Feeling Bad About Sin Isn't Repentance—Here's What Is

You can feel terrible about your sin and still not be repentant. That might sound harsh, but it's true—and understanding the difference could change everything.

Most of us have been taught that repentance means feeling bad about what we've done. But the Bible makes a crucial distinction between two kinds of sorrow: worldly sorrow that leads to death, and godly sorrow that leads to life. One hates getting caught. The other hates the sin itself.

In this episode, I'm walking through 2 Corinthians 7:9-11 and giving you a biblical scorecard for true repentance. Not as a weapon to beat yourself up, but as a gift to help you see clearly. We'll look at 7 traits of genuine repentance, how God's kindness (not His threats) leads us to turn, and why the Spirit's work is essential in all of it.

If you've ever wondered whether your repentance is real—or if you're helping someone else walk through repentance—this episode is for you.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:12

We're all familiar with the word repent and the word repentance. It's a theme that shows up all over the pages of scripture. And yet there can be some confusion around what repentance is and what true repentance looks like. So for example, we might wrestle with the question, hey, what does repentance look like in daily life? Or to be more specific, how can I tell if my repentance or someone else's repentance is genuine? And that's what I want to talk about in this episode because this is a dilemma because none of us is God. We're not all-knowing. We can't see people's hearts. So we can't declaratively say, oh, yes, I know for a fact that this person's repentance is genuine. Their sorrow over their sin is genuine. And sometimes we're confused over our own sin. Are we truly remorseful? Is my repentance in confession genuine? And so I want to look at scripture and see how we should think about this. But just to give an important disclaimer at the forefront, because I know that some might think of repentance as, hey, that's a that's a once and for all act at my conversion. When I trusted in the gospel and repented of my sins, I was done repenting. That that was the entryway into the faith. And yes, repentance is not less than that, but it is certainly more than that. When you survey the New Testament, you realize repentance is an ongoing act of the Christian life. We never cease from repenting of sin. Now, to be clear, when Jesus purchased our salvation on the cross, he dealt with the power and the penalty of all of our sins. All of our sins, past, present, and future, has been atoned for. However, that doesn't mean we are still not called by Scripture to have a normal rhythm of confession and repentance, as in real time we do commit acts against God's will. And so just to frame this conversation under the umbrella of, hey, the Christian life is one of ongoing repentance, confession, and reconciliation with the Lord. And when I say reconciliation, I don't mean in a salvific way. We are already saved, but more similar to, you know, a parent with their child. It's like the relationship is already solidified. That parent loves their child. But when that child is disobedient, there's almost like a fracture in the intimacy of the relationship until there's reconciliation. And that goes with almost any human relationship. But today I want to focus on one passage of scripture, and that's 2 Corinthians chapter 7, verses 9 through 11, where the apostle Paul gives us a very good framework and understanding what he contrasts, which is godly sorrow and worldly sorrow. Let's read that real quick. That is 2 Corinthians chapter 7, verses 9 through 11, which reads, I now rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because your grief led to repentance. For you were grieved as God willed, so that you didn't experience any loss from us. For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret. But worldly grief produces death. For consider how much diligence this very thing, this grieving as God wills, has produced in you. What a desire to clear yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what deep longing, what zeal, what justice, and every way you showed yourselves to be pure in this matter. So right there, Paul distinguishes between two kinds of sorrow over one's sin. So worldly sorrow would be, you know what, I'm grieved over my sin, but not mainly over my sin. I'm really grieved over the consequences of my sin, the collateral damage, the fact that this hurts my reputation or relationships are fractured and people are hurt and angry and disappointed in me. Paul would say that's worldly sorrow. If at the top of your list is outward external focus rather than a vertical godward focus, that is a clear sign that your sorrow might be worldly sorrow. So then what is godly sorrow? Godly sorrow is when at the top of your priority list, you're grieved and sorrowful over the fact that you have sinned against your heavenly father. Think about Joseph when Potiphar's wife tries to ensnare him in an immoral immorality and sexual immorality. His response is essentially, how on earth could I commit this great wickedness against my God? That is godly sorrow, just recognizing, hey, any sin I commit is always first a vertical infraction against my heavenly father who showed me grace and mercy and salvation. How can I abuse that grace, cheapen that grace by indulging in sin? Thomas Watson once said that true sorrowful sin is when a man sorrows more for the evil in sin than the hurt that follows it. That's what Paul is getting at. When our hearts are more broken over the fact that our sin has grieved the heart of God than we are about external horizontal matters, not that those are unimportant. So let me give an example. Let's say a spouse has a long, hard day and comes home and, you know, in a moment of weakness, weakness, snaps at their husband or wife. And now their spouse is hurt and very discouraged by that behavior. And so the offending party says, you know what, I'm sorry that that hurt your feelings. I'm sorry that I treated you that way. Well, if they're not truly convicted over the fact that, wait a minute, I just re misrepresented the Lord and how I'm to love and serve my spouse, if they're primarily focused on, oh, great, well, if I don't confess, then the dinner table is going to be real awkward and silent today. You know, we're just going to kind of go our separate ways in the house and give each other the cold shoulder. And so let me make peace by acknowledging my sin. That's that's not a God-honoring heart posture. That's not someone who's focused on, wait a minute, how does God understand my sin? What does his word reveal about my heart and my sin in that moment? I'm grieved over the fact that, man, I I tore down my spouse, which displeases the Lord. I caused someone to stumble who Jesus purchased with his own blood. That is godly sorrow. When you recognize I have committed an infraction against against God's will and God wants what's best for me. So whenever I sin against the Lord, I'm I'm robbing myself of that intimacy with Christ. And so there is a difference. I'm not saying that the horizontal aspect is not important. I'm saying that the horizontal confession and sorrow is stemming from first a healthy recognition of our vertical relationship with the Lord and how that has been harmed through our sin. So I mentioned Thomas Watson earlier. I would highly commend a book he wrote. You know, he, you know, you can find some abridged versions that are in more modern English. He was a Puritan minister, but he wrote a book called The Doctrine of Repentance. Okay, this is what the Puritans did write an entire book on repentance. But in that book, he describes six ingredients of real repentance. And I just want to read these to you. So number one, oh well, let me back up. So Thomas Watson in this book, he describes repentance as a form of spiritual medicine for the soul. And that spiritual medicine contains six ingredients. Number one being a sight of sin, which means seeing your sin, your sin clearly for what it actually is according to God's word, having a sober perspective of your sin, so to speak. But number two is sorrow for sin, grief over the offense itself. Number three is a confession of sin, owning it before God and those you have sinned against, making sure your confession goes as far as the offense. The fourth ingredient is shame for sin. He would describe this as a holy embarrassment at what we have done. Number five is a hatred of sin, a growing disgust with the sin, not just a regret for the action you committed. And the sixth ingredient is turning from sin, the actual movement away from the sin, not just feeling bad about it. He would say that these six ingredients are connected closely to, you know, the Paul, Paul's traits we see in 2 Corinthians chapter seven. What I want to do for this episode is just share a helpful tool that could be used as a kind of a repentance scorecard. I'm stealing this from biblical counselor and pastor Jim Newheiser, who's a professor of biblical counseling at Reformed Theological Seminary here in Charlotte, North Carolina. But uh he modernized from uh Wayne Mack, a pioneer biblical counselor in the movement, what he calls these seven traits of repentance scorecard. And he gives several things that we can use as a scorecard to assess the genuineness of repentance. So I'm just gonna walk through these, maybe give some nuanced commentary on a few of them and go from there. But a quick disclaimer: this this is not meant to be some kind of God-ordained system that we should be walking around with an index card grading everyone's repentance. This is just taking the biblical data and to try to organize it in a systematized way to help us understand, okay, based on scripture, based on biblical principles I can deduce from scripture, how can I assess my own heart, first and foremost, removing the log from my own eye, to assess whether or not repentance is genuine. And so I'm gonna put this up on the screen so you can easily see it as well. But number one is is it God focused? True repentance begins and ends with how the sin offends God, not just how it affects ourselves or our reputation. So is the person's repentance, is our repentance God focused? Number two, hates the sin. There's a growing disgust with the sin itself, not just the fallout from the sin. This is when someone begins to see the sin the way God sees it. They're not making excuses for it, they're not pointing the finger at somebody else saying, Well, I did this because you did this. They're recognizing, no, no, no, no. I see what God says about my sin and how wicked it is, and I hate it because God hates it. Number three is submits to discipline and accountability, willingly inviting correction and oversight rather than resisting accountability or hiding from it. That is a clear sign that someone is not genuinely repentant if they don't want others, members of their church, their church leaders, to hold them accountable and to give loving oversight towards sanctification. Four, is a changed heart that produces fruit. Repentance shows up in new patterns over time, right? A good tree produces good fruit. So if someone is genuinely repentant, they are going to demonstrate repentant fruit. Number five, they patiently accept consequences. So if someone is truly repentant, they don't demand immediate restoration. They don't bristle at, you know, the natural consequences that come with our sin. Rather, they are patient, they are humble, they are other-centered, they are willing to love others more than they love themselves and to trust God's timing, to allow healing to and restoration to take place. Number six is that they fully accept response, responsibility. No excuses, no blame shifting, no minimizing their sin. They own the sin without qualification. They recognize I chose voluntarily to sin against my God and I take full responsibility for my sin. And this last one, number seven, is they are concerned for others. They think about how the sin affected others and seeks to make it right, not just to feel better personally, but rather they truly are motivate, motivated by the reality of my sin caused damage to another image bearer, another person the Lord loves, and that grieves me. And I want to do everything in my power with God's help to make things right. Now, we got to keep in mind, the type of repentance the Bible talks about is not something we conjure up in our own strength. We need the Spirit's help in pursuing genuine repentance. Repentance is a gift, not something that we can in our own willpower just conjure up and make ourselves genuinely repentant. And so, with that being said, we must be prayerful, pleading for the spirit's work to illuminate our hearts to the truth of God's word, to the reality of our sin and its consequences and how it grieves God, and to ask the Spirit, help me to see my sin the way you do. Help me to see how my sin grieves the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit, according to Scripture, is the one who convicts us of sin. He's the one who opens our eyes to see our sin clearly. He illuminates truth to our souls, and he grants us the grace to repent and to truly turn and put on the fruits of the Spirit. This is important to understand because without the Spirit's work, we'd only ever have worldly sorrow. I mean, whenever we truly obey the Lord from the right heart, heart posture and produce the fruits of the spirit, that is all owing to the redemptive work of the Holy Spirit, you know, working in those of us who are regenerate. And so we must be prayerful and dependent on the Holy Spirit's work. This is why we can't force repentance in other people or conjure it up ourselves. We're dependent on God's Spirit, which means none of us should put on our Holy Spirit badge trying to force people or talk people into being genuinely repentant. Rather, we should introduce them to the word, disciple them in the word, pray for them, and trust the spirit to do a work. This reminds me too of how in Romans 2.4, Paul, now for context, Paul is talking about how all of humanity is fallen into sin and God's wrath and judgment is going to fall upon all those who are disobedient and rebellious to his reign. But he uses this phrase about how God's kindness is meant to lead us to repentance, which I think is just a helpful reminder, not just for those who are outside of Christ, who have yet to trust in Jesus, but even for those of us who are children of God, to recognize God often does not bring about punishment and discipline the way maybe he should to train us in righteousness. He's often patient and kind with us. He's not patient just for patience's sake, but he's actually giving us opportunity to voluntarily come to him as a father, a good father, to bring our sins to him into the light, to confess them and to seek forgiveness and reconciliation. So this shows how the gospel motivates our repentance. It's not the threat of judgment that produces true repentance, but it's God's kindness. Now, don't get me wrong, go read Hebrews chapter 12. God is a father, but God does, as a loving father, he does discipline his children. But Hebrews 2, Hebrews 12 is very clear that God introduces discipline so that we share in his holiness. So his discipline is actually evidence of his love for us because he doesn't want us to remain in sin. He doesn't want us to just hold on to worldly sorrow. He wants to conform us into the image of his son. But as a heavenly father, he is often patient. His patience, his grace, his undeserved goodness, all of those things are tools the Lord uses to break us from our sin and our worldly sorrow and to bring us to a place of godly repentance. So all that to say, the gospel is the engine. God loved you while you were an enemy, while you were rebellious, a rebellious sinner. He sent his son to die for you when you were most unlovely. And the Spirit applies that grace to your heart on an ongoing basis through a life that demonstrates confession and repentance until you go home in glory. So we cannot talk about godly sorrow and repentance without also talking about the gospel being motivation for that repentance and the work of the Holy Spirit who brings us to a place in which our hearts are truly repentant in a godly sorrowful, or how you say that, in a sorrowful way that honors the Lord. Let me illustrate like this picture like a mirror versus measuring tape. So this scorecard we looked at with those seven markers, so to speak, to use to see if we're genuine, genuinely repentant, like that scorecard isn't a measuring tape to grade yourself or to grade others on a pass or fail type of scale. Are they good or are they not good enough? But rather it's a mirror, it's a way to see what's actually in our hearts. So when you look in a mirror, for example, and you see dirt on your face, the mirror did not put that dirt on your face. When you look into the mirror, it's simply just revealing what is already there. That is how we should look at 2 Corinthians chapter seven and the seven traits that we looked at in that scorecar by Jim Newheiser. We are looking at a mirror that is showing us what's already in our hearts. And I just want to add this when we're trying to discern if someone's repentance is genuine enough, we need to guard against thinking that a clear test is external behavior and emotions. So, for example, if a spouse has been caught in adultery and they are confronted by their spouse and, you know, maybe members in their church or pastor and they're sitting in a counseling room and the husband is confronted with his adultery and he just breaks down in tears and weeping and saying, I'm willing to do whatever it takes to fix my marriage. That is not automatically a guaranteed sign that that individual is genuinely repentant. Again, we're not God. We can't see people's hearts. We don't know definitively if someone is genuinely repentant. But here's a good principle to keep in mind time and truth go hand in hand. As more time goes on, more truth is revealed. In that scenario, if that brother was really pursuing the Lord in holiness and humility and taking personal responsibility for his sin, not making excuses, putting in whatever work the Lord requires of him to seek the restoration of his marriage and the restoration of his relationship with the Lord, and that continues on over a prolonged period of time, then it becomes more clear to everyone involved in that brother's life, like, hey, yes, man, this my brother committed a serious sin against God and his spouse. But man, over the months, we have seen nothing but genuine repentance. We have seen the fruits of repentance in his life. We have seen a heart posture of one who is recognizing that he has grieved the heart of his heavenly father, which grieves him. And he is willing to do what the Lord requires to walk in a manner worthy of the gospel. And so we need to be careful not to automatically assume that emotions equal genuine repentance. At the same time, we don't want to overcorrect on the other side and be suspicious of people's emotions and external actions as if, well, I'm going to reserve judgment until I have full confidence that this person is truly repentant. We got to be careful with that as well. We're not God, we're not the Holy Spirit police, but we do want to just be wise and think with a biblical framework, not letting emotions drive truth. And so my warning there would be don't default to suspicion, but also don't rush to pronounce someone as fully repentant based on tears and emotions alone. Remember, time reveals truth. Spiritual fruit grows over weeks and months and years, not quick moments and minutes. It can, but the normative pattern seems to be the Lord working gradually over a decent period of time where we get more time, more fruit, more data, more confidence. So whether you're looking at someone else or you're looking at your own heart, I would encourage us to be patient with yourself and others. Be patient with yourself and others. Give grace to others, give grace to yourself. The Spirit is faithful to complete his work and all of his children. And so don't try to sit in a corner and pull yourself up by your own bootstraps and willpower yourself to repentance. Engage in the word, reflect on the gospel, rehearse the gospel to yourself, rehearse, rehearse gospel in indicatives and imperatives. Remember who you are in Christ, reflect on your justification, reflect on glorification, reflect on your union with Christ and let those principles stir your heart to help you see your sin in a sober light and also God's grace at the same time. So use the scorecard on yourself first to remove the log from your own eye, but don't use it as a weapon against others. And remember, repentance isn't a one and done event. Repentance and confession is the daily rhythm of turning back to Jesus for every Christian until we go home and glory when we are stripped of indwelling sin. If you find yourself lacking in these areas, don't despair, don't discourage yourself. Run to Christ, remember that God. God's kindness is meant to lead us to repentance and ask the Spirit of God to do what only He can do. True repentance is God's gift from start to finish, and it is something He delights to grant His children. Because every time we truly repent, when we truly seek to honor the Lord and how we respond to our sin and the sin of others when we're sin against, those are ministry opportunities for us to grow deeper in our understanding of how wicked sin is and understanding how dependent we need to be on the Spirit's sanctifying work in our lives, but also an opportunity for us to be molded one degree more into the image of Jesus Christ. I hope this was helpful. If it is, I would appreciate if you would subscribe, like, and share it with someone. Until next time, God bless.