Vain Regrets

The text

And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time. For I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.

1 Corinthians 15:8–10 KJV

At a glance

Summary of the sermon

This sermon deals with regret over lost time rather than over any single sin: the believer who is haunted by the years spent outside Christ, or by opportunities missed since conversion, and whose 'if only' has curdled into settled gloom. Lloyd-Jones begins with ordinary common sense. The past cannot be altered; dwelling on it wastes the energy that should go into the present; and if regret is sincere it ought to produce redoubled effort rather than paralysis.

Paul is again the pattern. He was 'born out of due time', the last of all to see the risen Lord, and he had persecuted the Church; yet instead of nursing his regret he laboured more abundantly than they all. The parable of the labourers hired at the eleventh hour teaches the same lesson from the other side: what matters in the Kingdom is not when a man came in, nor what he once was, but that he is in — and the reckoning is entirely a matter of grace, not of hours worked.

Underneath vain regret Lloyd-Jones detects something less innocent than humility: a persistent preoccupation with self. To go on condemning myself for my past is still to be looking at myself. The cure is to stop judging (that is God's business), to look steadily at Christ, and to believe that the God who restores the years the locust has eaten can do in a moment what we failed to do in decades.

Key points

• Regret over wasted years is natural, but must not become a settled misery.
• Plain common sense already says that brooding on an unchangeable past is self-defeating.
• Paul turned his 'born out of due time' into labouring more abundantly than all.
• The labourers in the vineyard show that God rewards by grace, not by length of service.
• Self-condemnation over the past is a disguised self-preoccupation; the cure is to look at Christ.

Illustrations the preacher uses

• A man who arrives late at a great exhibition and wastes what time remains lamenting his lateness instead of seeing the treasures.
• The world's own proverb about crying over spilt milk.
• The eleventh-hour labourers who received a full day's wage.

Related Scripture

• Matthew 20:1–16
• Joel 2:25
• 1 Corinthians 4:3–5
• 2 Corinthians 3:18
• Philippians 3:13–14

For reflection and discussion

1. Do you carry regret over 'wasted years'? How does it affect your present usefulness?
2. Why does the preacher call this kind of regret a hidden form of self-preoccupation rather than true humility?
3. What could 'labouring more abundantly' look like for you now, at whatever hour of the day you were called?