Have you ever driven faster than 55 miles per hour? Have you ever been stopped and given a speeding ticket? Were you sorry? For what were you sorry? Sorry you got caught? Or sorry you drove too fast?

Have you ever been told to “say you’re sorry”? All of us have watched a child who has done something wrong and isn’t one bit sorry. Then mother or father comes along and says, “Now say you’re sorry.”

And the child ducks his head and scuffs his feet and looks thoroughly uncomfortable. Finally he mutters, “Sorry.” And the parent lets the matter go. Is the child sorry? Well, he’s sorry he had to say he was sorry!

The Bible talks about two kinds of “sorry.”

“Godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.” 2 Corinthians 7:10.

So there’s godly sorrow, and there’s worldly sorrow. One kind is a matter of relationship; the other is limited to behavior. One kind changes your life; the other kind changes only your actions-and that temporarily. One kind is essential; the other kind isn’t worth a dime.

Judas had worldly sorrow. He was sorry he got caught. He waited until the last minute so he could be sure he really had blown it. But when it finally became apparent that Jesus wasn’t going to release Himself and that the priests and rulers were going to condemn Him, Judas came forward with his repentance. It says in Matthew 27:3, Judas “repented himself.”

“Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders” - Matthew 27:3

It’s typical of worldly sorrow that it waits until it is caught red-handed. It’s one thing to “repent” after you’ve been proven guilty, but quite another thing to repent even before you have been accused.

Another Bible example of the wrong kind of sorrow is Cain. He, too, waited until the last minute and then even tried to outtalk God. “Brother? What Brother? Oh, Abel? You mean you expect me to keep up with him?”

Godly sorrow, on the other hand, has an entirely different nature. It’s being sorry that we hurt someone we love. The Desire of Ages, page 300, puts it this way:

“We often sorrow because our evil deeds bring unpleasant consequences to ourselves; but this is not repentance. Real sorrow for sin is the result of the working of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit reveals the ingratitude of the heart that has slighted and grieved the Saviour, and brings us in contrition to the foot of the cross. By every sin Jesus is wounded afresh; and as we look upon Him whom we have pierced, we mourn for the sins that have brought anguish upon Him. Such mourning will lead to the renunciation of sin.”

This brings us to another compelling reason why repentance has to come as a result of coming to Christ. We cannot sorrow that we have hurt someone we love if we don’t love that person!

Remember when you were small, and you did some sort of damage to that awful kid next door? And you were supposed to be sorry?

As we grow older, we learn (I hope) a little bit about all- encompassing love for mankind, so that our kindness extends beyond the circle of our immediate friends. But it’s still true that the more you love someone, the more your heart is broken when you hurt them.

As we learn to know Jesus and to trust the love that He has for us, we will find that we are truly sorry when we bring sorrow to Him. This is the repentance that is godly sorrow, “not to be repented of.”