Sermon Tone Analysis

So just a few years ago, the movie Noah with Russell Crowe came out.

It was very loosely based on the biblical account.

It did follow a man named Noah and his family, he did build an ark, and there was a flood that wiped out the world, but other than that it was very very different from the real story.

It was interesting for me at the time to witness how different groups in the church were responding to the film.

There were those who were so critical of the movie, they said, it was such blasphemy to God that you would distort the story so much, that we’re going to boycott it and have public protests to convince Hollywood never to make a movie like this again.

This group was very negative, almost hostile, toward anyone who supported the film.

Of course, the boycott meant nothing, the film still made a ton of money.

The second group looked at the first group and said, ya’ll are nuts, you’re such a bad witness for Jesus!

You should just go see the movie and accept it for what it is.

Jesus would never have been this negative toward other people.

In other words, just accept the movie 100%, and stop being so critical.

Then there was a third group that kind of looked at the other two and said, you both are crazy, let me write a bunch of blogs with all my analysis of what both of you are getting wrong.

This third group did a really good job of analyzing the movie at a philosophical level,and pointing out how the movie reflected other cultural narratives that are dominant in our society such as environmentalism, vague spirituality, and so on.

Here’s the funny thing.

Each of these groups represent one piece of the pie on a proper Christian response to the culture.

The first group was right that we should be careful of what we accept from the culture, but by making an idol out of purity and our own morals, they took it so such an extreme that they isolated themselves in a bubble from others.

The second group was right that Jesus was compassionate toward outsiders, and he was kind.

But he also had a lot to say about not distorting God’s Word and upholding the holiness of God.

So the second group, by making an idol out of being approved and accepted by the culture, lost their distinctiveness, their saltiness, and could no longer make any kind of Christian impact on the culture around them.

The third group was right in that Christians should be wise, “wise as serpents” as the Scripture says, and we should be able to analyze the culture to the degree that we understand the false idols and narratives of society around us.

But my making an idol out of wisdom and knowledge, they turned Christianity into an intellectual mind game rather than the redeeming and restorative message of God’s work in the world.

You see what each of these groups were missing, and what almost nobody was talking about when Noah came out, was how do we engage the culture.

How do we bring Christ to bear on the world in our current cultural moment?

How can we redeem this movie and use it as an opportunity for cultural witness to engage others with the good news of Jesus?

If we only focus on morality and moralism, we’re going to become like the first group.

If we only try to become accepted by the culture, we’re going to lose all of the things that make Christians unique and distinct.

If we only focus on knowledge and cultural critique, we’re going to turn Christianity just into another philosophy that dies on the pages of the history books.

But the Christian’s posture toward culture is to be one of engagement.

In , Paul uses this language of being citizens of heaven.

I think when most Christians hear that, they think, ok, this simply means I’m supposed to look forward to leaving earth and going to heaven, because that’s my true home.

But that isn’t what this text meant to its audience.

The city of Philippi in Greece was a Roman colony, where many people have the privilege of Roman citizenship.

This citizens of a colony were not supposed to desire going back to their home country, in this case, Roman citizens in a Roman colony weren’t supposed to desire going back to Rome.

Their job was to secure Philippi by infiltrating the culture to make it more like Roman culture.

So by telling Christians that we are citizens of heaven, Paul is telling us to permeate the culture of this world with a heavenly culture.

We are supposed to be engaged, working as those who belong to the kingdom now, even while we wait for the kingdom to come.

So, two texts I want us to look at for the next few minutes, and I gave them both to you so you could see the parallel and the repeated emphasis, particularly in the New Testament, for our posture of cultural engagement.

Of course I could give you several others from the Bible, but we’re focusing on these 2 for now.

And there’s 2 things I want to focus in on: 1) Making the best use of the time, and 2) Our posture toward others

Making the Best Use of the Time ()

There are a lot of words that we could use to describe the world that we live in.

Here’s a big one though, I think.

You and I live in a world of distraction.

We’re distracted by things all the time, running here and there, always busy, but never actually getting anything done.

And the biggest culprit of our distraction is sitting right here in our pockets.

Our phones.

Our phones – and all other pieces of technology – are not inherently sinful.

They’re a tool that could be used either for great blessing or great foolishness.

It’s much like money.

Money is not evil.

The love of money is.

Smartphones are not evil.

But the love of what smartphones offer us: distraction, temporary pleasure – that is evil.

Listen, everything I’m about to say about our use of smartphones, I’m preaching to myself, ok.

I’ve been doing a lot of research in this area for a long time, and it wasn’t until recently that I’ve become more convicted about my own use of the phone.

I love my phone.

I do.

I love Instagram and posting funny Instagram stories.

I love the games that I play.

But I’m becoming more and more aware of how much time I’m wasting, how undisciplined I’m becoming.

I’m becoming more aware of the fact that I can’t sit down to read without a compulsion to check my phone every 5 minutes.

It’s not healthy, and it’s a distraction from making the best use of the time that God has given to me.

One of my goals for the next few months is to work with my wife to come up with better limitations for ourselves in our smartphone use.

It is universally agreed by psychologists and social scientists that the more addicted to our phones we are, the more distracted we are.

The more addicted to distracted we are, the more likely you are to be depressed, anxious, lose sleep, and become unrelated to others in person.

My mom is a professor at American University in Washington D.C., and she has long been noticing the changes in students from year to year as they are taking her classes.

She has noticed that her students seem more anxious and distracted than ever before.

So I’ve been helping her do some research and studies on how students are using their smartphones and the impact that this might have on their education.

We’ve done studies in her class, and we recently partnered with another university in Brazil to do some studies as well.

And all of our research is pointing to a profound change in how people learn and interact with the world.

College students today across the board say that they always have their smartphones on them, next to them, they’re constantly checking them while they study or write their papers, they sleep right next to their phone…we’re always plugged in, which means we are never fully engaged with the people and the tasks that are right in front of us.

When we’re always distracted, we are unable to make best use of the time that God has given to us.

The world we live in is distracted, but that does not mean it should make us distracted.

We must be conformed to Christ, who is purposeful, intentional, engaged – not conformed to this world.

There are several cautions I could give you about smartphones, far too many for the time that we have together.

I do want to recommend to you 2 books called 12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You, and Do.More.Better.

Read these with your youth group, read them with your friends, read them with your parents, and use them to figure out how to make the best use of your time.

However, I do want make a couple points here, and urge you to really consider why should improve the way you use your time.

My point here is not to put guilt or shame on anyone, because guilt and shame are not good motivators for change.

It just makes us feel worse.

Instead, I want to give you a better vision for the good life and the great purpose that God has for you in this world.

1) Pornography

Most pornography use happens on smartphones.

Almost all of it.

That is because it has become just incredibly easy to look things up on google from our phones.

It is an incredible temptation.

Now, we have already talked about some of the consequences of pornography this morning.

I’m not going to go through that again.

But I do want to say this.

The heart that is addicted to pornography is burdened by all kinds of other sin, not just the sin of treating other people like objects.

The porn-addicted heart is stubborn, hardened to the fruit of the Spirit, arrogant, proud, cynical, often angry, always selfish.

It has to be.

The only way we can be numb to the sin of our pornography addiction is if our heart is infected with all these other sins at the same time.

And the more we are enslaved to these sins, the less we can fulfill the purposes God has for us.

God has a glorious purpose for us, that is to be a colonizer of his Kingdom, to spread his glory and fame in this world through the lives that we live.

Pornography takes us away from that purpose, focuses us inward, and causes us to live a life of shame and regret rather than purpose and satisfaction.

You may feel as if it isn’t a big deal because you can get away with it.

Maybe you’re deleting your search history so no one finds out.

But eternal regret will follow forever for the clicks you are making on your smartphone today.

Your search history is permanent before God, unless he shows us mercy and grace.