Man, I don't know about you, but I am so glad I decided to come
to church today, man. It's been good, I tell you what,
I am, just so thankful. We get to spend some time
together. I want to welcome those of you
joining here and all of our different locations.
Those of you who are part of the crossing inside, special
shout-out to those of you who are watching The Crossing
online. Cool story.
Last week, we're preaching on circles are where the be the
village shirt. Lot of you guys went and bought
some sweatshirts and shirts that link still available if you want
to buy some But a person who lives in a different state was
watching our services online, heard about that Ministry.
They've been setting aside a pile of cash and looking for
something to do with it on Thursday before, I went to
preach, I got a call from the lady who works in our office.
Who runs the not-for-profit. She had some out-of-town check
from a guy saying, hey, we just believe in what you're doing.
We want to support you. So those of you were part of a
Crossing online. How cool are you guys?
And we're so thankful that we get to do ministry with you, And
I know a lot of you are getting ready to start watching services
online from the Lake of the Ozarks.
I know that's about to happen, and I want you to know that if
you want someone to preach that sermon live, You like someone
Dockside, you know, Jesus did a lot of ministry on the shores of
a lake, and if you want help, I'll come and I can even baptize
you in that water. Okay, I'll do will do live.
Sermons will take the service live from your living room.
Your Lakeside living room, nice Windows.
That's what I'm going for now. We've been in a sermon series
called better, how to win at home because we believe that
everyone wants to win at home, and we started off the sermon
series. The core belief that we have
here at the Crossing which is that we believe that God can
redeem anything and everything and that includes your family
and we talked about can Suki that sometimes the broken
pieces, the pieces that we want to throw away and discard that
we think no longer have any value in any use that if they're
placed in God's hands that his golden finger of redemption can
put things back together in a way, that is beautiful and
breathtaking. And that, when he's done the end
product can Really sometimes end up looking better than what the
original product looked like. And we believe that God can do
that in your life, in your relationships, and in your
family. But we believe that in order for
your family to have the best chance of success, you need to
have a strong foundation and that there is no better
Foundation than Jesus Christ. No matter what the world throws
at you. If your life, your family, your
marriage are rooted in God and his word and you trust your put
your life on that Solid Rock, you will not?
Be shaken or destroyed. And then we talked about how we
are wired, generally around gender, and generally around our
emotions and then we encourage you guys to go on date night
challenging if you guys haven't done that yet, you should
definitely do that. And I'll give you a link in a
second where you can get some of those challenges but hearing the
stories of how the conversations happen inside of those marriages
and what they learned about each other and how it shaped the way
that they're operating is just a tremendous gift that you gave
yourself and your kids and your Sure kids and then last week we
talked about parenting and how we're all on a journey, a
journey from control to consultant and that the way that
God equipped us to navigate that transition is through circles.
And we agree that everyone needs a better Circle that a better
Circle makes for a better experience and that every Circle
needs to challenge us. And we talked about one of the
shifts that we're making here at the Crossing and that we're no
longer calling our 02:18 Ministries next-gen.
We're going to start I'm them this gin because they're not
next there. Now we don't want them to just
be Leaders of Tomorrow. We want them to be leaders of
today and we asked you guys all to take time to write.
Thank you cards to the circle, makers and circle, fillers in
your life. And we also talked about this
boardroom and I hope you guys will use this in your own life
that in the boredom of your life, you have 8 to 12 seats and
you have to ask yourself who are the people that are sitting in
the boardroom of my life. Life now because whoever you put
around this table in your life, it's going to impact your
marriage, it's going to impact your parenting, it's going to
impact your physical health, your emotional health, your
Spiritual Development, your finances, who you put in your
circle and in the circle of your kids is life matters.
Now, some of you are going to, man.
I feel like I've missed a lot because you're traveling, you
have something going on. So I want you to know, if you're
wanting to get access to some of the tools, the resources, and
even some of the messages, you can go to this website.
Down here or you can do the phone thing.
The crossing dotnet / family, where you can get access to
everything that we've been doing in the sermon series.
So if you know, for you, or if you're like me and I that family
had their windows open yesterday and I think they need this
sermon because my neighbor might be good.
Yeah, you could send it. Okay, now today we're going to
talk about glowing rectangles, everybody said glowing
rectangles, Now, before I get into this message, a couple
things one, there's going to be a part of you during the
semester that you might think that I am like your right wing
champion and that like you know, I'm you know, going way too old
school and I just need, you know upfront.
Nope that's not what I'm actually trying to do.
I'm going to try and put you in a position where you can make an
informed decision about how to lead yourself and your family.
And I'm going to put your in the Receipt, you're the expert.
What I want to do is I want to make sure you're at least giving
yourself the opportunity to have the conversations.
And in order to do that, I want to kind of talk to you today
with a pastoral voice. And, you know, we can use a lot
of different voices. You know, we can sometimes talk
from a leadership voice and cast a compelling vision and paint a
clearer picture of how we're going to get to our future and
that's all well and good. And and we can sometimes, you
know, we can have kind of a counselor voice and help us
navigate eight through some of the emotions or we can be a
teacher and help us understand something more fully today.
I really want to kind of speak to you with a pastoral heart and
you kind of have to give me permission to do that because
you know, you get to decide how much of you know of your pastor.
I get to be your not but let me explain what I'm getting at.
When the Bible talks about pastors, it usually uses the
imagery of a shepherd. That a good.
Pastor is a Good Shepherd. In a Shepherd, does a really
good job of taking care of his sheep?
And so, what a Shepherd supposed to do is go, hey sheep, look at
that water. That's some really good water.
You should drink that water, and look at that grass.
That is some really good grass. You should eat that grass and
that that's a wolf. Wolves bite.
You shouldn't go anywhere close to that thing.
And those are thistles and you know, the way God Made You, you
got a lot of wool on you if you get in those thistles.
You're going to get hung up and stuck and that's poop and we
don't eat poop. Okay, that's that's what that's
what a Shepherd does. And so what I want to do today
is I want to kind of talk to you the Pastoral heart and go.
Hey guys, those are thistles, those are wolves, and I wouldn't
eat that. And you listen, you make the
decision but I feel like I have an obligation to spend a little
bit of time, talking about something that I think is,
impacting us all, we're all aware of it, but maybe, We're
not necessarily taking the steps that we need to take to address
it. Here we go.
When I was growing up, we had choices.
Everything was a different conversation.
We had a phone in our house. And then what we did is some of
you. We had friends who they went out
and spent money on like the 150 foot long cord, that could go
from the kitchen down the hall into their daughter's room into
the bathroom and into her walk-in closet.
And this thing just spun all the way anybody.
How many of you guys have that phone?
Oh yeah, okay, yeah, and then some of us, some of you grew up
a little rich. You had call waiting.
You're on the phone. One moment, please.
Hello. Yes, he is here but I'm on the
other line, right? Yeah.
Okay. Some of you you came from like
super rich people and at Christmas like, you got your own
phone line at the house, like, you had a separate line.
You guys were total Ballers and like you would give like after
Christmas, you give somebody your number, like I still
remember Nikki's phone number. Oh 58-37, 20 585, Sarah orts.
372 7631. This is back.
When you actually remembered people's phone numbers, like,
you knew Pizza Hut, like you knew Papa, John's like you knew
him, you called him up and I like, what's up, man?
They just knew your voice. Well, I guess.
Same thing saying, yeah, I want, you know, I want to pepperonis
on with the stuff Crescent, you know, where to deliver it
because you know who this is, That's How okay, yeah, this is
it's a whole different world. Some of you like, tell me more
okay, like we were so young in the cell phone game That my
dad's phone number is nine one of his phone numbers is nine
thousand. One of them is two thousand and
one of them is 9,500, that's how early we were to the cell phone
game. Okay?
Now, before I before, the cell phone game came, there was
though the wireless phone. Remember when you got one of
those, no wires had the big long.
Antennae that when you're my height get stuck in the ceiling
fan. Okay.
Here's walking through there. I can't hear you.
Okay? And it was huge member Have that
thing and you put it on and like wrapped all the way around your
face. You need a spotter when you're
walking around with it. Okay.
And so whether or not you were going to get one of those was a
big deal because it was a big investment.
Then there was a discussion of whether or not we got the TV in
my room. And there's a discussion about
whether or not we were going to get cable, fun fact, my parents
have never had cable. They have watched whatever was
free their whole lives. If they wanted to watch a game
that was going to be on cable kid, you not?
They would rent a hotel room. Because I had came with cable
but no joke, or they just hang out in the lobby at a hotel.
Like we're just like, okay, this is how it is part of that was
because of the finances and part of it was because some of the
programming that was on cable, late at night, wasn't
necessarily suitable for the spiritual development of a
family. Then there was a discussion
about whether or not we were going to have a gaming device.
There was going to be the you know, can I have the Nintendo?
No, Super Nintendo. Nope.
Can I have the Sega Genesis? Yeah, Street Fighter.
No couldn't have that either. In fact, I did not get a gaming
device until I was a junior in college and I paid for it with
my own money. A lot of my friends had game
boys so they can play Tetris in the car ride.
Yeah, I didn't get that either. Then and this is going to make
some of you go. How old is Clayton?
Listen, I am very young and attractive, okay, I was a
freshman in high school when I logged onto the internet for the
first time, I remember the it loading slowly as I looked up
stock prices, you're like Clayton, you're a freshman
looking up stock prices. Yes, suckers I was wish out
about Google. Okay, and I mean, this was back
when Ask Jeeves was where you hung out, okay?
And I remember it loading and back then, you couldn't we got
internet at my parents house and you bought it by the minute.
We bought like a an hour of internet for the whole month.
Spend it wisely kids, and you spent 28 of it loading, right?
And you couldn't sneak onto the internet at your house. you
know, if you know Right? You couldn't you couldn't just
be online. They like everybody's waking up
thinking that there's a tornado know that I'm just pulling up
Yahoo that's what I'm doing. Okay, you guys have been there.
Now we give our kids a phone and we're giving them all of this
and more. They're getting a phone, a
messaging device. The internet VCR.
Some of your like VCR tell you ask her parents.
It's super cool email and a gaming device.
There was a time when our kids were isolated from the craziness
that we saw on the east coast and the West Coast.
Some of the things that we saw and heard is Dan.
Rather reported in the evening news, our kids were kept from if
they wanted to see something explicit content, you had to go
into the video store and you had to go to the very back and you
had to go into a room that was off-limits to anybody who wasn't
over the age of 18. And there was a video camera
there to make sure that nobody went in there.
That wasn't supposed to go in there.
If you wanted to get us other kinds of content, you had to go
to the gas station and you add to ask the lady who was working
at the register to reach behind the register and grab something,
and you had to call it by name. And then she picked it up and it
came in a black thing and they put it on the tip you had to ask
for it. And now all the things that we
used to be able to protect our kids from are now sent to them
on their phone, Jesus uses a perfect illustration of what
it's like trying to lead through change and this is what he says.
In Matthew chapter 9, no one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth
on an old garment. For the patch will pull away
from the Garment making the tear worse.
Neither do people pour new wine into Old wineskins?
If they do the Skins will burst and the wine will run out and
the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new
wineskins and both are preserved.
The goal of this sermon is to make sure that things don't
burst things aren't ruined but that you and your family are
preserved. In other words, the new patch of
Technology will not work with the parenting styles that you
inherited from your parents. The newness of Technology will
burst our old parenting techniques and there is too much
that is changed and there is too much at stake.
We need new methods while our desires can be the same and our
principles may be the same our method and our approach.
Must be drastically, different and Kingdom focused.
God gives us a cheat code on how to live the life that we were
designed to live. You can find the cheat code and
Proverbs chapter 4 he says above all else preeminent.
Number one, Numero Uno. Get this thing right above all
else, guard your heart. The most important thing for you
to do, is to guard your heart. Why, why is this important?
He tells us for everything, you do flows from it.
We must be committed to guarding our hearts and the hearts of our
kids. And I hear regularly parents
talking about the frustration that they have with social media
and the impact that it is having on their kids and they have
plenty to be frustrated by the link between social media and
depression is staggering with some studies, showing a 66%
increase. Hear that?
but since the introduction of the smartphone between 8th grade
and 12th grade between that subset of people among girls in
that age category, the suicide rate for girls has gone up by
65% The studies are completely conclusive.
The more time you spend on Instagram, the more you will
struggle with anxiety. Kids with smartphones who get to
take them to bed are getting one less hour of sleep than parents
who make their kids turn in their phones before they go to
bed. And that one hour is robbing
them of the time that they need for the brain to restore and
develop and be healthy, which means it makes it harder for
them to learn which makes it harder for them to pass.
Get good grades in school which makes it harder for them to
compete in the marketplace long term, which will long-term have
economic impact negatively for them.
Also changes the way that their brain is a healed.
So that way, they have a harder time relating to people the next
day, which means that they're gonna have a harder time
relating with you, their parent. Which means that that an extra
hour of sleep is actually putting more tension on a
relationship that already has. A lot of tension.
And as you try to navigate from control to consultant, you're
doing it with the kid. That's not actually in a proper
place to be able to receive coaching and consultation.
Everybody say five. Five years ago.
Sixty-two percent of teenagers say they have received a nude
image on their phone. That was five years ago.
Five years ago, forty percent say they have sent one.
I know why Miss in the sermon. You guys are all going.
Not my kid, but I can promise you.
There is not another church somewhere.
Where all of them. We're going.
I guess it's all of us. This is real.
Furthermore, you're having to fight an algorithm.
And this algorithm is hard to fight because the algorithm is
smarter than you. It is designed to keep your
attention and keep your focus. Everything about it is designed
to keep things moving. Have you noticed that when
you're scrolling through Netflix, it already starts
playing the video. When you pull up YouTube on your
phone, do you notice how to automatically go straight to the
shorts sometimes because it just wants to suck you in.
The whole purpose is for you to spend a little bit more time
looking, and it notices, what you look at, it notices, what
you cook on it, notices, how long you pause over certain
content and certain articles, it notices, how long you linger.
Even if you don't click on it it notices how long you watch it
without even the sound being on? And then it begins to send you
more and more similar content. Recently a pastor on Twitter you
know from like a pretty proudful standpoint says parents, keep
all your kids off a tick tock because my Tick Tock feed is
nothing but girls who aren't dressed appropriately dancing.
Like, there's some comments in the one person wrote.
Hey, dude. It's an algorithm.
The reason why your feet looks like that is because that's what
you look at it. That's what happens is the
algorithm creates a world in which you think that everybody
believes exactly what you believe in.
Everybody is seeing exactly what you see.
If you notice how many people get caught up in a conspiracy
theory because you read one article from crazy people and
the algorithm says, oh, you like crazy things.
I'll send you more crazy things and you see more and more crazy
things than eventually you see everybody who's crazy as normal
because that's all you, see? And then when somebody else
tries to talk to you about how crazy you are, all you can do is
see the Front of you that you've known your whole life as the
crazy person and the people you trust are the people you've
never met. Online.
Parents, what happens in the algorithm is, your daughter is
having a bad day. She doesn't feel as pretty as
she normally does. And so, she hops on and for some
reason because she's just kind of down and having kind of a
challenging day. She gravitates to somebody else
who's having a difficult day and so she clicks on that video and
she watches that video. And that video is talks about a
girl who's struggling with her body image and well, the longer
your daughter watches that thing on body image.
The algorithm goes, this girl likes to watch content about
girls who struggle with body image.
And so it starts, populating her feed with more and more girls
who are struggling with, how they look.
And then all of a sudden, your precious little girl who you see
as absolutely beautiful and who is radiant by every standard and
all of a sudden she's realizing that my goodness look at all
these girls looks like everybody has a problem with the way that
their body looks and if those girls have a problem with the
way that their body looks and their body looks better than
mine, maybe I should have a problem with the way that my
body looks because my body doesn't look as good as theirs.
There's an overtime. Your daughter starts to
experience depression thoughts of self-harm or maybe begins to
wrestle with anorexia or bulimia.
Parents who have sons. Your son is trying to figure out
how to navigate his emotions in his hormones and there's no
doubt about it. He likes the sight of pretty
girls and from what I've been told the internet's full of
pictures of women and so he finds himself online and he sees
a picture of a pretty girl and then he sees another picture of
a pretty girl in the algorithm goes whoever's on this device
really likes pictures of pretty girls and then it notices which
kind of pictures he stays out longer and which kind of
pictures. Do you think your son would stay
at and look at longer and all of a sudden you're innocent child,
he wants one day to have a great and compelling relationship with
his wife. There's all of a sudden
bombarded by just pictures of pretty girls in overtime.
It erodes his desire to love and care and nurture and overtime.
It teaches him to objectify, women, as a way for him, to get
take care of his desires instead of a way for him to serve and
love and care. This is how kids end up
experimenting sexually and how they end up experimenting with
drugs. This is how kids end up eating
Tide Pods I know that sounds crazy.
There was a time when I laughed a ton about like the whole tide
pod crais because I'm like, like they know, it's so bright.
And I mean, this weekend is I was doing laundry humblebrag.
My house. We have Tide Pods And I'll be
darned if they haven't made those things impossible to get
out of the bag. And I'm sitting there thinking
like how did this happen? Listen it wasn't from absent
parents, it wasn't from bad parents.
They're those kids who are eating Tide Pods, their parents
look, just like you and me. It was that those kids is feeds.
Got filled with the world of people who are eating detergent
and getting popular for it and the kids were like, I guess I
could probably try and eat one too.
Look what it says in Ephesians 5.
Be very careful then how you live not as unwise but as wise
making the most of every opportunity because the days are
evil. Parents, be careful, be wise,
make the most of every opportunity because the days are
evil as Christians. We have a choice.
We can either reject receive, or redeem technology.
Some of you may choose right now to reject it and go, you know
what, the we're not going to be doing it.
We're tapping out, or Of you might say, you know what, not
now maybe later we'll have that discussion but we're not going
to be having that happen. Now I hear a lot of parents, get
frustrated saying that their kids are always on their phone.
And inside, I always want to say, you know, you can take it
away, right? Like like you can you can take
it away. Are you can get a phone that
just talks and texts and that's it.
So you know that they got to where they were supposed to go
safely and when they need to reach out to you and get in
touch with you, they can you could buy the Light phone.
This is a phone that was put together by a group of guys that
were at Google and they got charged to develop a new app and
what they realized is the world doesn't need another app, it
needs a phone that doesn't have apps and so they created this
like yeah, here you go kid. You know, when you get cold call
me, I'll pick you up. Hear me some of your kids.
Some of your kids are going to wrestle with anxiety,
depression, self-harm low, self-esteem, explicit, content,
and Suicidal Thoughts. Because of their use of
technology and social media. And some of you might need to
make a tough call today, in order to have a better future
with your kids. Tomorrow, most of us are way
more educated about alcohol and its effects on our kids than we
are about social media. And I'm telling you, social
media and Technology are going to have a much more profound
impact on your kid than a Jack and Coke ever will.
Some of your kids are listening to me right now and you're going
of all the services for us to come to God.
Why do you hate me? Can I come here?
I need you to hear me say this. We are for you.
And I am telling you that there is a life for you to live an
experience that is infinitely better than anything.
You can watch on a device and I know it's hard.
Okay I appreciate I appreciate that.
Just remember who clapped We're going to have to love our kids
through this. Because it has become an
addiction that they're going to have to be freed from and some
of them are going there. Freaking out right now like what
our mom and dad are going to do after church, and you need to
lovingly help them through because you let them get there.
You let them get hooked. Now, so you can reject it, you
can receive it go. Hey, social media is good.
I want to know how my grandma is doing on Facebook and I want to
know how my aunt's doing and look.
How good she is at making cakes. She's so good.
And youyou need that information in your life and some of you
want to know how to change a tire.
And so you want, YouTube, okay, you're going to receive it, but
you're not going to spend all your time on it and there might
be some of you are going. You know what, I want to redeem
it. I want to be a force for good.
I want to go out there and and Encouraging content to uplift
people. I want to be a light in a dark
place, and you can do that too. And I mean, like, for me, I try
carefully not to be on it too much.
I don't even answer my messages. There's a team of people here
that do it because I try not to be on it that much.
Because if I get on and I might not I might not get out, right?
Some of your like oh yeah Clayton we get eat each other,
we can redeem it. We can we can choose to just
post and maybe you know not spend a whole lot of time
scrolling as much but the other challenge that we're facing with
technology. Is how it affects our time
because it will, it will it creates a Time trap and the
algorithm is specifically designed to steal your time in
the beginning of the year. I preached a sermon about
sometimes when it comes to starting a relationship with
Jesus Christ, it just takes time.
And one of the most important factors that you need as a
parent with your kids to help raise them in a way that honors,
the Lord is you need time. And I heard this a while back, I
don't know who to give this credit for.
I'm going to walk you through these things because I've never
been able to forget. But I need you to know that I
didn't come up with it but I don't know who to give credit
to. Okay, so I don't want you going
man. Clayton is really getting smart.
Nope. This is not me.
Okay, look at this. Time overtime is history and if
you lose time, you don't have history and you're going to need
history with your kids. As you try to become a
consultant in their future. Love over time.
That's how your child gets worth.
And if you'd lose time with your kids, they're not going to have
a sense of their worth. They're not gonna be able to see
themselves through God's eyes, and they're not gonna be able to
see themselves through your eyes and listen to me.
Love overtime is the most is the most powerful.
It's more powerful consistently than it ever is in grandiose
moments. You see those people who spend
big money on weddings and big money on honeymoons and big
money on cars and big money on a cool experience.
Listen, if you can do that. Cool, great.
But listen to me. Those grandiose moments are not
more powerful than regular time with your mom and dad.
Like, daily time with your mom and dad.
That's where you're going to win inconsistency in every day,
every week, every month, making strategic Investments to show
them, your love. That's more powerful than
anything you could ever purchase words over time.
That's Direction. And if you lose time, you're not
gonna be able to guide them. When you're no longer in control
stories over time, that's perspective.
This is how you get your kids to see the bigger picture and
they'll see your words. As if you don't have time,
they're going to see your words as controlling.
Instead of wise counsel. Tribe over time.
That's belonging. The word we would use here at
the Crossing is circles circles over time as belonging the
longer they have with the better Circle, the greater sense of
belonging that they will have those spend more time being
accepted by you than trying to be accepted by nameless.
Faceless people online, a child with a strong sense of belonging
will not spend all their time trying to fit in because they
already have a significant place in their own Circle.
And fun overtime is connection and if you don't have time with
your kids you will not have fun with your kids.
We were working on, rehabbing our 02:18 Ministries, we met
with leaders, all across the country and one of the things
that one of the leaders we met with said, was brilliant, we
couldn't shake it. He said, fun is the language of
kids. Have you ever noticed that the
younger child is, the more they laugh and play and then you look
at you, right? If you want to speak kids, you
need to learn to speak fun. Serious question.
When was the last time you had like, so much fun with your kid
that your head was like back, your throat was completely
exposed your stomach hurt. Your sides were like, wow, It's
in those fun moments that we have connections with our kids,
that's when we speak their language and we need to make
time for memories, lots and lots of memories, some of them
planned in some of them spontaneous, I need you to hear
me say this, my wife went on a girls trip with the women in my
family this week because it was spring break.
Okay. And so I was, I was at home with
the boys and I wrote this sermon on Monday and Tuesday.
And I had them spend the days on their iPad so I could write this
message. I need you to, I'm coming to you
as one of you. So on Wednesday, I loaded them
up and I took them up to my parents house is about an hour
away. I bought it you know 12-pack of
Mountain Dew, grabbing another guy who works on staff and his
two dogs which are Border Collies and we have the one of
those ugly goldendoodles. And so they thought it was a
sheep. And so they basically just
hurted my dog for hours because I loved it.
I was like watching, I was like, yeah, make him run.
Okay, it didn't cost us too much.
I mean, we had to drive an hour, which was, you know, like 800
bucks in gas, but for the most part, like pretty Double and
I'll guess listen to what we did.
We drink Mountain Dew. We watched our dog, getting
hurted. We rode four-wheelers and we
just walked in the woods and you two thought.
My boys were walking on the surface of the Moon.
They thought they were Lewis and Clark.
Not once. Did they ask for their iPad?
Here's the problem. I did math this week.
From the time, your kid enters into kindergarten all the way
until they graduate from high school.
You have 4745 days with them. That's what you have.
It's it. That's 113,000, 8:00.
Of that time. You're going to spend if you're
lucky, they're going to sleep eight hours a day.
Some of you with young kids, God bless you, it's coming one of
these days, they'll be teenagers and you won't be able to get
them out of bed till 11 a.m. on a Saturday.
They'll learn to sleep, God bless them.
If you sleep 8 hours a day which is what your doctor recommends,
1/3 of the remaining time you have with your kids is gone.
If you're a parent and you love your kids and you love the Lord
and you're capable, you're going to do the honorable thing and
you're going to go get a job and you're going to work hard to
provide for them and make sure that they have a chance to have
their needs met. And so, you're going to spend
thirty two hundred and fifty days at work 26,000 hours.
If you divide all that by 24, you're going to spend 1083 total
days at work. That is 1/4.
You've lost 1/3 to sleep. You've lost 1/4 to work.
This is all you have left. That's it. 2081 24-hour time
periods with your kids. The average person spends 5
hours a day on their phone. Those of you who have iPhones
during this message, you've received your iPhone report.
You know, I'm preaching the gospel.
The average American spends five hours a day on their phone over
the next 13 years. They're going to spend 988 days
on their phone. They're going to spend half of
the remaining time they have left with their kids on their
phone. remember, when you were clapping about kids getting off
their phone, they want you to get off yours.
Like you're clapping like, man. My kidneys to put the phone
down. Yeah, this is what adults are
spending not kids, kids is worse.
But why would they put their phone down?
if you're not putting, give them an alternative, this guy, This
guy right here. Oh, this little guy, these 17
days. Well the average person at our
church comes to church, 1.8 times a month, which means
they're going to come 21.6 weekends a year.
If you were to be here for an hour and a half, which means
you'd be here, 15 minutes early and stay 15 minutes late.
And I know you That ain't you? We're going to get 17 days with
your kid. 17. Total.
Why do you think? We push Camp so hard?
Because it's a force multiplier in the spiritual development of
your kid's life? We're not asking you to send
your kid to camp for us. We're begging you to send your
kid to camp on behalf of your kid.
Because we only get 17 days. And then our people here at our
church are good. They're not that good.
Because they're going to spend fifty eight more times on their
phone, they're going to be discipled by this.
And you think we're going to try and fix it with 17 days against
988 and look how much time you have with them.
I can barely lift this thing. We're given half of it to our
phones. Is that how you want it to be?
Look at this verse in First Corinthians, I have the right to
do anything. You all have a right to
technology. You all have a right to social
media. You have a right to it.
All you say, but not everything is beneficial.
I have the right to do anything but not everything is
constructive. No one should seek their own
good but the good of others, I want some of you to ask
yourself. This question is this beneficial
is this constructive? And is this good for my family?
Here's what I want you to do at all of our locations, I have two
challenges for you. One I want you to attend the
tech class that we're offering at are different locations
because there are tools that we want to put in your tool belt to
help you navigate your kids usage of Technology.
Okay, you get to make the decision of how you want to do
it but we if you're going to use it we at least want you to be
informed. So you know, how to navigate it.
And our people have been working on this because we love you and
we're for you and we want you to win at home.
Second thing, here's the challenge, this week, at least
two nights, everybody say, at least, at least two nights are
like, if you're going to leave our church leave after you do
this, okay, two nights this week from six to eight.
I want you to turn your phone off.
All of them turn your TV's off. All of it, no devices.
You like well, what if Grandma dies she ain't going to call you
anyway. Like right now, I got me.
I'm never. I mean, if you're getting calls
from dead people, you know, call me.
Okay, listen, there's gonna be a day where Grandpa or Grandma or
something bad is going to happen, but you are not listen
to me. You are not leaving your phone
off for all of those things. Like some of your like I'm an ER
doctor. Yeah, you have a pager which is
weird that you make all that money and you still Rock a pager
but cool some of your like, what's a pager?
Yeah. That's what I'm getting at.
Look at me two hours, you're not going to solve any of it and two
hours, you can pick up the pieces.
You've all been on planes. And you've made it to hours
without your phone ringing and guess what?
The world just kept on spinning because you're not that
important. You just need to recognize that
turn it off. What are we going to do for two
hours? Clayton?
Check it out. It's going to sound crazy.
Cook a meal. It might not be that delicious.
Eat it. Anyway with your kids, go for a
walk. Throw a ball.
Play a board game. Make a memory at least twice
this week and at the end of the week, I want you to ask yourself
this question, was it better? And you already know I'm right.
You already going. This is I can't wait make
spaghetti and wear white shirts and make it into a Color Run.
You make a memory and don't stop halfway through it to Post
online and brag about how cool your spaghetti shirts are.
Just be in the moment and stop trying to be a celebrity, just
be a mom, just be a dad. Go on a walk and do something
silly to a neighbor laugh. like, Some of your like why I'm
single, what should I do? But your phone down.
Go grab a meal, read your Bible, find someone who you want to be
like and take him out to eat and just talk to him.
Find someone that you want to invest in and spend time with
them. Stop trying to escape all the
time and Technology. Here's what's happening.
We are slowly over time being convinced that our life is not
worth living. And the best thing we can do
with our life is to watch other people live their lives online.
And what you're saying is that you don't think your life has
value and purpose and meaning and significance because you
don't have anything to contribute and add and change.
We are watching other people. Instead of living the life that
God breathed into us. We are watching what God
breathed into others. Instead of offering our piece of
the contribution, you might not think your life was worth all
that much. But I need you to know.
It was worth enough that God sent his son.
In fact, he was willing to send his son to die so that way you
could live. You might be looking at your
life going. I don't have that much to offer.
I need you to know. It was enough that God sent his
son to offer on your behalf. Stop wasting the life that God
is trying to redeem. I want you to think about that,
as we're moving to a time of decision.
It's been weird, a lot of old people really like this sermon.
I had someone on Thursday night, come up to me with tears, in his
eyes saying that whole sermon reminded me of my dad who every
time when he came home for work, he would take me out in the
backyard and he would throw the ball back and forth with me and
it wasn't long before. All the kids in the neighborhood
were in my backyard. And I got a little frustrated,
all my friends came over to play, catch with my dad and
little, I didn't realize that. I was the lucky one, who had a
dad, who would spend time with his kid.
And all the other kids in my neighborhood, were just hungry
for someone to invest in them. And I know there's plenty of
dads in this room who are frustrated with what you're
seeing in the world. And I'm wondering, you're
frustrated what you see in your neighborhood.
And I'm wondering if anything would be different.
If instead of complaining about it, you got you went to Dick's
and you bought a new glove today.
And you went home and you just said, alright, well, we're going
to play catch. Until your arm hurts?
Or my arm hurts, you're not making memories watching a
movie. Do something with them.
Mom's, I wonder what would happen if you were to, like,
open up your home, and let some kids come in and hang out and
laugh with them and sit around the table, and tell stories, and
tell jokes, and make mac and cheese just spend time with
them. I don't know, parents are some
of you in here that I'm writing this sermon, I get done with it,
I preaching on Thursday, I'm watching the NCAA tournament
late on Friday night and a commercial comes on by Duracell
and they're telling you which brand you should pick and
they're going. Because if you pick the wrong
one then it flashes to a kid in the car screaming because you
don't want your battery to die. Because of the battery dies,
you're going to have to interact with your kid.
You're choosing which battery you want based on whether or not
you have to interact with your kid.
And by in here, old enough to remember, when it was the car
rides that you actually got to ask that questions.
It was when Mom would tell you stories.
And what do we do? God forbid, we get in the car
and go somewhere without something to turn on.
And we are going to wake up one day and they will be gone and we
will want them to know that God loves them and he cares for them
and that he believes in that they can do great things but
they We'll never hear it. Because they'll never hear it
from us. Here's what I'm asking you to
do. I'm asking you to take these two
challenges parents. I'm asking you to come up here.
Get down on your knees and pray that God will bring about
clarity about how you are supposed to proceed and we need
to proceed in humility, parents. If you're going home thinking
your kids, the problem. Chances are your kid, doesn't
have a job. They didn't buy it, you gave it
to them. Thinking you were cool and you
like yours just as much as they like, there's we're going to
have to leave through this one with a lot of humility.
But I think deep down inside, I know you want it.
You want a different family, you want to win.
Well, it's start that. To the rest of you in this room,
you're going man. What is up with this church?
Listen, hear me. We're going to get back to it,
trust me. But we needed to just pause and
spend some serious time. Helping people went home.
But the core belief that our church is that anybody can have
an intimate personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
You heard me say that the end of my message, your life has
purpose and value. Not only did God create you, he
sent his son to redeem you. And if you've been coming to
this church for a really long time and you've never started
that relationship, we'd like to help you answer some of the
questions you I have about how to start it then it just a few
moments me and somebody else we're gonna be right over by
that baptistry. And we would love to talk to you
about what that looks like because we believe that will be
one of the best decisions I've ever made.
Would you guys stand with me? God, use this moment right now,
in a powerful way to bring about a change.
That only, you can bring got as we get down on our knees as we
pray to, you gotta meet us here, meet us in a profound way.
I'm asking you to heal and redeem and restore things that
are broken in our home. And draw those who are far away
clothes, you know, my praying.