I'm not sorry!
"yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us.Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death."(NIV) 2 Corinthians 7:9-10
The title of this article sounds like something a naughty child might say after being commanded to apologize. Can you feature it coming from the lips of the apostle Paul? Actually it came from his pen, but the effect is the same. Why would he say such a thing?
"For even if I made you sorry with my letter, I do not regret it" (2 Cor. 7:8a). In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians he took them to task for a number of errors and abuses. I like the way my friend and fellow-preacher David Harlow (Sylvia, KS) put it, that Paul wasn’t very "warm and fuzzy" in that letter. He hurt their feelings with such words as "you are still carnal" (3:3), and "I say this to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man among you, not even one, who will be able to judge between his brethren?" (6:5).For a time Paul wondered if he might have come on too strongly. In the final analysis, however, Paul had done what the Corinthians needed. His letter produced within them a godly sorrow for their sins, which led to their repentance (2 Cor. 7:9).
Have your children ever cried after you scolded them? Maybe it broke your heart; you wondered if you had been too severe. Later, though, their changed behaviour and attitude demonstrated that you were right to scold them.
Confronting people with their sins has never been pleasant. Our feelings-oriented culture multiplies the difficulty. Hurting someone’s feelings gets you labelled "mean-spirited" and "extreme." (Such labels hurt people’s feelings, but then who ever said political correctness was consistent?) Piercing a sinner’s heart by convicting him of sin contradicts the world’s warm, fuzzy mis-definition of love. Indeed, the theme song of the old movie "Love Story" says, "Love means you never have to say you’re sorry." But that certainly isn’t what God said! "Now I rejoice, not that you were made sorry, but that your sorrow led to repentance . . . For godly sorrow produces repentance to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death" (2 Cor. 7:9, 10).
Until and unless people understand the gravity of their sins and feel godly sorrow, they have no motive to repent; and unless they repent, they cannot be saved. May we, like Paul, be bold in confronting sin forcefully in hope that godly sorrow will produce repentance unto salvation. Biblical love will not stand by and let a soul be lost because we were afraid that confronting him might hurt his feelings.