OMTL Sermon 6: Live with no regrets.

What does living with no regrets really mean? Photo-shrinerodeo.com

The final note in One Month to Live is to live with no regrets.

Along the way, we have discovered that One Month to Live has not been about living some skydiving, mountain climbing, bull riding course apart from the passions that God put in us. It has been about discovering those passions that he did weave into the fabric of our unique designs. Then it is about living them.

We discovered that there might be another dimension to love, that loving completely was to let go of the what’s in it for me part of our Adam nature that seems to screw up our attempts at love. We are to let go of our selfishness and really love somebody.

We discovered that true learning did not depend upon how much we already knew or the number of degrees and certifications we had, but upon a humble, teachable spirit. It depended upon trust. We learned that we must trust God and not our own understanding of the world, the universe, or even of our momentary circumstance. We will trust God to teach us.

And we considered that we are to live our lives with so much passion, love, and humbleness that when it is time to go, we don’t have to worry about things undone, unsaid, or not understood. We will have lived fully. We can leave this world boldly and run to Jesus, never looking back.

Finally we come to the objective of this challenge—living with no regrets. What does that mean?

Let’s consider Jesus in Gethsemane shortly before Judas and company arrived. He has gone to pray, but these are not prayers of thanksgiving and praise. Jesus prays for deliverance from the hour to come. He is praying to his Father in heaven: “Is there any other way?”

This is not a one shot, quickie prayer. This is sweat like blood praying. “Dad, they are coming to kill me. Is this really the only way?”

Is this regret that we find in Jesus?

No, this is a clear revelation that he lived a human life. His life was not protected by supernatural forces that wouldn’t let him get tired or not need to eat and sleep, or in this case not have a very human need to ask his Father for help.

When we meditate on these moments in the garden with disciples falling asleep, we see a man in pain. That is what we should see. Jesus was going to die as a man. There was no special Jesus switch that turned off the pain when he was beaten and whipped. There was no morphine producing organ in his body for the hours he spent on the cross. There was nothing ahead of him at this point but pain and suffering. 

No healthy, mentally stable man asks for these things. We ask for ways out of these things.

But Jesus knew that this is why he came to live as a man on this earth. Jesus knew that what his Father asked him to do was out of love—a greater love than our hearts and minds can comprehend.

Jesus did not have regrets. He would go from the garden to the grave purposefully. Living with no regrets is to be fully committed to God’s purpose.

What we should realize is that doesn’t mean that we don’t have to contend with pain, suffering, hurt, loss, and sometimes even doubt. These are part of being human.  What it does mean is that we always—always—turn to God for answers.

We may open our heart fully to him, even if what’s in there seems selfish.

We don’t need church words. He need heart words.

If the thing that God has called us to do seems too hard, we open our hearts to God and tell him.

If we are in pain because we are following his path, we tell him.

Now if we are in pain because we rejected his path, we repent, we confess, we come home.

But when this life is tough because we are faithful to God, we tell him.

If we ask to be delivered from something, that’s OK.

If we ask to be equipped for something, that’s OK.

If we ask for help with something that’s OK.

So long as we trust God and tell him that we will do his will regardless.

God wants us to trust him.

Once upon a time many years ago, I was working late in Chickasha, Oklahoma. I went into Arbys and pick up a 5 for $5 special to go. It was two hours back to Burns Flat and I didn’t want to sit down and eat. I wanted to get on the road. As I drove around the building to get back on the main road and go home, I saw a man scrounging through the dumpster. I didn’t have to guess what he was doing. He was hungry and looking for food.

I drove by him and started home. After a couple blocks, I turned around and went back. I had a bag of food—probably more than I was really hungry for—and this man was scrounging through a dumpster. When I returned, he was gone. I don’t know where he went and did not see him headed down any of the roads.

I understand regret.

How easy would it have been for me to stop as soon as I recognized the situation? How easy would it have been for me to turn around after one block instead of two? What better excuse did I need to make a Bat-turn in the middle of the highway than this?

I understand regret.

I live with that experience but have been able to release the regret. I don’t minimize the episode by thinking he should go out and get a job, or he was probably just a panhandler. This was one of God’s children in need and I didn’t do anything.

I understand regret but by God’s grace don’t have to carry it with me.

Regret that we do have to carry is to deny God’s call, and to deny God’s grace, and to live as if everything is just fine when it is not.

Regret that we do have to carry is to wear a mask our entire lives because other people have expectations, when God made us to live a genuine life. We are who we are and God wants us to trust him and not the world.

God wants us to live a real life. He wants us to be who we are in our joy, our sorrow, our love, our shortcomings, our pain, but never in our regret. Because who we are is always an incomplete person without Christ. 

The genuine person experiences all the joy, jubilation, pain, suffering, trials, and tribulations of this life without shame or without having to put them into church words before expressing them to God. 

Reverence before God is willingly revealing everything to him, especially our humanness.

If we want to live this life without regrets, we need to be who we really are with God and with his creation.

 

 

Try the One Month to Live challenge online.

 

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