The Gift of Repentance

2 Corinthians 12:16-21

May 17, 2026

Jody Robertson

We have seen that Paul gave love to the people of Corinth, whether they showed love to him or not. It was like a parent showing love to his/her children, whether or not they returned that love. That is a process of planting seeds and not seeing results until, at best, much later. In Isaiah 6:9-11, God called Isaiah to speak to the Hebrew people, even though they would not listen. And we are called to walk by faith and not by sight. (2 Corinthians 5:7)

In verses 19-21, Paul is calling the church at Corinth to repentance. In what we know as the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus calls us to repentance. All of us need “daily bread.” Even more do we need repentance and forgiveness. To repent is to stop and turn around from what we were doing. It is to turn away from sin and turn to God.

The ability to repent is a gift of God. He freely forgives. But never consider this gift a license to keep doing the same wrong as before. (Romans 2:4) We need to grieve over the wrong we have done. But it needs to be a godly grief. The world’s form of grief leads to death. Godly grief leads to repentance and life. (2 Corinthians 7:10)

A large portion of the sins listed in verse twenty have to do with our tongue. Proverbs 6:16f includes offenses with the tongue. James 3 speaks of the difficulty in controlling the tongue.

Hope Church has many activities to bring us together. They provide opportunities for us to minister to each other. However, there would be far fewer occasions at Hope Church where someone offends someone else if we didn’t have all these events that bring us together. When someone is offended, they often like to tell everyone else what happened. However, Matthew 18:15 says that if someone has offended us, our first course of action is to go alone to that person and try to work things out.

Paul concludes today’s text with an admonition against sexual immorality and a call to repentance. In 1 Corinthians 6:18, he notes the particular nature of this sin. So, repentance for it is very important.

Every day, the Holy Spirit is calling each of us to repentance. In Romans 7, it becomes clear that we sin daily. So, repentance needs to be part of our daily life. Like Isaiah in Isaiah 6, we become aware of our sinful lives. Like David in 2 Samuel 12, we need to be made aware of our sin.

But we also need to recognize the benefits of God’s forgiveness when we repent. Psalm 51:7, 10,12 give some of the benefits of forgiveness: a clean and right heart, a pure heart, and a special joy. James 5:16f lists the special benefits of people confessing their sins to each other.

Following the teaching of 1 John 1:7-9, may Hope Church be a repentant, confessing church.

For further thought-

If repentance is a gift of God that is so beneficial to us, why do we find it so hard to truly, not superficially, repent?

Elton Nelson