Good Grief! Or Is It Bad Grief?

2 Corinthians 2:5-11

Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost  -  11 September 2016

Rev. John Derme

Good grief! Or is it bad grief? Is grief good or bad? That might sound like a silly question! Grief is sadness. If we could have it our way, we would never be sad. Yet there is something good about grief. It is educational. It teaches us. For example, a mother may tell her child, "Don't touch that pan; it'll burn you." And hopefully he learns. But many children don't learn from listening to their parents. They learn by experience. If the child doesn't listen and touches the pan, anyway, he burns his hand and is sad. Hopefully he is not seriously injured, and that grief teaches him not to touch a hot pan again. Whatever sadness comes to us when we do things we ought not to do helps us to learn how we should behave.

So then grief is good, right? But what if we have learned our lesson, yet the grief doesn't go away? What happens when a person is overwhelmed by grief? Then grief is bad, right? Which is it? Today through the apostle Paul, the Lord teaches us about grief: the good and the bad.

St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians about grief, because they were experiencing it. One of the members of the congregation had caused some serious grief. We know the details of his sin from 1 Corinthians chapter 5. Paul had to scold the Corinthians because of what they were letting him do. He had a sexual relationship with his father's wife. And the Corinthian Christians hadn't told him that this was wrong. Rather, they had been proud of how tolerant they were to let such a thing happen among them.

In 1 Corinthians Paul told them that they needed to expel this sinful man from their congregation. His lifestyle showed that he wasn't a Christian anymore. Because none of the Christians in Corinth had bothered to tell him that his lifestyle was a problem, he urgently needed them to show him that he was following Satan rather than obeying God.

After they received the letter that we call 1 Corinthians, the members of the church listened to Paul and did the right thing. They excommunicated the man because of his unrepentant sin. And their call to repentance worked! The man recognized his sin and repented!

Just as the people had needed Paul to tell them what to do about the man's sin, so now they needed him to tell them what to do about his repentance. Paul wrote to them in our Second Lesson for today from 2 Corinthians chapter 2 urging them to forgive the man. Yes, his sin had caused all of them a lot of grief. They finally showed him love by proclaiming God's law to him and disciplining him for his sin. That discipline had brought about the desired result: repentance. He was sorry for his sin! He experienced good grief! But because they had not forgiven him yet, he was in danger of experiencing bad grief. If he didn’t hear the gospel soon, he would likely despair, thinking that God would never forgive his sin. He needed the congregation to welcome him back and proclaim the forgiveness of his sins.

The Corinthians were wrong to mishandle God's Word by not proclaiming God's law to the unrepentant sinner and not proclaiming his gospel to him when he repented. Yet you can probably understand why they committed that sin. Using God's law and gospel correctly is hard! Just think about what it would be like if an unrepentant sin were happening among the members of our own congregation.

If a member of our congregation sins publicly, that person needs us to publicly rebuke that sin. Otherwise that person will not recognize how important it is for him or her to repent. If that person refuses to repent, the church will eventually need to show that person how serious that sin is. An unrepentant sin separates a person from God and keeps him or her from going to heaven! Proclaiming the law and even excommunication is an act of love, which Christians do to try to turn a person back to God. Yet would you be willing to speak God's law to that person who needs to hear it? Would you vote to excommunicate that person? We'd hesitate or even be afraid to do that at all, because we don't like to upset people. We might feel like we are causing them grief. Of course, it is not our preaching of the law that causes grief. People's sins cause the grief. If we do not tell them what God says about their sin, they will never be released from their grief.

We're not only hesitant to proclaim the law, at times. Like the Corinthians, we might also be hesitant to proclaim the gospel. What happens when a person does repent of a public sin? Do you welcome that person with open arms? Or do you think, "I don't think this is the kind of person we want as a part of our congregation. This person isn't as good a Christian as I am." God gives us his gospel message to comfort and encourage repentant sinners with the good news that their sins are forgiven. You know that sinners need to hear the good news of forgiveness. But are you willing to tell people who have publicly sinned that you forgive them? Would you be willing to comfort someone who has done something openly sinful? If we do not proclaim that gospel to the grieving sinner, her or she may give up all hope of forgiveness.

When we've hesitated to proclaim the law, because it might make someone mad, we are telling God that he really isn't powerful enough to change that person's heart through his Word. And when we've been reluctant to proclaim the gospel, because that person does not deserve it, we are telling God that he is wrong to forgive everybody's sin. Either way, we mishandle God's Word. When we misuse his Word, we cause grief for others and for ourselves. For that, we deserve only to hear God's law. We have sinned against God deserve for him to withhold his forgiveness from us.

God wants us to proclaim his law to discipline and his gospel to forgive, because he loves to forgive every sin. He forgives even our sins of mishandling his Word. During Jesus' ministry, he perfectly used both law and gospel for us. In Jesus' death, he paid for our sins against his Word. Because of what Jesus has done for us, we do not need to grieve any longer about the sinful ways that we have handled his Word, because our sins are forgiven. In Jesus, our grief over sin is gone! Jesus' forgiveness is so certain that he even entrusts his law and gospel to you now to use it to expose and relieve the grief of others who have sinned.

The Lord has entrusted his law and gospel to you. That is why our congregation can proclaim this two-part message from God. In fact, proclaiming law and gospel is everything our congregation does. From the beginning of each Sunday service to the end, we see from the Bible our need for a Savior and God's answer for that need. Everything else our congregation does is either proclaiming that message or making plans and preparations so that we can proclaim law and gospel. We preach the message that all have sinned, otherwise our world will never see their need for Jesus their Savior. We preach the message that Jesus has saved all people from their sins, so that all who hear will believe and trust in him and receive his blessings of life and salvation.

Today we kick off a new year of Christian education. What is the difference between Christian education and any other kind of education? The law and the gospel are that difference. These are the tools that God has given to our Sunday School teachers to use. That is what God wants us to teach in our Bible classes. That is what God wants our young people learn in Catechism class. Every adult and child needs to know the law and the gospel, because that is the Word of God, how God works in us to save us. And the law and gospel is how God trains us to live the lives that he has called his Christian people to live.

Of course, we don't only use the law and gospel publicly as a congregation. We also use them privately with our friends and family, as well. Parents use the law and the gospel on an everyday basis with their children. Even with our own kids it can be difficult to handle the law and the gospel correctly. But let's commit ourselves to knowing and proclaiming the law and the gospel, because that is what everyone we know and everyone in the world needs to hear.

So, is grief good or bad? It is bad that we sin and cause grief. But it is good that we experience grief over our sins. It is bad when grief overwhelms us. It is very good when we experience release from our grief through the gospel of Jesus.

When you are experiencing grief over sin, you know where to turn. Come to hear the good news of Jesus, who lived and died to save you from those sins. When other people are experiencing grief over sin, you know how to help. Tell them of the Savior Jesus, who has forgiven them all their sins and comfort them with the sure promise that he loves them.