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2 Corinthians 7:2-16
2 Make room in your hearts1 for us. We have wronged no one, we have corrupted no one, we have taken advantage of no one. 3 I do not say this to condemn you, for I said before that you are in our hearts, to die together and to live together. 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.
5 For even when we came into Macedonia, our bodies had no rest, but we were afflicted at every turn—fighting without and fear within. 6 But God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the coming of Titus, 7 and not only by his coming but also by the comfort with which he was comforted by you, as he told us of your longing, your mourning, your zeal for me, so that I rejoiced still more. 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. 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. 14 For whatever boasts I made to him about you, I was not put to shame. But just as everything we said to you was true, so also our boasting before Titus has proved true. 15 And his affection for you is even greater, as he remembers the obedience of you all, how you received him with fear and trembling. 16 I rejoice, because I have complete confidence in you.
[1] 7:2
(ESV)
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
If you would open your Bibles to 2nd Corinthians chapter 7, as we continue our study in 2nd Corinthians, 2nd Corinthians chapter 7, it's also in your worship guide, and we'll begin reading in verse 2. Make room in your hearts for us. We have wronged no one. We have corrupted no one. We have taken advantage of no one.
Joel Brooks:I do not say this to condemn you, for I said before that you are in our hearts to die together and to live together. I'm acting with great boldness towards you. I have great pride in you. I am filled with comfort. In all our affliction, I am overflowing with joy.
Joel Brooks:For even when we came into Macedonia, our bodies had no rest, but we were afflicted at every turn, fighting without and fear within. But God who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the coming of Titus. And not only by his coming, but also by the comfort with which he was comforted by you. As he told us of your longing and 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.
Joel Brooks:Though I did regret it 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. For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death. Foresee 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.
Joel Brooks:At every point, you have proved yourselves innocent in the matter. 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. Therefore, we are comforted and besides our own comfort, we rejoice still more at the joy of Titus because his spirit has been refreshed by you all. For whatever boast I made to him about you, I was not put to shame. But just as everything we said to you was true, so also our boasting before Titus has proved true.
Joel Brooks:And his affection for you is even greater as he remembers the obedience of you all, how you received him with fear and trembling. I rejoice because I have perfect confidence in you. This is the word of the Lord. Pray with me. Our father right now, I pray that in this moment, your spirit, he would come, he would open up our hearts and our minds to hear clearly from Jesus.
Joel Brooks:He is our King. He is our savior. We recognize that his words are life and we need life in this room. So I pray in this moment that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But Lord, may your words remain and may they change us.
Joel Brooks:And we pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. I'm a dad of 3 girls, so I live in a house full of girls, even our dogs a girl. So so there's a lot of emotion, lots of drama in our house that I just I don't even know how to deal with it. There's there's crying and I could try to comfort a child and say, why are you crying?
Joel Brooks:They say, I don't know. And so I'm not prepared for all of the emotion. And it could be little things. It could be a bad hair day that could lead to a meltdown or, when Caroline found out that Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker's father, it threw her into depression for days. And as a boy, you're just not used to that.
Joel Brooks:But I have been around a lot of emotion. And one of the things that struck me as I was studying this week is the amount of emotion that's in this text. There's a whole lot there. There's, there's this new level of emotion that comes out in chapter 7 that just hasn't been there in the previous chapters. And besides all of the language of joy and rejoicing, Paul says some pretty cheesy things when you really read through it.
Joel Brooks:He says, Make room in your hearts for us, or you are in our hearts to die together and to live together. Now I ask you, who says stuff like that? Do you know anybody who says stuff like that? I've got several good friends. We're got deep relationships and we have, we've never, I've never said make room in your heart for me.
Joel Brooks:I want you right now, look at the person next to you. Let's get awkward. Okay? All right. Y'all just look look at the person, both sides of you, both sides of you.
Joel Brooks:Alright? Not all of you did it, but most of you did. It's just too awkward, too awkward. Just stare ahead. Now now if that person before you left tonight said, I want you to make room in your heart for me for we are to live together and we are to die together.
Joel Brooks:Just would you think they're just a little odd? Just a little dramatic? These are the these are sayings that I reserved for like my wedding day. I pledged those kind of things to my wife and said things like till death do us part. We're we're in this till then.
Joel Brooks:There's a temptation when you're reading through this to think, ah, it's just Paul. I mean, come on. He's he's always doing stuff like this and just chalking it up to him being all dramatic. But what I want you to see here is Paul is demonstrating an affection, a love for the for the local church that every Christian needs to know. Paul has, he's hitched his wagon to the Corinthians.
Joel Brooks:He has he has tied his happiness to their happiness. His love and his emotions are going to be wrapped up with, with God's people in Corinth and how they are progressing with the faith. Jonathan Edwards, he wrote about this. If you don't know who Edwards was, he's the most brilliant philosopher theologian that America has produced. He went to Yale at the age of 13, graduated at 17, valedictorian.
Joel Brooks:He's a, he was a pretty smart guy. And he said this, because in some sense, the most benevolent, generous person in the world seeks his happiness and doing good to others because he places his own happiness and they're good. His mind is so enlarged. Sounds a lot like Paul saying, open up your hearts, make wide your hearts. His mind is so enlarged as to take them as it were unto himself.
Joel Brooks:Thus, when they are happy, he feels it. He partakes with them. He is happy with their happiness. That's what we see here in Paul. He is happy when the when the Corinthians are happy.
Joel Brooks:He he's tied his emotions to them. The Corinthians occupy a part of his heart, and this means that when they are not doing well, when they are not following the Lord, it could crash him down. And we saw that earlier in the letter, it said it took him to despair. It said he despaired even of life, not for anything that was happening to him, but because of the Corinthians. And now he's lifted up to where his heart is literally bursting with joy because of their progression in their faith.
Joel Brooks:And so this isn't the main point of this text, but I felt I needed to start with this because I wanted to ask you this. Is this your relationship with the local church? For those of you who are members of this church, is your happiness tied up, wrapped up with the spiritual progress of other members of this congregation. Is it the longing of your heart to really see this church thrive? And what I mean see this church thrive.
Joel Brooks:I am not talking about numbers. I'm not talking about money. I'm not talking about any kind of new buildings, more services, nothing like that. But to see the people of God here grow in the relationship with the Lord, find joy in the Lord. Does it give you joy?
Joel Brooks:Is it the longing of your heart to see that happen or is your wagon hitched to other things? Paul tells us here, make room in our hearts for each other. And that's been my prayer for us as a church. Now that's not not the main point of this text, but it's an important one. The main point of the text is seeing the reason behind Paul's joy and happiness here.
Joel Brooks:And it's this, the Corinthians have repented. They've repented. Paul is rejoicing because they've repented, and now the Corinthians are rejoicing because they have repented. There's a lot of rejoicing going along on here because every time there's repentance, there is joy. Jesus said, I tell you there'll be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous people who need no repentance.
Joel Brooks:Repentance brings joy. Let me remind you of why there was a need for repentance and what was going on in Corinth. If you remember the church had been rejecting Paul, and by rejecting Paul, they're saying, we reject you and your message. We reject the gospel. Now all the church was doing this, but a contingency was, it was being led astray by by some self proclaimed super apostles.
Joel Brooks:They were saying, you don't want that gospel. Let me teach you a gospel of prosperity, a gospel where everything always happens right for you. And Paul was rejected by the Corinthian church and he had to leave in shame, and he wrote a letter to them. The letter is alluded to here. Titus had given them, and the letter apparently packed a punch.
Joel Brooks:It was direct over their sin. It grieved them, but it brought them to repentance. This is what we read about. Look at verse 8 again, says, for even if I made you grieve with my letter, I do not regret it, though I did regret it. 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 suffer no loss through us.
Joel Brooks:For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret. Whereas worldly regrief worldly grief produces death. So Paul's harsh letter caused these Corinthians to grieve. It's it's never fun and confronting fellow believers about their sin. If if you really enjoy doing that, let me go and tell you, you should stop.
Joel Brooks:Alright? You're not the one who should be pointing out people's sins if you really, you know, you're doing it with a smile and you get giddy that you get to do it. It should grieve you because it's going to grieve them. Hopefully, it will grieve them towards repentance. Paul says that there's 2 types of grief.
Joel Brooks:Not all grief does lead towards repentance. He said that is a worldly grief and there is a godly grief. This worldly grief leads to death. The godly grief leads to repentance and thus to life. And it is all important for us as believers to to understand these 2 different types of grieving because one thing is certain in this life, you're going to have grief.
Joel Brooks:Grief is going to come in waves. You're always going to be dealing with some grief, but, but is it a worldly grief that's going to lead you to death or is this a godly grief that is going to lead you to repentance and to life? That's a all important question. Well, let's look at what the worldly grief looks like first. A worldly grief is caused when, when you regret an action because perhaps it has led to your humiliation or it caused you to to be punished or maybe you didn't get what you wanted, or maybe failed to get the recognition that you deserved.
Joel Brooks:I meet with people all the time here besides themselves with grief. They'll come into my office and they are, they are just weeping. And I've learned that tears mean absolutely nothing when people come and they are weeping before me because people come and they cry over the most ungodly things. And it's a worldly grief. Many of these people, they come and they're, they're weeping not over their sin, but they're weeping because they got busted.
Joel Brooks:They're weeping because people found out about their sin and now they're humiliated. They're they're weeping because this sin has wrecked their lives, and they've lost friends. They've lost money. Some of them are weeping because they can no longer keep doing the sin that they really want to do. And that's the cause of their grief, and that's a worldly grief.
Joel Brooks:A worldly grief is a self centered grief. It's a grief that focuses only on the consequences. The consequences that are the result of the sin, but they don't actually focus on the sin itself. And so that's why when people come to my office and they're like, I know this is wrong because it's cost me my, my family. I know this is wrong because it's cost me my job.
Joel Brooks:It's cost me this. I'm like, yes, those are the consequences, but it's wrong because it's damaged your relationship with God. That's the difference between a worldly grief and a godly grief. The worldly grief focuses on the consequences, not the sin itself. I've met with a man not terribly long ago, a few years ago, who was having an affair.
Joel Brooks:And I told him in my office said, will you realize this has to stop now? And right now, you go ahead, you text, send a message, it's over. Said you take this girl out of your phone, you are to never email her again, you are to never try to be where she is at again, this ends right now. And he agreed, and he was just he was just weeping, uncontrollably weeping. But the reason he was weeping was not because of his sin.
Joel Brooks:He was weeping because he can no longer see her again, and it's just what he really wanted to do. He was weeping over the consequence. Now, now if that's that's your grief there, know that it can lead to a temporary moral change, And it did with this person that there was, there was grief there and it led. He, you know, he got this resolved and he's like, it's over. I'm, I'm not going to pursue her again.
Joel Brooks:And this worldly grief did lead to a, a moral change, but inwardly nothing had changed inwardly. He was, he was still full of despair. He was still full of hopelessness. He was still, full of these, unrighteous affections. He was still full of all of that.
Joel Brooks:That might be where some of you are. You've been caught in this circle of sin in which the same thing happens over and over, and you feel this grief and you feel terrible about it, and you repent. But you're only repenting of the consequences. Like, I really don't like what the sin is doing to my life, so I need to get rid of the sin. But that's not repentance.
Joel Brooks:That's a worldly grief and it's gonna lead to death. A godly grief will lead to true repentance. Now, parents, I think, especially struggle with this. Parents, we need to understand that, well, every parent I know wants their kids to be good moral children. Every, every parent I know they want that.
Joel Brooks:And so we're always trying to push them in the direction of being a good moral child. But the question that a parent needs to ask is, are we using worldly grief in order to do that? For instance, I'll give you a silly example, you know, just hypothetically, your children won't eat their vegetables at the dinner table. All right? So they're just there and they're not eating and you're like, I've slayed forever making this food, why won't you eat?
Joel Brooks:And they're still not eating and they're like, you know, there are kids in Haiti right now who would kill to have what is on your plate this very moment. I can't believe you wouldn't do this. You you know, Lottie Moon died of starvation. Uh-huh. And here you go.
Joel Brooks:Just leaving this on your plate. And so you're, you're using all of these, this guilt. You're, you're, you're trying to produce a worldly grief in them. And this is what normally happens. This eating with a frown still full of bitterness, still looking at you.
Joel Brooks:All right. And there it is. So so they're they've morally conformed, but there's been zero heart change. They're still full of bitterness, they're still full of anger, but yet, but the world of grief was enough to at least temporarily, you won this battle at this meal, they're going to eat. So much of our joyless moralism or joyless, good behavior is a direct result of worldly grief.
Joel Brooks:Jonathan Edwards, he actually wrote about this in another small little book called, The Nature of True Virtue. In this book, he makes a distinction between what he calls true virtue and common virtue. And when she says true virtue, which is the goal, this is when your fuel to repent and to to have moral change is the gospel. And then he has this common virtue in which the motivating factor for change is fear or pride or worldly grief. We use fear and pride as a way of producing grief in people.
Joel Brooks:That's going to, to make them change their behavior. For instance, let's go back to that child not eating scenario. You could try to instill fear in them to make your child eat. I realize not eating your vegetables isn't really, you know, a big deal, but, you know, I'm gonna make it light. Okay?
Joel Brooks:We'll get to some heavier stuff later. You can say, listen, if you don't eat your vegetables, then that's all you're eating tomorrow. That's what you're having for breakfast. That's what you're having for lunch. That's what you're going to have for dinner.
Joel Brooks:You instill fear. You're going to punish them or, you know, perhaps the more common is if you don't eat this, no dessert, You're not going to get rewarded. If you don't eat this, you're going to time out. You're getting a spanking. You instill fear in them as a way of making them morally do what you want them to do.
Joel Brooks:Now, Edwards, please hear me. He's not saying that that is wrong. Trust me as a parent, sometimes you have to do this. He's not saying that's wrong, but he's saying, if that is where you always leave it, you're going to have a joyless, bitter child who knows nothing of the gospel. You can't leave it there.
Joel Brooks:So that's fear. Let's look at pride. You can try this tactic, you could tell your child. Now, have you seen Sally? Boy, Sally is gorgeous.
Joel Brooks:I heard that she eats all of her vegetables. Yeah. You know, you could just tell by that healthy glow. I mean, she is she is just beautiful. And so your child's like, I'm prettier than she is, you know, or I'll show her.
Joel Brooks:And so she just, you know, they start eating. So you, you, you appeal to pride in order to change their behavior. Now if you've been coming to redeemer for a while, we've talked about this in the past as a, isn't new to you, but fear and pride are huge motivating factors in your life. I bet if you were to go back in your life and you were to look at your moral behavior behind a lot of it is fear or pride or worldly grief. But the problem is, although it can make us moral people, it can also be the very thing that leads us to sin.
Joel Brooks:So at times, fear and pride could lead us away from sin, but those same things can actually lead us to sin sometimes. Let me give you an example. Fear can keep you from lying. You're you're not gonna lie because if you get caught in a lie, you're gonna lose your job. And I'm not gonna lose my job, so I'm not gonna lie.
Joel Brooks:Okay? Fear worked, but fear also can lead you to lie where if you're like, Oh my gosh, if my boss finds out I didn't do these reports, I'm doomed. I'll just tell him I went ahead and did it. Same fear of losing your job. 1 led you not to lie.
Joel Brooks:The other time it led you to lie. You do the same thing with pride. You might not lie, because you love to boast that I'm a man who keeps my word. I'm not like all of those liars over there. And you're very proud of that fact, But what happens when you need to pad your resume or or or you need to tell tell a story in such a light to maybe just enhance it a little bit to put you in a better light.
Joel Brooks:So people will think better of you. And that will lead you to lie. And so pride can keep you from lying or it can lead you to lie. So when you appeal to a person's pride or you appeal to their fears, ultimately, it's gonna lead you to what Paul calls here a worldly grief. And the end result is death.
Joel Brooks:Now everybody here has, has something that they're grieving over. If you're human, you have something you're grieving over. I want you to ask yourself this question right now, what has caused this grief? Where is this sorrow that I'm feeling, where is it coming from? Is this a sorrow from wounded pride?
Joel Brooks:Have I have I been humiliated? And that's the source of my sorrow? Is it is it because I didn't think I got the respect I deserved? Is this a sorrow because you fear losing something precious to you? And if so, this is a worldly grief.
Joel Brooks:Let's look at what a godly grief looks like. Godly grief. You can recognize by its fruit, which is repentance. Godly grief is known by its fruit, which is repentance and repentance is, is a recognition that you have sinned against God. You have hurt him and now you're repenting, meaning you're turning away from your sin and you're turning towards the Lord.
Joel Brooks:And of course, the person who modeled this for us in scripture is King David. I mean, he send par excellence. That was that was David. He was really good at sinning. And so when he, took Uriah's wife, Bathsheba, and when he killed Uriah, that's that's a pretty big sin, but he he repented of that.
Joel Brooks:And we read about that in Psalm 51, and there's that curious line in Psalm 51 in which he says, Lord, to you and you only have I send against you and you only have I send. Now you don't have to really be an ethics teacher to know that that's not entirely accurate because I bet Uriah, if he's there, he would say, actually, what, what about me? You took my wife and you killed me. That qualifies in most cultures as a sin. And you'd be right.
Joel Brooks:And David would say, well, of course, you're right. I'm looking at the sin underneath this sin. That was really kind of the outcome of the the more deep sin, which was a sin against my heavenly father. And so the reason that he ever committed adultery and he committed murders because long ago he had already left God. And that's why it says against you and you alone have I sinned.
Joel Brooks:And so when that man who had an affair, who came to my office and he was grieved over the loss of that relationship and he is weeping, but he wasn't grieved over the fact that he sinned against God. When that happened and he didn't see really the primary, the primary sin wasn't against that woman and it wasn't against her husband. The primary sin was that I no longer went to the Lord to meet my desires. I no longer went to the Lord to satisfy me. The Lord was not, the center of my affections.
Joel Brooks:I committed adultery against the Lord and that led to adultery with her. Since he didn't go there, It wasn't long before those old habits started coming up with him again. He didn't have a godly grief and there wasn't a real repentance. Listen, when you come to a point where you you wanna confess your sin, don't just confess your sin, confess why you sinned. A lot of you are just always confessing.
Joel Brooks:I, you know, you're just saying, Lord, or, you know, God, I lied. I'm sorry. Okay? That's good. But but why did you lie?
Joel Brooks:Say, God, I lied because I wanted other people's approval instead of yours. Because I'm building my identity on what they think about me, instead of what you think about me. Confess that and that's gonna take you to the gospel. And there, you're gonna have true repentance. So don't just confess your sin, confess why you sinned.
Joel Brooks:Get to the heart of the matter. Don't just confess. You got mad and you yelled at your spouse. Ask what the greater sin was. Why was it that you did that?
Joel Brooks:Like, God, I yelled at my I got angry. I yelled at my spouse because I think they should be the one to meet my every need instead of you. I'm giving them godlike qualities that they don't have. And when my needs aren't met, I get mad. That's a repentance that will lead to a change of heart because it drives you to the gospel.
Joel Brooks:Listen, the entire Christian life, I believe, can be summed up in the word repent. And I'm not exaggerating about that. The entire Christian life can be summed up in the word repent in which we go from repentance to repentance to repentance. When Jesus came, the very first thing out of his mouth when he went to ministry was repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. To repent means that we are grieved over our sin and we turn to Jesus.
Joel Brooks:And your whole life. That's what you're doing. You're turning away from sin and you're turning towards Jesus and you're turning away from sin and you're turning towards Jesus. It's the most beautiful and the most joyful thing we do. It should be as natural as breathing Christians repenting throughout our whole lives.
Joel Brooks:Because when we repent, we are reminded of who we are. We're reminded of our identity, that our identity rests in the work of Jesus Christ, what he has done and not the sin that we have done. We're reminded of that every time we repent. Have you ever known somebody who's really quick to repent? I mean, really quick to do it.
Joel Brooks:They're if they've done anything wrong or you point them out on something that's wrong, they're, they're very quick to admit you're right. I'm sorry. I'm wrong. Man, I forgive me for that. And they do it so quickly.
Joel Brooks:It almost takes you back. If you've ever met somebody like that, I can, I can almost guarantee you? They're probably the most joyful person. You know, the person who is so quick to repent And it's because their identity is not at all based on what you think about them or what others think about them, but just on what Jesus thinks about them. And they know that they're perfectly loved and they're perfectly accepted because of the work the cross, and they can freely confess and freely repent, and they keep finding their joy in Jesus.
Joel Brooks:You find somebody who is quick to repent, and I guarantee you, they will be the one one of the most joyful people you have ever seen. These are the people, and I've known a few that are not at all driven by fear. They're not at all driven by pride because they have no fear because they're always looking to the cross and like, I fear no judgment. I fear no bad thing because I look and everything bad has happened to Jesus. He has taken all my punishment.
Joel Brooks:I fear nothing. They're not fueled by pride because the gospel says you're far worse than you could possibly imagine, yet you're far more loved than you can even hope. So fear and pride has lost their motivations and they cling only to the gospel. I pray that as we go on as a church that we would start seeing this heart, this attitude of repentance become in our midst something that is as common as breathing. Turn away from sin, Turn towards Jesus.
Joel Brooks:Rest in his gospel. Pray
Connor Coskery:with me.
Joel Brooks:God, may we have a life of repentance where you are always leading us away from sin into you over and over. Lord, I want to be filled with the joy that comes with being in your presence. The joy that comes from following you. I want to see sin for what it really is and cast it away. I pray that through your spirit you would make that known to us, felt in us in this place tonight.
Joel Brooks:We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.