How To Avoid Your Biggest Regret
"In the spring of the year, at the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab… but David remained at Jerusalem."
2 Samuel 11:1
King David did not fall on the battlefield. He fell from the rooftop of his own palace, at 50 years old, at the apex of his leadership.
That’s where Pastor Todd Doxzon parked us on Sunday in 2 Samuel 11. And that’s where he asked the question most pastors don’t open with: “What is one of the biggest regrets of your entire life?”
He went first. Before reading a verse, before introducing a structure, before any of the usual scaffolding, he told us about his. He’s told it before, but he told it again with fresh tears in his eyes from prepping the message this week. A regret thirty-plus years old that still sometimes catches him in a home office.
The reason the sermon stayed with so many of us is that Pastor Todd wasn’t preaching from a safe distance. He was preaching from inside the same ache the rest of us live with.
Here’s the structure he walked us through.
From the battlefield to boredom.
“In the spring of the year, at the time when kings go out to battle… David remained at Jerusalem.” That one line is doing all the work. David had a battle to fight and he skipped it. Pastor Todd’s read on it landed hard:
“If we don’t have a battle to fight, we get bored. And when we get bored, we start wandering — in our ministry, in our mind, in our marriage.”
The application wasn’t just “don’t be lazy.” It was something quieter — be careful when you’ve paid your dues and you’re tempted to kick your feet up. That’s exactly the moment David found himself in.
From surrounded to solo.
David was always surrounded. First Samuel 22 says four hundred men gathered to him in his early days — “everyone who was in distress, in debt, discontented.” He had brothers. He had a squad.
On the rooftop, he was alone.
“I’m telling you, when you’re solo, you are susceptible.”
Pastor Todd spoke directly to two groups here. Moms raising kids — find another mom raising kids. Business owners — find a circle of business owners. Pretty much anyone — make sure there’s at least one person who knows what’s actually going on in your head, not just what’s on your calendar.
From effusive to entitled.
This was the move that quietly did David in. He started as a worship-dancing, songwriting shepherd boy who couldn’t believe what God was doing. Somewhere along the way, he became a king who decided the rules didn’t apply to him.
The detail in the Hebrew was telling. The text says David “saw” Bathsheba — which means glanced. Then he “beheld” her — which means gazed.
“First look is on God. Second look is on you.”
Pastor Todd told the story on himself of his wife catching him at the beach: “That wasn’t a glance. That was a gaze.”
Then he walked us through the cover-up. David tried to bring Uriah home from war so the baby would look like Uriah’s. Uriah was too loyal. David got him drunk. Uriah still didn’t go home. So David wrote his own friend’s death sentence and sent it back with Uriah’s own hand.
Then he summed it up:
“Compromise compounds.”
A year went by. The prophet Nathan finally showed up with a story about a rich man who took a poor man’s only lamb. David exploded. “That man needs to die.” Nathan looked at him and said four words:
“You are the man.”
David broke. He confessed. And in two psalms — Psalm 32 and Psalm 51 — we get to read what that confession sounded like.
Here’s what stayed with us. The consequences of the sin did not disappear. The first baby died. The cost was real. And — God still gave David and Bathsheba Solomon. The wisest, richest king Israel ever had. A son who came after the failure, not despite it.
Then Pastor Todd closed where he opened. With his own story. The girl he got pregnant in high school. The abortion. The years of regret. And the prayer his wife prayed before their kids were born — for twin boys. The twin boys God gave them. Replacements right now, with the promise of more in heaven.
What This Means For Today
Where in your life right now are you bored? What battle have you stopped showing up for?
Who actually knows what’s going on in your head — and if the answer is “nobody,” who’s the first phone call this week?
Is there a regret you’ve never confessed out loud? Today might be the day.
If you’ve been carrying something you thought was unforgivable, you don’t have to carry it alone any longer. Watch the full message at lovechurch.org. And if you want to talk to a pastor or join a group where this kind of conversation actually happens, our team is here.
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