Transforming Regrets Through Repentance and Grace

We're gonna give you two books so you can invite someone to come with you, and they can get a free book too. So, I'm excited about that!

All right, so let's dive in.

This weekend, we launch our eighth campus at Glen Echo Stage in Northeast D.C. We are blessed with an incredible media team and worship team, and we sang a song called "If God," written by our worship team. We also had someone put their faith in Christ in the practice service last weekend.

This weekend, we begin a new series based on the book "If" that released last week. I have been doing a book tour with our worship team in Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Boston, and New York City. I am excited about what God wants to do in us and through us over the next three weeks.

As a tradition, Christmas comes early next week, and we have a gift for you. If you are part of this church, you will get two books for free, and you can even invite someone to come with you, and they can get a free book too. Let's dive in!

If you have a Bible, you can turn over to Romans chapter 8. There are 1,784 'ifs' in the Bible, and many of these are familiar to us. "If my people are called by my name will humble themselves and pray," "If you confess your sin, He is faithful and just," "If you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead." Thirty-eight people did that last weekend.

These are incredible promises, amazing 'ifs.' But my personal favorite is Romans 8:31, "If God is for us, who can be against us?" God is for you every day in every way. That's what the book, that's what this series is all about.

Next weekend, we're going to talk some about "What if" dreams. But I think this weekend I want to start with some "if only" regrets. Just before we look at this passage, here's what I want to do. I want to encourage you to camp out in Romans 8.

Here's a challenge: what about reading Romans 8 every day for the next three weeks? As you read it, let one of those verses get in your spirit, meditate on it throughout the day, maybe memorize it, then meditate on it. We say it all the time around here, the goal isn't to get through the Bible; the goal is to get the Bible through us. And if you get Romans 8 in your spirit, it's going to change your life.

In fact, I did a radio interview this week, and the person said, "What's your goal for this book?" I said, "You know what? It's pretty simple. At the end of my book, I want people to fall in love with Romans chapter 8." I want that chapter, which does happen to be my favorite chapter, to be a chapter that totally redefines people's lives.

It ends with, "Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ," "All things work together for good to them that love God," "You are more than conquerors," "The same spirit that raised Christ from the dead dwells in us," "Oh, and then we don't know what to pray for, but the Spirit Himself is interceding for us." Come on, if that doesn't get you fired up, your wood is wet, right? What an unbelievable chapter.

But this weekend, we start with verse number one: "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ." In Christ, we're going to talk about that for a few minutes. I want to share a message titled "No Regrets."

Now, the reality is all of us have regrets. I have my fair share. I'm not going to inventory all of them; we don't have enough time. I don't know why I'm pulling this one out of the hat; honestly, I'm a little self-conscious even sharing it, but why don't we get the ball rolling?

As you know, I played basketball in high school and college, but did you know that football was actually my first love? In the eighth grade, I was a starting quarterback on our city traveling team.

Before my freshman year of high school, I was pretty excited about playing football. Unfortunately, right when tryouts happened in August, I got sick and ended up in the hospital for a week or two due to my asthma. Even though I was sick, the coach called my house and asked me to come out. I still don't know why, but for some reason, I didn't.

Even 30 years later, there's a little twinge of regret, and I wonder what would have happened if I had played a little bit of football. My backup in the eighth grade went on to play professional football, so the difference is clear. It might have been a blessing in disguise, though, because my brother-in-law, who is the campus pastor out at Gainesville, Rob Schmidgaul, actually played defensive end for our crosstown rivals. If I had been the quarterback for our team, I have a feeling I would have gotten sacked, and it would have been kind of weird dating his sister.

We all have regrets, some big and some small. They can range from buyer's remorse to restaurant regret to profound sadness or chronic depression caused by bad decisions or difficult circumstances. There's also a midlife crisis, which is when our life doesn't quite measure up to what we thought it would be about 20 years ago.

Spiritually speaking, there's guilt, which is the byproduct of some of the sinful decisions we make. The good news is that our regrets have already been dealt with at the cross. I want to talk about how God can redeem and recycle, even leverage your regrets. But I want you to hear this: there is no regret that God cannot redeem.

Now let me broaden the conversation a little bit. We're talking about regret, and at the end of your life, your greatest regret won't be the things you did that you wish you hadn't; it'll be the things you didn't do that you wish you had. This is based on a study done by social psychologists Tom Gilovich and Vicky Medvek.

According to their research, time is a key factor when it comes to regret. In the short term, we tend to regret actions more than inactions, but over the long haul, it's actually the inactions that we regret more than our actions.

Indecision is a decision, and inaction is an action. We won't have deep-seated regrets for things we did that we wish we hadn't, but it's those opportunities that we leave on the table that will haunt us. Action regrets would be a sin of commission; it's doing something you shouldn't have done. Inaction regrets would be sins of omission; it's not doing something you wish you had.

Holiness is not just doing nothing wrong; it's doing something right. We can do nothing wrong and still do nothing right. Making the most of our potential is our gift back to God, and anything less than that results in regret. That's what we're trying to avoid.

Our biggest regrets at the end of our lives will be the things we didn't do that we wish we had. God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So when you confess your sin, there is no condemnation. So don't feel guilty over confessed sin.

At the end of the day, we all have regrets. How do we deal with them? The one-word answer is repentance. Repentance is a restraining order against regret. If we want to overcome our regrets, it starts with repentance.

John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." God did not send His Son into the world to condemn us. Romans 8:1 says, "There is therefore now no condemnation."

We need to make a distinction between conviction and condemnation. Conviction is feeling guilt over unconfessed sin. It is a good thing because it is from the Holy Spirit and it is a way for us to get in right relationship with God. Condemnation is feeling guilt over confessed sin. When we confess our sin to God, He is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Therefore, there is no condemnation.

The Bible says that God is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. He doesn't just forgive us; He forgets us, as if our sins have been expunged from our record. It's gone, and there is no record of it.

However, there is a difference between God forgiving us and us forgiving ourselves. This is where some of us can receive God's forgiveness, but it's hard for us to do what God has done, and that is to forgive ourselves. When this happens, we live in a place of condemnation, and we confess the same sin over and over again.

The Bible says that the enemy is the accuser of the brethren, and he wants to remind us of everything we've done wrong so that all of our emotional energy is spent on guilt and past mistakes, leaving no energy left over to dream about God's future for our lives. Repentance is the key to getting out of this loop.

Grace is God's righteousness at Christ's expense. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says it this way: God had made Him who had no sin to become sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God. In other words, God takes all of our sin and transfers it to His account and pays for it in full. Then, He takes His righteousness, the righteousness of Christ, and transfers it to our account and calls it even. This is why it's called the good news.

We need to understand who we are in Christ and that there is no condemnation to those who are in Him. We are no longer defined by what we have done wrong, but by what Christ has done right.

Wiley was someone I looked up to for his wisdom. We would often talk about the Bible and life. One day, when I was in high school, my dad made a highlight reel of my greatest moments in basketball. It was a third-generation VHS tape with some dunks, three-point shots, and steals, but none of my misses.

We watched the highlight film with Wiley, and at the end, he thought I was the greatest basketball player on the planet. My dad made me look better than I really am, and that's what our Heavenly Father does too. As we repent and confess our sins, God is editing, splicing, and working things together. All of our mistakes get edited out, and the righteousness of Christ gets spliced in. We end up on SportsCenter, and that's the Gospel.

Malcolm Gladwell wrote a bestseller called "The Tipping Point." He defines it as the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point. It's when an idea, trend, or behavior passes a point of no return and gains acceptance. In the realm of physics, a tipping point is when an object is displaced from a state of equilibrium and into a new state. In economics, it might be the point at which an emerging market takes off.

And yet, he's the one who wrote Romans 8, and he's the one who said, "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus." So what I'm saying is that the tipping point is repentance. It's this amazing moment when you own your sins so that your sin no longer owns you, and then you understand that His grace is sufficient.

Technology has become an industry standard in sociology. It's when a quorum of people adopt a behavior so that it reaches critical mass and goes viral. In sports, it's the moment when the momentum shifts. Spiritually speaking, the tipping point is repentance. It's an amazing moment when you own your sins so that your sin no longer owns you, and you understand that His grace is sufficient.

To give a biblical example, Joshua 5:9 states that God has rolled away the reproach of Egypt. The Israelites were set free at the Exodus, but it took 40 years to get Egypt out of Israel. It takes time for the new nature to become second nature, but the process begins the moment we repent.

Romans 8 states that there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. Full forgiveness is our present tense reality right here and now. Saul, who was known as the chief of sinners, wrote Romans 8 and experienced this moment of repentance. He witnessed the stoning of Stephen and hunted down other Christians like animals. Yet, he was the one who said, "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus."

The tipping point is repentance. It's an amazing moment when you own your sins so that your sin no longer owns you, and you understand that His grace is sufficient.

Paul could have let his sinful regrets keep him from three missionary journeys and writing half of the New Testament, but he didn't. He knew that his sin was nailed to the cross, and the hammer of God's forgiveness has no claw once it's forgiven. Sometimes we live as if Jesus is still nailed to the cross, but the only thing that's nailed to the cross is our sin. This can turn our regrets into dreams.

Craig Derose climbed the political ladder in Michigan all the way up to becoming Speaker of the House of Representatives, but then he was arrested on DUI charges, and his world came crashing down. He had an alcohol addiction for 29 years since he was a teenager and lost his job, paycheck, and reputation.

One day, Craig was sitting in Ebenezer's, and he shared his story with someone. He was humiliated, and 500 newspapers ran the story when he went to trial. He surrendered his life to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and God rolled away the shame.

Craig's life calling is now restorative justice. His mission is to see prisoners transformed from the inside out by the grace of God. His story could have ended so poorly, but he gave control to the author and perfecter of his faith, and God is leveraging the mistakes he made.

I want to tell you something. You've made mistakes, just like me. Don't just bury those mistakes. God doesn't just want to bear them; He wants to resurrect them and use them for His purposes. Is it possible that God wants you to help someone in the very same way, in the very same place, with the very same mistake that you've made? I guarantee you He does.

Maybe you've struggled with an addiction that traces all the way back to your teenage years, or maybe your first marriage ended in divorce, or maybe you're just beating yourself up over some mistakes that you've made. The enemy wants to leverage your regrets against you, blackmailing you with feelings of guilt and condemnation. But God wants to leverage it for you.

He doesn't just leave our regrets on the cross; He resurrects them in glorified form and uses them for His kingdom purposes.

Let's pray.