Sermon Quotes: "What Do We Do With Regret?"

“There is nothing in Scripture quite like this explosion of spiritual longing.” - Kent Hughes

“The highest priority in his life captivates his full attention and demands total concentration. The tyranny of urgent needs, the clamor of popular voices, the top news of the day all take a pale second place to the one overarching goal of Paul’s life. All his thoughts, emotions, and decisions are focused on this fixed point: One thing!” - Walter Hansen

“Paul’s ‘forgetting what lies behind’ is a special kind of forgetfulness that does not turn and glance back from the goal to indulge in the complacency of past achievements. That would have been easy for him to do if he yielded to it…But Paul chose not to look back on his accomplishments lest they diminish his focus or lull him into complacency or indifference. And we must also understand that he did not allow his failures to turn his head to the fatal backward look. To be sure, there were many sad episodes there for Paul to recollect if he let himself. But there was none of this. As Paul ran, he shifted into the high gear of forgetfulness-forgetting his achievements and failures. Paul ran in the liberating freedom of his ‘one thing’ (v13). He was flying in his forgetfulness.” - Peter O’ Brien

“A young person tends to think like an astronaut, always looking upward, outward and forward. With the majority of life ahead, it seems as if the sky is the limit. Even if you haven’t fulfilled all of your dreams, there is still plenty of time. But in midlife you stop living like an astronaut, and start acting more like an archeologist. You spend time digging through the ‘mound’ of your existence. You look through the pottery shards of past situations, relationships and achievements trying to make sense of your life. So we look back and regret decisions we made, words we spoke, and actions we took.” - Paul Tripp

“Fruitless remembering. A whirlpool of excruciating details is an easy place to drown.” - David Powlison

“Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, Jonah, Peter and Paul all had good reason to have a bad case of the ‘if only’s’. King David is the most severe example. His sin with Bathsheba resulted in the death of their son and his conspiracy to cover up the adultery caused the death of her husband (2 Samuel 12). Even worse, his sin of numbering the people led to the death of 70,000 Israelite men (2 Samuel 24). His remorse was great, and his repentance sincere, but you won’t find lingering regret. In its place is doxology to the Lord who freely forgives. But, in the post-resurrection era, it is Peter who is our mentor in handling regrets. After all, he knew Jesus from the beginning, and assumed that his egregious sin of denying that on the night of Jesus arrest demoted him back to the rank of fisherman. But breakfast with Jesus and a walk on the beach changed everything. Try to find a hint of regret or ‘if only’s’ in his two letters.” - Ed Welch

“God did not design the Christian life to be lived looking backwards at our past but forwards towards our future hope. Christians too often serve as voluntary slaves to their past. As believers, our only sustained glance to the past should to the grace show us in the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ, in order to remember the hope that we have for his return and the joy we will experience when we are completely conformed to His image.” - Matthew Harmon