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We're walking through 2 Corinthians chapter 7 this week. This is day 4. We're
going to focus in on verse 11 today.

We are really learning from Paul some things about sorrow and the place of
sorrow in our lives. We learned a couple of days ago that you and I are to
appreciate the place of sorrow in our lives. The fact that through sorrow God
can lead us to a place of repentance.

Yesterday we talked about the fact that we have to differentiate between worldly
sorrow and godly sorrow. And then there's a third thing that we have to do when
it comes to sorrow in these verses Paul talks about. We have to grow, realize
that we're going to grow through sorrow.

God wants to work some wonderful things into our lives even through the sorrow.
There is something on the other side of that sorrow. Sorrow leads us to
repentance and repentance leads to some wonderful things in our lives.

Now we've talked about this word repentance the last couple of days because it's
all through these verses. Just a reminder that Satan likes to play word games.
He likes to take the most beautiful words, the most beautiful truths of what God
wants to do in our lives and drag them into negativity.

He does it with God's name. He wants to drag God's name into commonality, use it
as a swear word. He seeks to bring it into conversation in such a way that
people reject the reality of who God really is, the personal love that he has.

And he wants to do this also with the word we've been talking about the last few
days, with the word repentance. The word repent, Satan is working to make that
word seem ugly and harsh. Many times when people hear the word repent they have
this picture of some wild-eyed prophet with this shaggy beard out on a street
corner with this hand-scrawled sign with the letters in red and they're dripping
down like blood and they say repent or die.

You all have that picture in your mind. Satan's the one who wants to put that
picture in your mind because repent is not an ugly word. Repent is not an angry
word.

Repent is one of the most beautiful words in the English language. Acts 3 19
says, "Repent therefore and return to God so that your sins may be wiped out and
times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord. " That's what
repentance is all about.

It's a U-turn in your life, a spiritual U-turn so that times of refreshing come
from the presence of the Lord. It's fresh water in your life. It's fresh wind so
that you have the ability to all of a sudden be able to, by God's grace, by
God's strength, by God's power, move ahead again in your life.

Verse 11 describes the kind of refreshing that God wants to do in our lives who
repents. Here's what the scripture has to say, "See what this godly sorrow has
produced in you. What earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what
indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see
justice done.

At every point you have proved yourselves to be innocent in this matter. " Paul
walks through the kind of attitude that the Corinthians had begun to have
because they had sorrow. Paul had spoken to them about some difficult things,
about sin they had been allowing in the church.

They had dealt with some of that. And now he's spoken to them about some
difficult things concerning his relationship with them. And they've dealt with
some of that.

And so Paul at the end says, "You have become innocent in this matter. " But I
want you to look at the beginning of this verse where he talks about the
attitudes that were in their lives. And he says, "Because of your sorrow and
your repentance, three things have happened.

A new honesty has come into your life, a new energy has come into your life, and
a new clarity has come into your life. " Look at these words. First he says, "A
new honesty has come into your life.

" Because you repented, you are now having an earnestness, he says, that you did
not have before. They had a sincerity in their lives. Instead of living with a
clouded conscience, now they're living with a clear conscience before God.

Instead of living with cynicism, now they're living with a new sincerity, a
sincerity that could be seen in their words, their actions, and their
relationships. This word earnestness, it has to do with the kind of sincerity
that causes you to strive after what's right. They were able to strive after
what was right, what was good.

They had a new honesty about things in their lives. They also had, Paul says, an
eagerness to clear themselves. What had happened, because of their repentance,
all of a sudden their indifference was replaced by eagerness.

One of the most draining feelings in life is the feeling, "I just don't care. "
And maybe the Corinthians had felt that way for a while, but no longer do they.
An eagerness to clear themselves.

Now actually this is one word in the Greek, it's the word apologia. We get our
word apologetics from it. And you know if you've studied apologetics at all,
that's a reasoned defense.

That is speaking out for what you know is right. So Paul is saying with the word
earnestness, you have a desire to strive for what's right in your actions. And
in the word eagerness, he's saying you have a desire to speak for what is right
in raising it out before other people.

You have a new honesty in your life. Second thing he talks about in these
verses, in these words, is a new energy that's come into their lives. And look
at the words that he uses.

They're surprising words to many of us. He starts with the word, you have
indignation. Now a lot of us think that's like a non-Christian thing.

Only unbelievers would have any indignation. Only people who weren't acting like
Jesus would have indignation in their lives. What about Jesus?

Was he ever indignant? Of course he was. About the sins of others?

About the way that the money changers were selling things in the temple? So he
made a whip and he turned over tables? Jesus was indignant.

There was an energy in his life about the sins in others' lives. In our own
lives, we have to start with ourselves. Jesus was sinless, so he could only be
indignant about other's sins.

You and I, we need to start with our own sins. You know you're indignant when
you have this feeling, someone needs to do something about this. Be the one.

You know you have this feeling of being indignant when you have the feeling, I
just can't let that sin continue in my life. I must change. So what does that
mean?

Who do I need to get into my life? What words do I need to get into my life?
What relationships do I need to start in my life?

What accountability do I need to have in my life? I'm not going to settle for
this anymore. There's a new energy in your life about living your life for
Christ.

Along with the word indignant, the next word he uses is the word alarm. Look at
your alarm, he says. Not only were they indignant, but they were immediately
indignant.

The word alarm means, I've got to do something about it now. And one of the
things about this word, the word alarm, an alarm, think about the word alarm. An
alarm causes you to be alert.

That's the reason for an alarm in the morning, you have an alarm clock, it's
supposed to make you alert. You wake up. Or if you're in an office building and
there's an alarm that goes off or a fire alarm, it makes you alert to the fact
you've got to get out of the building, there's something going on here.

And alertness begins to take over for the apathy in your life. You have a new
kind of energy. And that is what repentance does in our lives.

If you have no energy in your life as a believer, first it might be a physical
cause. Maybe you need to look at some physical causes in your life. But if
you've looked at that, and that's not the reason, you need to look at whether
there's a place in your life you need to repent, indignant, alarmed, in a
Christian kind of way, a new energy in your lives.

He talks about not just a new honesty and a new energy, he talks about a new
clarity that came into their lives. He uses the word longing. Look at your
longing.

Your desire for living the Christian life is renewed. That's what happens when
you repent. He uses the word concern.

Look at your concern, he says. Your love for people is again enabled. If you
feel like in your life, I just don't care about people anymore.

I want to, I used to, but I just don't care anymore. Again, first you look for
physical causes. Maybe I'm not getting enough rest.

Maybe there's something going on in my physical life. That can cause a lack of
concern. Once you've taken care of that, you look at the spiritual in your life.

I don't love people. What's going on? How do I need to repent in my life?

You have a new longing, a new concern, and then he says you have a new readiness
to see justice done. God's judgment is no longer something you fear, but
something you look toward. You're ready to see happen.

You have a new readiness. There's excitement about it because you know it is
what God wants to be doing in this world. As you look at what Paul has talked
about here, as you look at actually the opposite of it, it's a pretty good
checklist of when you and I are in need of godly sorrow.

When attitudes of dishonesty or apathy or confusion begin to rule in my life,
that's a time when I got to look, God, what is it I need to repent of? Where do
I need to turn around? Maybe I've got some jealousy in my life.

Maybe I've allowed a wrong kind of relationship in my life. Maybe my thought
life, I'm allowing thoughts into my life on a regular basis that are dragging me
down. Maybe it is some practical thing with the entertainments of my life.

Maybe it's that I haven't obeyed God. God said to do something and I've said no.
Here's what God wants to do in your life.

Here's how he wants to change everything. He wants to replace dishonesty with
honesty. He wants to replace apathy with energy.

He wants to replace confusion with a new clarity in your life. And it happens in
this process we've been talking about all week long. There is pain and there's
sorrow and then there's repentance.

And out of repentance comes these things we've talked about today, honesty and
energy and clarity. Let's pray together. Lord, we all struggle.

We all struggle with sin in our lives as believers. So instead of pretending
that we're perfect, help us instead to bring the reality of who we are to you.
To seek and remind ourselves of your forgiveness on the cross.

And to repent. To turn around. To stop telling ourselves that we need to do it
the way we thought and to start trusting you more.

Lord, if we see these things in our lives, this dishonesty, this apathy, this
confusion, help us to be honest in this moment and to realize it's because I
need to repent. And Lord, I pray through your Spirit, you would give us a
freedom to hear your voice, the voice of our Father who loves us right now. And
in hearing your voice, Lord, to turn to you, to turn away from that which has
been dragging us away from you and to turn towards you.

We do that now. In Jesus' name, we repent. Amen.