How Should I Handle My Regrets?
00:00:00.000 | Well, how should we consider our life regrets?
00:00:07.680 | The small regrets, the big regrets, the medium regrets.
00:00:10.680 | We all have regrets of various sizes.
00:00:13.360 | The question comes in from Marvin, a podcast listener.
00:00:15.760 | "Hello, Pastor John.
00:00:16.760 | I'm a 72-year-old man with four grown children.
00:00:19.420 | My wife is with the Lord now.
00:00:21.600 | All in all, my life has been good, and I think I served the Lord for a lot of those years,
00:00:25.360 | but I can look back on many opportunities I missed in life.
00:00:28.740 | Business trips I didn't take, missionaries I didn't support, even professional opportunities
00:00:33.320 | I did not take and probably should have, ways to better invest and redeem my time at every
00:00:38.100 | stage along the way.
00:00:39.560 | At my age, I harbor a bunch of little regrets about my past.
00:00:43.040 | All those small regrets add up and leave me wondering.
00:00:46.220 | Is it possible for an older man to look back over his life and conclude that I frequently
00:00:50.200 | missed God's will over the years?
00:00:52.540 | Or is who I am now the will of God perfectly manifested in all my decisions, and therefore
00:00:57.500 | I should have no regrets at all?
00:00:59.640 | How should an old man in Christ who believes in the sovereign orchestration of God's providence
00:01:04.700 | look back on his failures and his missed opportunities?"
00:01:08.800 | Well, as you can imagine, this strikes very close to home.
00:01:14.480 | He's, what, 72, and I'm 73.
00:01:18.040 | I am that man, right?
00:01:20.480 | Marvin and I are both in our early 70s.
00:01:24.240 | We both look back over most of our lives already being lived, I mean way most, and nothing,
00:01:32.520 | this is what hits me sometimes so hard, nothing, absolutely nothing we do can change the past.
00:01:40.920 | It sometimes hits me with tremendous force.
00:01:44.280 | My 33-year chapter as a pastor is complete.
00:01:49.360 | It had a beginning, 1980, it had an ending, 2013, and every second of it, every word spoken,
00:01:59.280 | every attitude felt, every deed done or undone is written in the books of heaven, and they
00:02:06.380 | are more fixed and unchangeable than Mount Everest.
00:02:11.960 | Nothing I do, nothing, makes those years better or worse.
00:02:18.560 | That's an awesome thought.
00:02:19.560 | That's an awesome thought.
00:02:21.560 | I mean, it's obvious this can be, right?
00:02:24.800 | Duh, but it doesn't hit you until you're almost done with life and you look back and say,
00:02:30.960 | "I used to think in terms of, 'I'm going to make my pastor better.
00:02:33.920 | I'm going to be better.
00:02:34.920 | I'm going to get better.'"
00:02:35.920 | Well, it's over.
00:02:37.000 | You're not going to make it better.
00:02:38.800 | It's over.
00:02:40.280 | You're not going to make those 33 years better or worse, and so Marvin is just forcing the
00:02:45.840 | issue again.
00:02:46.840 | Thank you, Marvin.
00:02:48.520 | It's good for me.
00:02:49.520 | It's really good for me.
00:02:50.520 | At this point in my understanding of how to look back at the past, I have four things
00:02:56.960 | that I can make fit into an APJ.
00:03:00.640 | Number one, let's begin, Marvin, by remembering that we have the kind of Savior and the kind
00:03:09.560 | of salvation that says to the thief on the cross, just hours before he dies, "Today you
00:03:17.280 | will be with me in paradise."
00:03:19.680 | Think of it.
00:03:21.600 | Just before he dies, he realizes that everything, everything in his past is regrettable.
00:03:32.040 | Everything.
00:03:33.580 | Nothing was done from faith.
00:03:36.220 | Nothing was done for the glory of Christ, and he will be with Jesus forever, welcomed.
00:03:45.920 | That's an amazing reality, unspeakably sweet reality of grace.
00:03:53.040 | If you, Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand Psalm 130?
00:03:58.320 | That's where we start, Marvin.
00:03:59.320 | We just start there.
00:04:01.960 | Christ died to cover a thousand regrets.
00:04:06.440 | Ten thousand.
00:04:07.920 | A million.
00:04:09.340 | Number two, Marvin, your memory and my memory and everybody's memory of our past is utterly
00:04:18.040 | unreliable.
00:04:20.320 | If you start to try to measure the spiritual successes and failures of your past, the good
00:04:28.100 | versus the bad, the loving versus the unloving, the helpful versus the unhelpful, you're kidding
00:04:34.160 | yourself.
00:04:35.280 | My memory, your memory is utterly not up to the task for four reasons.
00:04:43.400 | One, many of my sins were hidden from me.
00:04:47.540 | Who can discern his errors, declare me innocent of hidden faults, Psalm 19.
00:04:52.160 | Number two, I have long forgotten many things entirely.
00:04:56.960 | Paul said, Paul, Paul said, 1 Corinthians 1:16, "I did baptize also the house of Stephanas."
00:05:04.000 | Beyond that, I don't know whether I baptized anyone.
00:05:07.080 | Thank you.
00:05:09.000 | Thank you.
00:05:10.600 | Paul didn't remember who he baptized.
00:05:15.080 | Well, there are 10,000 things I don't remember, which may have been good or may have been
00:05:21.120 | bad.
00:05:22.120 | I don't know.
00:05:23.120 | I can't remember them.
00:05:24.120 | I'm absolutely hopeless if I try to rehearse my past and add things up like that.
00:05:29.720 | The third reason, my heart is deceitful, recalls something good that weren't good.
00:05:36.440 | I'm going to deceive myself.
00:05:38.520 | Jeremiah 17, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick.
00:05:43.360 | Who can understand it?
00:05:44.680 | And the fourth reason, Paul ponders his own record of faithfulness.
00:05:49.960 | And here's what he says, 1 Corinthians 4, 4, "I'm not aware of anything against myself,
00:05:56.880 | but I'm not thereby acquitted, is the Lord who judges me."
00:06:01.440 | In other words, even a good memory and a good record is not decisive.
00:06:07.960 | Christ is decisive.
00:06:09.080 | So beware of thinking too highly of your memory, whether good or bad.
00:06:15.520 | Third, it's good to remember our sins and feel regret.
00:06:23.000 | It's good.
00:06:24.000 | Good to feel regret.
00:06:25.000 | Up to a point, and I say this again for four reasons.
00:06:28.880 | One, a life without regrets is built on a mirage.
00:06:33.320 | If you don't see sins when you're looking back over your life and you don't regret those
00:06:38.680 | sins, you're not seeing reality.
00:06:40.320 | You're not feeling reality.
00:06:42.720 | You're seeing a mirage.
00:06:44.520 | We all have sinned.
00:06:46.560 | There were plenty of attitudes, words, deeds that were not for the glory of God, but selfish,
00:06:53.080 | not loving, but uncaring, not from faith, but from fear.
00:06:58.640 | Plenty of things that came out of your mouth that were not designed for up-building, plenty
00:07:03.920 | of good paths taken with defective motives.
00:07:07.680 | A life without regrets is a life built on a mirage.
00:07:12.360 | Second, Paul said to the Gentile converts in Ephesus, Ephesians 2, "Remember that you
00:07:21.200 | were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers
00:07:26.000 | to the covenants of promise, having no hope without God in the world.
00:07:29.480 | But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood
00:07:35.640 | of Christ."
00:07:36.640 | Their memory of their regretful condition was commanded.
00:07:42.480 | Remember.
00:07:43.960 | Third, surely the reason for this, this memory, is that it deepens and intensifies our thankfulness
00:07:53.160 | for grace.
00:07:54.540 | And lastly, the reason for this remembering of sins in our lives, Paul never forgot his
00:08:02.240 | regretful past.
00:08:05.360 | Writing near the end of his life, he said, "The saying is trustworthy and deserving
00:08:09.520 | of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I
00:08:16.280 | am foremost."
00:08:18.920 | That was a regret, and he never forgot it.
00:08:22.360 | So I conclude it is good, it's good to remember our sins and feel regret.
00:08:29.360 | And I said, "Up to a point."
00:08:31.680 | So my last consideration is, "What point?"
00:08:36.160 | So this is my fourth consideration.
00:08:39.360 | The time for forgetting.
00:08:41.200 | What is it?
00:08:42.200 | Philippians chapter 3, verse 13, Paul said this, "Brothers, I do not consider that
00:08:47.280 | I have made it my own."
00:08:48.560 | That is, I haven't become perfect.
00:08:50.160 | I haven't arrived yet.
00:08:51.800 | "One thing I do, forgetting."
00:08:55.480 | Here's the key word.
00:08:56.480 | Oh, Marvin, let's get this.
00:08:58.440 | "Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward what lies ahead, I press on toward
00:09:04.720 | the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."
00:09:09.220 | So in Ephesians 2, Paul says, "Remember."
00:09:13.120 | And in Philippians 3, he says, "Forget."
00:09:16.120 | And if you say, "Well, when do you do which?"
00:09:19.200 | Here's my sense of what he means for us old men.
00:09:26.120 | Wherever remembering our failures will help us fly to Christ, love Christ, rest in Christ,
00:09:37.640 | cherish grace, sing of mercy, serve with zeal, then let's get on with remembering and regretting.
00:09:47.720 | But wherever remembering begins to paralyze us with the weight of failure and remorse
00:09:56.280 | so that we don't love Christ more or cherish grace more or serve with greater energy, then
00:10:04.680 | let us forget and press on by the power of grace for the little time we have left.
00:10:14.240 | That's the main word.
00:10:15.640 | Press on in faith for the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ.
00:10:22.920 | Magnificent.
00:10:23.920 | That's super helpful.
00:10:25.320 | Thank you, Pastor John.
00:10:26.320 | That was, I think, useful for a range of ages.
00:10:30.440 | All of us have regrets.
00:10:31.440 | And Marvin, thank you for the question.
00:10:34.800 | Thank you for listening along.
00:10:35.800 | Be sure to subscribe to Ask Pastor John in your favorite podcast app or on YouTube.
00:10:40.240 | For our archive of episodes or to send in your own question, go to DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.
00:10:48.640 | We are going to celebrate Thanksgiving here in the States on Thursday.
00:10:52.400 | So how do we feast to the glory of God?
00:10:55.280 | And what does it mean to glorify God through the goodness of creation?
00:10:59.640 | Pastor John will lead us through 1 Timothy chapter 4 verses 1 to 5 next time.
00:11:04.560 | I'm your host Tony Reinke.
00:11:05.560 | We'll see you on Wednesday.
00:11:06.560 | Bye.
00:11:07.560 | Bye.
00:11:07.560 | Bye.
00:11:08.560 | Bye.
00:11:08.560 | Bye.
00:11:13.560 | [BLANK_AUDIO]