The Texas Day Sermon is taken from Psalm 31, verse 15, which says, My times are in your hands. A few weeks ago, we began the study of spiritual depression, by which I mean a deep and lasting sorrow that does not have an organic cause. Some depressions are not spiritual and will not get better under spiritual means. They need medical attention. and you mustn't be scared or ashamed to get it. Because I'm not a doctor, I'll say no more about depressions of this sort. What I have in mind are the depressions that are caused by wrong beliefs and wrong living. The heartache we suffer either because we don't understand what Christ has done for us or because we won't obey His known will. Call it simplistic if you will, it also happens to be true. What causes spiritual depression? Well, a great many things do. Some are in the future, others are in the present, but the most common causes and the hardest ones to cure are in the past. This is because the present and the future are open to us. Today's problem may be gone tomorrow, and the future things I fear so much may not happen at all. The past, however, is fixed and unchangeable. I did what I did, or I didn't do what I didn't do, and now what's done cannot be undone, and what was left undone cannot be done. Dwelling on the failures of the past is a major cause of depression. Some of these failures are sinful and produce guilt. We talked about this two and three weeks ago and I won't rehash it. But there's another kind of failure. It is caused not by sins, but by mistakes. And it produces not guilty feelings, but regrets. This is the topic of today's sermon. Regrets as a cause of spiritual depression and how to get rid of them. We all know what a regret is. It's a sorrow over a mistake you made in the past and the damage it has done to you and to other people. You're a timid person like me. You mostly regret the things you didn't do. Good things you could have done but didn't because you were scared or hesitant or couldn't make up your mind to do it until it was too late. The ship sailed and you weren't on it. If you're bolder than I am, you're more likely to regret the things you did. They weren't necessarily sinful but they were impulsive and acting upon whim instead of wisdom, you did them and now you and your family are paying for your mistakes and paying dearly. Regrets can follow from any serious mistake. Among the more common are, well, I've got a list here. Number one, a failure to obtain the high school diploma or college degree you were plenty smart enough to get, if only you'd have the guts to try for it or the discipline to stay at it. That brings a lot of regret to many people. Number two, a failure to find a suitable career. When you were young, you didn't care what kind of work you did, as long as it paid. You drifted from one job to another, not liking any of them, but now you're a middle-aged man with wife and kids to support, and you can't afford to start over, if only. And then we have a failure to marry. You always wanted to marry, but your standards were unrealistic. Mr. Good was not good enough. You had to have Mr. Perfect, who of course does not exist, and if he did, he could do better than you. Now you're older, less attractive, and more set in your ways. Your marriage dream has become only a dream. It's not going to happen. And then number four, a failure to marry the right person. My mother used to tell me, marry in haste and repent in leisure. I took her advice and married well. Maybe you didn't take her advice. Prodded by desire or romance or desperation, you married without recalling you'd have to live with the person for the rest of your life. Marrying her was not sinful and the Lord used her to make you more patient than you would have been without her. But still, deep down and without saying it, you wish you'd married someone else. And then number five, a failure to take care of your money. You made a decent living, but you didn't save any of it. You invested your money, but in the wrong things. Now you're stuck. You're too old to start over, too tired to take a second job, and if you invested every penny you made in an IRA, you'd still be unable to retire before you were 200 years old. If only you'd gone out to dinner less often. If only you'd driven the old car another year. If only you'd bought the house when the market was low and sold when it was high instead of the other way around. If only. But you didn't. Number six. A failure to take care of your family. You wanted to be a good husband and father and you made some effort to be both. But with work, keeping up the house, responsibilities at church, friendships and hobbies, The time slips away from you. Your wife has become a roommate. Your kids are not living the lives you hoped they would. How did it come to this? And then number seven, a failure to take care of your health. Many health problems are caused by the neglect of two simple things, diet and exercise. We all know these things, but how many of us act on them? We don't mean to end up this way, but we do, because it's harder to cook than to drive through, and it's easier to join a gymnasium than to work out at one. When you're young, it doesn't matter that much for most people, but when you get older, you've got to pay a piper. These examples do not come out of books. They come out of lives, real lives, including mine and yours. We all have regrets. Things we should have done, but didn't. Things we shouldn't have done, but did. We all have regrets. They bother some of us. Others, they torture. Are you living with regrets, if living is the right word? If you are, you don't have to. No matter how many mistakes you've made or how serious they were, you can live a regret-free life. It won't be easy, but what we're having is. The causes of regret are not sinful. You broke no law of God when you didn't buy a house at $120,000, knowing the market would soon drop. Of course, the same house today is worth $700,000. But if the causes of regret are not sinful, wallowing in regret is. In his great book, Spiritual Depression, Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones, talking to Christians full of regret, says, I speak with vehemence because this condition has to be dealt with sternly. And the last thing to do with such people is to sympathize with them. You are behaving like a fool. You are irrational. You are wasting your time and your energy. You do not really believe what you are saying. I think the good doctor has exaggerated for effect. Of course you have to sympathize with people and for no other reason to understand them and to put yourself in place to help them. Hard words may be needed, but they have to be spoken in love. With this caution in mind, however, I have to say Lloyd-Jones is basically right. Regrets are stupid and useless and counterproductive. Why didn't I invest? Why did I marry her? Why didn't I have more children? Why didn't I keep that job? Why did I stay in this job? Why, why, why? All of these questions are foolish. And when you live in these questions, you live in sin. Thinking this way has got to be confessed to the Lord and repented of. Why are regrets sinful? Well, here's part of the answer. Number one, regrets are a sheer waste of time. Wringing your hands about what you did 20 years ago won't change what you did 20 years ago. Number two, regrets often repeat the very thing regretted. Go back to the man who regrets not spending more quality time with his kids. Is the time he spends bemoaning his failure quality time? Being a father who feels sorry for himself, that's not what his kids need. And so the very thing you regret, you're repeating. You need to spend quality time with your kids, but time spent explaining how little quality time you've spent with them is not quality time. Number three, regrets help no one. Who's likely to be more cheerful or more useful? The man who lives in the present? or the man who lives in the past. Number four, regrets paralyze and poison the present. He who lives in the past is dead to today. The soul stung by mistakes he made long ago will be sick in the present and sickening too. I hope you noticed I didn't cite any Bible verses to prove any of this. I think I could have found a Bible verse for each one of them, but I chose not to, to make the point that these things don't depend on a deep knowledge of Scripture or a special revelation of the Holy Spirit. They're right on the surface of human wisdom. These things are common sense things. And while ordinary wisdom does not have the final say, it has a say, and we ought to listen to it. Should believers in Christ be less wise than unbelievers? Does trusting Jesus Christ make you into a fool? If not, why do so many unbelievers see the folly of regret, and we don't? Living in regret is like sticking a pencil in your eye. No, the Bible doesn't tell you not to do that. Because the Bible doesn't need to tell you not to do that. The Lord gave us brains and he wants us to use them. There's nothing more futile than worrying about a past you cannot change. Quit doing it if you do, and if you don't, don't start. The proverb tells us to befriend madam wisdom and to stay clear of dame folly. Proverbs chapter 9. And so regrets can be offset at least just by common sense, by pure human wisdom. Unbelieving people know what a waste of time it is to live in regret. Why did I do this? Why didn't I do that? Why did I do the other? Why didn't I do something else? Even unbelievers know that. And so we shouldn't be less knowledgeable than they are. But as helpful as common sense is in overcoming regrets, we have more than human wisdom. We have the Word of God and the Spirit of God to open our hearts to it. What does the Word say about regret? Or rather, what does the Word of God say against regret? Well, in fact, it says quite a bit. And here's some of it. In the first place, it says, God has planned your life, including the mistakes. Many verses can be cited to this effect, but the one I like best is Ephesians 1.11. It says believers are predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will. Predestined simply means God has an eternal plan for His people and that it cannot be hindered because it includes every last detail showing God's wisdom and is backed by His almighty and irresistible power and infinite love. As strange as it is to say this, I'm going to say it. Your mistakes are part of the plan. How they fit in, I do not know and I will not speculate. Submit to the Word of God and to its mystery. God does not want us to sin, of course. He does not want us to be a fool, of course. That's why He gives us His Word to walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise. But be that as it may, in some mysterious way, a way I cannot explain, your mistakes are part of God's plan. And like other things, they're working together for your good. This doesn't wipe the mistake out. This doesn't cancel all the consequences that flow from the mistake. But it puts the mistake in perspective. It makes you able to live with the mistake. No, I shouldn't have done it, but it was part of God's plan, and He means good in allowing me to do it. So number one, God has planned your life, including the mistakes. In the second place, our failures are often better for us than our successes. Our failures are often better for us than our successes. Ecclesiastes 7 says, it is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting. You know why? Because the living will lay it to heart. Losses teach us things victories don't. If nothing else, losses teach us to depend on God and to long for heaven. It's hard to imagine how a man who never made a mistake could ever depend on God or could ever want to leave this world. Jacob, what an example he was. Jacob's very name means con man. Jacob became Israel and Israel means a prince with God and man. And he came to that place through a long series of personal failures. And so remember that our failures are often better for us than our successes. In the third place, the Word of God says our duty is in the present and our hope is in the future. What we did in the past does not matter to God. What He cares about is present faith and obedience and where they lead, to heaven. And so we just have to forget the past because God forgets the past. He doesn't care that what we did in the past. He only cares what we do in the present and what we'll do in the future. And then in the fourth place, another great mystery, the Bible says God is not bound by time and He cares more about the quality of your service than its quantity. The years lost to us are not lost to the Lord. Back in the days of Joel the prophet, the people had been ruined by famine. Year after year of famine. making him poorer and poorer and poorer as every year went by, putting him right on the verge of starvation. Now, even if they had a good crop the next year, they'd still be years behind. But look what the Lord says. He says in the book of Joel that he will restore the years the locusts had eaten. Perhaps the famine lasted five years, but the Lord can make up for those five years in one harvest. And what the Lord can do for cross, He can do for us. And not only can He do it, but He will do it. Here I cite the example of John the Baptist. Except for our Lord, was there ever a man who had a more fruitful ministry than he? But how long was John's ministry? Have you thought about it? John's ministry lasted less than a year. But in that time, in those few months, He was a burning and shining light, and of those born of women, none was greater than John. Who's to say your richest life is still ahead of you? Who's to say it isn't? God is not bound by time, and He cares more about the quality of our service than the quantity. And in the fifth place, and best of all, the Word of God says, past mistakes do not separate you from the love of God. Maybe your past mistakes separate you from the career you should have had, separate you from the man you should have married, separate you from the children you wish had been born to you. But whatever your mistakes separate you from, they don't separate you from the love of God. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angel, nor principality, nor power, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." If you don't have to live with regrets, why should you? That's the point. You don't have to live with regrets. You can live in things far better than regrets. Starting today, you can live in faith, hope, and love. And finally, remember, here's the thing. There's a certain arrogance in all regrets. There's a certain, the word is monomania. That's really the word. There's a certain monomania in all regrets. It's totally self-centered. It's all about what I did. It's all about what I didn't do. The whole world rotates based on what I did or didn't do 20 years ago. There's a certain extraordinary arrogance in all of this. And so the cure for that kind of arrogance is to remember What you did or didn't do doesn't matter nearly as much as what God did and didn't do. What did God do? John 3.16, God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. And what did God not do? God did not spare His own Son, but He delivered Him up for us all. And how shall we also not with Him freely give us all things? This is ultimately what matters. Not the mistake you made in 1985. Not the investment you failed to make five years ago. The mistakes of our lives are real and they're costly. But there's a cost rate much higher than that. And that's the cost of Christ's blood shed to free us from all the consequences of our mistakes. Many of them in this life and all of them in the life to come. So, are you depressed because of regrets? Are you dwelling on mistakes you made in the past? The failures that were your own fault? You failed to do this because you were scared? You did that because you were impulsive. And now many years later you're not on the career path you wish you were on. You don't have the family you thought you would have. And you're feeling regretful. You're saying, why did I do this? Why didn't I do that? Look friend, you should be free of this. Jesus Christ died to free you from these kind of regrets and to give you a life worth living now and forever. Bottom line is your times. are in God's hands. And He knows what to do with them. Let's pray, please. Heavenly Father, I pray Your blessing upon the Word of God today. I pray that we would not live in the regrets we're so prone to. That we would live in the present. That we would look forward to the future. We place our faith in You. And that we would live the abundant lives that Jesus Christ died to secure for us. We ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.