Come now to the service of the Word. Our Old Testament reading this morning will be from Psalm 51. If you're using a Pew Bible, you can find that on page 601. As you may well know, Psalm 51 is the preeminent penitential psalm of the Old Testament, and in it we see the same dynamics of what we will look at in 2 Corinthians first sermon this morning as Paul speaks of a godly grief which produces repentance, which leads to salvation. Psalm 51, page 601 of your Pew Bible. We'll read the entire psalm, verses one through 19. First, let's ask God to open our minds that we might trust and receive the truth of his word. O Lord, we know that as we come to your living voice, speaking in your scriptures, that without your grace, our ears would be deaf, our hearts would be hard. And so we ask you now that you would come, O Holy Spirit, and you would tenderize our hearts, that you would open our ears. that our sin and its dynamics would not reign in us, but rather your grace and your transforming power as your word works in us to produce what is pleasing to you. Through Christ Jesus, our prophet, our priest, and our king, we do ask these things in his name. Amen. Psalm 51 to the choir master, a Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him after he had gone into Bathsheba. Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love. According to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, you delight in truth and the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness. Let the bones that you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit, that I will teach transgressors your ways and sinners will return to you. Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips and my mouth will declare your praise. For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it. You will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. Do good to Zion in your good pleasure. Build up the walls of Jerusalem. Then you will delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings, in whole burnt offerings. Then bowls will be offered on your altar. If we turn now to our New Testament reading to the book of 2 Corinthians chapter 7, we'll look at verses 8 through 12 this morning. It will not only be our New Testament reading, but our sermon passage. So we continue through Paul's letter to the Corinthians, 2 Corinthians chapter 7, verse 8 through verse 12. You can find that if you're using a pew Bible on page 1,229, page 1,229, 2 Corinthians 7, Verses 8 through 12. For even if I made you grieve with my letter, I do not regret it. Though I did regret it, for I see that that letter grieved you, though only for a while. As it is, I rejoice. Not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved in your repenting. For you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us. For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death. What earnestness this godly grief has produced in you, but also what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what punishment? At every point, you've proved yourselves innocent in the matter. So although I wrote to you, it was not for the sake of the one who did the wrong, nor for the sake of the one who suffered the wrong, but in order that your earnestness for us might be revealed to you in the sight of God. sanctify them in the truth. A famous TV preacher, whom I will leave unnamed, once proclaimed at a rather large speaking event that happened to be in Houston. He said, when you are criticizing yourself, you're criticizing God's creation. The next time you think something negative, turn that around and say, I am God's masterpiece. When you hear those words of that TV preacher, hopefully you sense how radically out of sync they are with what the Scriptures have to say, this Christianized notion that we ought not criticize ourselves or think negatively about our lives is actually a sinister manifestation of something that is afoot more broadly in the world around us. I'm convinced that one of the driving forces behind our culture's obsession with entertainment lies in the way that it anesthetizes our impulse for self-reflection. If we can numb ourselves with distraction, then we can keep from doing any sort of uncomfortable soul-searching about our lives. If I can just stay busy enough and entertained enough, then I will not have moments that leave me alone with all my thoughts and flaws and regrets. We do not want to feel bad about ourselves. We crave a positive self-image which avoids seeing the tragedy of our flaws. And this false gospel of positive self-image is merely adapted this instinct for the church. It is a far cry from the ancient Christian practice of confessing one's sin. That's one of the reasons I so appreciate having a time of corporate confession of sin built into the rhythms of our weekly worship. It trains us to do something that is radically countercultural. The essence of confession is self-criticism. In it, we come before God as our own accusers to own the culpability of our failings. In it, we experience the discomfort of grief and regret. And the reality is that this is the only pathway we have before us for a true resolution of the tragedy of our regret. Denial is a dead-end road, however much positive thinking it may be paved with. It cannot ultimately evade the lethal consequences of what it will mean for us to stand before God in all of our sin and shame. We can never find a lasting way to exchange our grief and regret for joy and satisfaction apart from this painful road that is paved with confession, and repentance. I hope you've read C.S. Lewis' book, The Great Divorce. If you haven't, it's well worth reading. And there's a brilliant moment in his book which captures this dynamics as the narrator watches one of these spirits of the redeemed attempt to persuade one of the souls in hell to turn to God and to come to the heavenly country. In this dialogue, the person in hell eventually retorts and says, oh, of course. I'm wrong. Everything I say or do is wrong, according to you. And Lewis writes, but of course, said the spirit, shining with love and mirth so that my eyes were dazzled. That's what we all find when we reach this country. We've all been wrong. That's the great joke. There's no need to go on pretending one was right. After that, we begin living. Now Lewis has put his finger on a crucial gospel truth. We cannot really begin to live, live fully, until we understand just how wrong we have been and still are. We need self-criticism. We need to confess our sins. And we need the godly grief that is native to the true practice of such confession. And the gospel then presents us with this glorious truth that there is no need for you to go on pretending that you were right. And after that, you can begin living. So we find here in Paul's words to the Corinthian church, we discover a call to welcome this gospel grief of self-criticism and the transformation that it brings. We encounter the living dynamics of the saving grace of repentance. So the truth I want you to see from scripture is this. It's there in the bulleted insert along with the points if you'd like to take notes in that way. It's this. Embrace the godly grief of repentance which leads to salvation in Christ. Embrace the godly grief of repentance which leads to salvation in Christ. Three points we'll consider from this text. First, the grief of repentance. Second, the change of repentance. And third, the salvation of repentance. The grief of repentance, the change of repentance, and the salvation of repentance. So we'll begin with our first point, the grief of repentance. In these verses here in chapter 7, Paul's in the middle of recounting the way that God comforted him amid all of his pastoral discouragement and depression by bringing to him in a reunification Titus, his ministry protege and colleague. Titus refreshed Paul's spirit, not only with his friendship and with his partnership, but also because Titus had brought to Paul this good report. of the transformative effects of the gospel among the Corinthians. And as we can see in verse 8, Paul, part of his despondency, was wrapped up in the fact that he had written them a letter that had caused them grief. You were here earlier in the year for the first portions of our series through 2 Corinthians. You will perhaps remember Paul had altered his travel plans. He had intended to go to Corinth, but then he changed that intention, and that had become something against which he had to defend himself in light of the accusations of the false apostles that were infiltrating the church of Corinth. And as we saw back in 2 Corinthians 2, verse 1, Paul acknowledges there that if he were to make the trip that he had planned to make to them, that the result would be pain. Pain for the Corinthians, pain for Paul. And so in his prudence, he determines to spare them from this painful encounter and not come, and instead to write them a letter. We read back in 2 Corinthians 2, verses 5 through 11, that there was this case of church discipline in Corinth that had been unresolved and ignored. And rather than Paul traveling to Corinth and having to take the reins on this matter himself, he writes them instead a letter in place of visiting them. And in this letter, we can assume that he gave them instructions for this case of church discipline and what they were to do. He wanted them to correct what was amiss in their midst so that when he came, they might not all have to suffer through the pain of doing that, but instead that Paul would come to a situation where the Corinthians had taken up their responsibility and resolved what needed to be resolved as they acknowledged and implemented what Paul wrote to them. But as we can see here now in chapter seven, verse eight, that letter had an edge to it. It caused hurt, as it challenged them in the midst of their sinful complacency in this situation. Yet however much hurt Paul's words had caused to them, his words were not sinful words. We should note this carefully. To cause hurt, is not necessarily to sin, if that hurt is delivered with a spirit it is intending to reclaim, one that is driven by love and a desire to see repentance. So Proverbs says, Proverbs 27, verse 6, faithful are the wounds of a friend. The difficult and hurtful things Paul wrote to them in this severe letter, they were not intended to destroy, they were intended to produce repentance. His words were not motivated by any kind of maliciousness, but by this pastoral love for them, a pastoral love that sometimes has to embrace the hard duty of having to rebuke and reprove. However, Paul apparently vacillated for a time after he had composed this letter and sent it to them, whether he had done the right thing. He says in verse 8 that he did regret writing the letter at one point, yet that regret had clearly dissipated. Now he does not regret it. His conscience is clear. Paul's satisfied that he did the proper thing. But beyond being at peace in his heart about the righteousness of his actions, we also see in verse 9 that he rejoices in the effects that it produced. He qualifies himself. He clears up this potential misunderstanding and accusation. He says, I rejoice, but not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. You see, Paul is pained at times when he must discharge these grave responsibilities of his pastoral office in confronting sin. He does not enjoy rebuke. Contrary to caricatures that might be painted of the apostle, Paul derives no pleasure whatsoever in having to reprove and admonish. It's not the case that he's some kind of pastoral sadist who just gets a twisted pleasure from giving other Christians a good thrashing. And this is really, I think, something key for us to note, especially when we contemplate who should be in positions of church leadership. Certainly ministers and elders, they cannot be people pleasers. They cannot be afraid to be confrontational when they need to be, but neither can they be these quarrelsome pugilists who live for the thrill of a fight. And if the thought of you picking up a flamethrower and torching your opponents excites you, and you don't recognize the wrongness of that excitement in your heart, you do not belong in pastoral leadership. We cannot baptize quarrelsomeness into a Christian virtue, no matter how many internet personalities want us to. This is not Paul. The exercise of admonishment and discipline does not fill him with excitement, it fills him with dread. It does not thrill his heart, it breaks his heart. Delighting in combat is not the mark of the apostle, and more importantly, it is not the mark of Christ. As a Christian, you are sometimes called into confrontation. You are not called to quarrelsomeness. We can see that this grief that was caused in Corinth by Paul's rebuke was entirely wholesome and actually therapeutic in its effect. It induced a kind of grief that is necessary for repentance. Paul explains himself. He speaks of two different species of grief in verse 10, one that leads to death and another kind that leads to salvation. And it's vital for you to learn to discern the difference between these two different kinds of grief in your own heart. Paul speaks of a worldly grief in verse 10, and that worldly grief produces death. There's certainly a way for you to grieve over your actions, to see your wrongs, to criticize yourself, and yet have absolutely no real repentance in that process. Worldly sorrow is the sort of sorrow that grieves over the consequences that sin may inflict upon your life, but not in a way that really accepts your sin for what it actually is. You could be distressed over your moral blunderings, how they've destroyed your relationships. You could be bothered by how they've ruined your reputation, cost you resources, impaired your health, and shipwrecked your dreams, all the while not having the kind of godly grief which leads to repentance. Worldly grief can even acknowledge God. But rather than be humble before him and seek the remedy that he offers in his gospel, instead, worldly grief resents him. Worldly grief is resentful. It causes one to become bitter. angry toward God, rather than humble and contrite before him. Worldly grief does not so much grieve the sin as it grieves having the sin exposed and having to suffer its consequences in this life. And it seeks to shift the blame in all of this, too, rather than own the fault. A worldly grief drives one further and further away from God. It hardens the heart, embitters the soul, and sears the conscience. But this godly grief of which Paul speaks here, it is utterly different. In the Greek, it is literally a grief that is according to God, a grief that is according to God. That is to say, God is its standard of measurement. It is a grief which arises out of a heart that has accepted His divine perspective on things. For you to mourn in this way is for you to look at your faults through the spectacles which Scripture puts on you and to see them in its light. To grieve in this way, it's to take the responsibility for the burden of your misery, to understand that you are the author of your most besetting problems. and even more importantly, to see them and to see yourself in the light of the burning righteousness and justice of God. A grief that is Godward is a grief that is first and foremost relational. It's centered upon this way that your offense is an offense in the sight of God himself, an offense against his holiness and his goodness. It's a grief that gravitates around the manner in which your sin disrupts this relationship that you have with your Creator and your Redeemer. And most importantly, this grief, it is not one that just sinks down into the bitter pit of resentment towards God. because it is a grief that at once sees the promises of the gospel and flies to them in faith. This grief is wholesome. As you see in verse nine, it causes you to suffer no loss. As you read in verse 10, it will leave you without regret. Embracing this kind of grief, a godly grief, it is truly therapeutic. It's healing because it is gospel-centered. In it, the balm of Jesus is applied to you. And thus, it's transformative in character. That brings us to our second point, the change of repentance, the change of repentance. Godly grief contains within it these two seeds, which are two seeds, but nevertheless always grow up together, the seed of faith and the seed of repentance. This is one of the things that distinguishes godly grief from the worldly grief that produces death, because the worldly sort of grief that produces death, it never really moves the dial in your life toward God. Worldly grief does not draw you closer to God, it pushes you farther away from Him. Godly grief, however, does. It induces a turning. That's what Paul says in verse 10. Godly grief produces repentance. Repentance, in its Old Testament language, most literally is about turning. That's what the word means in Hebrew, to turn. It indicates an alteration in the direction of your life and your direction toward God. That's why our catechisms rightly state that true repentance involves this endeavor after new obedience. There's a transformative nature to it. We can see this in what Paul goes on to say about the Corinthians in verse 11. He points to all the tangible ways this godly grief had affected changes in the church of Corinth. In this case, their particular sin was their failure to do their duty as a church. They had not followed through with the sobering obligations of church discipline towards the offender in their midst, but now they had done this. They engaged their duty. All the things Paul lists, eagerness to clear themselves, indignation, fear, longing, zeal, punishment, they're all centered around the implementation of their ecclesiastical responsibilities in church discipline. They were once complacent. sitting on their hands while blatant sin disrupted their church, now they've sprung into action. And they've sprung into action, not in a rote way, but in a way with all of these dispositions of the heart accompanying it that Paul lists in verse 11. And though the scriptural example here is focused on the corporate duties of church discipline as Corinth failed to perform them, and then how they did perform them in their repentance, The principle that is at play in this applies to any other manifestation of true repentance in the Christian life. Repentance brings change. If there is no change in your life whatsoever, then there is no repentance in it. As the great theologian of old Princeton, Charles Hodge, puts it, sorrow in itself is not repentance. Neither is remorse, nor self-condemnation, nor self-loathing, nor external reformation. These are all attendants or consequences. But repentance itself is a turning from sin to holiness, from a state of sin to a holy state. It is a real change of heart. It is a change of views, feelings, and purposes resulting in a change of life. It is not the ground of our salvation, but it is a part of it and a necessary condition of it. Hodge is on the mark. Repentance brings change. Now granted, that change will be hard fought. It will be hampered with setbacks and encumbered by all the imperfections which still abide in you as you still war with the sin that remains in your heart. However, such change is still discernible over the course of your life. Repentance produces some measure of tangible effects in your heart and in your conduct. The grace of repentance is an effect of the life-transforming power of the gospel. It is an effect of it in your life. It is of a peace with the reality that Christ states in Luke chapter 6, verses 43 through 44. Jesus says, for no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, for each tree is known by its fruit. True repentance evidences itself in the turning that is essential to its nature. It bears fruit in keeping with what it is, as John the Baptist says. This is why we should not confuse repentance with apologies. Certainly true repentance will involve apology. To own one's fault, to seek pardon and forgiveness from God and from the people whom we have wronged, that is a critical ingredient in true repentance. But you can apologize and then never change in a meaningful way. An apology without any kind of movement in putting to death a pattern of sin over which you were apologizing is not repentance. Now, we should be careful that we have biblically realistic measurements for what counts as true change. The doctrine of Christian perfectionism is a soul-crushing lie that the Bible does not bear up, and it does not do justice to the way that Scripture speaks about the struggle and the failure that is constant in the Christian life. We only need to contemplate the implications of the Lord's Prayer to see this. What is one of the key petitions of the Lord's Prayer? Forgive us our debts. The way Jesus himself teaches us to pray assumes that we need daily forgiveness as much as we need daily bread. The continual practice of confession of sin that's embedded in the way that our Lord teaches us to pray, it should caution us against conflating, confusing true repentance with sinless perfection. Those are not the same things. And yet when we have given that qualification, we should also note that true repentance will evidence itself in the motions that are intrinsic to it. Repentance is turning from sin and to God. It struggles and it sometimes stumbles in that movement, yet it makes that pivot all the same. And it's a pivot that involves the whole of one's life, a turning that is executed in you day after day after day after day in the progressive outworking of your sanctification. It faces setbacks and defects. Its progress is most often measured in inches and not in miles. Yet in the course of time, The reality of its dynamics are apparent. Yes, you have still far to go in the movement of that turning. But if you have been a Christian for any length of years, then you know how far you've come. Or rather, how far God has brought you by his grace. You are not yet all that you ought to be. but still in the mercy of Christ, you are not what you once were. Repentance is not repentance without some measure of meaningful change. And we should note that this change, it is splendid and it is wonderful. Repentance is a word that maybe conjure up dour associations in your mind. I don't want to hear about that. It seems bleak and depressing. But it should not. It's this crucial thread in the marvelous fabric of God's work in your life. The metamorphosis that it is implementing in you in God's hands is from glory unto glory. The great Puritan Thomas Watson, he describes this change. Watson writes, a piece of lead, while it is in the lump, can be put to no use, but melt it and you may then cast it into any mold, and it is made useful. So a heart that is hardened to a lump of sin is good for nothing, but when it is dissolved by repentance, it is useful. A melting heart is fit to pray. It is fit to hear the word. A melting heart is fit to obey. When the heart is like metal in the furnace, it is facile and malleable to anything. A repenting soul that subscribes to God's will and answers to his call is the echo to the voice. Watson's image here is apt. Without the godly grief that leads to repentance, you could be like this hardened lump of lead, good for nothing in God's hands. But the crucible of godly sorrow which leads to repentance melts you. so that you could be poured into the mold of all that God would make you into by his grace. We need no longer pretend that we were right. We can acknowledge that we've been wrong all along. And in so doing, begin to live, to flourish in everything that it means to be truly human. Because what it means to be truly human is to bear the dignity and splendor of the image of God. And he comes in his grace to restore to you the righteousness and the holiness of that image. That brings us to our third point, the salvation of repentance. The salvation of repentance. You should let the full significance of Paul's words in verse 10 sink into your soul. Paul says that godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation. Repentance leads to salvation. The Greek is literally that repentance is into salvation. Repentance is instrumental in the application of redemption in your life. There is no salvation without repentance. It is a necessary condition for the redemptive effects of Christ's work to be realized in you. Now, we must be very careful in how we walk in thinking about this. If we do not frame this correctly, we can very easily demolish the grace of the gospel of Jesus Christ completely. Hear this. Repentance is not the ground of your salvation. Repentance is not the ground of your salvation. Nor is faith the ground of your salvation, for that matter, either. The ground of salvation is in nothing that you do. It lies wholly in what Christ has done. The perfect, final, and sufficient work of your Savior is the foundation upon which the edifice of your redemption rests. It does not need you to supplement it with anything. Redemption is objectively accomplished in what Christ has done outside of you. But that redemption works its effects in you and in your life through particular instruments, instruments which do different things, related things, but different things. Faith, faith is the instrument of justification. What is justification? Justification is that great act in which God forgives you. He pardons your sins fully and unequivocally. And he declares you to be righteous in his sight. He declares you to be standing in the position of right in his courtroom. And faith is the instrument of this justification. It is perfectly suited to be that because faith, in essence, is an open hand. It takes everything and contributes nothing. Faith does not add anything to what Christ has done. It merely receives what Christ has done. That's why Paul has insisted through all of his letters that it is through faith alone that we are justified apart from works. Paul constantly speaks of how we are justified through faith or by faith. Don't miss the significance of those prepositions when you read your Bible. However, you will never, ever, ever read Paul, or any other biblical writer for that matter, saying that we are justified through repentance or by repentance. Repentance is not the instrument through which justification comes to us. Faith and faith alone is that instrument, and as this instrument, faith receives and does not contribute to the great gospel mystery that is justification. However, justification is not the only thing that Jesus does for you. Your Savior, not only does He justify, He also sanctifies. His salvation is as wide as the consequences of your sin. And your sin has not only made you guilty before God, it has corrupted you. Justification answers the problem of your guilt. In it, you're pardoned. In it, you receive forgiveness. In it, you are declared to be righteous. This all comes to you by faith alone. However, it is sanctification that answers the problem of your corruption. Sin not only brings condemnation, it also brings slavery, compulsion, a moral corrosion that destroys your life. God would not be fully gracious if all he did was forgive you, but then left you to rot in the putrefaction of your sin. But praise be to him, that his grace is not only pardoning, it is transformative. And that is what sanctification does. In sanctification, God renovates you. He takes the shabby, decaying state of your existence and he starts to refashion you into something that is glorious and holy. And this, too, is salvation. And it is in this renovative work of God's grace that repentance is instrumental. Repentance is not the instrument of your justification. but it is instrumental for your sanctification. Both are absolutely vital for your salvation to be complete. They are distinct, but they are inseparable. Faith is not repentance, and repentance is not faith. Justification is not sanctification, and sanctification is not justification. But there is no faith without repentance, and there is no repentance without faith. And likewise, there is no justification without sanctification, and there is no sanctification without justification. It's something like the relationship of the vital organs of your body. Your cardiovascular system relies upon your lungs to supply the oxygen you need to reach your body. But your cardiovascular system also relies upon your heart to pump that oxygenated blood throughout your body. And so if you ask yourself, what's more important, your heart or your lungs? It's a silly question, is it not? There's no priority between them. Without either of them, you will die. Both are vital. Both do different things. So it is with faith and repentance, and justification and sanctification. Both faith and repentance are necessary for salvation. but they do different things and we dare not confuse them. Do not, Christian, do not ever think that God forgives you because you repent. To do that is to smuggle your works back into the dynamics of your justification. But do not also think that God saves you without repentance. To do that is to confuse His grace with the lawless fantasies of rebellion. We must have both. We must have a Christ who addresses our guilt, who clears us of the sentence of our condemnation, and who does so apart from our works. And we must have a Christ who changes us. who transforms us, and who does so by leading us down the pathway of repentance. You see, repentance is a reality that lives and breathes in the atmosphere of the gospel. It's this indispensable component of how the good news of Jesus Christ comes to transform your life. that you return to that wise Puritan, Thomas Watson. Watson writes this, repentance is a pure gospel grace. The covenant of works admitted no repentance. There it was, sin and die. Repentance came by the gospel. Christ has purchased in His blood, that repenting sinners shall be saved. Understand what Watson is saying. Understand what the Apostle Paul is saying. Repentance is not some work by which you make up to God for the wrong that you have done. No, repentance is a pathway that is paved for you by the blood that has flowed down from the cross. It rests upon what Jesus has done and what you could never do. The godly grief which produces repentance, which leads to salvation, it inhabits that space that was made for you at the foot of the cross. For you to grieve in this way is for your heart to break how you have sinned, not only against God's law, but also against the privileges of his mercy to you in Christ. Yet in this grief, you also turn to God and contrite trust that for all the offense you have caused, the provisions of the gospel meet and exceed the debt of your guilt and the power of your sin. This grief, it grasps the payment that was rendered on your behalf. It weeps with eyes that are filled with the vision of your crucified Savior. It springs from this heart that breaks before this spectacle of your Redeemer as He was impaled upon a tree in the God-forsaken death your transgressions warrant. And so it then practices a self-criticism that's focused by this revelation of your sins' true dimensions as they are displayed for you in the dereliction of the God-man. It looks to the cross, and there it understands that there you may view your sins' nature rightly, there its guilt you may estimate, And in this vision, it mingles itself with this comfort and this peace that are to be found at the foot of Golgotha. As it sheds tears of grief in the mystery of the gospel, it sheds them in a way that's almost indistinguishable from tears of joy. This good news presents to you this glorious truth. There's no need for you to go on pretending that you were right. No need to run after this delusion of a perpetual positivity about yourself. You can embrace the awful grief of your most hideous failings. You can own them for what they are, because if you are in Christ, they do not define you. Jesus does, and Jesus always will. Embrace the godly grief of repentance, which leads to salvation in Christ. Let's pray. Oh Lord, we know we do not have enough of this in our life. Our hearts are so often hard and stubborn. We do ask, oh Lord, that you would work it more and more in us, that we would be tender that we would truly grieve all that is wrong within us, to not seek to blame shift, to not grow in resentment towards you, but to own it with eyes that are filled with the vision of the gospel, to see the provisions you've made for us in Jesus, and that we would grieve in a way that is according to you, according to your will, and so experience that saving grace of repentance, which most assuredly leads us to salvation. Work this in us, we pray, as only you can, O Holy Spirit. We ask this in your name, O Christ. Amen.