Sorrow--worldly vs godly

II Corinthians 7:10 (NLT)

For the kind of sorrow God wants us to experience leads us away from sin and results in salvation. There’s no regret for that kind of sorrow. But worldly sorrow, which lacks repentance, results in spiritual death. 

It would be interesting to take an anonymous poll of readers of these writings and ask if your salvation resulted from some kind of sorrow (lupe in the Greek meaning sorrow, pain, grief, regret, annoyance or affliction)?  Note that this “lupe” is something that God wants us to experience.  One of the purposes of suffering and why God allows it is that it does lead some people away from sin and results in salvation.  Note also that this is not the only kind of “lupe”; that there is worldly sorrow that leads to spiritual death.  

Let’s look first at worldly sorrow.  Worldly sorrow is what we see when a someone gets caught doing something wrong and expresses great regret (we’ve witnessed a lot of this lately with celebrities).  However, the regret is their ego taking a huge hit and they feel like fools.  The focus of their sorrow is not God, but their own wounded ego, an ego that is humiliated before other men, not before God.  We see worldly sorrow all the time in our culture.  We can even read it in the Bible.  How many characters in the Bible confessed, “I have sinned”, yet didn’t mean it----examples include Pharoah (Exodus 9:7), Achan (Joshua 7:20), King Saul (I Samuel 15:24) and Judas (Matthew 27:4).  Worldly sorrow lacks true regret, sincere repentance and a sincere change of heart and the result is spiritual death.  Spiritual death means separation from God and it can be temporary or permanent.

    

Godly sorrow results when you know that you have done some evil that has wounded God as well as you.  The focus of your sorrow is God more than it is you.  Such sorrow is so great that you want to cleanse your conscience and to do that, you ask God for forgiveness, desire to repent, and change your heart.  Two Biblical examples include King David and the Prodigal Son.

It has been said that you as a Christian should be willing to cause godly regret in others (help them recognize their sin as Paul was doing with the Corinthian Church) and be willing to accept godly regret in your own life.  The Bible and other Christians can serve to help you see your own weaknesses---yes, sin and evil—and you should be moved by godly sorrow to confess.  The word for salvation in this passage is from the Greek word sozo ‘healing or wholeness’.  So Paul is not talking about salvation from your sinful nature, since you already are saved in Christ.  He is talking about process of consistent spiritual growth called sanctification where you keep learning about hidden sins and repent of them.  You don’t feel sorry but keep doing the sin (this is worldly sorrow), you repent (“turn-around”) and stop doing the sin (this is godly sorrow).  As Paul states, this is the kind of sorrow—lupe—that God wants you to experience.  What is that for you today?