Every Biblical counselor has invested hours of time and prayer into a counselee, only to have his or her life remain unchanged. Even worse, many times initial progress is made, but then the counselee slips right back into the old sinful habits. What went wrong? Whether dealing with a believer or an unbeliever, true change is inextricably linked to true repentance. The problem is that often what passes as “repentance” is not at all what the Bible describes. In 2 Corinthians 7 Paul lays out the differences between the world’s repentance and Biblical repentance and we must learn this distinction if we are to be effective counselors.

Well Paul thank you very much for the introduction. I'll give you guys a little bit more introduction. Can you hear me okay? Okay, no problem. So again most of you don't know me so I thought I'd be good if I gave a little introduction.

I am a pastor in Lake Stevens, Washington. That's all the way on the other side of the coast of the United States. Small town about really about half an hour north of Seattle, but if you're talking drive time it could be an hour and a half to two hours. I grew up in Washington State in a very broken unsaved home, but in my second year at the highly liberal Western Washington University God has saved me opened my eyes opened my ears and just gave me a new heart but not only did he save my save me but he also put me in a strong Bible-teaching, believing church. The two pastors there then discipled me.

It was a great privilege. Then after about a year of internship work there I was sent down to the master seminary that's where I met my wife after I graduated I was ordained at Grace Community Church and then they sent us out as missionaries to Berlin Germany with two other couples two other master seminary graduates but both of them were German speakers. There we started a church called the Beebelgemeine Berlin, which is the Bible Church of Berlin. I think there's a picture over there. After that We started something called the European Bible Training Center.

And by God's grace, both are still going very well in the capable hands of the Germans over there. After nearly 10 years of ministry, we'd still be there had we not been kicked out for homeschooling our kids. It was, that's a whole nother story for another time and I don't have the time, so. We came back to Washington with 11 kids. God's added three more, and we started church in 2009.

That's where we live and work today. By God's grace, again, I have 14 kids, seven boys, and seven girls. My third oldest daughter's with me today, that's Bree right there. So I got interested in biblical counseling back in my seminary days. As a matter of fact, even before I graduated from the master's seminar, I began working on my second master's degree in biblical counseling.

However, about that same amount of time, everything kind of came together. I was being ordained, I was graduating, I was getting married, I was getting ready to leave on the mission field and something had to give and that was my M ABC So I put that on ice However when he came back to the States in 2009 and God laid that on my heart again so I've been ACBC certified as a matter of fact I just came back a couple weeks ago from the conference down in Jacksonville Florida does anybody know ACBC it's it's yes it's the Association for certified biblical counselors it used to be called Nank J Adams started it I think most people know J Adams really if you if you have that opportunity to ever get some of that training, I cannot recommend that enough. Now I know this is a conference on repentance, so I'm not going to delve too deeply into the difference between biblical counseling and Christian counseling, but I don't want you to be confused when you hear those terms, because in reality they're worlds apart. Over the past generation or so, there have been a very influential movement within the church to replace biblical counseling with Christian counseling.

Christian counselors are trained professionals who blend secular psychology with the Bible, and I've got a big problem with that. These counselors sound fairly biblical because they usually combine the combined theological ideas and terminology with very secular and godless notions from people like Sigmund Freud, Carl Rogers, Carl Jung, or whatever school of psychology that they might be following. Thus this movement has conditioned generations of believers to think of counseling as something best left to the trained experts. And it's left many feeling that God's Word is insufficient, unsophisticated, and simply unable to help people with their deepest spiritual and emotional needs. Even many pastors send their wounded sheep to outside counselors thinking that only a trained professional can really help them.

In short, Christian counseling has diminished the church's confidence and simply what we all stand here for at the NCFIC is the preaching and teaching of God's Holy Word, prayer, fellowship, and the power of the Holy Spirit to change people's lives, not secular psychology. But it's my firm belief that the most skilled counselor is not the one who has steeped his mind in what unsaved men and women have taught down through the ages. What they say is true about the inner man. The most skilled counselor and the one that God will bless is the one who most carefully, prayerfully, and faithfully applies the truths of God's Word to the process of sanctification in a believer's life. Today I want to specifically look at the role which repentance should play in your biblical counseling.

And let me just start off by really defining what I mean by biblical counseling. When I say biblical counseling, I'm really talking about biblical discipleship. We are called to make disciples, are we not? It's the great commission, We're called to make disciples. So when I say biblical counseling, I'm really saying biblical discipleship.

It's just another way of saying that, okay? We're all called to make disciples. As a counselor, people come to you often with heavy hearts, the burden may be one of sorrow or it may be one of sin, and often it's a mixture of the two. And your job as your, as their discipler, as their counselor, is to sort out the mess and apply the the comfort of God's Word to the sorrow and help the sinner to a place of repentance over his sin, whether that means an unbeliever coming to the point of salvation or a believer repenting over a harbored sin. And once that takes place, you can help them grow in sanctification.

You help them fill the place which the sin in their lives once occupied with a passionate pursuit of the opposite virtue, a pursuit motivated by growing knowledge and a love for God and God's Word. But sometimes, even oftentimes, we are far too quick to move from the initial tears over sin in training to training in righteousness, skipping over the crucial area, I believe, of repentance. I once heard a seasoned counselor say this, he said, if your counselee has plateaued and isn't making any more progress, go back and revisit his repentance. I thought those were very, very wise words. The validity of a person's repentance is absolutely key, not only for salvation, but also for any real growth and change that's going to occur in the person's life.

So let me begin by by telling you two stories two true stories Bob sat in my office sobbing Not crying, but sobbing his hands were busy Wiping the the flood of tears off of his cheek as he told me his story of sin and regret. Bob and Sharon had only been married for about six months but there was chaos in their relationship. Bob was only in his late 20s but his marriage to Sharon was already his third. He had children with both of his previous wives and he decided to marry Sharon because lo and behold she was pregnant. However things at home were rough.

Bob was selfish, He was manipulative and when he didn't get his way, he was both verbally and physically abusive. He would drink and then he would get violent. After hitting and choking, he would come to his senses and beg her not to leave him, but Sharon was understandably fearful and desperate for help. Real case. Ken had a similar story.

He had been married to his wife Sally for about seven years. Their marriage had been spinning out of control almost since day one. Sally had been married before and she was bringing children into their marriage. Ken had never been married before and he told his wife that he had been pure, living a pure life, really up to their marriage. But two years into their marriage, Sally found out during a counseling session that Ken had been addicted to pornography and prostitutes for over ten years before getting married.

Well things went from bad to worse at that point. They went from church to church, from counselor to counselor, until they finally ended up on our doorstep. Ken came to me one afternoon said that his wife was giving him two weeks to clean up his act or she was gonna leave him for good. And like Bob, Ken pleaded with his wife not to leave. He swore that he was a changed man, he even vowed that he would never look at pornography or another woman again.

Both men were in a desperate situation as they cried and pled for reconciliation. Bob and Ken both had a lot in common. Both had serious problems with lying. Both had a checkered past before their present marriage. Both were family men with children and both were in a position of potentially losing their wives, their children, and their jobs because of their harbored ongoing sin.

I canceled both of these men for months, but only one of them changed. So which one do you think it was? It's kind of hard to tell, isn't it? Both were sincere. Both truly regretted their sin.

Both honestly hated to see the pain that their sin had caused their wives and their children. Both begged and pleaded their wives not to leave. Both sought the help of others. Both appeared to be willing to do whatever it took to change their sinful lifestyles. Both shed buckets of tears, but in the final analysis these two men were as different as cats and dogs.

They both displayed sorrow but their tears were drawn from two totally different wells. The Apostle Paul ran into this phenomenon in his ministry as well and that's why he penned at least in part his second letter to the Corinthians to help us understand the difference between these two men. As you remember, if you know anything about the book of Corinthians or Paul's time in Corinth, Paul had a complicated relationship with the Corinthians. They were true believers, but they were immature, sinning in many ways and being led astray by false teachers. Thus, his first letter to the Corinthians was very confrontational.

In it, he pinpointed a number of sins which they are guilty of, sins that required repentance. But after he sent it, he felt a bit apprehensive. How would they react when they receive the letter? Would they feel shame and sorrow over their sin but do nothing about it or would they feel shame and sorrow over their sin and be moved then to genuine repentance folks we've all felt that way before whether through the writing of a sensitive email how are they gonna take this how is it gonna go over Or even the preaching of a very potential difficult sermon. Confrontations have the capacity to either provoke someone to anger or lead them to godly sorrow.

Certainly anger is something that we never hoped for, that's something we don't want. But even the sorrow that is provoked, Paul says, can be either from the world or from God. And Paul wrote that there's a sorrow of the world that produces death and there's a sorrow according to the will of God that produces repentance that leads to life. The question for the biblical counselor for all of us then becomes this, do we know the difference between these two sorrows? These two manifestations of apparent repentance because one will lead to change while the other one cannot.

So let's read our text together shall we? 2 Corinthians 7 8 3 11. I know there's a couple other men who are handling this passage as well, but I don't know of a better one to really deal with this topic. So let's read this together. 2nd Corinthians 7 8 through 11.

Paul wrote this, I now rejoice not that you were made sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful to the point of repentance. For you were made sorrowful according to the will of God so that you might not suffer loss in anything through us. For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death. For behold what earnestness this very thing, this godly sorrow has produced in you. What vindication of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what avenging of wrong.

In everything you demonstrate yourselves to be innocent in the matter and we'll stop there this tremendous passage really is sorrow can be defined as feeling bad sad sorrow and grieved or even the tears Paul says that there are two kinds of sorrows. They possess two different traits and produce two differing results but we easily confuse them because they share the most obvious element and that is the sorrow itself. Rarely do we ever question a person's tears. Rarely do we ever question their deep remorse or their impassioned pleas for forgiveness. But Paul knows better than that.

And so by using a comparison, Paul shows the Corinthians and by extension, really us, that not all sorrow is created equal. And we need to keep that in mind when we talk to people. The first of these two sorrows he calls a worldly sorrow. Worldly sorrow is a legitimate sorrow. There, these are real tears.

There is real regret. There is real sadness and brokenness. But the issue is not whether a person's sorrow is real, the issue is what they're sorrowful about. The focus of worldly sorrow at its heart, hear this very clearly, is self. It's self-pity.

The person is sorrowful primarily because he didn't get what he wanted or expected. For example, marriage is supposed to bring joy but instead it's dishing out hurt and disappointment. Or perhaps the person is sorrowful because he's losing something that he values. Maybe he's about ready to lose his spouse, and so the buckets of tears start coming. Or his children, or his money, or his job, or his house, or his reputation, or sometimes even his access to his own secret sin.

Or a third scenario is that he's sorrowful because he got caught doing something wrong and he must suffer the unpleasant consequences of his actions. Financial loss, again a broken marriage, damaged reputation, jail time, or simply nagging guilt. At its core, worldly sorrow is focused on self and it's usually short-lived. Before long it dies away and people begin to live just like they did before instead of changing their thinking and their actions, their attitudes, they simply try harder the next time not to get caught another characteristic of worldly sorrow is that it resists and avoids consequences I wish I had time to explain all these stories that come flooding to my head really works hard to find fault with the process of discipline. I've been in a number of church discipline consequences or cases and that's exactly what they focus on.

You didn't do it right. And it desires immediate return to trust in a relationship, or to positions of ministry, or to authority as if nothing ever happened. Worldly sorrow, though genuine, is focused on self. Paul goes on to say that this kind of sorrow leads to death, however. It's deadly because it flows from the same selfish heart that wanted its sin in the first place, and that's crucial to understand.

The sinful heart, in essence, says this, I want what I want whenever I want it. And I don't care that it's harmful to me or anyone else, and I don't care that it's offensive to God or you or anyone. Folks, the kind of heart that sins in pursuit of its own pleasure is also a heart that is obsessed with holding onto its object of selfish desire. All the tears and all the pain, bottom line, are simply about loss to self. The self-centered heart is still the same whether engaging in cherished sins or tearfully expressing worldly sorrow when things go wrong.

But Paul says that there's another type of sorrow in our passage. He calls it a godly sorrow. It may look just as sad as the worldly kind. As a matter of fact, it might not even shed tears. But there's a world of difference between the two because something very different is happening in the heart.

Worldly sorrow is sad about losing the things of the world. The focus of godly sorrow is God himself. Godly sorrow mourns because we have disappointed God. It's broken, heartbroken over the break in relationship with the Lord. The tears flow not merely because of loss but because the eyes of the Lord have been forced to look upon our filth.

We experience godly sorrow when God so grips our soul that we wake up to our sin and are left with a God wound, a wound that crushes our desire for sin and leaves us desperate for Him. And these tears flow from the sadness that God's loving and holy law has been broken. The heartache, the grief, the mourning, the weeping of Godly sorrow are because we have recognized that we have truly offended a holy God who matters more to us than anything else in the universe. Do we also grieve over the pain our sin brings upon our loved ones? Yes.

Do we grieve over the consequences that our sin brings into our own lives? Of course. But at its core, Godly sorrow is God-centered. King David experienced this kind of sorrow after his death with, or after his sin with, Bathsheba, excuse me. You remember this from last night with Dr.

John Snyder. Please turn with me to Psalm 51 just real quick. Keep your thumb in 2nd Corinthians. But I want to show you something here. In Psalm 51 we have an inspired title heading given to this psalm.

These are not things that are added later, but things that we find in God's Word. It says, for the choir director, a psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came to him after he had gone into Bathsheba. Now skip down to verse 4. Look at verse 4. David wrote this, against you, you only I have sinned and done what is evil in your sight so that you are justified when you speak and blameless when you judge.

How could David say that his sin was only against God and God only? How do you not sin against Bathsheba? How do you not sin against Uriah, her husband, on multiple levels? How do you not sin against her or his own family, his own wife? Had he not sinned against the nation over which he ruled?

Had he not even sinned against his own body? The reason why King David under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit worded his prayer in just this way is because the great evil of all sin consists in the fact that it is always first and foremost against God. If you listen carefully to your counselee, the people that you're discipling, the people that you're mentoring, whatever words you want to use, you should be able to see some kind of or similar type of anguish for having offended God, perhaps not as eloquent as David put it here in Psalm 51, but it should be there nonetheless. Besides being God-centered, godly sorrow is long-term. In other words, it lasts.

It involves more than the fleeting emotions, the fleeting tears. It involves the will. It submits itself to the humbling process of discipline, no matter what the cost. It initiates action toward the restoration of broken relationships, no matter what the cost. And it humbly recognizes the need for trust to be rebuilt over time is gonna take some time.

The driving motive of a godly sorrow is love for God and others more than self, and that's the key. Now, let's look at repentance, what exactly that means. Much of the joy of the Apostle Paul, the Corinthian sorrow proved to be godly sorrow. Paul recognized that and so he was happy about that. And that godly sorrow led to real repentance.

Now before we go any further, it's important that we define repentance. Now I know you've probably heard it defined several times so far in our conference, but there are really... There's four words, four primary words, two in the Hebrew, two in the Greek. The Hebrew words are nacham and shub, which are typically translated as repent. And then there are two Greek words metamelomai and metanoia, and they're also normally translated as repent.

All four of these words basically mean to turn or to change. Metanoia is the most common word translated as repent in the New Testament. Literally it means to change one's mind. That's exactly right. That's what it literally means.

But the Bible doesn't just leave it there. The Bible also tells us that true repentance will result in a change of actions. Okay, in Acts 26 verse 20, the Apostle Paul declared this, he said, I preach that they should repent and turn to God and prove their repentance by their deeds. That's probably the best definition that I've ever heard of repentance goes like this, repentance is a change of mind that leads to a change of heart that results in a change of action, okay? So it goes from head to heart to hands or if you're the prodigal son to your feet, right?

He went home. Simply the head, the intellectual acknowledgment that you have sinned is not enough. Even the heart, a sincere emotional tearful regret that you've sinned or you've been caught in your sin is not enough? True repentance will include both of those but it won't stop there. It will work itself out in drastically changed actions.

That's true biblical repentance. Many have confused understanding what biblical repentance is and because of that they're now even clinging to a false assurance of salvation. An assurance based on their having shed bitter tears over their sins. But Paul says that that these two differing sorrows have two very, very different destinies. Let's look at verse 10 with me.

2nd Corinthians 7 10. Folks, there's also notes on the back, the very back seat of there if you didn't grab those second Corinthians 7 10 for the sorrow that is according to the will of God. Paul writes, produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death. Godly sorrow produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation. In other words, godly sorrow produces life.

That's eternal life. Godly sorrow marks a change from the self-centeredness of sin and the self-centeredness of worldly sorrow to an abiding concern for God and living for His glory and not our own pleasure. Bottom line, the person full of godly sorrow has a heart that now wants to please God more than anyone or anything else. That's true repentance. That's a heart that's been changed.

Let's go back to these two counseling cases that I began with. Both Bob and Ken looked sorrowful on the outside and I honestly could not tell with them sitting in front of me in my office hearing their stories for the first time what kind of sorrow were was driving their tears But times showed that there were two very different things happening inside those two men This distinction Paul says here is the difference between life and death, heaven and hell. The difference between these two sorrows, Paul says, touches eternity. So that's why we need to take this so serious. Folks, this is where 2 Corinthians 7, 8 through 11 becomes even more practical.

Because now the Apostle Paul describes in detail how we can tell the difference between these two types of sorrows. And I'm so thankful that he tells us. So how can we know if our disciple or if our counselee has truly repented, what will that look like? Well, very simply, we must take time to look at the fruit because all true Christianity will be validated by its fruit, correct? A tree is known by its fruits.

This is particularly true with regards to repentance, for there's no valid repentance without corresponding fruit. John the Baptist knew this. He insisted that those he baptized bring forth fruit, corresponding fruits of repentance. He said this in Matthew 3, therefore bring forth fruit in keeping with repentance. And in this letter to the Corinthians, we find seven fruits of genuine repentance, inspired by the Holy Spirit, and recorded for us by the Apostle Paul.

So let's look at verse 11 where we see those seven fruits. He says this, for behold what earnestness this very thing, this godly sorrow has produced in you. What vindication of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what avenging of wrong, in everything you demonstrate yourselves to be innocent in the matter. So mark this, there are seven fruits that Godly sorrow produced in the Corinthians. I counted them out for you, okay?

Now don't suppose that because you see in your counselee or the lady that you're discipling, if you see three or four that everything must be okay. They've got the majority down. If some of these marks are noticeably missing, then very likely your counselee still needs to repent of his inadequate repentance. So let's look at these first. Notice that the Corinthians' godly sorrow produced an earnestness.

For behold what earnestness is very thing this godly sorrow has produced in you. Now the word the Apostle used for earnestness speaks of great care. We see an example such earnest repents in King David's prayer in Psalm 139. Do you remember that? In this much-beloved Psalm he cried out, he said this in verse 23, Search me, O God, and know my heart and try me and know my anxious thoughts and see if there be any hurtful way in me and lead me in the everlasting way.

David was earnest about repenting of his sin. So earnest, in fact, that he was willing to ask God to reveal to him any secret sin that still might be lurking someplace in his heart. And that takes courage. That displays earnestness. Many times I've not wanted to really take the time to search my heart too deeply because I knew what I might find there.

That's just being honest. When you're counseling sins, he winces that the pain of guilt feels conviction for a while. He might even be determined to fight against that sin for a while. But if it's worldly sorrow, I guarantee it's only gonna be short-lived. The pain of what he's lost or the fear of what he might lose, you've got two weeks to change where I'm leaving you, eventually fades away.

In time he realizes that he can then perhaps live without that sin because he can replace it with some other idol that he's put in its place, some other sin, and once that realization hits, his sorrow disappears and so does he from your office. But godly sorrow is not short term. It's long term. It's earnest. Godly sorrow gets busy and fervently seeks to fight the flesh, the world, and the devil.

Godly sorrow is busy in his battle with sin for weeks, months, even years. Whatever it takes, it's a war. Friends, if your counseling lacks earnestness in his repentance, If he's content to tolerate sin in any area of his life, it will immediately hinder growth and eliminate fruitfulness. And has he spent many years sinning, ten years of prostitution, ten years of pornography? Then do not suppose that a few careless moments will be sufficient for the kind of earnestness and repentance which his sins require and which his Savior deserves.

Encourage him to hit his knees in prayer and to be earnest and unhurried in his repentance. Second, the Corinthians' genuine repentance manifested itself in its desire for vindication. Let's read verse 11 again. For behold what earnestness this very thing, this godly sorrow has produced in you. What vindication of yourselves." And we'll stop there.

But what exactly does that mean? It's not a word that I use all the time, how we describe ourselves. Paul used the Greek word, you've probably heard it, apologia here, in which is the same word from which we get our English word apologetics, which literally means a speech in defense of. So, but verbally rising to our own defense is not what the Apostle Paul is commending here. That's not what he's saying.

The term as used here speaks of a great eagerness to clear oneself of all charges of sin. Thus the Corinthians had a strong desire to clear their name, to remove the stigma of their sin, rid themselves of their guilt, and prove themselves to be trustworthy. They made sure that all who knew about their previous sins now knew of their repentance. Thus the ESV translates this phrase, what eagerness to clear yourselves. And I like that.

Folks, when I got saved after living 21 years as an unbeliever I was so eager to tell my friends my family everyone what God had done my life they thought I was a nutcase But I was eager to see myself indicated to let them know that the old Kerry Green is dead. This is accomplished by repentance that is thorough and continual. So that there is never a time when a sin of which you have not repented of lodges and thrives in your life. The hold of sin in you is broken and no longer defines who you are. You go out of your way to ensure that others know that you and your lifestyle are not what it used to be and that now you're living to the honor and the glory of God, you want to rebuild your reputation as one who honors God with your life, your story is one of being redeemed from your sin, and you reject or you rejoice, excuse me, that it's no longer a part of your life.

That's when one vindicates himself as Paul describes here. It does not mean that he cannot or does not sin. Rather it means that when he does sin, he cannot be charged not by man, not by Satan, because he immediately, absolutely, totally, and earnestly repents and in faith lays that sin upon the Lamb of God, who takes his sin away so that there's simply nothing left for which to charge him. That's why one of the qualifications of an elder is that he is above reproach. Doesn't mean that he's sinless.

It just means that when he sins he immediately takes care of it and in his bad example he's now a good example in how he deals with his sin. Not only has Christ stamped his record paid in full, but he is no longer living in that sin, bringing reproach upon his Savior. He is totally vindicated. Nobody can legitimately point a finger at him Because he's already asked for forgiveness. Look at verse 11 where we find our next fruit of genuine repentance.

It says this, what indignation. Godly sorrow produces indignation or hatred either at the offense or at oneself for having allowed such an offense. It speaks of being filled with wrath to the point of grief. The Corinthians were outraged over their sin. They were angry that they had brought such shame and reproach on the name of Christ, and they now hated the sin that they had formerly cherished.

Thus Paul is telling us that we can ascertain the validity of a person's repentance by their reaction to the sin in themselves. True repentance produces a deep sense of disgust that prompts the sinner to declare, I hate that sin. I will not live another minute with that sin in my life. I am bringing it to God, the God I love with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength, and I will throw all my energies into learning its opposite virtue. Now if you confront your counselee about his sin in his life, what's his response?

Is it one of indignation towards you for confronting him? Not too long ago, I had one man throw us off his doorstep. Never been thrown off a doorstep before, but we were in the process of confronting him in sin, a couple of us. And he asked us to get off his doorstep. This was a church member.

Or is it one of indignation toward himself for being so unlike Christ that a loving brother sister had to rebuke him? Any person who cannot tolerate reproof, any person who cannot tolerate rebuke or correction or instruction and training in righteousness is at his very heart unrepentant. Now look back with me at our verse. Paul writes, what fear? We're still in verse 11, there the whole time.

Fear is a very prominent mark of genuine repentance. But fear of what? Fear of going to hell? Fear of others finding out about your sin? Or is it fear of God?

All of us ought to live in the fear of God. Book of Proverbs opens with this fact the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. You see in your counseling only a fear that people will find out about his or her sin? Or do you see a fear that God, the only person who ultimately matters, fully knows already everything about that sin. But I think this godly fear goes even further.

Fear is appropriate unless someone who has heard that we claim to belong to Christ should stumble and fall over some sin in our life. Do your counseles live in this type of fear? In other words, think of Jesus' well-known warning to his disciples in Luke chapter 17. He said to his disciples in verse 1, he said, he said to his disciples, It is inevitable that stumbling blocks come, but woe to him through whom they come. It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea, than that he would cause one of these little ones to stumble.

A millstone is a huge stone. It goes right to the bottom of the sea, wherever it's thrown. A godly fear will also dread destroying one's testimony, and with it all hope of future ministry and Paul wisely lived in fear of this. Listen to his earnest words to the Corinthians in 1st Corinthians chapter 9 verse 27 he says this, but I discipline my body I make it my slave so that after I have preached to others I myself will not be disqualified." Do you see his heartfelt fear of destroying his own testimony? This is not a man who rolled over and passively allowed his sinful flesh to control him.

Rather, he fought it tooth and nail. He said He disciplined his body. He made it his slave. It's also been translated, I buffet my body, or I keep under my body, or I strike a blow to my body. Paul was determined not to let his flesh ruin his testimony for the Lord that he loved.

So let me ask you do you see that type of godly fear in your own life? Then do you see that in your counselee, in the person you're discipling? Let's look at the next mark of biblical repentance. Paul says, what longing, what longing. The fifth fruit of genuine repentance is that its longings are biblically prioritized.

As Jesus noted, the children of this world eagerly seek for the physical things but children of God are marked by seeking first that is longing for first his kingdom and his righteousness right Matthew 6 33 your council ease affections and desires should be changing from what he wanted prior to repentance to what God now desires for him. So ask yourself three questions as you work with your counselor. First, what seems to be the overwhelming longing of his heart? Is it God? Is it his kingdom and his righteousness?

Or is it something or someone else? Second, how fervently does he long for? Does he devote more energy and effort to seeking God than anything else? Does he earnestly do the homework that you assign him? Is he faithful in keeping the appointments that he makes with you?

Is he faithful in his church attendance? Or do his spiritual interests receive a much lower priority than work, school, or his own personal hobbies? Third, what place do Christ's kingdom and his righteousness occupy in his daily life? If you were to follow him around for just one day, would you see that he is more excited about God, the God of the Bible, than anything else? Beloved, of what value is a repentance that does not move us to long to be like Christ?

What value is there? Are we in the grip of fervent desire for the kingdom of God and his righteousness? And if not, then on what grounds do we suppose ourselves or a counselee to be truly repentant? The fifth fruit of repentance leads us straight to the next one. What zeal?

This Greek word carries the idea of being red-hot or boiling. Is your counseling zeal for the things of God that strong? One of the most notable features of genuine believers in the book of Acts was their zeal. It manifested itself in the length of sermons that they preached and were willing to listen to, the days and nights that they spent in fasting and in prayer, the vast extent of their charity willing to sell everything extra and give it all to the poor, lay it at the Apostles feet so it could be distributed, the courage with which they faced persecution and death even rejoicing that they had been considered honored to be scourged for the name of Christ, the fervor with which they had witnessed to others, the extent of their travels and propagating the gospel and the simplicity of their daily lives so that they could keep their focus on the Lord Christ and not get caught up in the things of this world. Strangely, strangely however, if any one of the Apostles, maybe even the Apostle Paul, were to enter into our churches today, I'm afraid that he'd be branded as a dangerous cult leader.

And why? Because today in our post-Christian culture zeal is considered weird. It's considered even fanatical. But God considers it a sign of genuine repentance. Zeal is not just for the ultra Christian missionary type either.

The person that's willing to lay it all on the line to go move their families overseas. Zeal should be the norm for all true believers and a necessary evidence of genuine repentance. Folks, if your counselee is not excited about God and his kingdom above all else, then I can just put it like this. There is something dreadfully dreadfully wrong. Look with me at the last fruit of repentance, which Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, listed for us.

Verse 11, for behold what earnestness this very thing this godly sorrow has produced in you what vindication of yourselves what indignation what fear what longing what zeal what avenging of wrong so Paul suggesting that the truly repent have their revenge on those who have wronged them? Is that how we should read that? Certainly not. He's speaking here of that vital part of repentance that is generally known as restitution. I think we heard that from Jason Daum.

Truly repentant people have an unshakable moral persuasion that all the wrongs of which they are guilty must, if at all possible, be set right. Instead of protecting themselves, they accept the consequences of their sins. A truly repentant sinner must think back through his life of sin and ascertain where there are areas and cases that he can still go and repair at least some of the damage that he's caused along the way. Wherever it's possible to make a wrong right, the truly repentant will do so no matter what the cost. If someone thinks he has repented and yet refuses to make restitution, where possible, that person is merely deceiving himself.

Now look at the last phrase in verse 11 he says in everything you demonstrate yourselves to be innocent in the matter." The statement sounds like Paul is saying that the Corinthians have proven themselves to be innocent of sin. But this can't be because he just finished describing the fruits of their repentance. The Corinthians' eagerness, their vindication, their indignation, their fear, their longing, their zeal, and restitution showed that they were not guilty of the kind of sorrow that leads to death. And Paul said there's two types, one that leads to death and one that leads to life. Rather, they proved their sorrow had led to true repentance and thus to true life.

Now the two men that I described for you at the very beginning, Bob and Ken, Only one of them today is walking with Christ. Only one of them is devoted to his wife and his family. Only one of them is truly changed in his mind and his heart and his hands and his feet. Can you guess which one it is? Ken is that man.

Bob was eventually convicted for spousal abuse and spent some time in jail. He ended up leaving his wife of less than a year and even before the divorce was finalized he had already moved on to the next woman and got engaged to her. This would have been marriage number four to a man who was barely 30 years old. Bob's tears could not sustain real change because he never moved from desiring the things of the world more than the things of God. The biggest difference between Ken and Bob and the biggest difference between godly repentance and worldly repentance is the heart attitude toward God.

Ken's tears led to genuine repentance because the sorrow was God-centered. Worldly repentance feels the sting of sin and its consequences but still holds on to and cherishes a love for sin and self. That's the biggest difference. Godly repentance on the other hand is gripped by the sinfulness of one's own sin and by desire to be restored to God no matter what the cost. Friend, when a wounded soul sits across a table at Starbucks with you, or in your office, or in your living room, and pours out a tale of sin and sorrow and woe.

You have the opportunity to try to lead that person to real repentance, but don't shortchange their soul by allowing them to accept a cheap substitute for biblical repentance. As long as their sorrow and repentance is like their sin, focused on self, they will never truly break free from the grip of sin in their life. Till God is their chief concern. Until sinning against him is what breaks their heart and makes them sick, they will never turn the corner. So why do so many counselees, why do so many disciples, This is something I come across all the time.

Why do so many people never seem to grow and change? Spin their wheels year after year after year, counseling session after counseling session? Why do so many people who claim to know and love Jesus Christ struggle for years, I would say like this, with life dominating sins? We all stumble into sin, but I'm talking about people who are stuck in life dominating sins and I submit to you that their repentance was never genuine. True biblical repentance is, I believe, the missing link of much biblical discipleship or counseling.

Therefore we must, we must, we must call our counselees not to dwell upon the past but instead to deal with the past in biblical repentance so that the past may be forgiven and buried and forgetting the past the counselee may be helped to reach forward to what lies ahead." As Philippians 3 13 and 14 so eloquently talk about. Beloved, it's absolutely crucial that we get repentance right, because it's as much a part of salvation as sanctification and faith is. Let me end our time with this. Spurgeon, that prince of preachers, Once said it like this, if a man does not live differently from what he did before, then his repentance needs to be repented of, and his conversion is a fiction. Let's pray together.

Oh Lord, what a rich text. It's something that really has, I believe, the source of so much of people who believe that they're saved when in fact they never really have been saved because the repentance has been not what you described true biblical repentance as. So Lord help us to be wise ourselves. Help us to first and foremost examine our own lives, make sure that we ourselves are repenting in a biblical way that would truly bring glory and honor to you, that it's not self-centered but it's God-centered. Just as Paul described to the Corinthians, and he was so glad that that's what he saw in their lives.

Lord, I pray that's when we have people that were discipling, people that were counseling, and we continually don't see a zeal and eagerness, a vindication of wrong, and all these different marks, these fruits of repentance. I pray that we would take them to this passage and challenge them on whether or not their repentance is truly genuine or not and God only you can open blind eyes and only you can give real faith, and only you can give real repentance that leads to life. God have mercy, I pray. Lord, we love you and we thank you so much for this time. In Jesus' And everyone said, Amen.