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Good. Thank you so much. And I hope you're doing well. I want you to jab the person to your right and smack the person to your left and make sure they're wide awake, would you? Very good. Some of you have been looking for an opportunity to do such a thing, haven't you? That's great. All right, I want you to take your Bible with you this morning and open it to 1 Timothy chapter 4. And 1 Timothy chapter 4 and verse number 12 is a famous verse. I want to share it with you, give you just a couple of thoughts, and I'm going to talk to you about something that is of great interest to you. because it is something that is a big deal today. As a matter of fact, five years ago, I would not have spoken on this subject. It is fairly new in many respects, at least as far as its popularity is concerned. And I will try to help you a little bit this morning with the subject of social media. I want you to look at 1 Timothy chapter 4 and verse number 12, would you please? Let's read it out loud. You got it in front of you, 1 Timothy 4 verse 12? The Bible says, let no man despise thy youth. Let's try it again. That's Matthew, Mark, Luke, 1 Timothy. You got it? 1 Timothy chapter 4, verse number 12. We're all going to read together. Ready? Here we go. Let no man despise thy youth, but be thou an example of the believers in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity. Now, I want you to take your pen and I want you to underline These words ready, there's a list here. God wants us to be an example of believers in underlying word. What does word mean? Somebody tell me what does word mean? Right. What you say, how you say it. Stick your tongue out for a moment, would you please? Stick it out. It's an ugly sight, isn't it? Look, it weighs less than just about anything on your body, and yet it is the most dangerous, powerful tool you have. In word. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth. You tell on yourself. Look at me just for a moment. Most people don't think of it this way, but when you type something onto a computer, you're speaking just as much as you'd speak with your mouth. Which means that everything the Bible has to say about talking applies to what you post. It means that everything you text ought to line up with the way Jesus says you ought to talk. Do you remember when Simon Peter was standing around that fire? He's warming his hands by the devil's fire and they said, we know you. We know who you are. You're one of his disciples. And finally, he just kept swearing and saying, I'm not him. I don't know the man. And finally, somebody says, your speech, betrayeth you. I want you to know your speech betrays you. It either lets people know that you really are a true follower of Jesus, or it lets them know you're fake. But your words tell on you. So the Bible says being example number one in word. What's the next word? Underline it. In word and what? That's not the same thing as word. We use the word conversation for the way we talk today, but the word conversation here means the whole way you live. In other words, your life speaks as much as your words speak. Everything you do. Gypsy Smith was an old-timey preacher, had the power of God on him, and I love lots of things that he said, but Gypsy Smith said, there are five Gospels of Jesus, and most people will never read the first four. Then he said, here are the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and your life. And most people will never read the first four. Which means people are looking at our life to see if there's anything real about the Jesus we say we know and lives inside of us. So, be an example in word. Number two, be an example in conversation. Number three, be an example in what? What does it say? In charity. Somewhere you ought to write, this is the idea of God's love. In other words, it's not just that warm, fuzzy feeling that you get every now and then. It's not just, you know, being nice to somebody. It is actually demonstrating the love of God, learning to be the right kind of friend. By the way, look at me just for a moment. The right kind of friend will always make you want to be a better friend and a better Christian. Iron sharpeneth iron, so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend. If you've got a friend that is making you want to be less of a Christian instead of more of a Christian, you've got the wrong kind of friend. And by the way, there's a whole lot more to friendship than clicking confirm on Facebook. A lot more. So when we talk about charity, look, we're talking about being the right kind of friend and demonstrating the love of God. Look at your list again. In word, in conversation, in charity, in what? In spirit. Mark that in your Bible. And somewhere in the margin of your Bible, you might write the word attitude. This is your inner man. This is the real you. This is not the you you put on this morning. This is the you that you when you woke up this morning. This is the inner man. That means working on the inside to make sure you're right with God. You got the right attitude towards the Lord, right attitude towards other people, because out of that, everything else grows. Then what does the Bible say? What's next after after spirit is what? in faith. That doesn't just mean that, well, I believe God and I've trusted Jesus as my Savior. But this is talking about living a life of faith. In other words, everything you do in your life ought to demonstrate that you're trusting Jesus. When we grumble and complain, it's evidence we're not trusting Jesus. When we just want to talk about all the bad things in life, it's evidence we're not trusting Jesus. When you've got to criticize and tear down somebody else to make yourself look better, it's evidence you're not trusting Jesus. See, the life of faith is very practical. It affects every part of our life. And then what's the last thing on the list? Verse number 12. What is it? Impurity. There's purity of mind, purity of life, purity of heart. Staying clean in a dirty world. And the Bible says it is possible that you can become, young people, an example of the believers. I'm going to talk to you this morning about what I think is one of the most challenging things this generation has to deal with. It could be one of the greatest tools. You know, anything that can be used for evil can be used for good. Anything that can be used for good can be used for evil. It's not always in the thing. Oftentimes, it's in our attitude towards it and what we do with it. Let me ask you a question. How many of you are on social media in any way? Would you raise your hand? Let's try a different way. How many of you are on Facebook? That'd be social media. How many of you are on Twitter? What's something else? That's the two things I'm on. What? Tumblr, alright. Tumblr is social media. What's something else? Instagram is something else. What's something else? Pinterest, somebody said? What's something else? I'm not much of a Pinterest person, but what's something else that would be social media? I don't look like a Pinterest person, right? What's something else? MySpace, alright. What's something else that's social media? Skype is social media. What's something else? Yes. YouTube is social media. What's something else? My Yearbook, alright. I've heard of that. What's something else? Yahoo? They have their own platform now? Oh, yes. You know, everybody's got their own now, don't they? It's unbelievable. Look at me just a moment. How many of you are on anything like that? Would you raise your hand? Alright. Did you know that 2 billion people get on the internet every day? 2 billion. And they say that 69% of them are on social media. That means, look, you're talking about over a billion people. Something like 1.2 billion people every day are on social media. And many of them are on, many of them, and many of them are on it all day long. How many of you have a phone with you right now that's a smartphone? Would you take it out, please? Get it in front of you. I don't want you to check your Facebook right now, but I want you to get it out in front of you. I want you to hold it up. I just want to see. How many of you have one with you this morning? Now, that's pretty interesting. Let me tell you one of the dangers of social media. You get to carry it in your pocket all day long now. Which means, when you get ticked off, all you have to do is take this out of your pocket and let the world know. It means that when you're sitting and you have a minute to yourself, instead of carrying on a normal conversation like human beings used to do, you can do this. Honestly, you got to think if people from like 50 years ago were transported into our world today and just walked around, they'd say, what is wrong with these people? Look, you ever walk through the mall? The whole world has their face in a phone now. It's like, honestly, you see two guys standing next to each other, and they both have a phone. You wonder if they're talking to each other, you know? We don't even have to carry on conversation anymore. Something has happened in our world. Now, I'm not on a crusade against the Internet. I'm not on a crusade against technology. I use it. I use social media to keep up with young people in our church and to communicate with them. And by the way, let me just say this right up front. If your parents tell you you shouldn't be on it, then the first rule is you honor your parents and you obey the people God has put into your life. Did you hear what I just said? Now, what I want to share with you today are some ways that you can use it without it using you. Someday, most all of you are going to be connected to it in some way because that's more and more the way people are communicating. But I just want to say right up front, did you hear what I just said? If your parents said, don't get on it, they know what's best for you right now. You listen to them. But if you're going to be on it, the Bible says, whatsoever you do, you ought to do all to the glory of God. And that means everything you post online, if you're really a Christian, ought to exalt Jesus instead of tearing him down. It ought to lift other people to know God instead of trying to bring God down into our filth and corruption. It means that social media ought to be used just like every other part of your life is being used. I just read this week that the average 8 to 18 year old in America spends 7 hours and 38 minutes every day engaged in some form of media. That's a work day. 7 hours and 38 minutes every day. It may be on a phone, it may be on a computer, it may be on television, it may be on their iPod, it may be whatever, but they're engaged in media 7 hours and 38 minutes a day. And I want you to know, there are some inherent dangers in that that you need to watch for. And what I want to do is give you some parameters, all right? So I want you to find something to write on. I think they gave you something last night to take notes on. That'd be a good place to do it, because I'm going to give you some really, really practical things to write down. As a matter of fact, just simple stuff, but things that I'm hoping and praying will help you. They say that every day 700,000 people join Facebook. That's a lot of people. Every day, 300,000 people join Twitter. It is all the rage. It is what everybody seems to be going into. But the question is not, are you on it? The question is, what are you doing while you're on it? Here are some things to remember. Number one, write this one down. You should remember your time. Write down the word time. Big, bold letters. T-I-M-E. Remember your time. Did you know that the Internet, media, and specifically social media can be one of the greatest time wasters in life? Now be honest with me, how many of you ever sat down in front of a computer and started just to check the newsfeed or see what people had posted and like 45 minutes or an hour later you realized how long you've been on it? Would you raise your hand? Yeah, we've all done it. You know why? Because there's something about media that is captivating. And I want to remind you of something, you only get so many hours to live on this planet. And half of them don't need to be sitting looking at a screen. As a matter of fact, it's ironic to me, they call this social media, and yet we are the least social generation in history. We don't understand relationships, we don't understand real friendships. As a matter of fact, let me tell you what I'm discovering with teenagers all over the country. They are on social media more than they've ever been, and yet they have fewer real friends. Now, why is that? Because we're putting all of our time into the medium, into the means of communication, and not in actually developing real relationships and real friendships. I mean, look, I know people that don't even know how to talk. They don't even know how to carry on a conversation. I mean, every conversation has to be in 140 characters or less. Everything they say has to be in code. Why is that? Because So much of our time is being given to this. Now, here are a few suggestions about guarding your time with it. Write these down. Number one, limit how much time you spend on it. In other words, just set a limit and say, OK, every day I will not spend any more than this amount of time on it. And it should not be some exorbitant amount of time. You may check your messages. You may send some messages. You can use it for the right reason. I'm going to give you some ideas on that in a minute, but limit how much time you spend on it. Number two, guard what time that is. And let me tell you what I mean by that. What time of day or night? Did you know night time is a dangerous time? Did you know that most crimes are committed at night? Why is that? That's exactly right. The devil is the prince of the power of darkness. That's his realm, so to speak. And I don't think Christian people have to be afraid of the devil and run around all the time wringing their hands about the darkness. But I will tell you this. People do things at night. People do things in the dark because they think nobody sees them and no one will ever know. And when they wake up the next morning and see the light of another day, they are filled with regret about it. Do you ever read in Proverbs where that young man went down to the corner where the adulterous woman was, where the harlot was? And what time of day was it? The Bible says, in the black and dark night. You listen to me, please. Young people look at things and post things online at night that they would not do at any other time. As a matter of fact, there really is nothing good for you to be doing online, even on social media, after a certain time at night. There ought to be some limit. You say, OK, look, after a certain time at night, I'm not going to be on this. Look, if you're tempted, then put your smartphone in another room. Put your laptop in the living room until the next morning. Because I know what it's like. You're laying there and it's right next to you and it's so easy just to reach over and grab or you hear a notification, you hear somebody, something comes through and you think you've got to respond to it right now. Look, look, please, you get addicted to this. Some of you are consumed with it. You know how I know? If you had to go 24 hours without it, you'd go into withdrawals. I mean, it's like, if you left your phone, if you left your iPod, you just can't live. Well, then something is wrong with that. It is consuming too much of your time. Then write down a third thing. Not only limit how much time and then when that time will be, but number three, have some time away from it. Have some time away from it. In other words, actually schedule some time where you're away from it. Let me give you one illustration. When you have your devotions, don't have your cell phone there. The devil wants to distract you from reading the Bible and praying. And you don't need any more distraction than you already have inside of you. So have some time away from it. You may have a day where you say, I'm going to leave the house and I'm going somewhere. And you know, honestly, our generation, our generation has lost the joy of just being outside, taking a run, going to the park and shooting basketball. I mean, the simple things in life have been lost because we're so engaged with media now. I would challenge you, challenge you to lay this aside at times and go do something else and don't check this and don't think about this. If you don't, look at me, this is going to ruin your life. I want you to write this down. You should have no master but Jesus. What did Paul say? All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any. Everybody is under the power of something. And the only power that ought to control you is the power of Jesus. So if this controls your life and what you do, if you live and die by what your friends post, then you're letting the wrong thing control your time. Number one, remember your time. Number two, write this down, remember your thought life. Philippians chapter four, verse number eight says, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good or poor, if they have any virtue, if they have any praise, think on these things. Well, I want to tell you the practical application of that for our day. You think about whatever goes in your eye gate and your ear gate. Look up here just a moment. See these? And see these? These are the gates. And when you get on social media, what you listen to on YouTube, what you listen to on your MP3 player, what you look at on your social media platform, what you surf on the internet, you are allowing things and influences into your mind that are going to affect your thought life. And if you're going to keep your thought life right, If you're going to be an example to believers, then you've got to guard the gates. But you write down two or three things here. Number one, start by making a covenant with God. Make a specific decision that some things will not go into the gates of your life. And by the way, some of you are sitting here right now saying they've already gone in, Brother Scott. I've got images in my mind. Listen to me. God can forgive you. God can cleanse you. And you can have a fresh start today. But somewhere you got to make a covenant that from this day forward things are going to be different. What was it Job said? I've made a covenant with my eyes. Why then should I think upon a maid? He understood the connection between his eyes and his thought life. What was it that Psalmist David said? Psalm 101 verse 3. I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes. I hate the work of them that turn aside. It shall not cleave to me. If you don't want sin to cleave to you, then don't look at it. By the way, it is a decision of the will. You have to choose, and here's what's really tough, you have to choose against your flesh. Can I tell you there's a raging beast inside every one of you? Even you young ladies, beautiful, dressed up, hair fixed, lovely on the outside, there's a raging beast, an animal inside of you. You know, it's called sin nature. And it wants its own way, and it wants to look at things and listen to things that it ought not look at and listen to. And if you yield to that, it is going to destroy your life. It's going to take your will, choosing against your emotion, choosing against what you like sometimes because you're guarding your thought life. Then a second thing, write this down. Not only should you make a covenant with God, you should be accountable to a friend. Can I give you a piece of advice about life? Don't trust yourself. Don't trust yourself. I can't trust me. I cannot trust me. There's an accountability I have to God, but there's accountability I have to my wife. There's accountability I have to certain friends. Brother Hooks and I are great friends. We've actually had conversations like this before. Look, I want you to ask me from time to time if I've looked at anything I shouldn't look at. You say, you've had that kind of conversation? Absolutely. You know why? Because I can't trust me. You know what I need? I need a good friend that'll help make sure that I'm walking in the ways of holiness and righteousness and godliness. Because flesh is flesh. Hey, you can dress it up and give it a King James Bible if you want to. It's just sinful flesh. And you need some sort of accountability with a friend. And by the way, if you've got the kind of friend that wouldn't check up on you or would laugh about that or encourage you to look at the wrong thing, you need to get away from that person and find somebody that wants God's best for your life. Let me tell you about sin. Sin is like misery. It loves company. And people don't want to sin alone, so they think, well, I'll get one of my friends to look at this with me. I'll get one of my friends to do this with me. Look, the Bible says, though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not go unpunished. You can join hands with a thousand friends, but a thousand of you can't stand against a holy God. You know what you need to do? You need to join hands with somebody who wants to help you do the right thing and be accountable for that. Right at this time, a third thing. Know what to do with the first look. To me, this is the most critical thing. See, some people have this idea that we can put you in a bubble and you'll never see the wrong thing. I wish that were true, but in our world, that's not going to happen. Look, if you drive down the interstate, you're going to see something you shouldn't see. It's on billboards. I was in New York City not long ago. If you walk through the streets of any major city, you're going to see something you shouldn't see. You get online one time and search for something, I guarantee you in an advertisement or some pop-up, you'll see something you should not see. So here's the key. The key is knowing what to do with the first look. See, when you see something the first time, that's not sin. But what you do with it after that will become sin if you're not careful. When you see that for the first time and the flesh says, I like that at that moment, you have to take captive that thought and say, Jesus, I know that in honor you and I will give that to you. And you've got to replace that thought with something about God and His glory and your life and eternity. And remind yourself you're going to stand before Jesus someday for what you do with that thought and how you respond to that first look. Because if you're not careful, the first look becomes a second and a third and a fourth and a fifth. And after a while, your thought life is shot. When you're on social media, you've got to guard your mind all the time because the devil, the enemies, are looking for a way to get into that fortress. And I'm going to tell you, if you don't guard the gates, he will get in. Right down to the third thing. Not only should you remember your time and remember your thought life, but number three, remember your testimony. Maybe we should say it this way, let's remember his testimony. See, if you're a Christian, you say you know Jesus, it's not just your good name, it's Jesus' good name. So when you do something or you post something in honor of Jesus, guess who that hurts? Not just you. You know, there are several things that are dangerous about the Internet and social media. One of them is that social media allows you to post an image. I don't just mean a picture. You can post a picture. By the way, let me get really practical for a minute. Girls. Don't talk about how much you love Jesus and post pictures of yourself online dressed in a way that doesn't honor Jesus. Fellas, don't talk about what a great Christian you are and how active you are in the youth group and then post words online that you know are demeaning to the cause of Jesus Christ. I saw a post the other day in my news feed of a girl that I knew from years ago, a Christian girl, and she just reposted something somebody else had put in and it had a curse word right in the middle of the post. I'm just going to tell you something, that doesn't honor Jesus Christ. And people think they can get by with posting things they would never say in person. That is very dangerous. You know what the Internet does? It gives the illusion that you're anonymous, that it's not really you. Hey, it is you and it is the testimony of Jesus Christ. And your online testimony ought to match your in-person testimony. Hey, Christian people are Christians everywhere. Which means you got the same testimony online that you have sitting in this youth meeting today. Here's the danger. Not just through pictures, but through the way you post about things, you get to portray an image to the whole world. That image could be true or false. It could be good or it could be bad. But I want to ask you a spiritual question. Look at me just a moment. In the New Testament, what image does the Bible say Christian people are supposed to give? The image of Jesus Christ. Listen to me for just a moment. That means any image you post online that doesn't match up with bringing glory and honor to Jesus Christ is idolatry. Because it's some image other than Jesus. In other words, when you allow yourself to be perceived a certain way, when you use your social media to boast, you're taking glory away from God. When you use your social media to gossip, you're taking glory away from God. When you use your social media to engage in some war with somebody, you're taking glory away from God. Now, look, I know I'm getting down perilously close to where we all live. But I'm just saying to you, if we're going to be the kind of Christians that can make a difference in this generation we all talked about last night and prayed and said, we want to do that, then we got to start right where we live. And that includes our social media. Let me give you two of the things to write down here. Number one, just some suggestions. Don't post things quickly. You know, one problem today, there's such access that people post things quickly and five minutes later, they say, I wish I hadn't posted that. Be honest. Have you ever posted anything and then thought, after you clicked enter or hit send, you thought, I wish I had not done that? Be honest. Would you raise your hand? Yeah. You know why? Because sometimes we act before we think. Could I challenge you to think on that a little bit? Ask yourself a few questions. Look, is this going to hinder Jesus' calls at all? I mean, could somebody think less of God and less of my Christian testimony because of this? Don't post anything quickly. Number two, don't post anything that's hateful. Avoid conflict and avoid strife. People get in these social media wars, it's ridiculous. And they're arguing back and forth on Facebook. Can I just tell you, no one cares about your conflict. By the way, frankly, nobody cares which Starbucks you bought this morning either, but that's another matter entirely. It's your business. But nobody certainly cares about your conflict and argument with another girl in your class or another boy in your youth group. Look, Christian people don't handle conflict that way. You know what Christian people do? They go to the person something's wrong with and they get it right between the two of them so they both be right with God and then be a blessing to other people. Don't post things online that would be hateful. Then write this one down, would you please? Don't post anything you would not say in person. I got a lot of messages, Facebook messages and messages from people. I got a message from a young lady the other day that I do not know. It was a private message. For her sake, I'm glad it was a private message because it was hateful. It was very hateful. Nobody you would know, but this young lady, a teenager, thought I had mistreated someone in her family. She got bad information. Now, when I got it, my first response was I was going to tell her off. You say, you want to do that kind of thing? Sure I do. I wanted to tell her off. I wanted to write her back and put her in her place. You know what I did? I slept on it overnight. I didn't even respond. I waited until the next day, I thought and prayed about it a little bit, and then I wrote her back a very short, tried to be kind and gracious, and told her, here are the facts, and thank you for your concern, and we're praying for you, and praying for your family, and praying for that family member, and sent it. You know why? Because if that girl had come to talk to me in person, I wouldn't have yelled and fussed. No, I would have thought it would have been my Christian duty to respond as a Christian. But the danger online was, I could tell her off. You know what happened? In about an hour, I got a message back from her. She said, I'm writing now to apologize to you. I'm so sorry for the way I wrote yesterday. I was wrong. I didn't have all the information. Would you please forgive me? I learned a valuable lesson. He that handleth a matter wisely shall find good. That's what the Bible says. And the danger of social media is we start posting things and putting things out for the whole world to see. You ever wonder if lost people look at your Facebook page and think, if that's a Christian, I don't need that. Number one, remember your time. Number two, remember your thought life. Number three, remember your testimony. And then number four, here's where we really get down to the, somebody said the basic nitty and the fundamental gritty. All right. You ready? Remember that it's a tool. You see, up to this point, I've been telling you what not to do with it. That's okay. There are certain things we should not do with it. But let's talk for just a moment about how you could use it for the glory of God. You see, I think it would change our perspective if we'd stop thinking of social media selfishly, like, how can it entertain me? How can it profit me? And instead ask ourselves the question, how could this be used to the glory of God? For example, did you know your social media could be a real encouragement to somebody? Just a brief post could be what somebody needs to get them through the day. A quick message, I'm praying for you, could be the very thing somebody needs. Let me really blow your mind. Did you know you could use social media as a platform to get the gospel out? Look, in our world today, what would keep you from taking this and giving a 60 second testimony about how you came to know Jesus and what He means to you and posting that online? Have we ever even thought about that? I mean, is it all about us, or is it really about Him? In the last six weeks, I've heard three of the most amazing stories of my life about people using social media to win other people to Jesus Christ. About six weeks ago, we had a little teen soul-winning training with our youth group, and I challenged all of our teenagers who were there on a Sunday night before church that week to give the gospel to one person. I didn't say anything about social media. To be honest with you, that juncture had not even crossed my mind. There's a girl in our youth group named Rena. Rena's 15 years old. She goes to Powell High School. She has no church background, but in December, she got saved. I mean, she really got saved. She's been to every church service. She's carrying her Bible. God's changed her life. She's in love with the Lord. It is so encouraging to see. Everything about her countenance has changed. Rena was in the meeting that night, and she raised her hand and committed to give the gospel to somebody in the next seven days. But the means she chose to do it through blew my mind. She went home, she got on Skype with her best friend who lives in California. She gets on Skype with her best friend and she says to this friend, look, I want to tell you something that happened to me a couple of months ago. And I'm going to tell you how it's changed my life. And she gave her testimony to this person. She took the Gospel tract that we had given her and she read all the Scripture verses to this person and explained to them how that they could be saved. And the friend on the other end said, wait right here just a minute, goes into the other room, has gone for two or three minutes, comes back and says to Rena, I want to thank you for telling me about this. I just went next door and got on my knees and asked Jesus to be my Savior. She came back to the next church service and she said, Brother Scott, you're not going to believe what happened. And she's telling me this story, and all of a sudden something started to click with me. Wait a minute, here was a girl that understood that this was not all about her and her entertainment and her feelings today. It was about how she could use it to minister to somebody else. About two weeks went by. I got a contact from a good friend in Ohio. He said to me, I've got to tell you a story. He said, this is the most amazing thing that's ever happened to me. He said, I got on Facebook and he said, I typed in my name. How many of you have ever done that before? See if there's any other people just like you out there. He has a strange last name, strange spelling of his last name. So he wanted to see if there was anybody else in the world that had the exact same spelling. And there was one guy who was on Facebook and the guy happened to live in England. So my friend sent him a little private message and said to him, my name is, and we share the same name, and I just noticed that you're on here, I don't know you, but I'm a Christian, I live in America, and I would love to tell you the difference Jesus Christ has made in my life. If you're interested, message me back. The guy sends me a message almost immediately back and says, I've just attended the funeral of two of my dearest friends. He said, I've been thinking for the last few days about eternity, and if I died, what would happen to me? Maybe you could help me." My friend writes out his testimony and the gospel, sends it to the guy, gets a message back from the guy to say, thank you, I just prayed to ask Jesus to be my Savior. Then he says to my friend, oh, it's on Facebook, then he says to my friend, I wish I could find a church here, but I don't know if there's any good churches around. My friend says, where are you located? He says, well, I live in Oxford, England, but my family lives in Birmingham, England. Now, you don't know this, but we just started two churches in England, one in Birmingham and one in Oxford. So, here's a guy, halfway around the world, that now is getting connected with a local church like your church, where he can grow in the faith and his family can get reached for the gospel, all because one guy used his social media not for himself, but for the glory of God. Last week. Last week, I was in Fort Worth, Texas. Last Saturday morning, this time, I was speaking in Fort Worth, Texas in a youth congress, And when we had a little break, I had a guy come up to me. I'd had a worker's session. I didn't give this lecture. I'd had a worker's session. I just talked about the fact that we ought to use our resources and tools for the glory of God. And a worker came up to me and he just was about to bust. He said, I've got to tell you the most amazing thing that's happened to me. He said, I've gotten in contact with a group of people that live in a little village in Africa. He said, there's just a few hundred of them in this village and they get three hours a week on the Internet. And he said, in my social media, I made a contact with one person in the village, and he said, I had an opportunity to lead her to Christ over the Internet. He said, now she has led her friend to Christ, and things are starting to stir for the gospel in that village, all because I got to share my testimony with this girl online. Look. Let's stop thinking about this as, I shouldn't do this, don't do that, don't do that. Look, look, look. You start doing the right thing with it and you won't do the wrong thing with it. You start talking about Jesus on your Facebook and you're going to have a hard time cussing on the same page. Look, you start tweeting things that glorify God and, man, we had a great youth rally. I'm grateful to God for our youth director. Things like that, and you'll stop gossiping and criticizing through it. Learn to use it as a tool for the glory of God. 1440. A young man had an idea. He actually got it when he was just a kid playing with blocks. He dropped a block in a vat of ink one day and picked it up, set it on the shelf. When he went back to pick up that block a little later, he realized that the insignia of the wood grain had left a mark on the shelf where he'd left the block from the ink that was on it. And he got an idea for movable type. In 1440, Gutenberg created his first printing press. Anybody know the first thing he printed on it? The Word of God. And you know what he started? A revolution. How many of you like to read? You can thank Gutenberg. How many of you don't like to read? You can hit him later, all right? Gutenberg started something and set something in motion so that people around the world could have this in their own hands and read it. It's pretty amazing. Here's my question to you. We talk about that like, well, that's just history. Well, look, you ever think maybe we're making history? And maybe God has given us a platform and tools that we could use to reach the world with the gospel. But if that's going to happen, you're going to have to be just as much an example to believer online as you are in person. And I want to ask you, would you commit this to God? Would you dedicate your Facebook page to the glory of Jesus? Would you commit your online testimony to be a blessing and help to other people? Because I think if we would, just like those three people I just told you about, God could use us to make a greater difference in this world.
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Sermon ID | 61813163282 |
Duration | 39:09 |
Date | |
Category | Sunday Service |
Bible Text | 1 Timothy 4:12 |
Language | English |
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