No Regrets for the Believer
Luke 16:25-26 Regrets...we’ve all got ‘em. Regrets about jobs we should have taken and school we should have finished and homes we shouldn’t have sold and cars we wish we’d kept and people we wish we’d been nicer to and trips we wish we’d taken and things we wish we shouldn’t have said and things we wish we had said and time we wish we hadn’t wasted and money we wish we hadn’t spent and visits we should have made and phone calls we shouldn’t have made and apologies we should have made and... and if we had it all to do over again we do things differently, or so we say.
Regrets....I wish I had studied harder in high school. ....I wish I had spent more time sitting in the swing with my papaw Mason watching him whittle and talking about nothing. ...I wish I hadn’t quit high school basketball. ....I wish I had taken guitar lessons when I was a kid. .... I wish I hadn’t sold my first car a 1973 Mustang. ....I wish I had never bought that Volkswagen Rabbit. ....I wish Crystal had been older than 15 when I first met her. ....I wish I had gotten to know my dad better when I was young. ....I wish I hadn’t been in such a rush that night in the hospital before Mother died.
Regrets....My greatest regret has to do with my salvation. I first felt God speaking to my heart when I was just a small boy maybe 8 years old. I didn’t get saved until I was 19. I think about all the growing I missed out on. I think about the call I felt at 19 and wonder if I would have felt it earlier if I had gotten saved. I wish I had been a Christian in high school. I wish I had been the president of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. I wish I had been the guy the coach called on to ask the blessing.
Regrets....The Bible is full of men and women who lived to regret their foolish decisions. People who bet the farm and lost believing they could sow to the wind and not reap the whirlwind. You will reap what you sow whether you believe it or not. May God help us live a life we will not regret...and stand before God unashamed of our faithfulness to Him.
So....What happens? What makes us do what we know we will one day regret?
1- We get Trapped.....Luke 16:25-26 But Abraham said, 'Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted and you are tormented. 26 And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us.' NKJV
Woody Allen said, “My only regret in life is that I am not someone else.” (What They Said) I wonder if Tiger Woods has wished that lately? I don’t want to beat up Tiger but suggest that he is a modern day “rich man” we read about in Luke 16. ....I think Tiger got trapped in a lifestyle he never intended. I can’t imagine him choosing the life he has lived. Trapped? I think so.
Let’s ask John Edwards. He and his wife are now legally separated. Could he have gotten caught in a trap carefully laid by Satan? His political life and family life are over. Some would say he is ruined. We can trace his steps and read his story but we cannot really understand his actions. .....A politician and a professional athlete, but we’d better remember...We’re all vulnerable. Don’t get in the position to be trapped.
In Luke 16, the “rich man” is told to “remember in your life...” I hate to think that he spent eternity with an instant replay continually running in his head reminding him of all the times he turned God away....and laid up more treasures on earth and mocked the cripple at his gate. *Are you caught in a trap...wanting to be free? Believe God!
2- We get Tired......Matt 21:28-32 "But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, 'Son, go, work today in my vineyard.' 29 He answered and said, 'I will not,' but afterward he regretted it and went. 30 Then he came to the second and said likewise. And he answered and said, 'I go, sir,' but he did not go. 31 Which of the two did the will of his father?"They said to Him, "The first." Jesus said to them, "Assuredly, I say to you that tax collectors and harlots enter the kingdom of God before you.” NKJV
Do you ever get so tired of the daily routine that you just want to say, “No, I’m not going.”? In the Matthew passage one son said he would go and didn’t and the other said he wouldn’t go but did. How many times have you made commitments to God with no intention of ever keeping them? *This son who said he’d go but didn’t never intended to go...but it sure sounded good. .....It was not his first time to say he was going and not go. Sometimes fatigue is the offspring of laziness. Sometimes we reward laziness – hard workers are few.
The son who said he’d go but didn’t is a picture of the Pharisees. Everything they said or did was done to be seen of men. ....The son who said he wouldn’t go but did is a picture of the outcasts, harlots, and publicans. Because of Jesus, salvation was no longer limited to a nation, but whosoever...people like the woman caught in adultery.
But the reason behind this man’s fatigue was his feelings of superiority.
3- We get Tangled......Mark 10:21-22 Then Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, "One thing you lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, take up the cross, and follow Me." 22 But he was sad at this word, and went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. NKJV “He went away sorrowful”... Imagine that. In 2 Peter 2:20 we read about false teachers who become entangled in the world and are overcome... In Galatians 5:1 we read Paul’s words to new believers not to “become entangled in a yoke of bondage”...but to stand fast in their liberty in Christ.
We weave tangled webs when we allow the world to have too much influence on us. Families become tangled where Christ is not the center...Churches become tangled through rumoring, lack of vision, and false teaching. Individuals become tangled when our lives are consumed with possessions, power and prestige...and we ignore God’s call to be Holy.
Sad ending to this story. Jesus did look at him, love him and level with him...but in the end, when the man turned his back, Jesus let him go.
4- We Get Tricked...... Matt 27:3-4 “Then Judas, His betrayer, seeing that He had been condemned, was remorseful and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, 4 saying, "I have sinned by betraying innocent blood."NKJV In the KJV, Judas “repented himself.”...which has nothing to do with repentance. His actions had more to do with getting caught than being committed. Francis Chan said, we don’t necessarily want to be forgiven of our sins...we just want to be forgiven of the penalty of our sins.
Judas was suckered in. Did God know about this in advance? Of course...He’s God. Call it a plan, call it the natural course of action...God allowed Judas to put himself in a position to be tricked and to trade in the potential for eternal life for the guarantee of eternal damnation.
You think Judas regretted his actions? You bet...and in Acts 1 when he hanged himself it was his way of escaping the wrath of his own regret. ... “The serpent was more subtle...”
Paul was a believer who lived with no regrets...
True......Phil 3:10-14 “...that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, 11 if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. 12 Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. 13 Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, 14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” NKJV
We have two choices... We can live our life trapped, tired, tangled and tricked...or we can be true to what we know, living the abundant life looking forward to the eternal life.
