Discipleship in the Digital Age: Navigating Smartphone Challenges

If you have a smartphone, you hold in your hand more power than NASA had when they put a man on the moon. There's more power in one little cellphone than we had in existence when America put a man on the moon. You have more technology in your hand. [00:00:48]

Life management is really time management. If you learn to manage your time then you'll learn to manage your life. Now here's what the Bible says, Ephesians chapter five verse 15 to 16. Be careful how you live. Don't live foolishly, instead live as wise people, making every minute count because these are evil times. [00:12:34]

The world and all the advertisers in it are constantly telling you how to think, what to buy, how to feel, what's cool, what's not cool, what's hip, what's not hip, the world is constantly shouting at you through the internet and you're carrying it with you all day in your pocket. [00:17:11]

Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Okay he says don't copy the world's value system. What are the world's value system? Look up here on the screen. 1 John 2:15-17 says this. [00:18:17]

I can be drawn into unproductive arguments. Oh baby, this is very very easy. Particularly in social media. Have you ever heard somebody say something really outrageous and you got offended really quickly by it and you go well I need to tell them off. I need to set them straight. [00:23:21]

Never get involved in foolish controversies, useless arguments, disputes about your personal pedigree. That means you know, issues about your family history, your ethnic background, your genealogy, that kind of stuff. Don't get in an argument over that. Or fights over interpreting God's law. [00:24:23]

I can get addicted to the approval of others. Now what is it that makes social media so addicting? I have to go back and check, I have to go back and check, I have to go back and check. This 80 times a day thing of looking at your phone, 80 people aren't phoning you every day, so what are you doing looking at your phone 80 times a day? [00:39:24]

Cellphones bring you closer to a person far from you but it takes you away from the ones sitting next to you. That's a profound spiritual truth. Cellphones bring you closer to a person far from you. But it takes you away from the ones sitting next to you and you can be sitting at a table with everybody in your family and you're more interested in what a visitor or a stranger is thinking and saying than the people who are around you, that's a problem. [00:42:19]

I can be distracted from what's most important. If I spend 11 years of my life looking at a screen, a phone screen, a smart screen, I can be distracted, oh excuse me just a minute. (phone rings) Hello, no, no, no I'm sorry. I'm preaching right now. Yeah, yeah okay. Yes I will bring the milk and bread, bye bye. [00:45:39]

If this can interrupt you anytime, then this thing is running your life, it's running your life. I can allow things to distract me from what's most important. There's an interesting story in the Bible, Jesus had a friend named Lazarus and Lazarus had two sisters, Mary and Martha. Mary, Martha and Lazarus lived together in a home in Bethany. [00:46:57]

Mary sat quietly at Jesus' feet listening to everything he said. Friends, you need to do that every day of your life. You need to sit at Jesus' feet, listening to everything he says. That's called a quiet time. You sit quietly with this book and you pray and you read and you pray and you read and you do it every day and you say God, is there anything you wanna tell me today? [00:48:49]

I wanna publish the good news. And when I get to heaven I wanna hear you say well done good and faithful servant. You shared the good news with other people around the world. And so I commit to doing that today. In your name I pray. If you're not a believer, if you haven't opened your life to Christ, say Jesus Christ come into my life today. [01:08:57]