Releasing your Regrets

MESSAGE TRANSCRIPTION: 

Well, good morning, Eastside. How are we doing? Oh, come on. We only have one service this morning. Come on. Good morning, Eastside. How are we doing? Hey, there it is. There’s the energy. Hey listen, I’m going to need some energy. Alright, so my name is Micah. I’ve been on staff here for a little over five years now and I have the privilege of speaking to you guys this morning on our last Sunday of 2023. Who’s ready for 2024? Anybody? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Alright, so I hope you guys also had a wonderful and great Christmas. This Christmas was my first Christmas that I had with my little girl. She’s four months old. Shout out to all the new dads for 2023. Yeah, I know there’s a couple of my friends that became parents this year and it’s just been awesome to have kids right around the same age.

But yeah, Christmas was so awesome. We woke up, I made breakfast and we just lounged around and kind of hung out with our daughter. And then at night, on Christmas day, we loved watching the Ravens beat the 49-ers. I’m a Ravens fan if you didn’t know. And so it was just awesome and I hope we can do it again today against the Miami Dolphins. But I love the end of the year. I absolutely love it. Not only do we get new things, but it’s also for me, a time to reflect. I don’t know if you reflect, but I love to reflect on this past year and I usually do that in a couple of different ways. One way is I just take out my phone and if you’re like me, there’s probably over 2000 photos that you’ve added this year of just taking different pictures, especially when it came to having a kid for me.

I mean I was just taking pictures all the time and my little girl and sending it to Allie. And so I have tons of pictures, and the way that I usually reflect through my photos is I just kind of go through them. And so if I were to pick out some photos for you to look at and to reflect on, I would share a funny photo, a funny photo of when my dog gambit, who seems to always be hungry, got his head stuck in a Chick-fil-A bag. He’s running around in our living room and he’s just running into stuff. And I was sending pictures to Allie and it was just a funny moment. And then I would also share an exciting moment in my phone where I had photos and videos of when, of course, me and Allie found out that we were going to have a kid.

And not only were we going to have a kid, but we were going to have a little girl, which is completely out of the sort for me. I grew up with two brothers and so having a little girl is all new to me and it’s been awesome. It was such an exciting moment when we find out that she was a girl. And then I had some photos of spending time with my friends. For most of you guys, again, I’ve been on staff for five years. And one thing that we like to do on staff is we like to joke and we like to play around. And so while our good friend, Brandon Grant, was away this past year at… You already know, you already know. When Brandon Grant was away on a mission trip in Guatemala, the staff decided, “Hey, we’re going to make a scavenger hunt for him to find his truck.”

And so we made a scavenger hunt and it was up to me. I would take Brendan all across Madison County and to Biria all different places and he’d have to do things to find the next clue until finally he found his truck. So it was just awesome just to remember all those things of what happened this year. But not only is there fun and exciting times with friends and family, but also there’s some sad and more serious times in my photos. I like a photo that we took with my family right after my grandmother had passed, and it was right after her funeral. It was the first picture we took without her being in it. And she was a woman who was of faith, who prayed for us nonstop and who we all loved and admired in many different ways. And so that’s one way I reflect.

And the other way I reflect is going back through my devotion. I got this as a gift last year for Christmas by my grandmother; and it’s every day there’s a devotion and you journal in it and stuff like that. And through this book, you can see the deepest and most intimate parts of my walk with Jesus. I mean, there’s times where I’m just super excited of what God’s doing in my life and super excited of what God’s doing in the church’s life and it’s just phenomenal. But then that’s followed by days of sometimes of just raw emotion. “God, I don’t know what’s going on, God, would you help me see a different perspective?” Whatever it is. And so in this devotion, as I was reflecting, there was just all these different things that were coming up. And again, I don’t know if you reflect at the end of the year, after Christmas, beginning, before it goes into 2024, but I want to challenge you this morning to do that.

And maybe you don’t have a lot of photos, maybe you’re not a person to take photos, men, I know that’s usually not us. But, maybe you have a devotion, or maybe you don’t have a devotion. And so I just want to offer you a third option of how you can reflect today. You’ve got about 12 hours before the new year hits and I want you to reflect, okay? And so the third option that I want to give you, it’s super easy. It’s only three questions. So if you have your phone, if have your bulletin, I want you to write this down. The first question that you need to ask to reflect for 2023 is:

What went well?

Pretty easy right? What went well? Write that down, jot it in your notes. The second question that I want to ask you or that you need to ask to reflect on 2023 is:

What could improve?

What’s something that could improve? Super easy? Write that down, what could improve? And the last question to reflect, again, this only takes five minutes. The last question is: What will be the one area of focus for me in 2024? So what’s one area in your life that you really want to focus on for 2024? Again, it doesn’t matter to me what method you’ve used or what option you choose, whether it’s through your phones or through a devotion or a journal or just answering these three questions. But today, with 12 hours to go, I want you to sit and reflect. It’s so good and it’s so enlightening because you get to see God’s faithfulness and what he’s done and be grateful for all the things that he has done. Now, through my reflection of this year, as I was going through my devotion book, something came aware to me and it was something that I didn’t really realize, but again, because I reflected, I started to realize this about myself.

And so as I was reflecting in my devotion, I realized that just about every other journal entry, every other prayer that I had written in my devotion, started out with these two phrases. It was either, “Father, help me,” or “Father forgive me.” And then it was followed by a regret that I had. And if you spend time in reflection, it doesn’t take long and you can start thinking: “Oh yeah, in this photo, in this picture or in this video or in this journal, I remember I messed up, I did something wrong and I regret doing that.” And so for me, I was in there and I was going through my devotion, and in May 17th I write this. I say: “Father, help me see and understand I work with you and not for you.” Again, this is just me saying, God, I regret the way I was thinking.

So the way that I was thinking was like: “Oh, I’m just doing all these things for God,” but that’s not right. It’s a foolish mistake on my part. I was doing it out of ignorance and here I am now I’m asking God: “God, will you help me? I regret that I was thinking this way, but would you help me start thinking that I work with you and everything I do?” And not just a week later I write in May 24th: “Father forgive me…” And I’m pretty straightforward when it comes to myself. I said: “Father, forgive me for my hateful speech, my laziness and self-pity Again, all these things I regret doing and I’m going to God.” And I’m saying, God, forgive me. I’ve messed up and I regret this. Again, it won’t take long for you as you reflect in just the five minutes of answering those questions that we start seeing all these regrets come up.

And as I was reflecting, I started to ask questions like I often do. And I started asking: “Alright God. Well, is how I’m dealing with my regrets, good or bad? Do you want me to carry my regrets into 2024? How should I really deal with my regrets? Above all, God, what do you want to say to me? What do you want to do with my regrets?” And this morning, that’s what I want to talk about. I want to talk about what we usually do with our regrets and what God wants us to do. And so if you’re taking notes, we’re going to be in Psalms a lot. And the reason that we’re going to be in Psalms a lot is because David was a man who had plenty of regrets and he writes about it and how it feels and what it’s like to carry them.

In Psalm 32 verse one, it says:

“Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.”

Psalm 32:1

Blessed means happy. And he’s saying, happy is a man and the woman who has no regrets. And I truly believe after I was answering all these questions and coming and practicing this message, that God doesn’t want us to carry our regrets from this year or last year or the years prior into 2024. He doesn’t want that for us. He wants us to have this life, a happy and joyful life, a person with no regrets. And there’s a way that you can do that this morning. And I’m going to lead you to that point at the end. But right now, I want us to talk, what do we usually do with them? If God wants us to have this type of life, well, what do we usually do with them?

Well, the first thing that we usually do is: We bury them. Well, at least we try to bury them. It seems like the more time that we spend trying to bury them, the faster they start to come up, and they come up in the most random times. And this is really hard, why? And it never works. Well, because Proverbs says:

“People who cover their sins will not prosper. But if they confess and forsake them, they will receive mercy.”

Proverbs 23:18

Anyone who has tried to bury their regrets, I know I have. I know that you end up getting so consumed with them, and you get so consumed with them because you’re trying to reason with your regrets. You’re trying to bury them and you’re trying to minimize them saying: “Hey, it’s really no big deal.” Or you’re trying to rationalize them saying: “Hey, everybody else is doing it.”

Or last, you try to compromise and you start to tell yourself: “Hey, what you did, what really happened isn’t a problem at all and I can keep doing it.” And so we shouldn’t try to bury them. Not only should we not try to bury them, but we should also not blame others. This is the oldest trick in the book. Back in Adam and Eve, when Adam was blaming God, he said: “God, it’s the woman that you gave me because I sinned.” Right? We just want to point fingers. And I love the old saying of when you’re pointing fingers at somebody else, what? Three are pointing right back to you, right? I love that saying. There’s no point of blaming others. It doesn’t work. And I know we try to say, we try to justify: “Oh yeah, well it’s because they did this to me, and this is the way I acted. Or if they didn’t say this, I wouldn’t have done that.”

But there’s no point in blaming others. It doesn’t help. And the last thing that doesn’t help and things that we usually do is: We beat ourselves up. Listen, I have an A plus in beating myself up about my own regrets, but it doesn’t work and God doesn’t want us to do this. I mean, I think David understood, and I think I’m starting to understand maybe why we beat ourselves up is because we walk around when we have a regret so heavy, we walk around and we feel completely crushed because the regret is always on our mind. We’re always trying to bury it. We’re always trying to blame people, and we start telling ourselves that we’re no good because of what we’ve done. And so David writes in Psalm 38, again, a man who committed adultery and murder, he says this, it says: “My guilt overwhelms me. It’s a burden too heavy to bear… because of my foolish sins… I’m exhausted and completely crushed. My groans come from our anguished heart.” This guy knew. And I think we know, right? I think when we mess up, when we make a mistake, when we have a regret, I mean that’s the reason why in my journal I’m saying: “God help me or God forgive me.” Because I’m starting to feel this weight that has been put on my shoulders. But we got to realize that God doesn’t want this for us.

God doesn’t want us to walk around with a backpack full of heavy regrets and burdens. That’s why Jesus came and he says: “Hey, come to me all who are weary, all who are broken, and I’ll give you rest.” And what else? He says: “My burden is light and my yolk is easy.” That’s what God wants. He wants this. He doesn’t want this for us. And beating ourselves up can go to the extreme real quick, and the way that it progresses, not all the time, and I’m saying this in extreme, but the way that it progresses is sometimes we make ourselves sick.

We’re beating ourselves so much that mentally, emotionally, physically, we stop taking care of ourselves and we’re overwhelmed. Just like he’s saying: “I’m overwhelmed, completely crushed.” Which leads to depression, depression to suicidal thoughts, and then actual suicide. Now I understand, my friends, my family, I know that you guys know people who are clinically depressed and that’s not what I’m saying, but what I am saying is that beating yourself up can get to the point of where all you think is: “I just need to end it.” And God doesn’t want that. I don’t want that for you guys. I don’t want that for anybody, for them to feel like there’s no way out. Again, God wants us to take upon Jesus’s burden, which is light and yoke, which is so easy. And so that leaves us with the question, alright: If we can’t bury them, if we can’t point fingers at each other and blame others and we can’t beat ourselves up, what do we need to do? Well, the Bible is pretty straightforward about this and I love it. I love it, it’s so simple and so easy. And the first thing that God wants us to do with them, it’s just admit them.

Point blank. Hey, let’s just admit them. In Psalm 32:5, it says: “Finally, I confessed all my sins to you and stop trying to hide them… and you forgave me!” I mean, think about that. I know we spend, you know what? I won’t even say we, I say I spend. I can spend a lot of time just trying to hide from everybody else, from my regrets, all the things I’ve done. And you know what? I may be able to fool my friends and my family and everybody else around me, my coworkers, but guess what? I’m not going to fool God. There’s no way, I can’t hide from ’em. And David is saying this, “I finally stopped hiding from you, stopped trying to hide.” But this is really hard to admit that we’re wrong. I mean to really say: “Alright, God, I’ve messed up.” Here’s what it is, and I know this is hard because just three weeks ago, I’m going to tell you a story about me and Allie, me and Ally are walking into our house and we’re talking and I’m over here getting water or whatever, and Ally says something to me and I come back with a mean and hateful comment to her. And I mean, it’s one of those comments where you’re just staring at each other, and no words are being said.

And it’s like in my head, I’m trying to rationalize, minimize, compromise, all these different things of what I said was actually right. But I know that Allie is looking for an apology from me, and after we are staring at each other for about two, three minutes, she goes into the next room and instantly, you know what happens? My shoulders just… I’m completely crushed.

I know I just made a mistake. I know what I said I shouldn’t have said. And so here I am, just any good husband that knows that he messed up. I just start cleaning the house. And so here I am. I mean I am just mopping these floors, I’m sweeping them, I’m doing the dishes, I’m doing everything I can until finally again, this is like 15, 20 minutes goes on and finally I’m like, I need to go in there. I need to go into the room. And so I go into the room and I take Ally, I lay my hands on Ally’s shoulder and I say: ‘Ally, I’m completely sorry. What I was wrong. And I admit it.” But that’s so hard, right? I mean it’s so hard because when we admit that we’re wrong, it shows that we’re not perfect, we’re actually broken and we actually have selfish desires.

But guess what? When we go to God and we say: “God, I messed up,” God isn’t surprised. He’s not surprised. He knows it. He already knows it. But guess what? If you don’t go to God immediately after, there’s only three other options that you do: you bury them, you blame others or you beat yourself up. And we don’t need to do that. God doesn’t want us to do that with our regrets. And so after we confess to God and say: “God, I admit it.” And again, this means just straightforward. We don’t need to plea bargain with God and say: “God, I’ll never do it again.” We need to say: “God, I messed up. I admit it. Here it is.” And after we do that, the second thing that we need to do is accept God’s forgiveness. Here’s the thing. So many people, and myself included for many, many, many years always admit, and we admit, and we admit, and we admit, and we continue to admit until we admit again, and we admit again, and we never feel completely forgiven.

And why is that? We haven’t accepted God’s love. We haven’t accepted God’s forgiveness. I mean because if we did, our life would be different. We wouldn’t have any regrets. We would live out what’s found in Romans 8:1, that says:

“Therefore, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

Romans 8:1

You know what he’s saying? He says, if you commit your life to Jesus Christ, guess what? You’re going to be forgiven. There’s not going to be any more condemnation. There’s not going to be any more guilt or shame or any of that stuff, but oftentimes maybe why we don’t accept God’s forgiveness is because we don’t really understand how God forgives, right? I’ll be honest, there’s times I’m still finding out ways. I’m like: “Dang God, you really forget it like that?” And the thing that I found out is that God is actually waiting for you and I to come to him so that he can forgive you.

I mean, look at it in Isaiah 30:18. It says:

“Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you…”

Isaiah 30:18

Let that sink in, read that again two or three times, “…the Lord longs to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show you compassion for the Lord as a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!” Think about that. Why love? Jesus came in and he starts telling a parable of the Father and the wicked son, the son, not the wicked son, but the son goes and lives and spends all this money on prostitutes and wild living and it says, Jesus is talking about the Father and it says: “Day and night, the father’s out there and he’s waiting for his son to come back.” The Lord is waiting and longing to be gracious to you. He’s actually waiting for you right now to come and to accept his forgiveness.

But again, we don’t understand sometimes how God forgives and the way that God forgives is just like this. Alright, church, we’re going to do this again. Alright? The way that God forgives is just like this. Again, come on. The way that God forgives is just like this. Yes, it’s perfect, right? It’s in an instant. It’s in a blink of an eye. There’s no hesitation. There’s no delay, there’s no drawing out. When we ask God for forgiveness, it’s immediate. It’s in the instant. There’s no drawing out, and that’s hard to understand because that’s not how we often forgive and that’s definitely not how the world forgives. We want people to come and to beg in front of us and ask for forgiveness, but not God. He’s just waiting. Arm’s open, just waiting for us to come back to him. I love this. Do you realize that God is more ready to forgive you of your sins than you’re ready to ask him for forgiveness? Think about that. Again, just like Jesus talks about, the parable of the Father, he’s just waiting. He’s just sitting waiting, completely patient, full of joy and love and kindness, waiting for you to come, waiting for us to come and to accept his forgiveness. And the way God forgives is completely. There’s no partiality to him. It’s not like he forgives a little bit, right? Psalm 103:3:

“He forgives all my sins.”

Psalms 103:3

I don’t know if you guys heard that or not. God forgives all our sins completely. No more guilt, no more remembrance of sin. One of my favorite verses that really I’ll never forget was found in the book of Micah, and I remember that day I was being so stubborn with God. I was like: “God, if you really forgive me, show me.” And here I am, I’m reading the book of Micah and I get to chapter seven verse 18 and 19 and he says: “Who’s a God like you, who loves to show compassion and you take our transgressions, you take our regrets, you take our sin and you trample them under your feet and throw them in the depths of the sea.” There’s no getting that back. That’s how God is. The Bible tells us that God forgives us of our sins as far as the East from the West. You know what I think about that? I think of when my little girl grows up, and I can’t wait for her to ask me: “Dad, how much do you love me?” And I’m just like this: this much.

As far as the East from the West, this is how much God loves you and is waiting for you to accept his forgiveness. And how is this even possible? I mean, how is it even possible for God to forgive us all the sin? Well, Jesus, I mean God sent Jesus Christ and to the world to be nailed to the cross so that you can stop nailing yourself to the cross. I mean, Jesus came to be crucified so you could stop crucifying yourself to the cross. All we have to do is admit and then accept God’s forgiveness. The last thing that God wants us to do, this is a big one. The last thing God wants us to do is: For you to forgive yourself and to focus on your future. Now again, I told you I had an A plus on beating myself up, and that means that I’m not going to forgive myself. It’s really hard for me. But I want us to read Isaiah 43:18-19 It says: “The Lord said, ‘Forget what happened long ago! Don’t think about the past…'” That’s crazy, right? We can remember a lot of things from our childhood, from different memories of this year, last year, the year before, 10 years ago, 20 years ago. We have pretty good memories for the most part.

And God, who can remember anything and knows all things, he’s saying: “Forget what happened long ago. Don’t think about the past.” He says: “…I’m creating something new.” He’s saying drop it. Let’s let it go. I’ve already paid that price. Come on, I have something new. And do you know what that new thing is? You know what? That new thing that God is waiting to give you? It’s a new mind. It’s a new heart, a new attitude, an attitude just like his son, Jesus. That’s the new thing he wants to create in you. But we need to admit and we need to accept God’s forgiveness

And then we need to forgive ourselves and listen, I understand. Again, it’s one of the hardest things, but here’s the thing, it’s never too late to start over. It’s never too late to come to God. He’s saying failure is not final unless you let it be. Listen to that. You’re the only person that can hold onto regret and release a regret. You’re the only person, not your mom, not your dad, not your pastor, not anybody. You’re the only person that can hold onto regret and release a regret. And listen to me, a lot of the times, we’re our biggest reason of why we can’t move on from our past. The biggest reason that we can’t let go of a regret. We’re the reason we just want to try to bury them. We want to try to blame others and we want to try to beat ourselves up over it. And I think that is actually the devil’s plan. The devil’s plan is he wants you to bury them. He wants you to blame others and he wants you to beat yourself up. Because if he can get you to do either one of those three things, he’s one, he has stopped you dead in your tracks and you’re not going to take a next spiritual step. You’re not going to go on living in the future with God so that he can create something new in you.

Another lie that the devil tells us is that because of our mistake, we must live with it and we must live unhappy with it. That’s not true.

The truth is God loves to give people a second chance. Your past is over. Let’s forget about it and let’s move on. Again, easier said than done. I know and I know what you may be thinking as well. “Well, Micah, I’ve really messed up. I don’t understand how God can forgive me. I can’t even forgive myself. And I know you really can’t unscramble eggs…” But guess what? You can make a mean omelette with it, right? Like God wants to do that. He wants to take this bad situation and turn it for something good. He wants you to make your life count. And the only way that we can do that is to do these three things. And then we forgive ourself and we move on to the future with God. Today, I believe God is telling us all, it doesn’t matter where you have been, but it matters where you are headed right now. And where are we headed right now? Well, in about 12 hours, we’re heading into the new year 2024. And like I said in the beginning, I really don’t believe God wants us to carry any regrets from 2023 or years prior into 2024.

And so can we, right now, commit today? We’re going to do it God’s way. We’re going to do it God’s way today. We’re going to admit, we’re going to accept God’s forgiveness and we’re going to forgive ourselves and move on to the future so that we can live the all in life, a life where God does anything in our life just like he did in Jesus’. And so how do we do that? Well, if you look around, there’s a pen and there is a note card and this note card and this pen is for you to come to God, honest, real, raw, vulnerable, and write down the regrets that you’re holding onto. That is keeping you from living on life, that is keeping you from taking your next spiritual step, that is keeping you from joy and happiness and being made new that he wants to do. And I realize that when I ask you to come to God, real and honest and vulnerable, that’s really hard. But what makes it easier? And what I find to make it easier is when somebody else is able to help me get there. And I want to do that for you guys this morning. I want to help you get to an honest and vulnerable state with God.

By showing you how I did it. So there was a regret that I released this year in the summer of 2023 that I had carried for 20 something years. Like I said, I’ve tried to bury it, try to blame others, and I did a good job beating myself up over it. And so if it’s okay, can I share part of my story that is honest, real, and vulnerable? Can you just nod your head if that’s okay? And so I didn’t really understand that I was living with regret, but in the summer of this year, I had this tension in my stomach and I couldn’t figure out what it was. And so I got into counseling and I’m talking to the counselor and I’m describing what it feels like. I mean, it feels like if someone is going to hit you, you’re clenching up. I mean, that’s the tension that I feel. And because of this tension, I’m telling myself, I’m beating myself up. I don’t deserve the job that I’m at. I don’t deserve the life that I have. I don’t deserve becoming a father. I mean, these are all the things that are coming out that I’m telling the counselor. And so we start digging deep and we start going through, alright, where’s the first time you felt this tension? I said, the first time I really felt this tension was when I was eight years old.

I was eight years old and I was sitting on the couch with my mom, watching tv, and an argument breaks out between her and my stepdad. And this is the first time I see my mom get physically abused the first time. And I sat there and I watched and I did nothing. And I know some of my friends and some of my people that are caretakers are probably saying, well, Micah, you’re eight years old. You weren’t supposed to experience that. You weren’t supposed to go through any of that. And that’s true. But for the next 20 years, I would tell myself, not only did I not do anything, but I said nothing to nobody. And so I’d beat myself up emotionally, physically, over and over again. I can never figure it out. God, why do I keep doing this? Why do I keep making this same mistake? What is this tension? Until this year, God made it plain as day. “Micah, this is a regret that you haven’t given to me.” And so the summer of this year, I was able to go and lay down my regrets at the foot of the cross, at the foot of Jesus, at the foot of God, never to pick them up again.

And you know what happened when I did that? Remember I said that there was something new he wanted to create in me and create in you? God started to tell me in that moment: “Micah, I love you.” And he’s telling you right now as you’re thinking of the regret that you need to write down that is holding you back. He loves you. He cares for you. Just like in the song He delights in you, he dreams about you. I can only imagine how he really feels. I just have a glimpse that’s my little girl, just a glimpse.

And that’s how he feels about you. And so he’s been waiting and longing for you to come to him to lay down this regret. So will you do that? Let’s commit today. Let’s get the pen. Let’s get the paper. Let’s write our regrets that we need to lay at the foot of the cross. I’m going to write mine. Remember, as you’re writing these, he already knows he’s just waiting. He wants you to admit, he desires you to accept his forgiveness and he wants you to forgive yourself. And he says, let’s move on in the 2024 regret free. Now that you have written these, I’m going to pray and at the end of my prayer, I’m going to say amen. When I say amen, I want all of us, me included, we’re going to walk down, we’re going to take our regrets, and we’re going to put ’em at the foot of the cross, never to pick them up again. Again. The only reason, the only way, listen, the only way that you leave this building with regrets is because you didn’t lay ’em at the foot of the cross. God has forgiven you. Forgive yourself. Let’s move on. Let me pray.

Father, I don’t want to start this prayer with, will you forgive me or will you help me? God, I just want to thank you so much for being a father who loves his sons and his daughters. So much so that he’s waiting day and night longing to be gracious to us, longing for us to accept his forgiveness, and for us to forgive ourselves. God, will you give us the courage to step out and to release our regrets at the feet of the cross? God, we’re so thankful for you. God, we praise you in this moment and we pray all this in your name. Amen. Come now.