Regret

I ask you to turn the Word of God this evening to Luke 22, the 22nd chapter of Luke. Just along the lines of what I was saying about reaching the lost on some evening this week—I forget what evening it was—I was watching a video, a service actually in one of our churches in Ulster, Portglenone Free Presbyterian Church, where there was a report given of the ploughing championship. So, for about 15 years or so, a team has gone to the south of Ireland to this annual event in which there’s—it’s in the name—a ploughing championship. So it’s very rural, and the people there, of course, are mostly very rural, and it’s in a very rural setting and so on, as you can imagine, because you can’t exactly have a ploughing championship in the city of Dublin or somewhere like that. So they’ve been going there for many years, and there’s maybe 300,000 who go and attend over the course of the days. And there’s been a presence there of Free Presbyterians endeavoring to have a witness. And they provide tea, and coffee, beverages, and Bibles, and so on. And usually, they see nearly everything go—hundreds of scriptures, many, many opportunities to witness.

But I was just really encouraged. I was encouraged by the report that the Reverend Jonathan Crane gave, especially in light of how things have developed over the past 15 years. And if you wanted just to be reminded of the reality at times when we give ourselves to a work, we may not see what we want to see in the initial stages, but it’s in the years that come—it’s over the kind of labor of 10, 15, 20 more years—that you begin to see God at work. And so they’re very encouraged by the difference between the first few years and the last few years. There’s a marked difference in how they are received, the opportunities they have, the conversations they enjoy. Of course, this is largely, nearly 100% coming in would be Roman Catholic in their background, and so it’s a marvellous opportunity. So very encouraged—and you can find that. If you can’t find it, you can let me know, but I think you’d be encouraged. I will say the Reverend Crane’s accent’s even stronger than mine, but sermon audio is a great service. It has subtitles, and even for the Northern Irish accent, those subtitles are usually on point, so you’ll be able to read along if you can’t understand everything he is saying.

Of course, if you were to go to where the ploughing championship is held, then you probably would have no idea what the Irish were saying as they talk with you, but anyway. We’re thankful for these open doors and those who labor. It’s a great operation. It takes a number of them to go and organize the whole thing. They print out, they have calendars. Again, it’s very rural—different world really from what you would be familiar with, at least in recent years. They come looking for the calendars that are very clear scripture verses and so on. And they come taking literature, Bibles that have both the Irish language and English either side. So sometimes they take—there’s a lady who took a copy of the Scriptures because she was wanting to brush up on her Irish. And so she’s using—“could I take this to help me?” Certainly, use God’s word to brush up on your Irish language. May the Lord bless those efforts and ever give our whole denomination, sister denominations as well, a burden for the lost.

It’s wonderful to know that the nature of Jesus is all love. Wilt thou not the wrong forget? Suffer me to kiss thy feet.

And so we come tonight to Luke 22. I announced this morning that the subject in this new series we began not so long ago—this is the third message on Bible Answers for Inner Battles. And we come now to the subject of regret. And it’s a very delicate one, one that perhaps we can say we’ve all experienced to some degree or other. There are a number of passages we could turn to, but I turn your attention tonight to a very vivid narrative of regret that I think we can see here in the life of Peter. We’re going to read from verse 54 just to remind you of the context. Our Lord has been arrested and Peter has followed. He’s watching from afar, and He is to be exposed and to see the true frailty of His nature.

Luke 22, verse 54:
“‘Then took they Him and led Him and brought Him into the high priest’s house. And Peter followed afar off. And when they had kindled a fire in the midst of the hall and were set down together, Peter sat down among them. But a certain maid beheld him as he sat by the fire, and earnestly looked upon him, and said, This man was also with him. And he denied him, saying, Woman, I know him not. And after a little while another saw him, and said, Thou art also of them. And Peter said, Man, I am not. And about the space of one hour after another, confidently affirmed, saying, Of a truth, this fellow also was with him, for he is a Galilean. And Peter said, Man, I know not what thou sayest.’ Immediately, while he yet spake, the cock crow, the Lord turned and looked upon Peter, and Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said unto him, ‘Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice.’ And Peter went out and wept bitterly.”
Amen.

We’ll end our reading at verse 62. What you have heard is the infallible, inerrant, perfect Word of the living God, which you are to receive, believe, and obey. The people of God said, amen.

Let’s pray.

Lord, we ask for help. We’re glad that not only can we come to Thee and know that Thou art full of love, that Thou art full of mercy, and Thou art able to, as it were, forget the wrong. We come acknowledging that we still battle with sin in thought and word and deed, by means of commission and omission. We pray, Lord, that Thou wouldst graciously help us. There are so many ways we find ourselves enslaved and trapped. We pray that Thou wilt liberate us through the truths of Thy Word. Thou knowest every heart here tonight; Thou knowest each and every soul. And while the subject in one sense—individuals may say, “Well, it’s not exactly where I am tonight”—yet we pray that everyone would hear from the Lord. Give power. Give the Holy Spirit. And if there be one unsaved, save them. Hear our prayers. In Jesus’ name, amen.

There is no man who can avoid sin entirely. Sin marks every fallen soul. That’s something we cannot avoid while we are in this scene of time in this life. But how a man responds to sin often tells you much more than the sin itself—how he deals with it. Some ignore it. Some excuse it. Some suppress it. Some try to drown it in drink or even busyness and laughter. But there’s one response to sin that almost all of us know to some degree or other, and that is a feeling of regret—regret. Think of the father who speaks harshly to his child, only to find himself attending his child’s funeral before he has opportunity to make amends. He will likely be overcome with regret. Think of the woman who leaves her husband chasing the promise of a happier life, only to spend her later years in far greater misery and loneliness. Think of the young person raised in a good church, a sound home, who walks away from Christ, maybe later gets saved many years after their privileged upbringing, and then has to live with the scars of their folly, filled with a sense of what could have been.

These scenarios, and many others that could be given, are well known to us. We can imagine them very easily. They’re not so far off from us that we cannot really put ourselves in that position. Regret is universal. It is something we all experience. The little whisper of the words “if only” often fills our hearts and minds. Such language will nod our souls. We replay in our minds past failures, almost in an endless loop. We feel ourselves to be in a form of prison, under a weight, a heaviness. Regret—this is regret. And yet not all regret is the same. Some regret softens the heart, helps us to get to where we need to be before God; other regret, or at least how it is responded to in our heart, hardens the soul, drags it into the depths of despair to find no relief.

In our text that we have chosen for this subject, we have Peter—this bold, brash disciple, so full of confidence, so sure of his undying loyalty to his Master—now has to face the weight of his own failure. He had declared so confidently, “Lord, I am ready to go with Thee both into prison and to death.” Now he’s questioned—just questioned—as to his allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ, and he crumbles. The very thing he said would never happen takes place just a short time afterwards. And so, the cock crows, and he begins to recall. Experience strikes him hard. And you see, verse 62, he went out. He could no longer stay where he was. He could no longer remain there, pretending. He leaves, and he goes and weeps. But not only weeps—he weeps bitterly. Yes, this was to mark Peter for the rest of his life in a fashion. He was to feel it, certainly. And yet the Lord was to deal so graciously with him. And so while we see these tears that are no doubt in some way driven by a sense of regret, they do not lead him into the place of despair; rather, they lead him to the place of hope. And we will see—we’ll touch on it a little—but you well know the story, how Peter is restored, how the Lord so graciously works in him. First, not with the addressing of him three times, “Lovest thou me?” that comes—and certainly is key—but even before that, in the utterance of our Lord to the women, with regard to His resurrection, “Go and tell the disciples and Peter also.” The Lord highlights Peter. Make sure you don’t forget to tell Peter. Such compassion.

So I’m using the same headings I’ve used for the previous two messages—you’ll understand the format by now. So we see, firstly, then the character of regret. This experience of Peter and others that we’ll see in Scripture is something that we can learn from, but the world has its own understanding of regret as well. I see regret break down in various ways—I’m sure there are others that I have not come across—but you have, for example, counterfactual regret; they will talk about it—the focusing on what might have been. You have this upward counterfactual thinking that involves mentally constructing alternative scenarios that may have led to better outcomes. You have action versus inaction regret as well. So again, we learn here that people tend to regret more their inactions than they do what they did that they regret. The inactions have a long-term effect, whereas the regret we may have for something we have done tends to be more short-term. You have self-agency regret and circumstantial regret—putting them against one another, distinguishing between regret over choices we made versus regret over circumstances beyond our control. There is anticipatory regret, the prediction of future regret that influences current decision making. There are life stage regrets, where we begin to look at things depending on the various life stages, career choices, relationship decisions, and so on. And then there are collective or cultural regrets—shared feelings of regret within communities over historical events or cultural practices—and so on and so forth. I could give others. These are the ways psychologists and others look at regret and categorize it, and this is what you’re going through.

And I think in Scripture you can see some of these things bear out. You could look at experiences that we have in the compass of Scripture and say, “Well, this looks like that and this looks like the other,” and you could place it all there. But really, when it comes to Scripture, the distinction really—if you just narrow it down and simplify it—is: you have godly sorrow and worldly sorrow. So what is godly sorrow? The difference between godly sorrow and worldly sorrow is not in the depth of emotion, because both may weep, both may grieve, both may feel the weight of failure, but one runs to God, and the other does not. Godly sorrow is a sorrow for the sin itself, not just the consequences. Godly sorrow does not cry, “What have I lost?” but “Whom have I offended?” These are important distinctions. Godly sorrow does not simply say, “I am ashamed before men,” but “I am ashamed before God.” You think of David in Psalm 51—that great penitential psalm. You see here a man who is under the weight of what he has done. He is feeling it profoundly. He has been exposed by the prophet, and he is no longer hiding. And he says in Psalm 51 verse 4, “‘Against thee, the only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight.’” This is godly sorrow.

Now, did David offend other people? Absolutely. Did he wreak havoc on other people’s lives and their circumstances? For sure. But his primary response, first, as he accounts his feeling, is to address the matter that what he has done is ultimately against God. This is godly sorrow. It leads to confession, repentance, and, thank God, leads to restoration. Again, you see this in Peter. His bitter weeping did not end in despair. When we read his story, we see how he is restored. The tears are not the end of the story. The weeping bitterly is not where the account closes. Christ prayed for him before his fall, and called him back after His resurrection. Peter becomes an example—yes, of a form of regret, what we may call godly sorrow—the sorrow that leads to repentance.

2 Corinthians 7 addresses this. You also have worldly sorrow—and you can draw from what I’ve already said regarding its characteristics. This sorrow is deadly. It is the sorrow of Cain, who cries, “My punishment is greater than I can bear” (Genesis 4), but he never turns to God for mercy; he doesn’t seek for mercy. You have the sorrow or regret of Esau—he feels the loss of his birthright, laments, experiences tearfulness, but no repentance. You have the sorrow of Judas—the regret that filled his heart. Did he regret what he had done? I believe so; he felt guilt, was tormented by the weight of his betrayal (“I betrayed the innocent blood,” is the language he uses), but it did not lead him to Christ. It did not lead him to the cross; it did not lead him to forgiveness and restoration. No—Matthew 27, verse 5: he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple and departed and went and hanged himself.

It’s a tremendous sermon in looking at Peter and Judas. It’s a great sermon—and what will strike you about your study is how similar they are! A tiny but very significant distinction—a tiny distinction that makes the difference between heaven and hell. These men weep; they feel regret—yet one is lifted from his sorrow into the embrace of a gracious Christ, and another is crushed by a hopeless sense of despair. Worldly sorrow never looks up; it only looks back. It knows what it has done, but it does not go to the One who is truly offended. It mourns for what is lost but never seeks the One who can be found. It’s a dead end—a trap, a place of no relief.

Oh, you will see it in the world. What we are addressing here tonight is not unique to what is within the walls of the church. Regret riddles the heart of all, to greater and lesser degrees. And I am warning you—God is warning you—beware of such regret. Hell is full of such regret. The damned will lament without any relief.

So when it comes to the character of regret, you have the godly type and you have the worldly type. They may be expressed similarly in feeling, but what you do with it creates the distinction. One says, “I have offended God,” and goes to God. One looks back and says, “This was wrong, I know it,” but does not seek relief in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And secondly, the causes of regret: What gives birth to regret? How is it that we can feel this? There are many of God’s creatures; I imagine there are no creatures that have experienced regret like man may experience it. Certainly, creatures can be taught in some way to express behavior that looks like regret—but it’s more like, “I know that this was a bad thing before; I learned my lesson; you don’t do it again.” But it’s not quite the same. What man experiences in regret is quite unique because of several things. First, the knowledge of the law of God. One of the causes of regret—the reasons why we experience it—is the knowledge of the law of God. Now, we’ve looked at part of this before, but just to remind you: you have a conscience, and that conscience—even in a natural sense—has been framed before God because you’re made in the image of God. I made mention of Romans 2 before. The natural man has an understanding, even though he may not be furnished with the Scriptures; he knows, on some level, what is right or wrong. And again, we may look at it and say, “Well, it’s very dim in terms of its expression,” but being made in the image of God gives you an innate awareness.

So whether one has it naturally or through the teaching of God’s Word, there is knowledge of God’s law—and that magnifies regret. Anyone who says that those who do not have the Word of God have no knowledge of the law is wrong, because you’ll see cultures without Scripture still understand regret, even if their conscience has been seared. And then, another cause of regret is the knowledge of lost opportunity—knowing that we have lost out on opportunity. One of the most powerful ways this is described relates to God’s Word and the opportunities we have in the gospel itself.

You think of the rich man in Luke 16—the man who fares sumptuously every day, ignoring the beggar Lazarus at his gate. And then, when both die, the rich man in torment lifts his eyes, and his regret is overwhelming. Lost opportunity—regret for not having accepted the gift of salvation when it was before him—is the worst kind. And then there is the knowledge of lamentable consequences—the bitter fruits of our own actions. We begin to see the addictions we inflict upon ourselves, the subtle sins, the little decisions we imagine will have no long-term consequences—until they accumulate like a thousand cuts.

Regret left unchecked is merciless. It reminds us of what we have done and offers no hope of relief—and if it weren’t for Christ, it would be unbearable.

This brings us to the cure. Thanks be unto God, who always causeth us to triumph! There is a miraculous work that can be done—an experience of healing and redemption found in Christ alone. This is the only cure, Jesus Christ. The only sure hope we have when overcome with regret is Jesus Christ.

So, what way can we think about this? I would suggest, first, run to Christ for the sufficiency of His salvation. Run to Christ for the restorative power of His grace. That’s what the prodigal is doing—he’s running to Christ. I know that when we think of the Heavenly Father, we remember the shepherd leaving the 99 to go after the one lost sheep, or the woman who searches for the lost silver. And it’s also Him looking over the horizon, willing to receive those who will return, run to Christ. The whole point is, this man receives sinners because He knows they have grounds to feel regret. So, run to Christ for the sufficiency of His salvation. When you see your sin, do not flee from Him; flee to Him. You get to the cross—there regret can be overcome by the joy in Jesus Christ.

Was Peter filled with bitter tears? For sure. But unlike Judas, he made his way to Christ again. He was there. I believe there’s good reason to believe—even if it may be disputed—that he was there at the cross. And He certainly did not hesitate to run to that empty tomb when he found out about it. I mean, he’s in the boat, and they’re trying to determine who it is on the shore, and John says it is the Lord. Peter, immediately in that water, fled to Christ because that is the only place of hope.

Friends, this is where you go for the sufficiency of salvation. You go to Jesus Christ. Overcome by regret, you go to Jesus Christ. Paul, once a blasphemer and persecutor of the saints, was overcome by regret for his past—but he found in the gospel that which was sufficient; that he may know Him. I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus—locked in, like a hunter looking down his scope—yet there in Paul’s view is one thing: Jesus Christ. And every day he would run to that same Savior, and every day he would rejoice in the sufficiency of the shed blood to wash away all his sins. Yes, run to Christ for the sufficiency of His salvation; run to Christ for the restorative power of His grace. You don’t simply go to Christ to be saved—you go to Christ because there you can be restored. God not only forgives; He restores. He can restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten (Joel 2:25). And I know it has its context, but there’s certainly application—God can restore wasted years, redeeming our lives so that we can live a fruitful future marked by restored truth.

You may fear that you have lost absolutely something in your life, but God can bring beauty from ashes. Remember John Mark? John Mark—such hope, such promise. Heading off with Paul and Barnabas on a missionary endeavor, something happened—I don’t know what exactly—but he ran home. Abandoned the ship, as it were. And so when they plan to head out the next time, Barnabas always hopes for the best. Let’s take John Mark: Paul says, “No way, that’s not happening.” He is not ready. Maybe Paul imagined he doesn’t have what it takes. And I imagine John Mark must have watched all of that with a deep sense of regret. He wants another opportunity. And he sees these two great men disputing over the whole thing—and it’s all because of him. So he has to, he must stand there thinking, “If only I had not… run home!” And he’s not just watching these men dispute, but the contention is so great between them that they part ways. Barnabas goes off, and I have no doubt both Barnabas and Paul felt the weight of it for a long time. John Mark, he must have felt it keenly. It was his folly, his weakness that led to the whole thing. And yet, God restores. Years later, Paul writes to Timothy, “Take Mark, bring him with thee, for he is profitable to me for the ministry” (2 Timothy 4). Wonderful—restoring relationships like that.

So this is what we have. Recounting the matter of Peter—here is a man so wonderfully restored. Do you not feel it when you read it? Take the Lord out of the picture—everyone leans on Peter; he is the natural leader. And the leader of the leaders falls hard, questioning if there is any future for him. Yet the Lord comes with such condescension and mercy, restoring him—not just restoring him, but a few weeks later giving him the opportunity to stand and preach filled with the Holy Ghost. His fears are gone, his regret is but a memory. It’s all about now and what he can do for Christ now—forgetting those things behind and reaching forth to those things before.

There’s application here, beloved—just as Paul says in Philippians 3, “I press toward the mark.” I can’t live in regret when Christ restores; regret no longer dictates. When He is forgiven and received, He can mend and heal. He can even take a man guilty of sin and place him, giving him the opportunity to preach and be used for the Lord. I have known men so overcome by their past that they struggle immensely to get past what they have done. The enemy keeps them in chains, and their inability to find rest in the gospel of Jesus Christ withholds from them the restorative power of God’s grace. And I wonder—some of you, there is in all likelihood someone here who fights that very battle, filled with regret and the nagging thought of what was done and what could have been. And you take yourself—once a vibrant Christian—and put yourself on a shelf. “My service for God is over.” And yet, should someone in your shoes come and share their story that mirrors your own, you would unhesitatingly say, “Of course! Of course!” But you’ve managed to believe a lie about yourself. God can and does restore.

Are there things broken to a point that they can never be entirely repaired? Tragically, perhaps. But the fact that there may be things we cannot change does not alter the fact that God can do tremendous good despite that. Your responsibility is to run to Christ. Yes, for the sufficiency of His salvation, but also for the restorative power of His grace. It doesn’t erase the past, but it can redeem it. It can take regret and turn it into a testimony. It can take failure and, out of that, build a life of faithfulness so that you can say, “Rahab the harlot”—and yet see the power of His grace through such a life.

Beloved, do not let regret paralyze you. It is a powerful thing. It has the potential to totally paralyze you, but it didn’t for Peter, thank God. It didn’t for Paul, thank God. And there are many others we could mention—redeeming Rahab, Manasseh, Saul of Tarsus, restoring David, Jonah, Peter, John Mark, intervening in the life of tax collectors, serial adulterers, persecutors of the church. So there is One who can break those chains of regret. While you may have wasted years chasing vain things, and even denied the Lord—maybe not with words, but with your life—your heart may be heavy with what could have been. You may imagine yourself disqualified forever, but that is not the case. God works powerfully through broken things. The only thing that broken thing must do is get to Jesus Christ. Go there and do not question His ability to do amazing things. Go there and experience something beyond what you can fathom. One day, He will wipe away every tear and make all things new. But even now, He does things that remind us that with God, nothing is impossible.

The Lord bless His Word. Let us pray together in prayer. I want to encourage you, Christian, in a frame of humility, in recognition of your failure, yet to go to the Lord and hand it entirely to Him. Do not go with suggestions. Do not go to Him with a whole big solution of what needs to happen, just like a man with a car whose engine’s blown up—you simply take it to the mechanic and leave it there, saying, “Please, if you can, fix this.” And you come to the Lord and give that whole matter that torments your mind, and you say, “Lord, if Thou canst, if Thou wilt, fix us.”

Lord, bless Thy Word. Should there be one here yet without Christ, yet living a life of selfishness, I plead that Thou wilt work even now in them and forbid that they go on and end up like that rich man. We pray they will never, as it were, lift up their eyes in hell, but may they even now lift up their eyes to the cross. We plead, O God, for their salvation. We ask that Thy Spirit will work and act upon their thoughts and in their heart and save them. Bless us, Lord, and help us to be a congregation who know the power of the gospel. Though we be broken and fallen and sinful and full of disappointment about what we have done or what we should have done, we ask that each one here would know the triumph, the power, and the freedom of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We go into a world this week full of those chained by regret, and they need, not us, but our testimony of the power of Christ. May we show it to them. With the grace of our Lord Jesus, the love of God our Father, and the fellowship of the Spirit, be the portion of all the people of God now and evermore.
  Amen.