PART 3A: STEPS AND RESULTS OF THE CHURCH HAVING GODLY SORROW
The church gains godly sorrow the same way an individual does covered under the “What is Godly Sorrow” section above. Seeing our sin through God’s eyes, recognizing that it cost His Son His life, Grieving over our choice to sin, and recognizing there is nothing we can do ourselves to make up for our sin.
Godly sorrow brings repentance. How does the church repent? Repentance begins with admission of guilt – CONFESSION and apology. The church needs to repent as the church for perpetuating abortion within the church by her silence and her misplaced judgment of it outside the church. We can begin by doing this ourselves, but pastors and ministry leaders will need encouragement to do it on a corporate level to truly begin the great results that will come from it. The church’s repentance begins with church leaders and congregants publicly recognizing the church’s culpability and complicity in abortion before God and man.
Just as an individual who repents must forgive others to receive forgiveness from God, so also the entire body of Christ must FORGIVE the grievances against all who have taken part in abortion.
When the church begins to repent on a corporate level and apologizes publicly, imagine the results that will happen!
a. Women and men in the church who have been in hiding because of their abortions will no longer feel so ASHAMED to confess it.
b. Those who felt the church was judgmental or not supportive in their time of need will finally not feel so ALONE.
c. When people who’ve stopped going to church begin to hear about their local church’s repentance in this area, they may feel more WELCOME. Repentance of the church regarding her part in abortion will not only lead people to salvation in Christ and draw others back to the joy or their salvation but also lead to saving babies’ lives in the future.
d. All who have been affected by abortion will begin to find HOPE.
e. When pastors and ministry leaders begin to mention the traumatic effects of abortion to body, mind, spirit and all of us collectively, those who have lost children to abortion will gain understanding of their wounds and begin to seek HEALING.
f. It will save future moms, dads, grandparents, and siblings from TRAUMA.
The church will not need to be concerned about the warning in Scripture regarding the duties of the watchman in Ezekiel 33. Allow me to summarize this for you.
If we warn people of the effects of abortion, and they choose life, no one has blood on their heads.
If we warn people but they choose abortion anyway, the blood is on their heads but not on ours.
If we don’t warn people and they choose abortion, the blood is on both their heads and ours.
g. We can all become watchmen (watchpersons), but the most effective are those who can speak to the masses, PASTORS and ministry leaders. But it starts with us!
 
Before discussing the stories, talk about Ezekiel 33 and how it applies to your congregation. It is not shameful needing to improve. Nevertheless, once we recognize an area in which we have the power through God to improve, it would become shameful if we then did nothing about it! So, we need to go to it in godly sorrow and see where it leads!
Do you see how much we can accomplish by understanding just one verse from Scripture? I pray that the wheels are turning in your heads and that your hearts are stirred by the concepts we have covered in this session. Before you begin the ‘Redeeming the Story’ discussions, I have a few things to think about as you prepare for our next and final session.
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