FBC Morning Light – May 10, 2022

What a good Tuesday morning to you. And again, just as a reminder, I'm recording these sessions at a conference, so I'm at a conference in Ohio. So I apologize for the lesser quality of these things during this week, but I felt it better to actually have the devotionals than not have them.

And I knew that once I get back from this conference tomorrow, Wednesday night, I wouldn't have time between now and Sunday or Monday to get these things together. So I figured, let's get it done and share the word and keep consistent with having these daily devotionals and not skip a week.

So today we're in 2 Corinthians chapter 7, and let me ask a couple of questions. If you're a parent, how does it make you feel? How do you feel in your heart when you have to confront your child, whatever age, you have to confront your child with wrongdoing and be pretty strong and forceful in your confrontation?

Doesn't it grieve you? Let me ask another question. How do you respond? How do I respond when you're confronted with sin, when you're confronted with wrongdoing? How do you respond? Do you get defensive?

Do you try to argue with the person? Do you dismiss it? Do you just say, forget it, I don't want to have to, I don't know, I don't have to listen to this and just go on to get angry? Or do you grieve?

Do you grieve? The Apostle Paul is writing to the Church of Corinth, and he's addressing the fact that in a previous letter, he had to confront them with some wrongdoing on their part. And so he had to be pretty forceful in that.

And he says in chapter 7, verse 8, he says, if I made you grieve with my letter, I don't regret it, though I did regret it. I did regret it, for I see that my letter grieved you. And there was a sense of grief, there was a sense of regret on his part that he had to confront them, and it caused them grief.

Just as a parent, you understand what that would be like. As a pastor, I understand what that's like, to have to deal with somebody who's chosen a path of sin, and it's a difficult thing to do, it's a grievous thing to do.

And you don't want to do it. It's necessary, but you don't want to do it. Now in Paul's case, he says, I did regret it, but I don't. And the reason he ended up not regretting it when all was said and done, is the way the people responded.

They responded to his confrontation with conviction, with grief, with grief over their sin. And that, in turn, brings a sense of satisfaction, of joy, that the person who was so confronted acknowledged the sin.

Now listen to how he describes the way they handled that confrontation. He says, as it is, I rejoice. Initially I regretted what I had to do, but as it is, I rejoice. Not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved unto repenting.

So yeah, I didn't like the fact that I had to confront you with this, and that it caused you grief, but I rejoice that that grief led you to repent. And he says, you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us.

And then he describes what that godly grief looks like. He says, for godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation, leads to a deliverance from the sin. True godly repentance will cause you to face the sin, acknowledge the sin, and shun it, turn away from the sin.

And he says this is what it did. This is a godly grief that produced a repentance that leads to salvation without regret. There's no regrets in that. He says, see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you.

Also what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what punishment. So he's describing the nature of their repentance and what it did to them. And this is a good guide to us.

Does my response to conviction lead to these kinds of things? Does it lead to an indignation against the sin? Does it make me angry with the sin, angry with the temptation, with the tempter who has led me and tempted me into that sin?

Does it produce in me an earnestness to do the right thing, a zeal as he describes it, to do right rather than to yield to that any longer? It will induce in me a fear, not a looking over the shoulder for the baseball bat kind of fear, but a fear of going there again, a fear of that kind of failure once again, a fear, a longing, a longing to be freed from all sin, a longing to do the right thing.

These are all healthy responses to conviction, healthy responses to confrontation with sin. So let me circle back to those original questions. So when you have to confront a child, someone you love with sin, you know that they've sinned, they know that they've sinned and you have to confront them with it.

How do you respond to that? Doesn't that give you a sense of heaviness? But how do you respond to it when they respond rightly, when you see them hear that rebuke and hear that confrontation and hang their head and admit it and confess it, say, you're right, I was wrong, I sinned, and then see them shun it and do everything they can to avoid it and to have a zeal for righteousness and a zeal to forsake the wickedness.

How does that make you feel? Don't you rejoice in that? But then let me ask you this, how do you respond when you're so confronted? Whether you're sitting in a church service and hearing a sermon preached or maybe reading the Bible on your own or being confronted by a loved one, a spouse, a parent, a friend over sin, how do you respond?

Do you respond with godly grief that leads to repentance that has no regret for that? How do you respond? Let's pray and ask God to give us hearts that will respond well when we're convicted of sin. And so our Father and our God, we are challenged today to be sure to have a wholesome, healthy response to conviction.

May we have a godly grief when we're confronted with our wrongdoing, with our sin, and may we truly repent, we pray. And we ask this in Jesus' name and for his sake, amen. All right, well have a good rest of your Tuesday and I trust God will bless you richly in it.

Good day.