Encounter the Truth

Jonathan Griffiths: What do we do in the Christian life when things have gone wrong? Where we’ve traveled some distance down a dangerous road where sin has taken us to a place of true peril and real risk? What do we do when we hit what looks like the end of the road, and we find ourselves asking, where do we go from here?

Steve Hiller: You’re listening to Encounter the Truth with Jonathan Griffiths. I’m Steve Hiller, glad that you’re here. Jonathan, we may have somebody who’s asking a question like that right now. They recognize that they’ve gone down that dangerous road and they don’t like where they are, and they’re like, "But now what? Where do I go from here?"

Jonathan Griffiths: In the passage we’re going to look at together today from 2 Corinthians chapter 7, the apostle Paul speaks of a godly grief that produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret. And if you’re listening today and you are in what you know to be a dangerous place, you’ve embraced sin and you’ve been walking in the wrong direction away from the Lord and not toward him, and you’re desperate to make things right, let me encourage you to take those words as the pattern of what you need to do.

You need to grieve over your sin, recognize how ugly it is and how wrong it is, and then turn from it. Repentance means turning away from it in your heart, in your mind, and in practice, and then turning to the Lord and embracing his salvation in Jesus Christ. He will welcome you; he will welcome you back if there is a godly grief that leads to repentance in your heart and in your life.

No one is so far gone that you can’t turn back. You may feel like it. That’s what the enemy would love you to believe—that you’ve just gone too far and the Lord won’t have you back. No, the Lord welcomes sinners, and he welcomes those who have a godly grief over their sin and are truly repentant. And if that’s where you want to be and that’s where you want to go, the Lord will welcome you even today.

Steve Hiller: What a great word of encouragement as we get started today. So, let’s continue to look at this from 2 Corinthians chapter 7 and begin our message, "Grieving Well Over Sin." Here is Jonathan.

Jonathan Griffiths: One of the more interesting experiences I’ve had in driving took place on the Greek island of Rhodes a couple of years ago. We were making our way back to the house where we were staying from a restaurant from our meal, and we decided to take the scenic route to drive along the coastline, not the inland road, and just to take in the beautiful view. I was probably following my nose at this point, rather than following a particular map or a GPS or anything like that. But in any case, I took a couple of turns that brought us near the coast in an attempt to get us that prized view.

I made one turn off the main road and then another, and then I proceeded down a slightly rougher road, which at some point became a kind of trail, which eventually became very rocky indeed, until at some point there was no longer any trail or road, really, just rock. But the views by this point were really, very good. Other things were less good. We realized eventually that we were essentially clinging to the side of a rocky hill, which honestly felt a bit more like a cliff.

At this point within the car, some rather ungenerous comments were made about the downside of me following my nose and about the overall value of maps. Those comments were perhaps not entirely helpful at this stage, given the rather urgent need there was now to find a place to turn around. No such opportunity presented itself. So, what followed was a rather delicate maneuver of reversing back up this rocky trail until eventually there was a wider area of somewhat flat ground where I could turn the car around and proceed back to something approximating an actual road.

I should add that all this was achieved while driving a stick-shift manual, which I was not especially accustomed to doing, but it did give me an opportunity to practice my clutch control in a very stimulating, real-life situation. What do we do in the Christian life and in the life of the church when we hit what seems like a dead end, when we find ourselves in a situation where we’ve got to turn around and we’ve got to change course in a dramatic way, but we’re not even sure if we can?

What do we do in the Christian life and in the life of the church when things have gone wrong, where there have been some wrong turns, where we’ve traveled some distance down a dangerous road, where sin has taken us to a place of true peril and real risk? What do we do when we hit what looks like the end of the road and we find ourselves asking, where do we go from here?

We would love to imagine that we never hit such situations, that the Christian life, the life of the church, would always be smooth and harmonious and straightforward, that all things would always move forward in faithfulness and never backward in sin. But we know that’s not the reality. Sin creeps in, and sin spoils things. We ourselves stumble, and those around us get things wrong, and sometimes we need to turn around and go the other way. How do we do this, and what does it look like in the life of real believers and a real church family?

2 Corinthians chapter 7 is a wonderful chapter because it shows us that it is possible to turn things around and it shows us what it actually looks like to do so. 1 and 2 Corinthians, as letters, have been marked by a certain amount of discouragement, as the evidence of sin in the life of the Corinthian Christians has become so very apparent and its consequences have been seen to be so very far-reaching.

As we look at the situation from the apostle Paul’s perspective as a pastor who has been grieved by the sin of the people and has indeed been personally hurt by the sin of the people, we could wonder whether Paul would have a whole lot of tolerance for entertaining the idea of a fresh start with the Corinthians. We might wonder whether he would have a whole lot of hope for the Christians at Corinth to move forward in faith.

And given what we have learned of these Christians, we might well wonder whether they have a whole lot of capacity anyway to turn things around, to turn from sin and to embark on a healthier course themselves. But what we see here in 2 Corinthians chapter 7 is clear evidence of the fact that the situation has been turned around in a very significant way. Paul speaks of the fact that these Corinthians have been gripped by a godly grief and have repented of sin, and he overflows with love for them, and he extends to them godly grace in abundant measure.

We see here in this chapter models of godly grace and of godly grief, models which carry powerful lessons for you and for me as we deal with the realities of life as a sinful people who are part of an imperfect church. A huge amount of water has gone under the bridge when it comes to Paul and these Corinthian Christians. We know that there were major sin crises at Corinth. We’ve heard of the grievous sexual sin, the deep social divisions within the church, the personality cults forming around the leaders, the factions and the rivalries, and so much more besides.

Since that first letter, we know as well that Paul has made a painful visit to Corinth, where things went terribly wrong. We know that he’s written to them a forceful letter—a letter that’s now lost to us—probably addressing what went wrong during that most recent visit. And we know that that letter caused a fair bit of grief in the church. Just to remind us all of the flavor of all this, let me just remind us of the beginning of chapter 2, where Paul speaks of their recent history together.

He writes this at the start of chapter 2, "For I made up my mind not to make another painful visit to you. For if I cause you pain, who is there to make me glad but the one whom I’ve pained? And I wrote as I did, so that when I came, I might not suffer pain from those who should have made me rejoice, for I felt sure of all of you, that my joy would be the joy of you all. For I wrote to you out of much affliction and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to cause you pain, but to let you know the abundant love I have for you."

Paul has made one visit to the Corinthians since his first letter, and that visit was painful. It went wrong. We don’t know what went wrong, but it involved sin; that much is clear. Given how much Paul has been needing to defend his ministry again and again in these letters against charges and against criticisms and so on, we sense the issue was probably pretty personal about Paul, a rejection of him, a rebellion against the apostle and his leadership.

In any event, Paul decided to write a strongly worded letter to highlight the sin, to call for repentance. And that lost letter was obviously very bold. But now Paul’s ministry associate Titus has brought him news of the Corinthians and of their response to that tough letter. And the response has been positive, and the news has encouraged the apostle. That’s the background here, the situation as far as we know it.

Now, here in chapter 7, we get a window into the turnaround. We get a window into the Corinthians’ response to Paul’s rebuke, and we get a window into Paul’s response to their repentance, and there’s lots for us to learn here. We begin with the Corinthians’ response to Paul’s letter and what they model for us by way of godly grief over sin, a model of godly grief. This is what Paul has heard from Titus.

He’s reported in the middle of verse 7, "your longing, your mourning, your zeal for me, so that I rejoiced still more. For even if I made you grieve with my letter, I do not regret it, though I did, for I see that the letter grieved you, though only for a while. 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."

Paul didn’t much enjoy writing that tough letter. It wasn’t that it was amusing for him or entertaining. For a while, he wondered if he had actually done the right thing in writing it. But now he’s reassured that actually he did exactly the right thing because the Corinthians were grieved by it, and they were grieved in a constructive way. Their grief didn’t bring him pleasure, but it did bring him comfort because their grief led to repentance.

Steve Hiller: And we have to pause the teaching right there, but we’ll continue our message, "Grieving Well Over Sin." You’re listening to Encounter the Truth with Jonathan Griffiths. If you ever join us late, have to leave early, or want to go back and listen to a broadcast again, you can do that when you come to our website, encounterthetruth.org. You can stream the program or download an MP3 for free.

Encounter the Truth is a listener-supported program. We’re able to be on the station because of your generosity. And as you give a gift of any amount this month, we want to send you a book that Jonathan has chosen. It’s called Weakness is the Way, written by author, theologian, and Bible teacher J.I. Packer. He reflects on his experience of weakness, and he teaches us the importance of embracing our frailty to help us look to Christ as our strength. To give a gift of any amount and request your copy of Weakness is the Way, call us at 1-833-99-TRUTH or come to our website, encounterthetruth.org.

Jonathan Griffiths: When it comes to grief over our actions, there are two types of grief that you and I are capable of, says Paul. We are capable on the one hand of worldly grief, and we are capable of godly grief, as we see in verse 10. "For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death." Worldly grief and godly grief can be confused, and it’s not always possible to discern which is which at the level of outward appearance.

We can deceive ourselves and we can deceive others, but the two are in truth vastly different, and their outcomes are totally contrasted. One leads to salvation without regret; the other leads to death. The Corinthians have learned and exhibited godly grief as a result of the apostle’s rebuke, and their model is significant. As we think about these things, it may be helpful for us actually to begin with worldly grief and with what that is.

Worldly grief is a response to our sin and wrongdoing that is indeed a form of grief. We recognize that we’ve done something wrong. We recognize that it has cost us. We recognize that it has caused pain, that it has damaged our reputation, that it has undermined relationships. We recognize that the consequences will now live with us for a long time and the damage will be difficult to rectify.

And we feel genuinely grieved over it. We feel sad over it. We may shed a lot of tears over it. We may even issue some apologies over it. But this grief is nonetheless entirely worldly. In fact, the truth is that this kind of grief over sin is really a form of self-pity at the end of the day. We recognize we’ve caused ourselves pain and loss and inconvenience, and we feel very sorry for ourselves. And this only leads to more sulking, more focus on ourselves, and more focus on our own needs and our own wants.

Worldly grief has an inward focus and not a godward focus. And because worldly grief actually just digs us deeper and deeper into the pit of sin, it takes us further and further away from the Lord, and it leads only to spiritual death, says Paul. Nothing good comes from worldly grief. And even in worldly relationships, we become more volatile and more unreliable and more dangerous in the context of worldly grief because we’re taking the original sin issue, whatever it is—the original sin which caused enough damage already—and we’re adding to it a potent dose of self-pity, which is very dangerous.

Now, worldly grief is especially dangerous because it can look at least initially like authentic godly grief. There can be those tears and those apologies. There can be promises of change. But the driving motivation is self, not others; it is self, not the Lord. In due time, the true nature of the grief will become apparent. But in the moment, worldly grief can look like godly grief, and we need to be discerning about that. We need to be discerning about it in our own hearts, and we need to be discerning about it with respect to others, too.

I guess we’re all familiar with this term "crocodile tears," which I’ve sometimes used before. Crocodile tears, as you know, simply refers to fake tears, false tears. The term seems to have its roots in the observation that crocodiles reportedly shed tears while eating their prey—clearly not due to remorse. "You’re so delicious, but I really feel bad about eating you." That seems unlikely. I gather it’s more likely due to the fact that crocodiles are breathing so heavily when they’re eating their dinner that their sinuses stimulate their tear ducts, and they begin to cry.

Crocodiles have this association with fake tears, but human beings are perfectly capable of shedding them, too. And worldly grief over our wrongdoing, it can lead to crocodile tears. It can even lead to real tears, but still it must not be confused with godly grief. Godly grief isn’t focused on me; it’s focused on the Lord. It takes seriously the fact that I’ve dishonored the Lord God of heaven and grieved his Spirit.

It is concerned less with immediate temporal worldly consequences of sin, and it is much more concerned with the eternal ramifications. And godly grief brings about a powerful result: it brings about repentance. Notice it again there, verse 10. "For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death. 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."

When Paul addressed the sin issue in the church at Corinth, whatever precisely that sin issue was, the church collectively recognized that he was right. They recognized that they’d been collectively responsible for a sinful disposition and some sinful behavior. It seems as though one individual in particular was the kind of ringleader, and his or her sin needed to be addressed in a particular way. But they all shared some responsibility for this.

And when they were confronted about it, they were grieved over it. And their grief led to repentance. Repentance literally speaks of a change of the mind, a wholesale change in attitude and disposition with respect to the behavior in question. What did this change of mind look like in the lives of the Corinthians in this fellowship of believers? Well, it looked like, says Paul, an eagerness to clear yourselves, an indignation with respect to what had happened, a godly fear of the Lord and a recognition of accountability before him, a longing to make things right with others and with the Lord, a zealous energy and a determination to do so.

And ultimately as well, a collective punishment of some kind of the ringleader, the wrongdoer, some form of appropriate discipline to show this individual that they as a group utterly rejected the behavior and wanted nothing to do with the rebellion or whatever it was that had taken place. You see, repentance means more than simply feeling sorry. It means dealing with the issue. It means dealing with the sin. It means giving it up. It means turning from it, in truth.

And Paul says this is a model of godly grief. And you and I, we need to note it, we need to learn from it, and we need to live it. Whereas worldly grief is essentially just a form of self-pity, a combative, dramatic form of self-pity, a sort of theater, godly grief by contrast leads to repentance, to an energetic, zealous, fearful, wholehearted renunciation of the sin and a determination, with the Lord’s help, to make things right. That’s godly grief.

And friends, you and I, we need to learn godly grief. We need to learn repentance. We need to learn it again and again, and we need to constantly grow within it. The longer I go on personally in the Christian life, the more I see that repentance is hard. In fact, it’s sort of the hardest thing about being a Christian. It’s actually entirely beyond us in our own natural strength, and we desperately need the Lord’s own gracious help by his Spirit to live this out.

The truth of that is demonstrated by the simple fact that we find ourselves needing to repent again and again of the same sins. Isn’t that true? Don’t you find that in the Christian life? We think we’ve repented of something, we think we have renounced a behavior, an attitude, a way of thinking, a way of speaking, a way of relating, whatever it is, and then we find ourselves repeating the same old pattern again and again.

And we discover that repentance, which perhaps we thought was easy and straightforward, is actually very, very hard. And when our repentance proves superficial and short-lived, we can become very, very discouraged. But when that happens, we can also be rightly prompted to ask, "Is my grief a worldly grief, or is it a godly grief?" And actually, I think we need to be asking that question, and we need to confront that question in our own hearts and in our own minds.

We need to check our hearts and ensure that as believers, our grief is indeed a godly grief. I want to come back to that in a moment, but at this point, I would like to ask the question of you, if you are new to Christian things, as to whether or not you have ever experienced godly grief and true repentance, whether this is a familiar idea to you. I ask that because I’m aware that it’s very possible that as we discuss these things now and you reflect upon them, you’re beginning to realize that your grief over your wrongdoing has only ever been a worldly grief.

You’ve felt bad about things you’ve done because you’ve seen there are consequences. You’ve seen that the way you’ve treated others, the way you’ve behaved at work, the way you’ve handled people, possessions, opportunities, relationships, it’s lacked integrity or it’s caused damage, it’s brought you heartache, it’s brought you loss, and you’ve grieved over that fact in the past. Perhaps you’ve deeply grieved over it.

But you’re beginning to recognize that that grief is actually only, ultimately, a form of self-pity. What you have not ever grieved before is the fact that you’ve dishonored the Lord God of heaven, the God who made you, the God who sent his Son to die for you and to pay the price of your sin. You grieved over the personal inconvenience and the loss caused by your sin, but you’ve never grieved over your guilt before God and the offensiveness of your sin in his sight. It’s never been godly grief—until that is, perhaps, today.

Steve Hiller: And we have to pause the teaching right there, but we’ll continue our message, "Grieving Well Over Sin." You’re listening to Encounter the Truth with Jonathan Griffiths. If you ever join us late, have to leave early, or want to go back and listen to a broadcast again, you can do that when you come to our website, encounterthetruth.org. You can stream the program or download an MP3 for free. Again, that’s at encounterthetruth.org.

Encounter the Truth is a listener-supported ministry. We’re able to be on the radio, make the podcast, the app, all the tools available because of your generosity. And as you give a gift of any amount this month, we want to send you a book that Jonathan has picked out. It’s called Weakness is the Way, written by J.I. Packer. Jonathan, why did you pick out this book?

Jonathan Griffiths: Steve, I picked this book out because I love the subject and I love the author. J.I. Packer, I think, is one of the most capable and faithful theologians of the last century of the Christian church, and I so appreciate all his writings. And I particularly appreciate this book because he’s touching on the theme of weakness in the Christian life, which of course is really central to our teaching this month from 2 Corinthians.

It’s such an important topic for us to think about as believers because we often despise weakness; we try and avoid weakness; we try and overcome weakness. But what we discover in the scriptures is that the Lord loves to use our weaknesses to display his strength. And I think we’ll have a lot of listeners and you’re following the program and you are in a season of weakness for all kinds of different reasons, but you know that this is a time of weakness.

You’re walking through it and you’re wanting to know how to live faithfully through it, and this book is for you because within this book, J.I. Packer shares something of his own story and he shares truth from the word of God. And he teaches us in all kinds of different ways that the Lord works through our weakness to show his strength and to use us for his glory. I think this is going to be a real encouragement for you. I’m eager to get this book into your hands.

Steve Hiller: We want to send you a copy as our way of saying thanks for your financial support this month. Again, it’s called Weakness is the Way. You can give a gift of any amount and request your copy, call us at 1-833-99-TRUTH or come to our website, encounterthetruth.org. That’s 1-833-998-7884 or encounterthetruth.org. You can also write to us at Encounter the Truth, PO Box 5513, Ottawa, Ontario, K2C 3M1. Or in the US at Encounter the Truth, 215 North Arlington Heights Road, Suite 102, Arlington Heights, Illinois, 60004. For Jonathan Griffiths and our producer Mark Bruda, I’m Steve Hiller. Thanks for listening, and I hope you’ll join us next time.