It all Counts (Jake Enns)

Our sermon title this morning is It All Counts.

It all counts. On July the 5th and 2013, late

in the evening, towards midnight, around 11, an

eastbound freight train stopped in the town of Nantes, Quebec.

The engineer of the train had ended his shift and another

engineer was to come and take over for him and continue the

journey. The train consisted of five

locomotives pulling 70 plus tanker cars loaded with crude

oil destined for a refinery in the east.

The track at that place was a 1.2% downgrade slope.

The lead locomotive on the train had a mechanical problem but had

been fixed with a Band-Aid repair with some epoxy material

to save cost and temporarily stay operational.

Another thing, the train was supposed to have two engineers

but had only 1 due to saving costs.

This engineer had stopped the train, shut off 4 locomotives

and left the lead locomotive idling to keep up the air

pressure in the brake system. He put on the hand brakes and

the locomotives and a few other cars trusting that would be

sufficient. He did a test pull on the train

to see if it would brakes would hold and they did.

He called and called a taxi, left the train, went to a hotel.

Everything seemed OK. Sometime later, someone saw a

fire on the lead locomotive that was still running and called

911. The fire department showed up

and one of the procedures firefighters have is to shut off

a running motor if it's on fire to stop the gas flow to the

motor. They did that.

They put out the fire and outwardly everything looked

fine. But those of you who know

anything about mechanical machines and air brake systems,

they don't stay. They need to be kept up to

pressure continually. While the engine was not running

and the air was leaking. Sometime past midnight, with no

engines running in, the air pressure system was dropping.

They came to the point where it was just the handbrake on the

locomotives that were holding the train.

But he had done a test pull, and it had work.

But never thinking that it was the air brakes that were holding

it, the train started moving. It gained speed.

Later estimates said that it had gotten to a speed of 105

kilometers an hour, much faster than was even safe for the

track. Well, 11 kilometers down that

track, there was the town of Lac Migantique.

The train barreled into town and around the curve.

The locomotives made it, but the tanker cars didn't. 63 of them

derailed, piled up and exploded in a huge inferno of flame. 47

people died, houses were destroyed, oil contaminated,

part of town had to be demolished in the aftermath.

Of course there was illegal battles, a lot of finger

pointing in blame, but what came abundantly clear was that the

railway company had neglected and bypassed numerous safety

checks. They had compromised here and

there, one neglect after another, a Band-Aid fixed here

and a Band-Aid fixed there. It all added up, resulting in a

devastating crash costing the lives of 47 people and millions

of dollars of damage. You see every compromise, every

shortcut, no matter how small, once they pile up they make a

difference. And it all added up to the

snowball effect of breakdown and costing loss in life and

property. When people become comfortable

with shortcuts on safety, it's only a matter of time before a

boundary is crossed. In this situation, they had

become used to doing it the easy way, the quick way, the saving

money way, the saving time way. OK, maybe we're not driving

trains and we're not having big dangerous equipment under our

hands that we have to be careful for.

And that may be the case. That's fine.

But what about our moral lives, our spiritual lives?

What about what we take into our eye gate and our ear gate and

what we do with our hands? What about that?

Do we take safety precautions in life?

Why is it when it comes to the moral safety standards of

society, there's not this urgency or the strict

guidelines? I have news for us.

It all counts. When big things go wrong, it

often starts with little minor things that on the circums, on

the surface, seem of no consequence.

Culture tells us do what's easy, what feels good, what makes you

happy. When it comes to the moral

landscape it's today. It's like walking in a

minefield. It doesn't matter what subject

is brought up. Any conversation in the area of

morality is stepping on land mines.

Someone's offended, someone disagrees, you're judgmental.

Why am I starting this way? We've been going through the

book of Judges and this morning we're coming to the final sermon

in this series and the whole book covers the time span of

roughly 350 years in the life of the nation of Israel.

It is a sad book has many stories of people falling away

from God, then experiencing the consequences of their cumulative

decisions. So how do nations and cultures

fall? Often times when a people group

or a nation's destroyed, it's not from the outside in, it's

from the inside out. It's like a tree.

It grows tall and strong and it may be good and healthy.

Over time, maybe insects may make their way in or the tree

gets damaged somehow and on the inside a rock starts to form.

Over the years the rock grows. It may still look strong and

healthy, but one day in a storm, the tree just breaks and you can

see the insides all rotted out. Judges is a book where there are

periods of rot on the inside of the hearts of the people, adding

up to rot on the inside of the community and the inside of the

nation. What's interesting is that in

every case when the nation of Israel fell, they fell first on

the inside before they fell on the outside.

And this is something we don't find just in the book of Judges.

This is something we find in civilization.

I love reading history. History is my my cup of tea.

I just bought another history book yesterday.

And oh, I love the stories. And there's the tragedies and

there's the highs and the lows. And they could have avoided that

one. They could have avoided that

one. And one day it all falls down.

You see, the path to destruction happens one small step at a

time. The book of Judges is a book of

of success and failure repeatedly.

I want to read this morning that of Judges beginning chapter 19,

verse one. Again, this is a sad story, but

I want to end on a positive note this morning.

I'll just tell you that in advance.

Verse 19, chapter 19, verse one begins.

And it came to pass in those days when there was no king in

Israel. We've heard that before, that

there was a certain Levite staying in the remote mountains

of Ephraim. He took for himself a concubine

from Bethlehem in Judah, but his concubine played the harlot

against him and went away from him to her father's house at

Bethlehem in Judah, and was there for whole months.

We've seen this phrase a number of times.

There was no king in Israel. It means there was a lack of

leadership, spiritual leadership in the land, this Levite living

in the remote mountains of Ephraim.

He may have been somewhat of a loner, we don't know, but kind

of secluded up in the north, goes to Bethlehem, a town in the

southern parts and looks for a wife and, and he has a, he takes

himself a concubine. A concubine was not a wife in

the sense of a full legal wife. It was a kind of a secondary

wife, had the rights somewhat, somewhat, but not full rights as

a as a wife. We won't go into that this

morning, but she was his wife as a concubine, but she was

unfaithful. She cheated on him.

She left him. And going back to her father's

house, it tells us further on that he goes back to Bethlehem

to get her. And the father of this woman was

glad to meet this Levite. He invited him in and stayed a

number of days. And on day #5 the Levite says,

well, I got to go. And so he saddles up his donkeys

and takes the concubine and his servant and off he goes heading

back N to Ephraim as the travel gets toward evening.

And the servant says to the Levite, well, maybe we should

stop here in the city, the Jebusites, that was a Pagan

city, Let's stop in for the night.

The Levite says, no, we don't do that.

And let's read verse 11 to 21. Let's continue.

They were near Jebus. That's the Jebusite city.

And the day was far spent. And the servant said to his

master, come, please, let's turn aside into the city of the

Jebusites and lodge in it. But his master said to him, We

will not turn aside here into a city of foreigners who are not

of the children of Israel. We will go on to Gibya.

You can hear his convictions and his, his thinking about sleeping

in a Pagan city. Verse 13.

So he said to his servant, come, let us draw near to one of these

places and spend the night in Gibya or Rama.

They were Israelite places, and they passed by and went their

way, and the sun went down on them near Gibya, which belongs

to Benjamin. They turned aside there to go

into lodge in Gibya, and he went in.

When he went in, he sat down in the open square of the city, for

no one would take them in into his house to spend the night.

Hospitality was lacking in that city.

Continuing on, just then an old man came in from his work in the

field at evening, who was also from the mountains of Ephraim,

where the Levite was from. He was staying in Gibya.

Where's the men of the place were Benjamites.

When he raised his eyes, he saw the traveler in the open square

of the city. And the old man said, where are

you going and where do you come from?

So he said to him, We are passing from Bethlehem and Judah

toward the remote mountains of Ephraim.

I'm from there. I went to Bethlehem and Judah.

Now I'm I'm going to the House of the Lord, but there's no one

who will take me into his house. Although we have both straw and

fodder for our donkeys and bread and wine for myself, for your

female servant, and for the young man who's with your

servant, there's no lack of anything.

The old man said. Peace be with you.

However, that all your needs be my responsibility only.

Do not spend the night in the open square.

So you brought him into his house, gave fodder to the

donkeys, and they washed their feet and ate and drank.

So far, so good, nothing wrong. Yet they had a good time this

leave. It was a conscientious man.

He had some morals in certain areas, in certain ways where he

slept and so on. He wasn't going to sleep in a

Pagan city. And then he in this town of

Gibeah, this Ephraimite who comes into town from a day of

work. Well, he's up from Ephraim as

well. And so now he, he sees them and

he takes them in and it says they have a good time.

Things are going really well. Let's continue reading verse 22.

Now as they were enjoying themselves, the old man and the

Levite, suddenly certain men of the city, perverted men,

surrounded the house and beat on the door.

They spoke to the master of the house, the old man saying, Bring

out the man who came to your house, that we may know him

carnally. But the man, the master of the

house, went out to them and said to them, No, my brethren, I beg

you, do not act so wickedly. Seeing this man has come into my

house. Do not commit this outrage.

Look, here's my virgin daughter and the man's concubine.

Let me bring them out now. Humble them and do with them as

you please. But to this man do not do such a

vile thing. But the men would not heed him.

So the man took his concubine and brought her out to them.

I think this was the Levite, and they knew her and abused her all

night until morning. And when the day began to break,

they let her go. Then the woman came as the day

was dawning, and fell down at the door of the man's house,

where her Master was till it was light.

As the story goes on, I won't read the rest here for a bit.

It tells us when the Levite woke up and wanted to get his

concubine to head out again, she was dead.

He picked her up, put her on a donkey and headed home.

At home he took a knife, cut her into 12 pieces and sent the

pieces to the tribes of Israel to get a reaction.

And he did. Words fail to describe the level

of moral debauchery these people had dropped to They were the

people of God, but they were completely corrupt and wicked.

Let's pause for a moment. We might say, well, that was

then. That doesn't happen now, does

it? Does it not?

What about today? What about the moral sin online,

The screens we open and watch it as if it's only minor, No

consequence. Remember, it all counts.

It all builds up little by little, incrementally, to a

point where it takes on a life of its own and one day it flips.

Read a story many years ago of a young man who was a youth pastor

in his in his community. He had a good ministry, but he

was addicted to porn. He didn't think it was a big

deal, not harming anybody, no danger.

He writes the story long after he lost his ministry.

He wrote how how it happened. One day he was in a parking lot

in some big box store somewhere, the huge parking lot.

And there you saw a beautiful, attractive young woman.

He wrote, he wrote in his, in his, in this piece that he, he

published, that somebody published for him.

He wrote that without knowing what he was doing, he somehow,

something flipped. He physically went for this

young woman and wanted to violate her.

He didn't get that far, however, because she resisted somehow and

he realized what was happening, but it was too late.

It was done. He had violated his ethics, his

beliefs. He was caught.

He had never intended to do this, but then he saw what he

had been doing to his mind, to his heart and to his soul.

He had fed himself this moral rot and it was inside him and

weaken him to the point where he one day just hadn't resisted.

It had taken his life. And of course there was

consequences and I don't know what they were all were.

He lost his ministry, his reputation, everything.

But he said he was thankful he got caught.

These men in the city of Gibeah, they didn't start out that way.

Nobody does. But they were at this point,

wicked, evil, corrupt men. The Levite himself, he wasn't

innocent either. He was complicit in all of this.

He gave up his concubine for self preservation, handed her

over to these men, knowing full well what they were going to do

to her. You see, folks, it all counts.

The nation of Israel had drifted far from God.

They were not ignorant of God. Even though they fell into sin,

they still knew right from wrong.

See, it's often interesting how people are.

It's interesting how often we have far more problems with

somebody else's sin than our own sin.

And he doesn't take ownership. Well, let's continue reading

Judges chapter 19, verse 30 to 20, verse 7.

And so it was that all, all who sought being the 12 parts that

he had cut his wife into sought. They said no such deed has been

done or seen from the day that the children of Israel came up

from the land of Egypt until this day.

Considerate confer and speak up. Verse 1 of chapter 20, verse 1.

So all the children of Israel came out from Dan to be or

Sheba, that's from the north to the South, and from the land of

Gilead, that's on the east, that's on the East Coast across

the Jordan. And they gathered together as

one man before the Lord at Mizpah.

And the leaders of all the people, all the tribes of

Israel, presented themselves in the assembly of the people of

God. 400,000 foot soldiers who drew the sword.

Now the children of Benjamin heard that the children of

Israel had gone to Mizpah. Then the children of Israel

said, tell us, how did this wicked deed happen?

There's unity here. They're ready.

We're going to deal with this, deal with this issue, but

there's something that's missing here that should have happened

before they start talking about the problem.

They should have all woken up, looked inward into their own

hearts, into God's Word, and then start processing and

dealing with the issue. We don't find they did any soul

searching whatsoever before they get to work on the issue.

We will see shortly later on in the passage when things got

difficult, then they do go to God in prayer, but now it's not

the case initially. It's almost like anger.

We're going to take care of business.

Verse four. So the Levite, the husband of

the woman who was murdered, answered and said to the

Israelites, My concubine and I went into Gibeah, which belongs

to Benjamin, to spend the night. And the men of Gibeah rose

against me and surrounded the house at night.

Because of me. They intended to kill me, but

instead they ravished my concubine so that she died.

So I took hold of my concubine, cut her in pieces, and sent her

throughout all the territory of the inheritance of Israel,

because they committed lewdness and outrage in Israel.

Look, all of your children of Israel give your advice and

counsel here and now. Look, I'm innocent.

He was not innocent. Nobody was innocent.

He was not being honest. He left out some parts of the

story. He left out what his what he

did. He gave her up for that.

She had died. That was a tragedy.

What is just as disturbing is that he himself was complicit.

He was responsible too. He gave her up for self

preservation. So he shared his doctrine change

story. Now the nation responds verse

verse 8. So all the nation, so all the

people rose as one man saying, none of us will go to his tent

nor will any turn back to his house.

In other words, we're going to take care of this.

They were not sure yet what they're going to do necessarily,

but they're going to do something.

As we read on, they approached the people of Benjamin and they

demanded hand over the guys who did this.

We'll bring him to justice. It tells us in the chapter that

instead of giving up the evil men in from the Benjamites, the

men of Benjamin joined together to protect the evil doers.

This was just getting from ugly to uglier.

There are many parts to stories like these, and we can't look at

all of them in one sermon. But here are a few thoughts that

come to my mind. I don't believe they were

humble. I don't think anybody was

humble. I don't think they were so much

grieved and saddened by what had happened as they were angry.

They were offended that this happened in truth and should

have been upset. That's true, but where were the

roots of all this immoral living?

This had been a long time in coming.

You see again, these events don't just spring up out of

nowhere. These things are thoughts long

before they come. Words.

They're words, and then they turn to deeds.

You see, folks, it all counts. The seeds of sin had germinated

perhaps years ago. The roots of sin had been

growing and spreading and infecting the nation for many

years, maybe decades. Only here now, it produced the

fruits of violence and depravity and debauchery and death.

Now the rise of indignation and anger.

We're going to fight a war. I'm thinking of our own culture.

We see the moral confusion, the chaos of our times, and as wrong

and sinful as it is. Hate and anger are not the

answer. Violence is not the answer.

God loves every human being the same.

True, in that day and age under the old covenant, there were

some moral sins that demanded the death penalty.

But we are thankfully, thank God we are not under that old

covenant. We're not supposed to go and

hurt people. We're under the new covenant.

We're never commanded to meet hate with violence and death.

The moral decline should have caused them grief and sadness,

and it should cause us grief and sadness.

In this story, the men of Israel, sinful and fallen as

they were, we're going to go to war.

Verse 18 Then the children of Israel rose and went up to the

House of God to inquire of God. What timing they said, which of

us shall go up first to battle against the children of

Benjamin? The Lord said Judah, Judah

first. I find this fascinating.

Who said anything about going to battle?

They go to church and deal with it there.

We don't find any soul searching and any repenting that happens

prior. Where are we in our relationship

to God when we see the sin around us?

Maybe we don't commit these sins, but at what point are we

responsible? And, and maybe we've already

been playing and oh, you know what?

This movie is not too bad and that website's not too bad and

those pictures are OK. And that lifestyle is OK and

that dress codes OK. And we start changing.

You see, folks, it all counts. These people missed some very

important steps. All they know is we're going to

go to battle. Who's first?

We will fight and God went along with it.

Why did God not stop it? Why did God not point and say,

hold on, hold on. Before you fight, before you do

anything, first you need to repent.

You need to humble yourself. You're all guilty.

Why did God not do that? Well, this may just be my

opinion, but I believe that God was watching, said, hmm, you're

so fired up. But the men of Benjamin and they

need to be held responsible. But you yourselves need to learn

something too. You men of Israel are not clean

either. The Levites not clean.

The old man's not clean. You're not clean either.

You're self-righteous. You're proud and arrogant.

Now you're mad. OK, go ahead and fight.

I don't know if that's what God was thinking, and I don't know

all the answers, but I believe the nation of Israel had

compromised on so many levels for such a long time on the

moral field. They had sunk so low.

There was nothing holding them back, and now they would suffer.

Not just the Benjamites, the whole nation would.

Sometimes I wonder, thinking about our culture and our times,

why should God spare us suffering?

Why should God spare us hard times?

As a faith, faith community, as a society, we're not much better

on the moral scale. Oh, we're not killing people in

the process, but we're defiling God's image.

We're a morally corrupt society. Remember it all counts.

We must always look first at ourselves in the mirror before

we deal with another person. This doesn't mean that we

shouldn't deal with it doesn't mean we shouldn't confront.

We should. But out of a surrendered,

repented and humble heart, pride has no room in this kind of has

no room anywhere, but especially not in this.

Let's continue reading verse 21 and I'm just tell the story.

See, the next day they fight, the battle has joined Israel and

there are 400,000 men, Benjamin 20 under less than 30 thousand

26,000. Some surprisingly, the men of

Israel get beaten. They had not expected that

vastly superior numbers, but they lost Israelites lost 22,000

men. The first it was a slaughter.

The confidence was shaken. We read the wet before the Lord

asked should we go up again. Now there's some doubt.

God said yes, go up again. The second day they went up the

second time and they lost again. This time 18,000 men died.

Now they're disheartened. God had given them the green

light to go to battle, but then wasn't giving them the victory.

But now they're learning some painful lessons.

It tells us in the story, they went up to the temple or to the

worship, choice of worship and they wept before the Lord and

they burnt offerings and they fasted till even they asked

should we go again? Then God says go again, but

tomorrow I'll give you victory. And then they beat the

Benjamites, and they slaughtered them. 25,100 Benjamins died All

in all, out of the nation of Israel, 65,000 and 100 soldiers

were killed. The Benjamites were now beaten.

Well, that's what, Let's see what happens next.

Verse 47. But 600 men, the Benjamites

turned and fled toward the wilderness, to the rock of

Ramon. And they stayed at the Rock of

Ramon for four months. And the men of Israel turned

back against the children of Benjamin and struck them down

with the edge of the sword From every city, men and beasts, all

who were found, they set, they also set fire to all the cities

they came to. Now it's genocide.

They're just as mad as ever. They're, they're, they're,

they're angry. We don't know how many days the

killing continued, but it was. It was brutal.

The Benjamins had been beaten. That they were now done.

They were finished. Men, women and children accept

600 men. They had been losing for years

and years already, morally, but now it was physical, you see.

They lost every time they compromise God's standards, you

see. It all counted.

They almost eradicated the whole tribe except the 600 men that

escaped. You see, sin is never a benign

thing. Once it puts down roots, there's

no telling what evils it will give birth to.

Sin, in the end, brings death. It all counts, one would think.

But this time the children of Israel would had enough.

They would now look at saving lives instead of killing.

In chapter 21 they gathered before the Lord.

They weep. They're sorry for how things

turned out. They want to fix the problem.

But again, the ways in which they go about fixing the problem

leaves us shaking our heads. Let's continue reading verse 1

of chapter 21. Now the men of Israel had sworn

an oath at Mizpah saying none of us shall give his daughter to

Benjamin as a wife. Then the people came to the

House of God and remained there before God till evening.

They lifted up their voices and wept bitterly and said, oh Lord

God of Israel, why has this come to pass in Israel, that today

there should be 1 tribe missing in Israel.

So it was the next morning the people rose early and build an

altar there and offer burnt offerings and peace offerings.

Yes, finally, right? No, this was good.

Not the end of the story. Let's continue reading verse 5

Then the children of Israel said, Who is there among all the

tribes of Israel who did not come up with assembly to the

Lord? For they had made a great oath

concerning anyone who had not come up to the Lord admits by

saying he shall surely be put to death.

That was not a wise thing to say.

But that said that verse 6 and the children of Israel grieved

for Benjamin, their brother, and said one tribe was cut off from

Israel today. What shall we do for wives, for

those who remain saying, seeing we've sworn by the Lord, that we

will not give them our daughters as our as wives?

I'm wondering if by this time they thought, yeah, that promise

was perhaps not the best promise or the best oath.

Well, they made it. They're going to keep it.

Verse 8. And they said, what 1 is there

from the tribes of Israel who did not come from optimism of

the Lord to Mis, but to the Lord.

And in fact, no one had come to the camp from Jabish Gilead to

the assembly. For when the people were

counted, indeed not one of the inhabitants of Jabish Gilead was

there. So the congregation sent out

their 12,000 men, of their most valiant men, and command them go

and strike the inhabitants of Jabish Gilead with the edge of

the sword, including men, women and children.

And this is the thing you shall do.

You shall utterly destroy every male, every woman who is known a

man intimately. So it's men and women and

children, except the girls who've not had relationships

with man. Verse 12.

So they found among the inhabitants of Jabish Gilead 400

young virgins who had not known a man intimately, and they

brought them to the camp of Chilo, which is in the land of

Canaan. This is just bizarre.

Of course this is wrong, but this is a window into the

culture of the time. They had no problem with

defending their oath at the cost of innocent lives.

It would have been far better to go before God and confessing

Lord. We sin by making this foolish

vow. It was wrong, we repent.

That would have been far more nobler.

But what we find here is these people now committing sins to

fix issues they caused. It was always a difficult thing,

but it's never right to do wrong.

Up and wrong. Well, let's continue verse 13.

Then the whole congregation sent word to the children of Benjamin

who were at the Rock and rim and announced peace to them.

So the Benjam, the Benjamites came back to at the time, they

gave them the women whom they had saved the life of, the women

of Jabish Gilead, yet they had not found enough for them.

There's only 400. They need 600.

Just think of for a moment that the trauma for these young women

whose families had been slaughtered.

Verse 15 And the people grieve for Benjamin because the Lord

had made a void in the tribes of Israel.

No one talked about grieving for the innocent ones, but there

were not enough wives yet. They needed a few. 100 more.

Let's move on. Verse 16.

Then the elders of the congregation said, what shall we

do for wives, for those who remain, since the women of

Benjamin have been destroyed. And they said there must be an

inheritance for the survivors of Benjamin, that a tribe may not

be destroyed from Israel. However, we cannot give them

wives from our daughters, for the children of Israel have

sworn an oath saying cursed be the one who gives a wife to

Benjamin. Again, this oath is more

important than actually doing the right thing.

Verse 19. Then they said, in fact, there's

a yearly feast of the Lord and Shiloh, which is north of Bethel

on the east side of the highway that goes up from Bethel to

Shechem and South of Le Bona. Therefore they instructed the

children of Benjamin saying, Go lie and wait in the vineyards

and watch just when the daughters of Shiloh come out to

perform their dances. Then come out from the vineyards

and every man catch a wife for himself from the daughters of

Shiloh, then go to the land of Benjamin.

Then it shall be when their fathers or their brothers come

to us to complain, that we will say to them, be kind to them for

our sakes, because we did not take away for any of them in the

war. For it's not as though you have

given that woman to them at this time, making yourselves guilty

of your oath. Do we see the manufactured

loopholes? This sounds like our time

fishing through the Bible. But it says here.

But it says here. But it's OK if I no, it says it

was 23. And the children of Benjamin did

so they took enough wives, kidnapped their wives for the

number from those who danced, whom they caught.

And they went and returned to the inheritance, and they

rebuilt the cities and dwelt in them.

So the children of Israel departed from there at that

time, every man to his tribe and family.

They went out from there, every man to his inheritance.

There's one final verse. In those days there was no king

in Israel, and everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

Early in this book we learned that the beginning for a time

under the leadership of Joshua, things were good and and even

the elders that outlived Joshua. But then the cycles of sin and

degradation and moral collapse began and up and down, up and

down. What is sad in the book is that

as the years passed, these cycles repeated themselves, ever

increasing lower and lower spirals.

There were better times and then the whole nation slipped again

into another lower spiral. And the book does not end on a

good note. We have these stories in

Scripture for our benefit, to teach us on the importance of a

relationship with God. So what difference does it make

for us today? I said earlier, I want to end on

a positive note. We don't have to live there.

Even though our culture is corrupt, morally going astray,

we don't have to live there. We can have a relationship with

Jesus, and if we live like he's sitting beside us, then what we

watch, what we do, He will help us.

You see, it all counts. Are we doing things we think

don't count? Let me assure us it does count.

The videos, the places we go, the events we participated, it

all counts to an accumulative total.

And in the end, it produces fruit.

And that's something. What will that something be?

Will it be a blessing that glorifies God and lifts us up

and draws us all closer together?

Or will it be something that's morally corrupt and rotten,

leading to destruction? And maybe we think we're not

doing too bad and we're doing OK, but what about our children?

I think about our children and grandchildren.

Let's live our lives, folks, in a way that we're never

embarrassed or ashamed of Jesus. Let's live our lives and grace

and humility and surrender to him, walk with him in peace and

harmony. The culture can be what it is.

It is what it is. We don't have to live that way.

We have a much better thing to do.

We can live in, we can live in relationship with Jesus.

Yes, there will be spiritual battles.

There will be struggle. Yes, we will falter and struggle

and have to repent and confess. But Jesus is here to rescue us.

Think about it this week, what we're celebrating his death and

resurrection for exactly those things.

He came to this world to rescue us, for himself, a people from a

sinful world to extend his grace to us and love and compassion.

We can leave all that behind and walk with him.

We must remember in the end, it all counts.

Let's pray or thank you for your grace.

Thank you for your Son Jesus, that we're not under the law.

You came to fulfill the law to pay the penalty for sin, to

redeem us for yourself. I pray Lord, for anyone who's

here struggling this morning, you'd reveal yourself to this

person, help this person to walk with you.

Thank you Lord for your word. The scripture is difficult, but

as difficult it is, it teaches an important lesson how we need

to walk with you and live for you.

May we experience your grace and mercies.

We thank you in Jesus name.