Social Media

INTRO: Caught in 4k = being caught on camera or w/ screenshots doing something illegal or frowned upon

a dog was caught in 4k on furbo tearing up the pillows

Student drove his car on the field of Los Alamos

Some TP wars have happened in our ministry

Gas Station theifs on Youtube

Brooke caught the homeless lady

I love seeing peoples reaction when they realize they have been caught red handed.

Man we would all live differently if we knew we were are CURRENTLY BEING caught in 4k. If we knew someone was watching us. BUt really we know that the reality is GOD SEES EVERYTHING. The way we dress, the way we play sports, play video games, the way we hang out with friends, the way treat our parents, the way we do our HW, the way we drive etc. GOD IS ACTIVELY WATCHING IT ALL and we need to LIVE like we believe that ESPECIALLY WHEN it comes to tonights topic of SOCIAL MEDIA!

PROP: Use your phone like God is watching, because He is

Psalm 139:7-12 “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, Even there Your hand will lead me, And Your right hand will lay hold of me. If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, And the light around me will be night,” Even the darkness is not dark to You, And the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to You.”

No matter where we go or what we do it is never EVER hidden from God, offline or online, VPN or public wifi God sees it all. Would your posts change if God was looking over your shoulder, would you feel comfortable scrolling on your feed if God was looking too? How would God feel about your screen time? Do you see your followers as REAL PEOPLE with souls? Does your account point them to Christ or allow them to walk towards Hell?

These aren’t hypothetical questions, they are necessary ones to answer if you claim Christ and own a phone.

Because in general teenage Christians have failed in their use of technology and more specifically social media. There is one sin that trumps them all when we look at social media and Christian youth, can you guess what it is? Pride? Lust? Selfishness? Those are present BUT ABOVE them all I believe is the sin of ungodliness.

You know Rom 1:18 “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,”

Ungodliness = living your life with little or no thought of God.

Notice the difference in Rom 1 between ungodliness and unrighteousness.

Unrighteousness refers to the way we act, think, talk thats disobedient to God

Ungodliness is an attitude or disposition that ignores or disregards God in general

MANY Moral people are ungodly. Many Christians, I believe are blind to their ungodliness.

You can read your bible every morning and pray before you eat and be ungodly.

When you get through a day and realize you haven’t thought of, talked about God you’ve just lived a ungodly day.

AND this is the dominating sin of social media, the one running rampant and the one you may be complacent with in your own life.

James 1:23-24 “For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was.”

PRAY: He who has ears let him hear

If you come tonight and recognize that this area of your life has not been intentionally used for Christ - YOU MUST CHANGE. Or else you are as James just said someone who looked in the mirror and had messy hair, stuff in their teeth, a big blemish and then walked out with no change looking gross.

You’re just a hearer of the Word NOT a Doer of it.

Listen tonight with a humble heart that is prepared to respond to God however he would have you.

We need to use our phones as if God was over our shoulder, we need to act as if God gets a notification every-time you tap your phone, he is receiving screenshots of everything you look at, you like, you comment.

If we have any hope of escape from UNGODLINESS ONLINE it starts with FEARING GOD ONLINE.

There is an app called covenant eyes that some of you are familiar with - for those who aren’t its a software many people put on their phones that blocks inappropriate content and websites AND it send daily and weekly reports of ALL your activity to your accountability partner like your parent, small group leader ETC.

It’s helpful BUT you all already have this in your life, God doesn’t need a software HE ALREADY sees it all, he doesn’t wait for a report to be sent, there isn’t anyway around his accountability. So use your phone like he gets a report. USE YOUR PHONE LIKE HE IS WATCHING BECAUSE HE IS

THESIS: In order to use our phone like God is watching, YOU must answer 4 questions TONIGHT!

1. Do your posts represent Christ?

Now by posts, I don’t just mean the picture and caption on IG. “Post” for tonight includes, commenting, DM’s, snapchats. Anything that you write or create and send to a person or share with followers.

Don’t have Social Media? - Posts now = texts you send in private or in groupchats, the way you act on facetime

Don’t have a phone or ipod or laptop? Post = the way you talk

1 Cor 10:31 “Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”

Matt 5:16 ““Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”

EVERYTHING you do must be for God’s glory. Nothing in life is to be neutral, nothing is to be separate from God, we cannot compartmentalize our lives into MY morning bible time and prayer is for God and then school I just grind out, youth group is for God but chick fil a after is just for fun.

EVERYTHING is either for God’s Glory OR for someone else's.

Your posts are to be intentionally and mindfully glorifying God = not just “I posted because I look cute, whats wrong with that?” OR “Me and the boys look like G’s”

PAUSE: This doesn’t mean every single post is a bible verse, it doesn’t even mean every post is OVER spiritualized [Like a sunset pic that says “God is the painter of the sun and the light that shines on me, I feel is warmth on my face every morning and light is good”]

What posting for God’s glory means is you recognize in the moment:

God sees and cares about what I am going to post/ say

Jesus died for me and because of that I want my life to be for Him

Now I will post this thing if it is in obedience to His word and is from a pure motive

Now I don’t have any social media apps because I chose awhile ago to get rid of them and just haven’t gotten them back BUT I was curious as to what YOU GUYS post, so i looked and the reality is MANY MANY MANY of you here tonight have ungodly accounts, not necessarily wicked or unrighteous BUT UNGODLY.

ILLUS: I was literally going to do this but I figured I better not, so just imagine that we brought out a TV and went through your posts, stories, DM, snapchat and texts over the past week IN FRONT OF EVERYONE HERE. OK, what if we stepped it up and this Sunday at church I went up for announcements, we dimmed the lights and I showed it in-front of the church.

Would you be uncomfortable? Embarrassed? Why?

If you have anything to be ashamed of then HEAR ME, you aren’t doing ALL to the glory of God, you’re not letting your light shine before all men, you’re not representing Christ... you're at best ungodly and at worst immoral

It’s funny because when we think about showing the WHOLE CHURCH our recent posts we squirm BUT THEY CAN ALL SEE IT! Most of you have over 200 followers this isn’t even an illustration its a reality.

But don’t fear what FBC thinks of your account FEAR God!

Do your posts represent Christ?

2. Is your feed pure?

Not only does God see what we post but he sees what we watch, what we look at and He gives us a prescription for what things we should and should not dwell on.

Phil 4:8 “Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.”

Remember, there is NO NEUTRALITY, with God - He is Holy - He isn’t iffy or vague on anything He is BLACK and WHITE.

SO when it comes to the things you look at, he doesn’t turn the other way… He cares

Can you honestly open up Tik Tok right now and scroll in obedience to this verse?

Now its not sinful if an ad pops up with something provocative and you see it for a moment and then flee from it, temptation is unavoidable to an extent in this life

BUT some of you follow accounts and people who actively and consistently post things that aren’t just toing the line but are out right immoral, crude and inappropriate

Eph 5:3 “But immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints;”

ILLUS: Lets go back to the TV but this time I’m not holding your phone, you are and instead of looking at the things you post we look at things you watch, we screen mirror you and all watch you scroll through your FYP for 20 min, then we watch you scroll through Instagram for 15 min, we watch all of your friends stories on snapchat, we read all of the messages, look at all the pic and watch all the videos n your group chats

Would you be uncomfortable? Ashamed? Embarrassed? Why?

Scroll like God is watching because He is.

Maybe tonight you unfollow some people or a lot of them

Maybe you cannot justify a certain app and so you need to delete it

If you feel convicted over any of your apps then don’t just make a half hearted commitment or lie and say YEAH I can handle it though, respond to God and dependently obey Him

Before we move on from your feed I’d like to encourage you to recognize the influence the things you look at have on you.

Matt 6:22-23 ““The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. “But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!”

“The eye is like a window which, when clear, allows light to shine through, but, when dirty, or bad, prevents light from entering.”

When our eye is clear, when it looks at and dwells on true and pure things OUR whole spiritual life is flooded with light, spiritual understanding.

But when our eye is bad, when it is constantly gazing upon and dwelling on impure things, when its constantly looking at what other people have and becoming greedy or envious OUR WHOLE SPIRITUAL LIFE IS DARK

Put simply - if your eyes are comparing you with how much prettier or stronger or better someones life is because of their relationship status, their family, their car, their wealth, their college. You life will be dark, lonely, anxious and depressed.

But when we dwell on things that a true honorable right pure etc and we really take our eyes off of ourselves and focus them on Christ and we set our minds on the things above we recieve light, joy, peace, patients, kindness, self control

The things YOU VIEW have a real AFFECT ON YOU

So is your feed, group-chat, camera roll pure? Is it something you could show God and thank Him for? If not you cannot just shrug it off BUT must respond in dependent obedience to God’s word!

3. Do you love Christ?

This is the most important question of all of them and has the most DIRECT and IMMEDIATE IMPACT on how you use your phone

John 14:15 ““If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.”

The true Christian obeys Christ and His Word, not perfectly but consistently and directionally their life is continually becoming more and more obedient to God

Maybe you’re here and your life is mostly “obedient to Christ” because thats what pleases your parents BUT as you evaluate this area of your life where your parents don’t have much oversight, you see it is in direct rebellion to Christ. Jesus doesn’t say “if you love your parents, you obey my commandment” And actually your eternity isn’t even dependent on your love for your parents but your love for Him. Love Christ FIRST and then see your online life change

Do you love Christ? And you believe he is watching and you care what he thinks - then take radical steps to be obedient to Him.

Our accounts shouldn’t just be “not bad”. They shouldn’t be as close to sin as possible. They should be clearly different from the world, they should be beacons of light to a dying and perverse generation. Ig and Twitter and Tik Tok ARE SO DEAD, SO FILLED WITH IMPURITY that when a believer posts it should be VERY EVIDENT that they are different. It should raise eyebrows. When people slide up it shouldn’t just be laughing but questioning.

I don’t have IG but lets say I did and I posted ALL THE TIME, like super active on it. I post everyday. But never ever posted Brooke. In fact I avoided posting about her or mentoning her.

That would raise some questions right? If I really loved her why would I not tell the hundreds of followers I have about her? Even further why would I avoid mentioning her?

If you looked at my instagram and couldn’t tell I was married. That would be a RED FLAG in the relationship.

There is no difference in your relationship with Christ. If I can look at your account and not be ABSOLUTLEY SURE that you are a Christian a true Believer who LOVES CHRIST - thats a red flag

Matt 10:33 ““But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven.”

Have you denied Christ online?

Your only hope is to confess Him as Lord! Rom 10:9 “that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved;”

Jesus Christ died for the sin of ungodliness, he died for the sin you commit on your phone, he paid the price for it IF you belive that then you will not continue in them

and if you trust in his work on the cross and resurrection from the dead and repent from your sins you will be saved from death to life, heaven to hell and have a life that bears fruit in His name

Conclusions:

Scroll like he’s watching

post like he is watching

text, send, talk, LIVE like God is watching BECAUSE HE is. Have a healthy fear of Him.

Wouldn’t you live differently if you knew you were caught by your friends in 4k? Wouldn’t you watch how you acted if you knew the camera was rolling?

God’s camera is rolling, in 4k of course and it captures every word, every action, every comment, text, post, everything you look at it, it even captures your thoughts and your heart AND when you die judgement comes, God will role the tape and if there is ONE sin thats enough to sentence you to Hell and we know theres much more than one sin, theres a life of it, of unintentional and fully intentional sin

Either Christ paid for it on the cross or you will pay for it in full

Turn from your sin and trust in Christ tonight.