly reflected upon their reputation as true Christians. And they saw this now, and they determined to do something about it, to clear their names of the legitimate suspicion which their sin had brought upon them. They brought that defier of the apostle to justice and punished him, and in so doing punished their own sins and cleared their own names. We ought to be concerned about our Christian reputations. When our sins have brought shame on us, we must engage in open life changes that clear our Christian names of guilt.

And so the question comes to each one of us here this afternoon. How do you need to clear your name in repentance because of your past sin? What do you need to do to defend yourself and your Christian reputation? But there's a third baby. This baby's name is indignation.

Maybe you don't know what indignation means. Indignation means anger. Paul says, isn't it interesting, that their repentance made them angry. Wow, how so? Well, this is what the Corinthians felt when they realized their sinfulness.

What was it that moved them to such anger? It was their own failure to act righteously in a case of church discipline. And they not only saw, well that was not good, we should have done something. They got angry at themselves. We get angry at ourselves about lots of things, but do we get angry at ourselves about our sins?

You see, it was their disappointing of the Apostle Paul that made them angry. It was the rebellious wickedness of the offender that made them angry. And, well, they should have been angry. When you feel righteous anger, it's intended to make you do something. It is.

When you feel righteous anger, it's intended to make you do something. You know, anger makes you want to do something – yell, scream, and break things, right? Well, that's what unrighteous anger makes you want to do. But anger as an emotion given by God, righteous indignation like the indignation of 2 Corinthians 7-11, makes you want to do something. And if it's unrighteous anger, that's very bad.

But if it's righteous anger, we should listen to what that anger wants to make us do. Righteous anger also makes us want to do things. Repent of our sins. Break our bad habits. Pray loudly for God to work in our life and family.

And is it the case that some of you ought to feel just a little more angry about your sins, just a little more angry about some of the things you're permitting in your life? If you feel that righteous anger, it is to move you to take action against your sins. What is it that God wants you to feel righteous anger about in repentance? But here's the fourth baby. Paul says, what?

Fear. What fear? So this baby's name is Fear. The Bible speaks, as we learned last year at this conference and especially from our dear brother Scott, of many kinds of fear. There is godly fear, there is slavish fear, there is sinful fear.

What kind of fear is this that the Corinthians felt? Well, the two closest occurrence of fear in this context are 2 Corinthians 7, 5, For even when we came into Macedonia, our flesh had no rest, but we were afflicted on every side, conflicts without, fears within. There's fear. And then verse 15, his affection abounds all the more towards you as he remembers the obedience of you all and how you received him with fear and trembling. Wow.

In this context, fear is a reference to a fear of what might happen to you. Paul was afraid of what kind of sorrow might happen to him. The Corinthians were afraid of what Titus was going to do when he showed up. They were afraid of what might happen. The Bible teaches that inevitably without repentance of sin, bad things happen.

Bad things happen. And you should be afraid if you won't repent. What you sow, you will reap. And then suddenly the Corinthians saw what they had sown and were in fear of what they might reap." Now they could clearly forecast a terrible reaping if they did not repent. Godly sorrow for sin was followed by a godly fear of its consequences.

What do you have to fear? What do I have to fear if we do not feel godly sorrow over that sin and repent? But the fifth baby, what longing. This word means to feel a deep yearning, love and concern for someone or something. It's used of a reference to longing for the resurrection body.

Paul's longing to visit the Roman churches. The Thessalonian believers longing to see Paul. Paul longing to see Timothy. Epaphroditus' concern and longing for the Philippian believers because they had heard he was sick. It's used of the longing of new Christians for the milk of the word.

It's used of the longing of the deer for the brooks of water. And it seems therefore that the longing to which Paul refers here is a longing of the Corinthian believers with regard to their relationship to and the feelings of the Apostle Paul. They had grievously wounded him by their sins. They were concerned about how they had wounded him. Titus, no doubt, told them how Paul was feeling when he left, and they were wounded.

And by this, and they were longing with regard to their relationship to Paul. To repentance on a human and horizontal level will mean a deep desire to mend relationships with those we have offended. It will lead to a longing to restore deep Christian fellowship with those we have wounded? And so the question again comes to us very practically. Relationship do you have to mend?

How should you be longing for some broken relationship because of your sin? For whom should you be longing? And with whom should you be desiring to restore a relationship of Christian love?" Well, we're almost there, the sixth baby. What zeal? This word can be used in a bad sense for jealousy, but of course that's not how it's used here.

It's used of the zeal of the Corinthian church to contribute to the offering Paul was taking for the Jerusalem church just two chapters later. Zeal is the heart of ardent action. Their godly sorrow filled them with a godly and fervent desire to take action against sin on behalf of the Apostle Paul. Our attack on sin in our lives, here's the lesson, should not be half-hearted. Our attack on sin in our lives should not be lukewarm, but it should be carried out with zeal.

And now the seventh baby emerges from the womb of these septuplets, And that baby is described by Paul as what? Avenging of wrong. Wow, avenging of wrong? This is the normal word used for vengeance in the New Testament. It's the word used in Romans 12 19 where God says vengeance is mine and tells us not to take vengeance.

Yet here the Corinthians are commended for taking vengeance on avenging of wrong. How shall we explain this? Well, true repentance makes people want to punish their sins. It makes them want to take vengeance on them, and this is very instructive. We are often taught today that the work of growing in grace or progressive sanctification is so completely a work of God is that all we need to do is revisit our justification by faith alone as the sole means of growing in grace and of sanctification.

We are often told that our duty is simply to let go and let God, to rely and relax, but Paul teaches here that all that teaching is half-truth. Yes, we never get over believing in Christ for the power and grace and strength and spirit that comes from him to help us grow in grace, but that is not the whole of it. Repentance means taking vengeance on our sin, personal zeal against sin, deep longing to make things right, feeling of fear and indignation which makes us want to diligently vindicate ourselves. This is the work of progressive sanctification. It is a work that deeply involves the stirring up to action of our redeemed humanity against sin by the Spirit of God.

This entire passage witnesses against the half-truths being taught today with regard to sanctification, witnesses that though we are justified by faith alone, we are not in the same sense sanctified by faith alone. Last word belongs to Paul. He says, and everything you demonstrated yourselves to be innocent in the matter. Now of course he doesn't mean that they were innocent of sin. According to what we've been saying, these words do not refer to demonstrating themselves to be innocent of sin.

They rather refer to showing themselves to be innocent of the implications of that sin. They refer to showing themselves to be genuine Christians in spite of the fact that they had sinned. Do you want to show that you're a real Christian? Do you want to give others reason to praise God for your clear Christian profession? Do you want to show that you are innocent of the accusations which Satan and your own sin have raised about the genuineness or depth of your Christianity?

Here's what you do. Feel godly sorrow and repent. Let's pray. Father, we thank you and praise you for the opportunity to walk through this passage, learn the great lessons about godly sorrow and repentance which it teaches us. Thank you for your mercy and help.

Grant your people understanding. Grant that your word might, as a seed, fall deeply into their hearts and bring forth repentance. Give them understanding in all things, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen.