Touré Roberts - Curing Regret

All right, I want us to take a look at 1 John, chapter 3, beginning at the 20th verse. We are going to read verses 20 through 22, and I want to talk today about something that I find somewhat ironic: this message falls in a month where we bring attention to mental health. The title of this message is «Curing Regret.» Last week, we talked about «the meantime» and how there are so many blessings in this time that we often fail to see and, therefore, experience because we are so busy focusing on the «prime time.» We are trying to get to what we believe is the prime time that we miss the prime time that is in the meantime. Do you follow what I’m saying? Did you hear that? Did it cut out? I want to emphasize that point because it felt profound to say: one of the things that keeps us from the blessings of the meantime is that we are so focused on the prime time that we fail to see the prime time in the meantime that we experience every single day. However, it’s not simply our focus on the prime time that keeps us from seeing what we need to see; if you’re struggling, you need to go back to last week. It’s not only that we focus too much on the prime time; often, there is another enemy preventing us from seeing and experiencing the blessings in our meantime, and that enemy is regret. That is why I want to address regret today. This is a powerful passage of scripture that I will unpack throughout the course of this message. I have four pages of notes, but you know I don’t necessarily preach with notes. There’s so much that God wants you to learn, so I encourage you to stay alert and awake. If you see someone dozing next to you, just say, «In Jesus’ name, ” quietly, so you don’t get in trouble. Don’t make a scene; you know I did it, but don’t do that. This is a brilliant passage of scripture, and as I begin to look at it in its original language, I’ve been able to unpack it, and I believe it will help us to cure regret. There might be some people right now thinking, „I don’t have any regrets; I’m going to get this tape.“ Well, we don’t do tapes anymore! I’m going to get this video and send it to someone else.» Not so fast. I want to challenge you because I would almost guarantee that you either have or will have something to regret in the future. What I am going to do is define regret, discuss what it is, explain what it does, and talk about why it’s wrong. Hello, somebody; it’s wrong! It’s funny here, just give me liberty. It’s funny because some people argue about regret not being wrong; they think regret is a good thing because it teaches you not to make the same mistake again. Yes, maybe, but at what cost? Do you follow what I mean? I think you lose more regretting than you gain by not making that same mistake again, and we’ll get into that. Anyway, here we go. Then we’ll look at what you can expect after your regret is cured. So, we are going to have some fun today; it’s going to be teaching, line by line. We may not shout, but you will be blessed, amen? We’ll be better! I’ve learned that when you get blessed, healed, and better, your shout is purified. Do you follow what I’m saying? Your shout really means something! So, here we go. It says, «For if our heart condemns us, ” it says, „God is, I might even throw in a word even greater than our heart, and knows all things.“ Then it says in verse 21, „Beloved, if our heart condemns us not, then we have confidence toward God.“ I am going to get into the next part in just a moment, but let’s go back to verse 20. In verse 20, it says, „Beloved, if our heart—if our heart—if our heart, whose heart? Our heart. Now, let’s make it personal: whose heart? My heart. Okay, if my heart condemns me—first of all, right there, that’s a problem. The word that is translated „condemn“ is a Greek word that literally means, watch this, „to note against yourself.“ So that phrase is an anti-you word. Are we tracking? Listen, in life, I’ve learned that if you do anything great, you will have enough enemies; you don’t need to add one more, especially if that enemy is yourself. You and I must be the best friends we have! Let that sit for a second. You have to be your own best friend. This phrase in this verse is problematic because there is an acknowledgment that what is supposed to help me is, in fact, against me.