Holding the Line in the Church Against Culture | John Elmore | Harris Creek Sermons

John Elmore (0:00)

I'm a visual learner, so you're gonna get stuff like this from time to time. We're gonna interact with this podium as we interact with these scriptures throughout the message. And I'll start by telling you what happened to me last night. So last night, a rule in our family was broken. Just one rule, it's a small rule. That rule is when you leave the house, you wear a watch, so that our kids can get in touch with us. We can know where their location is, they can call us, if they need something, they can ask for permission to go to another friend's house, whatever it may be. That rule was broken by my oldest son, Hill. It changed the course of our evening by hours, and it could have changed the course of our lives. So what happened was his buddy, Pierce, was like, hey, why don't you come over? And so he goes to get his watch, his watch was dead, he leaves without his watch, and he gets on his bike. He goes on what should have been a five-minute ride, and Pierce calls my wife, Laura, and was like, hey, is he still coming over, because he hasn't arrived. Well, this was 20 minutes prior or after he had already left. And so now 20 minutes have gone by, it's now pouring raining, it's been pouring raining, and we live around a lot of like rivers and creeks. And so I know like the rivers are swollen, these low water bridges are like two and three feet of water, just like washing down. And I was like, oh my goodness, like, what did he try to do in order to get there? Then we get another phone call from somebody that lives like three miles away, Harris Creek family, who live out in the country, further from us, called the NAPs. And the NAPs call and they're like, hey, we saw a hill drive by, but that was like a while ago, and he hasn't come back this way. Like he's headed toward Cotton Belt Parkway. That's like miles and miles from us. We're like, you haven't seen him? And they're like, no. And we talked to the neighbor there on the corner. She was out getting her mail. She saw him, but we don't, that was like now 45 minutes ago. So Laura and I start driving all these country roads. His watch is dead. He doesn't even have it on. It doesn't matter. He's just out there in the pouring rain, swollen rivers, trying to get to his friend's house. I realized, oh, he's trying to like circumvent every creek and river he gets to, to try to find a way to get over to his buddy's house. And he's now so far out of where we allow him to be with no means of communication. And y'all, I mean, I'm stopping at like drainage ditches, looking, I'm thinking in my mind, okay, what are the steps to CPR? This is what's running through my mind. Laura, I'm 10 years older than her. She's now older than me because of this event. She's like aged two decades in one day.

And we don't know where he is.

And it wasn't just us after calling 911 to report a missing person. They're like, send us photographs of your child. So I'm sending them photos. Garen Bynum's helping me, along with the McClennan Sheriff Department, McGregor PD, Waco PD. There's people scouring the area. And then some of our friends see a boy walking muddy through a field carrying a helmet. And after two hours and 15 minutes, get a text from the Smiths and say, hey, he's fine, he's here. We had a welcome party for him at the neighborhood. There were seven squad cars.

Garen Bynum, Waco PD. He trains all the Waco officers. He leads in our safety security team here. He's like, hey, so you want to come get him? I've got him here at the Simski's house. And I was like, no, I want you to put the fear of God in him. Like put him in the back of the squad car. Like tell him, you never leave without your watch. He's like, I got you.

One little rule. One little rule that my son thought, it's fine. What's this rule anyway? I'm just going to my friend's house. What's the big deal? It's just a watch, it's five minutes away. What could happen?

It's just this silly rule my parents have.

And I forgive him. He asked for my forgiveness. Dad, I'm so sorry. Will you please forgive me? He asked Garen Bynum for his forgiveness, for tying up our community resources. Instead of doing real things, like protecting the city. It's just this one little rule.