But God

In one paragraph

This message came from 2 Corinthians 7, where Paul resumes a thread of thought he had set aside five chapters earlier. The sermon traced Paul's anxiety over sending a severe letter to Corinth, his relief when Titus finally arrived with good news, and what those events reveal about the difference between grief that leads toward God and grief that leads nowhere good. Pastor Nathan opened by...

Read together

1. 2 Corinthians 2:10-13 read aloud as the passage Paul left off from before the digression, about forgiving and finding no rest without Titus
2. 2 Corinthians 7:5 picked up as the parallel to 2:13, bodies had no rest, afflicted at every turn, fighting without and fear within
3. 2 Corinthians 7:6-7 but God who comforts the downcast comforted Paul by the coming of Titus and the good report from Corinth
4. 2 Corinthians 7:8 even if I made you grieve with my letter I do not regret it, though I did regret it for a while
5. 2 Corinthians 7:9 I rejoice not because you were grieved but because you were grieved into repenting
6. 2 Corinthians 7:10 godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret whereas worldly grief produces death
7. 2 Corinthians 7:11 what earnestness, eagerness, indignation, fear, longing, zeal, and vindication godly grief produced in them
8. 2 Corinthians 7:12 I wrote not for the sake of the one who did wrong nor the one who suffered the wrong but that your earnestness for us might be revealed
9. 2 Corinthians 7:13-16 comforted by Corinthians receiving Titus well, his spirit refreshed, boasting about them proved true, complete confidence in them

Talk about it

1. The pastor read Longfellow's poem about shooting an arrow into the air and not knowing where it lands, then finding it later in unexpected places. Has there been a moment in your life when something said to you years earlier finally landed and made sense? What was that like?
2. Paul describes being 'afflicted at every turn, fighting without and fear within,' and then says 'but God.' When have you been in a season like that, and what did the 'but God' moment look like for you?
3. The pastor drew a distinction between godly grief and worldly grief, saying grief itself is neutral but it goes one of two directions. How would you describe the difference between the two from your own experience, and how do you know which kind you are in when you are in the middle of it?
4. Godly grief is described in the sermon as producing a whole list of things: earnestness, eagerness, indignation, fear, longing, zeal, and vindication. Which of those have you actually seen produced in your own life through a season of grief or conviction, and which ones surprised you on that list?
5. The pastor talked about the discomfort of confronting someone he cared about over sin, and how doing that immediately surfaced his own sin. What does that tension between calling out sin in someone else and recognizing it in yourself tell us about how godly grief and accountability are supposed to work in a community like this one?