Games People Play
SORRY!
Guilt, Repentance and Forgiveness
2 Corinthians 7:9
Several years ago the Peanuts comic strip had Lucy and Charlie Brown practicing football. Lucy would hold the ball for Charlie’s placekicking and then Charlie would kick the ball. But every time Lucy had ever held the ball for Charlie, he would approach the ball and kick with all his might. At the precise moment of the point of no return, Lucy would pick up the ball and Charlie would kick and his momentum unchecked by the ball, which was not there to kick, would cause him to fall flat on his back. This strip opened with Lucy holding the ball, but Charlie Brown would not kick the ball. Lucy begged him to kick the ball. But Charlie Brown said, "Every time I try to kick the ball you remove it and I fall on my back." They went back and forth for the longest time and finally Lucy broke down in tears and admitted, "Charlie Brown I have been so terrible to you over the years, picking up the football like I have. I have played so many cruel tricks on you, but I’ve seen the error of my ways! I’ve seen the hurt look in your eyes when I’ve deceived you. I’m sorry, so sorry! Won’t you give a poor penitent girl another chance?" Charlie Brown was moved by her display of grief and responded to her, "Of course, I’ll give you another chance." He stepped back as she held the ball, and he ran. At the last moment, Lucy picked up the ball and Charlie Brown fell flat on his back. Lucy’s last words were,
[Slide One]
"Recognizing your faults and actually changing your ways are two different things, Charlie Brown!"
For most of us, we know the pain that Lucy felt. There are those of us who know the pain of feeling trapped in a cycle of sinning and then confessing, being sorry but not being able to stop, and those who know what it’s like fail God in some way and then experience day after day the haunting, persistent accusations of guilt. We can’t seem to be able to get free or experience the forgiveness that God offers. If you know what that’s like, then this message is for you.
Every honest person knows what it is to struggle with sin, to try and fail, to fall and get up again, only to fall again and feel discouraged. No one is immune to sin. President Kennedy once told his closed friend and author Bill Manchester, “I don’t mind the press taking my picture most of the time, but I don’t want them snapping my photograph after confession!” Even the apostle Paul, knew that frustration. In Romans 7:19, he wrote these words,
[Slide Two]
For the good that I want to do, I don’t do, but I practice the very evil that I don’t want to do, the thing I hate.
He follows that confession with a cry from the heart that perhaps many of us can relate to: “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”
How can we change? How do I get from where I am to a better place? I want to change. I need to change. I have to change. But can I change?
The answer is unequivocally “Yes!” Yes we can change. No matter how long we’ve been trapped in a pattern of defeat, no matter how long we’ve been hearing the accusing whisper of the enemy, we can change.
But we can’t change in some flippant little transaction, like Lucy with Charlie Brown. If real heart change was easy, everyone would do it. But I want to say it again, “We can change!” The charges made against us by Satan can be silenced. The lies can cease. But it all has to start at this one place: Sorry is not enough. Repentance has to follow being sorry. Sorry is just the beginning. And sometimes being sorry isn’t even godly.
[Slide Three]
Simply shedding tears or simply getting emotional is not godly sorrow. II Corinthians 7:9 says:
Now I rejoice that you were made
sorry, not that you were made sorry but that your sorrow led to
repentance. For you were made
sorry in a godly manner that you might suffer loss from us in
nothing. For godly sorrow
produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but
the sorrow of the world produces death.
There’s an obvious difference between godly sorrow and worldly sorrow. Worldly sorrow is a sorrow that focus only on me. “I’m sorry I got caught.” “I’m sorry I look so bad in this situation.” “I’m sorry I’ve gotten myself into this mess.”
Worldly sorrow is selfish. And it produces two things. First, it produces regret. Look at verse 10. See where it says, “godly sorrow is not to be regretted”? The NIV says, “godly sorrow leaves no regret.” But worldly sorrow does. “Why did I do that? Why didn’t I learn? Why am I like this? Why don’t I change?” We regret what we have done, but that’s as far as it goes. Regret is the first byproduct of worldly sorrow.
The second byproduct is found at the end of the verse. “Worldly sorrow produces death.” How does worldly sorrow produce death? It does it by deceiving us into thinking we have done all we can do by being sorry. And we have not.
This next few minutes may be difficult to hear for some of us. But if we could look into the hearts of each person in this room this morning, we would see that there are a lot more people here who are not genuinely saved than we would have thought. We hear the gospel presented as God’s big offer. “He loves you!” we are told, and He does. “You can settle your eternal destiny right here in this car.” We say a little prayer, get a pat on the back, and walk out thinking that we’ve done business with God. But we’ve done nothing. The reason we struggle so much in our spiritual life is that for some of us we have no spiritual life! We’ve never really experienced godly sorrow. We’ve been sorry for being caught, sorry for the mess our lives are, but that is worldly sorrow that produces regret, and death, but does not lead to salvation.
[Slide Four]
Look closely at verse 10 again. Read what it says, again. Slowly. “For godly sorrow produces repentance that leads to salvation…” Genuine conversion always begins with godly sorrow, which leads us to repentance. Until that godly sorrow has been experienced, and until it has brought us to the point of repentance, then we have not been truly saved. We’ve just been sorry, like Lucy with Charlie Brown. It’s just like she said, "Recognizing your faults and actually changing your ways are two different things, Charlie Brown!"
Now, I’m not encouraging you to question your salvation, but I do want to pose the question, “Has your sin really brought you to a point of repentance?” A person who has been broken and undone in their sinfulness before God is ready to be converted. If repentance were easy, everyone would be doing it. But it’s not, because repentance requires changing your mind, really changing it. There is no pretending. There is no playing at repentance. There’s no “sinners prayer” that can take the place of genuine repentance, and genuine repentance comes only with godly sorrow.
Genuine repentance is not easy. Some sins are more difficult to repent of than others. Two categories stand out in particular:
Kim had an abortion. She was young. She was single. She knew it was wrong, but she did it anyway. There’s no way to change it now. Repentance is not easy, but it’s not impossible.
Frank was unbiblically divorced. He was young and selfish and rebellious. He knew it was wrong, but he wanted out. And now his ex is remarried, and so is he. There is no way to undo the past. Because he can’t make restoration, repentance is very tough.
It’s very hard to repent of a pleasure that we consume and that consumes us. Some examples: uncontrolled anger. We say what we want to say, we get it off our chest. We can’t take the words back. We can’t make it right. An alcoholic binge. A sexual fling. A secret pornographic habit. Uncontrolled appetites.
It’s a strong compulsion, a pleasure that is consumed and is consuming. How do you make restitution for those things? You can’t. You can’t give it back. There’s not tangible thing to give back. And when we can’t make restitution, repentance is very tough. I’ve never heard anyone say, “I feel overwhelmed by guilt because I cheated on my taxes.” You know why? Because if you were really feeling guilty you would pay the debt.
I read recently a true story of a letter that the IRS received. It read, “I can’t take it any more! I can’t sleep, I can’t eat. I cheated on my taxes. I’m sending you a check for 165 dollars. If I still can’t sleep, I’ll send you the rest!”
You see, when you are really sorry, you want to make it right, and that’s why some sins are harder to repent of than others – those sins that are impossible to make right, so we feel we can’t get free from it, and repentance is difficult.
So if only godly sorrow will lead to repentance, and if that repentance is what leads to salvation, then how do I really repent?
[Slide six]
I believe one of the best models of Biblical repentance is the Prodigal Son in Luke 15. Scripture says he wasted his substance with riotous living. This is a delicate way of saying that he moved into every scummy thing the human race has ever invented and came to the place where he had no more left. His money was gone, his friends left him, and he ended up working on a pig farm. He became so desperate he actually thought about eating some of the pig slop. It’s an ugly picture to show us where sin takes us, but it is the most beautiful picture of repentance.
Luke 15:17 says,
When he came to himself, he said, “How many of my fathers hired servants have bread enough to spare, and I perish with hunger? I will arise and go to my father and will say, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I’m no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants’.”
Notice first of all that he came to himself. The NIV says, “He came to his senses.” What was I thinking? I can see it all so clearly now. What am I doing here? Repentance involves the whole being. His mind was changed.
[Slide seven]
But it’s the whole being.
[Slide eight]
His emotions also changed. Instead of thinking he was the man, he now says, “I am no longer worthy to be called your son…” He was ashamed of his son. Listen to me: being ashamed of our sin is not a bad thing. In fact, it’s a great thing!
Real change, and genuine repentance comes when I am broken by my sinfulness. When I am really genuinely sorry – about how it affects me and how it affects God – I change. And when I change and return to the father, like the Prodigal Son, then I receive his loving embrace and I recognize that I am my worthlessness and His worthiness. And that leads to genuine worship.
But repentance not only involves the mind, and it not only involves the emotions, genuine repentance also involves the will.
[Slide 9]
There was no way for our boy to get right with God and stay in the pigpen. He had to do something. He said, “I will arise. I will go to my father. I will say to him…” Genuine repentance forms a plan that includes the will.
So listen closely. Are there sins of the past that affect your present? Are you unbiblically divorced? Have you had that abortion? You can be fully forgiven and cleansed, but only with real repentance. You can feel the embrace of your Father if you repent.
Are you struggling with an addiction, a sexual addiction or some other addiction? Alcohol, drugs, porn, food? Folks, there is a truth that can set us free: The difficult work of repentance.
So how do we do it?
It’s not easy.
II Timothy 2:25 says that God grants us repentance. It is a gift from Him, but we must seek it with all our heart and ask him to give us a genuine heart of repentance, and He will. But we must do our part.
And our part?
Fasting.
Prayer.
Turn off the TV, open up the Word.
I don’t know about you, but I am tired of worldly sorrow. You know, the type that leads to nothing but regret and death, but makes no real difference. I’m no different than you. I’m no super man, but I have just enough faith to believe that God can grant deliverance when I really repent, and seek Him with all my heart, all my soul, and all my strength. How ‘bout you? Will you join me in some real, godly sorrow, that leads to repentance, that leads to salvation, and victory over sin?
Father, we come to you this morning with hearts that have been deceived by the sham of worldly sorrow. Reveal to us the real nature of our sin. Help us to experience godly sorrow, grant to us genuine repentance, and deliver us to victory over sin. Forgive us and restore us to fellowship with You.