DAILY TRUTH - Godly Grief, Repentance, & Killing Sin
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Summary
The Christian is not under law in regards to moral obligation, but under grace and no longer under condemnation. But that does not mean that the Christian is free from moral obligation. The Christian is saved by grace alone, not by law.
Transcript
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Jesus said, Man cannot live on bread alone, but from every word that proceeds from the
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The first thing that Joshua does after Israel is defeated by Ai is to humble himself before
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Still, it is not long before God tells him that his mourning, that is his grief, is enough.
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God does not delight in the grief of his saints merely for grief's sake. Rather,
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godly grief is granted by God as a gift and as a means to a glorious and good end.
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I could not help but think, as working through the text this week and preparing for the Lord's
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day in preaching God's Word of a correlation between verse 10 and 11 of our text and 2nd
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Corinthians chapter 7 verses 9 10 and 11 which says this as it is I rejoice not because you were
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grieved but because you were grieved into repenting for godly grief produces a repentance that leads
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to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death. For see what earnestness
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this godly grief has produced in you, but also what eagerness to clear yourselves,
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what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what punishment. If you're familiar with
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that particular text in 2 Corinthians, it is very likely that the Apostle Paul, who is the human
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author inspired by the Holy Spirit of God is referring to what he previously wrote in his
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first letter to the Corinthians regarding a particular man who was caught in sin. And the
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church at Corinth was boasting. Now, they weren't boasting in this man's sin in and of itself.
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Very likely, instead, what was going on is that the church at Corinth was boasting in regards
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to their tolerance, charitableness, graciousness in light of such an outrageous sin. So the church
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in Corinth very likely was not saying this particular sin that this young man has committed
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with a member of his own family is wonderful and we're proud of it. No. Instead, what they were
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likely saying is, it's horrible, and look how charitable we are. Even in the case of outrageous
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sin, we, the church at Corinth, we welcome all sinners. You belong here. Love is love.
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No judgment here. Judgment-free zone. The church at Corinth welcomes everybody. This young man,
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you might notice next to the cross, we also have a rainbow flag. That's what was going on.
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The church at Corinth wasn't boasting in the sin. What they were boasting in is their position
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theologically of antinomianism. We're not under law here. We're under grace, which is precisely
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what the Bible does in fact say, but under grace and no longer under law in what regard should be
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the question that we ask. We are no longer, for those who are in Christ Jesus, there is now,
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therefore, no more condemnation. You are not under law insofar as judgment, insofar as condemnation.
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You are under, rather, grace afforded to you through faith in Jesus Christ alone, His person
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and His finished work. But that does not mean that the Christian is not under law in regards
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to a moral obligation. David said, as a Christian, as one who is trusting in his ultimate heir,
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the Christ, that there would be a greater king who would sit one day on his throne of the increase
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of his government. There would be no end that he would rule with an iron scepter. David, as well
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with all the other Old Testament saints, was saved in the exact same manner that you and I are
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by trusting in Jesus, they saw in shadows and types. We see in substance, looking back with
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more clarity on this side of the cross. But the point is that David was a Christian, and David
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of the law, he says, I delight in the law. And it is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.
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It illuminates for me the path to salvation. No, it illuminates to me the path from salvation.
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as he was working through the liturgy this morning,
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and that the chasm between God and Him is infinite,
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And yet, having been saved by grace alone, he delights in the law of God and sees the law not
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as something that shows him the path to merit salvation, but it shows him the path of how to
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respond in gratitude for salvation. That is the biblical view. But the church at Corinth is not
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thinking in those terms. See, they have abandoned legalism, good, but overcompensated into the realm
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of antinomianism. That is a picture, I believe, of the evangelical church as a whole in the West
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today. We are not legalists. Okay, and what does that mean? It means we hate obedience.
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Wait, what? We never preach law in this church. Wait, what? You're bragging about that?
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brother i don't think that's a brag you want you want to rethink that
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no we preach law we do the question is how do we preach obedience to the law of god as a means of
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earning salvation no that's legalism but do we not preach law at all pretending as though
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obedience doesn't even matter? No. That's antinomianism. Both are a failure.
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So the church at Corinth is bragging not about the particular sin of this young man, but bragging
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about their antinomian, against law, disposition regarding his sin. And so Paul writes to them in
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1 Corinthians, his first letter, chapter 5, and says, purge the immoral man from among you.
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take the sin seriously. But then he writes back to the very same church in his second letter,
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and he actually says, and I believe it's the same man, this would be 2 Corinthians chapter 2,
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he says, welcome him back in, lest he be overburdened by unceasing sorrow. He's repented.
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You've done your job. The point was not to condemn him indefinitely, but to convict him that he might
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repent. And so welcome him back in. And then later in chapter 7 of 2 Corinthians, the apostle Paul
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says, now you, speaking about the church as a whole in a corporate sense, quit mourning.
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Grief is good insofar as it is a means to accomplish God's predestined end. And that end
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of grief in many cases, if not virtually all cases, is repentance. And so what the Apostle
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Paul is essentially saying to the church in Corinth is this. He's saying, you've been grieved
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by the sin of this man, and your grief has produced zeal, commitment, vigilance towards holiness.
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It's been used by God to produce individual repentance for Him,
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But it's also produced corporate repentance for you as a church for your sin,