Holiness In A Chaotic, Digital World (part 2)

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Clear Thinking About Homosexuality (part 3) - [Romans 1]

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So we have been taking a look at why is everybody so busy and why do people often say that?
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And why am I doing this talk? Just a quick overview. People often say they're very busy and they also say that they're very busy to read the word or that they have any time to really pray.
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People also say that life is very chaotic, very perturbed, and that everything they do seems to be passive, right?
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That things are thrown at them rather than they taking an active approach and doing things. And another thing that I often hear people saying is that they have a shorter attention span or a lack of focus.
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I was sad but encouraged to hear that a lot of people came up to me last week after I did part one and said they are struggling with this area and they were glad I'm doing this talk.
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So what did we look at last week? We looked at, we defined holiness because without understanding what that is, it's hard to know what is chaotic and what is not and what is the difference between justification and sanctification.
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Just to be clear about the differences between the two, no amount of order in our lives can save us, right?
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If we had everything properly scheduled and that would bring us salvation, we wouldn't need
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Christ. But I want to make one thing very clear, the difference between the two, you cannot save yourself and sanctification does not save you, right?
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Only Christ pleased the Father enough, only Christ can be the Lamb and the
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High Priest. We fall absolutely short. So we need to get that very clear.
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We also looked at a few questions, I did a small questionnaire last week to see how many of us are really busy or chaotic and there were a lot of giggles and there were a lot of nods last week.
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So I don't know if it resonated well with you guys or not. And then I ended it by looking at how do we prepare for worship?
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Why is that important? Why do we often say we're too busy to even prepare for worship and how we can do that?
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Okay, let's look at some quick numbers. I'm gonna be on this very briefly. But as a world, not just America, as we get more globalized, things are more chaotic, things are more busy.
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Did you know that commuters have more stress than fighter pilots and riot police?
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I didn't know that. But I just started, I just moved to Cambridge for work and I understand that.
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Now, here's what's interesting. When you're so stressed, the brain goes into a light hypnotic trance as a defense mechanism.
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Now, if you're a Christian, you don't like the word hypnotic or trance. Those are two words you don't wanna hear, right?
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So, along with that stress, not only do you go into that defense mechanism, your heart beats at 145 per minute.
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What's the normal heart rate of a person who's calm and? 70, 65, right?
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So, 145, I mean, 160 is what I hit when I jog. 145, when you're sitting still in traffic or stressed, is very high, right?
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Now, sinfully busy people, sinfully busy people experience the same amount of stress.
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So, that is something that is dangerous. We work long hours, there's nothing wrong with working hard, but we work such long hours that as a nation and again, as a world, a lot of people are getting far less sleep, they're severely sleep deprived.
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And what does that have to do with sanctification? Well, it affects the way you think, it affects the way you pray, it affects the way your relationships go, right?
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How often do you snap at somebody because you haven't slept for three days? And then it takes four years to fix that relationship, right?
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So, it's a big problem. Other numbers, a Harvard study showed that people's attention spans are decreasing so much that most people cannot pay attention more than 15 minutes at a time.
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That's a problem. Our sermons go more than 50 minutes. So, I hope none of us are dozing off or checking
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Facebook when Pastor Steve has done 15 minutes. But it's a big problem, right?
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It's a big problem. And most of that problem with short attention span comes from rapid browsing, right?
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We go through articles so quickly, we get our information so quickly, we don't have time to really sit and focus on things.
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And I'll talk about that more later. But these are big numbers coming out of a lot of these studies.
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Now, I would argue one thing that we are saved. Some of us are. We are elect.
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We do have the power of the Holy Spirit. Well, we're human beings and if we neglect these laws, we're going to get hit as well.
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It's not like, yeah, we're saved. We can work 24 hours, don't sleep. Check our phones all day, be online all day and think that that's going to be fine for our bodies.
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No, we're going to get affected by it. Next thing, multitasking.
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People often boast about multitasking, don't they? They say, I'm an excellent multitasking individual.
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But did you know that the brain and the computer works the same way? I'm not going to go a lot into computer because even though I'm a scientist,
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I know I'm not going to go into that. But the way the program, just to let you know how computers work, they don't really multitask between the programs.
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What they do is each, the computer does a computation one at a time, but they switch so rapidly between the programs, you can't realize, you don't realize that it's doing so many things, right?
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You're watching YouTube, you're on Facebook, you're reading a sermon, all of those things together, but you think the computer is doing all of those things, but it's actually doing one computation at a time, but it's switching so rapidly.
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The brain cannot handle too many things very well, especially as Christians.
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If we are to do few things well for the glory of God, multitasking is not going to help us do 101 things and do it well for the glory of God, right?
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Again, I'm not going to be very specific about applications. Each of us are different. My goal here is to bring some warnings, some exhortations, and you guys have to take it back home, think about it for your own homes and families and see how it works.
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But these are interesting numbers. Okay, let's go straight into it.
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Let's look at some of the dangers of extreme busyness or sinful busyness, okay?
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The physical damages are pretty obvious, right? They're pretty blaring, but I would argue for us, in particular, the spiritual damages are much, much more grievous.
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First, it robs us of joy. It steals us off joy. If you read
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Philippians 4, it tells us how a Christian life should be marked by. What should it be marked by? I gave a hint.
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What should the Christian life be marked by? Philippians 4 .4, sorry.
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Be anxious for none, good. Specifically, joy, right?
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We're marked by joy. We look at Galatians 5 .22. Our lives are to taste like joy. And then we look at John 15.
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We're supposed to be filled with the fullness of joy. But what happens is when you're crazy busy and extremely stressed, it robs us of joy, right?
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I'm not saying that ministry's robbing you off of joy. I'm saying sinful business, which we'll go into in just another slide, it really robs us off of that joy that we need as a
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Christian. But now my point gets even more important. Next, it steals our hearts.
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It distracts us. It turns our affections, right? Even if we are saved, it can cause us a massive amount of distraction, right?
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We have responsibilities, right? We're members of society. We live under a government.
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We are parents, spouses, employees. We have responsibilities. We have things to do. There's nothing wrong with that.
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But when we take on a lot of additional responsibilities and then we idolize it, right?
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And we prioritize it so high, do you think that those things don't own us?
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No, they do. They steal our hearts. They distract us. They rob us.
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They take our affection, right? So it's an area that we need to be careful with. Now, it's not just material things that steal our hearts, right?
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It's not just material things, but one thing we do notice is we get busy because we want a lot of new stuff.
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I'm trying to make it very simple here, okay? We want a lot of new stuff. In other words, we do covet, which is a sin, right?
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It's a sin that Christ paid for and indeed there is forgiveness. But why are we so busy? Because we want new stuff.
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But did you realize, and I know I'm realizing this more and more, new stuff requires maintenance.
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New stuff makes us more busy. I'm not saying in and of itself, the new stuff is wrong. Again, the problem is not the new stuff.
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The problem is our hearts and the way we look at these things. We work hard to get more stuff. We get more stuff and then we work hard to maintain that new stuff.
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And we're very, very, very, very, very, very busy, right? So, but again, like I said, it's not just material.
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We want people to like us and think good about us. I'll talk about this more later. And de
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Young makes this point in his book, Crazy Busy. Busyness kills more Christians than bullets.
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Oddly, he doesn't mention a lot about why he made that statement. So I'll make some additions based on my own experience.
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So how many of us lose Sundays because we're very concerned about the 5 ,000 we have to feed after we go home, right?
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We're hosting a big lunch, right? We've been thinking about it the whole week. Nothing wrong with hosting, nothing wrong with feeding 5 ,000.
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But what's the issue here? The whole time you're thinking about the lunch, right?
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The whole time you're thinking about the lunch when, as we spoke about last week, our minds and our hearts should be engaged in the service.
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Busyness should not rob us of the one thing that is serving God with all of our hearts and all of our minds and all of our souls.
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So I don't want the ladies to think I'm only picking on you. So here you go, guys. The other thing that I hear a lot about is a lot of people come up to me after church and say, oh, are you ready for the games, right?
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And it's starting up, right? Preseason's over, NFL, and here come the games. Yay, right?
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And one thing we notice is a lot of people are so busy thinking about the games and talking about it, whether it's playing fantasy sports or talking about the stats and getting pumped up for the game.
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You're really, really busy thinking about it and it really distracts us. Again, the games are not wrong.
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Fantasy sports is not wrong. But when you're thinking about it, even on Sunday, immediately after a wonderful sermon, it's something that's to be, something we need to be cautious about.
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Next, we know that when we need to, what are some of the things that people do to quieten their conscience?
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What are some of the things that people often do to quieten their conscience? Rationalize, that's very good.
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Right, you use logic to try to say it's not important. Sorry? Compare to others.
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Compare to others, that's very good. That's very good. You compare to others, you try to put logic and throw it away. Corey? Very good, thank you for stealing my point.
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But that's one thing that they do, right?
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But some of the other more difficult areas which we try to address in the church is what?
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Drugs, sex, other kinds of addictions are a major problem, right? When people try to cover their conscience, they try to cover it up with alcohol and all kinds of things.
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But a lot of people today are trying to bury it, as Corey said, by being extremely busy.
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I'm not talking about working hard. I'm not talking about serving your families and the church. I'm talking about being sinfully busy with a lot of things that don't really help you glorify
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God or help others. So that's what I'm trying to talk to. Okay, now what is the cause?
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I know a lot of people were waiting for this. They came up to me and said, please tell me the causes right now. And also give me the name of those apps you were talking about.
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So let me drive straight into one of the main causes. Believe it or not, it's pride. We all think we're better than we are, don't we?
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I mean, we think we're the best engineers, we think we're the best parents. And quite often, we honestly do believe that without us, the world will not survive, right?
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We really do. We really look at it and say, oh, how will this earth revolve if I don't wake up at 5 a .m.
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and watch NFL, right? It's very, very, it's very important to understand this.
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But let's look at the context of the church. In the church, do we function as individuals?
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No, what do we function as? We function as a body, right? We have a head.
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His name is Christ, right? He gives us direction. He is our identity. And then we have members, right?
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So we all need each other. We can't do everything on our own, right? But sometimes we're so proud, we wanna do everything on our own and end up being overstressed, doing too much and not really giving, and not really believing that God can use other people who he has actually given gifts to as well to function in the church.
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So there's a bad side and a good side. We wanna serve a lot, but we're also doing it out of the wrong motives.
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Next, we love pleasing others. I come from the East, right? India tends to be a culture where you do everything to please people, right?
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You get married to please people. You choose your bride to please people. You go to college to please people, right? I would say sometimes you wake up in the morning to please people, right?
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It's a big thing. But part of it is a pride issue because we want people to love us, right?
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But there's something wrong when you look at it from a Christian perspective, and that is, as Christians, our main desire is to do good to others, right?
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Because of who we are in Christ, because of his finished work on the cross, and because we want to see him glorified.
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But pride is intent on making ourselves look good, right?
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We wanna be the hero, not only at work and at home and solving all the problems. We wanna be the hero everywhere, even in the church.
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We don't care if it's robbing glory off of God as long as we get the glory, right? And that's a big issue.
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I'm not saying it's necessarily an issue for everybody here, but I've seen that to be an issue at some of the people that I've known, and even reading several books on the topic,
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I see that it's an issue. But if we're always busy with trying to get the glory for ourselves, not only is that dangerous and sinful,
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I would also argue that if we're here and there doing these other things, we're absent from the lives of the people who need us the most, right?
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We're absent and we're useless in the lives of the people who need our time, our love, our care, right?
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And sometimes that's even people here. Okay, any questions or comments about that, that particular point on pride?
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It's something that I had to work on quite a bit two, three years ago, and I realized that I was really busy with a lot of things.
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And I'm not saying that I've mastered everything, but by the grace of God, I've grown in his love and through the word over the last two years in this area.
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So did you guys have anything to add about pride or did I say everything on the topic?
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All right, let's look at the screen time. Let's look at dangers of screen time and what it is. I love technology,
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I love gadgets, right? Part of my job is to make the world a more connected place. So I'm not the cause of the problem,
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I'm helping, right? We can communicate with people today.
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I don't know if you were a stock investor 20 years ago, did you know it probably takes you a year to make an informed decision about one stock?
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Now we can make informed decisions, obviously, if you know what you're doing as well. In two hours, you can make a decision, right?
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The internet is a wonderful place. We have great resources, but I think as Christians, we have, it's a great way to spread the gospel.
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It's a great way to read articles, to see how people are doing around the world who are fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, right?
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It's a wonderful technology, right? So without further ado, and I know the only reason most of you are here today, for the apps, let's start with,
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I have three apps, I'm gonna go through it quick. I'm not saying that these are the only apps that are out there. These are the ones
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I use, and they really help me. First thing is, it's called Prayer Mate. It's available on all the mobile devices.
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What's good about this? I had a very long list. Whenever I came to BBC in the morning, I write down, people tell me, can you pray for this?
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I'm sorry, I don't remember every time people say, so I write it down. It's not that I'm old, it's just I can't remember everything that people tell me.
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Now, that was great, but the list kept getting bigger and bigger, and I couldn't prioritize, and I realized
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I couldn't keep up changing the list. This app is very good. It's a good way of using technology.
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You can set priorities. You can set people by family, by their groups, by needs, illness.
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It'll remind you, yes, it'll pop up and remind you, hey, did you pray today? It won't,
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I'm sorry to say this, it won't pray for you. But it will help you in your prayer life.
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The next is any calendar app. I mean, if you just throw things on the calendar and you schedule, if you schedule a week ahead, guess what'll happen?
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You can schedule, at least from my perspective, you can schedule your time in the Word and your time to sleep. Two things that three years ago
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I struggled with, right? Because I was always awake and always doing things. So a calendar, as silly as it may sound, it need not be digital.
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It could be something that you put on as a hard copy. It's a great way to schedule important things in your life so that before you wake up in the morning, the scores of the news and all the painful things around us don't distract us from what is important.
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Third app, and my final app. How many of you like memorizing scripture? It's not a good question to ask in a church.
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Scripture Typer, it's called Scripture Typer. It's free, there's a paid version, but the paid version gives you really nothing.
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It's a fantastic scripture memory app, right? And I often carry the, I used to carry this pile of Navigator cards with me.
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Very difficult to carry them around, right? And if your wallet gets stolen, you're remorseful for the rest of the year.
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So it's, this is a very handy app. It allows you to customize lists, but it also allows you to download other people's lists and you can share these scripture memory lists, right?
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And here's what's really good about it, and here's what's important for me. It allows you to, it has tests, don't you love tests?
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It actually checks if you're doing and memorizing, and it also reminds you from time to time and checks on how you're doing with the scripture memory.
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And I'm not saying it replaces fellowship or time with others if you're doing this together, but I found it very useful when those two are not readily available.
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If I'm on a train or if I'm sitting at the doctor's office, or even in the morning when I wake up, I can go through it and revise and practice my verses.
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Now, so those are the good things about technology, and let's go through some of the difficult things.
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I don't know if you know, but a few years ago in Korea, which has got a major gaming problem, video gaming problem, more than 1 ,000 addiction centers opened up, more than 1 ,000, okay?
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People said that most people were online and playing games in Korea, South Korea, anywhere from 10 to 12 hours a day, and it was a major problem.
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They could not get out, it was crippling. So I would argue that things are changing for us now, not just video games, like people say video games,
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I'm not addicted to that, that's not a problem. But there are three things that are major addictions today. Social media, email, and text messaging.
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These are major problems. Use them, of course, I'm not saying don't use them, but I want to bring it to your attention that this is a problem for a lot of people.
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It's costing billions to employers, it's definitely hurting relationships in society, but my argument is that it's hindering our sanctification.
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It's hindering our time in the word, and especially when it's left unmanaged.
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But let me ask you a serious question. Any addiction is bad and dangerous, right?
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But what is so dangerous about internet -based addictions? Are they any different?
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Are they different from other forms? But what is so dangerous about them? There might be just one or two points, but what do you guys think?
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Sorry, Suresh? It's private, excellent, that's the first thing. I would say it's extremely private, right?
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Nobody else is around, nobody else sees, and you think everything is okay. Nobody knows how long you're on Facebook, and everybody's fine with it.
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Ease of access. Ease of access, absolutely. It's readily available, right? Our watches can now talk, right?
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And they have been for a few years. Soon, I'm sure, there'll be ways to, with IoT and internet of things, our shoes will, too, be able to talk and communicate to doctors to see how we're doing with our energy and what the likelihood of cancer is.
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But that's a major issue. Somebody else, Taylor? There's an unlimited supply of it.
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It's on and on and on and on. And I make this point later, but I'll say it now. The internet is like being in a party 24 -7, 365 days a year.
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Nobody likes to leave a party early, right? If you don't want to leave early, then we don't want to leave at all, right?
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So people feel like they're always, they need to be there. How can I get disconnected?
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Because everybody else in the world is online, right? And it's a major problem. The usage itself is not a problem, but it's the uncontrolled usage that I argue is affecting our sanctification.
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And although, also, I said this before, what's dangerous about internet -based addictions? I'm sure this is true for other forms, but it affects our attention span, right?
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We don't have, we're not able to focus much on things as much as we used to, right?
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And this is not just affecting 30 -year -olds or 40 -year -olds. This is affecting 70 -year -old men, and this is affecting 10 -year -olds.
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10 -year -olds are getting affected by this problem because they have no control of screen time, and they can't pay attention to anything more than 15 to 20 minutes, and then they're done.
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They need to shift. Okay, so I just want to say this.
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The solution is not to throw away your gadgets and live in the Pacific, right? It's not to delete your
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Facebook account or throw away your phones. I'm definitely not advocating that.
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The problem is our hearts, and the problem is us, right? If you haven't had the chance to listen to a no -compromise radio,
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Pastor Mike does speak about this. He doesn't speak specifically about addiction in that form, but there are a few episodes where he talks about Facebook time, and it's helpful to read that.
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And I don't know if you guys have noticed, but we have a new church website, and there's a new no -compromise radio website. You can now search.
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So if you just type Facebook and no -compromise radio, you get the whole list. So I strongly encourage you to read that for yourself.
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Right? Let's do a verse. 1 Peter 1. 1
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Peter 1. Let's look at 1 Peter 1, verse 13. Can somebody read 1
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Peter 1, verse 13? Thank you. This book, believe it or not, talks about holiness.
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And the background is they're in some persecution and suffering, and Peter is calling them to be holy and sober.
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He's calling them to be what? Not under the influence of anything. He's telling them to be alert and thinking logically and coherently, which we cannot do, which a lot of screen time and any addiction robs us off, right?
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Being sober is often associated with alcohol, which is also another form of addiction, but screen time is also a major cause of losing your sobriety.
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As Christians, we have to be sober. We have to keep our eyes on the cross.
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We have to keep our lives aligned with the word of God. We can't be controlled by these other things, right?
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Just like I mentioned before, how the brain goes into this hypnotic trance when it's stressed. The problem with that is, again, what?
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You're losing, you're giving up sobriety, and that is an issue. Now, there's another thing that a lot of screen time can do.
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It can cause us to be indifferent to other's problems and indifference, it can cause us to be spiritually forgetful, right?
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That's a major issue. We can be so overwhelmed by the news around us, so overwhelmed by the technology around us, so overwhelmed by what people are saying and doing, we can be indifferent to the things that we really need to be focused on, right?
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We can stop praying because we're so overwhelmed by the shootings and the killings and the celebrity news and the gossip and who's doing what and who's saying what, that it can make us spiritually lazy because we're so overwhelmed by things that we shouldn't be overwhelmed by.
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I'm not saying we don't care, we do. And that's one thing I do right here, right?
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We do care about those things and we pray about those sufferings. And if we can do something about it, we do. But what's happening is when you're always looking at the news and the news is popping up when you're at work, when you're in church, when you're at the dinner table, you are being overwhelmed by things that are not very helpful.
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Kevin DeYoung argues about this, the screen time causes us to be busy but not properly with a hobby or recreation or play.
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For many people, he continues, the chaos in their lives is caused by this. They feel like they're doing something important when they're browsing, but they're aimlessly doing nothing important.
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DeYoung also mentions, we are always engaged with our thumbs but rarely engaged with our thoughts.
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We keep downloading information but rarely get down to the depths of the heart.
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I don't know how we can manage this perfectly, but there's one thing that we do at home at least, at least it works for us.
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And you can adapt this if you need to, or you can pray and think about what's good. People tend to text and email me all the time.
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At work, it's stopped significantly, reduced significantly. But we have a rule that once we get home, at least when we're sitting down for devotion, when we're sitting down for dinner, we put the phone away, right?
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It's helped us a lot. It's made our conversations better. And it also teaches the kids that the phone is not our
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God. I think that's very, very important. We also do things like when we go on vacation, we put the phone away.
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We put the devices away. The only time we take it up is when we need to, when we're lost and we have no idea how to get back to civilization, right?
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That's the only time. Again, these are not hard and fast things. These are not absolutes. I'm just saying things that have really helped me and my wife, right?
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The other thing is it does things like putting your phone away, not looking at email, actually is hard, hard work.
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Not looking at your phone when it's constantly beeping with a text message is absolute hard work. I'm not saying throw your phones and don't text.
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That's not what I'm saying. But we're not very good at multitasking, like I said before.
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We're very good at doing one thing well at a time. So I think it's fairly important to have some kind of checks and balance, something to say, let's put this away for half an hour.
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Let's talk face -to -face for half an hour or even more, right? One thing that does affect our rest and our rhythm is how much we check the phone after 8 p .m.
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Not just us, but you can see that a lot of people, their sleep is affected, and when your sleep is affected, you can't wake up in the morning and sit down and pray.
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I'm not saying that's the only time you can pray, but for most of us, it's not only a good time.
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We are most clear at that time. But when we sleep late, we can't do that, and the rest of the day seems hurried and chaotic, right?
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It's a big problem. So 99 % of people spend anywhere from three to four hours a night looking over the internet and doing really nothing important, right?
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Nothing really, just browsing, not for information, just looking from page to page, nothing solid, and it ruins our rhythm.
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It affects our schedule, and as human beings, it affects the way we think and the way we read our word and the amount of time we spend there.
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Just like children, I don't know, one thing I realized as a dad was, consistency is very important, isn't it?
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If your child's schedule is changing every day, if she or he gets more, I don't know what the word is, fussy, angry, insecure, guess what?
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We as adults need the same kind of rhythm and schedule to our day, but we don't have that rhythm if we're constantly distracted by every text and every email that comes our way, right?
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We can put things, there are fantastic applications that Google Chrome and many other browsers have that actually put a time limit on how much time you spend on a specific website.
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Two years ago, I had to put that on ESPN .com because I was constantly checking the Wimbledon score, right, it didn't matter where I was,
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I was constantly checking the score, so I put a limit on five minutes, a total in a day. I'm not saying
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I'm trying to be a monk and move somewhere where there's no internet, no, but I needed something to help me realize that this is taking too much of my time.
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Okay, I want to read straight from one of the things that he said, page 92 of Crazy Busy, talking more about how we don't have a rhythm.
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Many of us are less busy than we think, but life feels constantly overwhelming because our days and weeks and years have no rhythm.
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Technology is at work, we use technology all the time at work and we blend it with the rest in a big, confusing mush.
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We never quite leave work when we're at home, so the next day we have a hard time getting back to work when we are at work.
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We have no routine, no order to our days, we're never completely on and never totally off, so we dawdle on YouTube for 20 minutes at the office and then catch up on emails for 40 minutes in front of the
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TV at home. Perhaps this arrangement works for some employers and may feel freeing for many employees, but over time, most of us work less effectively, whether it's in the home or out of the home, and find our work less enjoyable when there is no regular, concentrated, deliberate work.
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I think that's even more true when it comes to our spiritual lives.
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We never really put things away. I've been in situations where there were several brothers, where we were in a
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Bible study, they were in the Bible study, they were checking the latest scores, and they were trying to set up a restaurant reservation for their wives the next day.
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I'm not blaming them, I'm not saying it's all wrong, but I find it hard to do more than one thing at a time properly, and I don't know how these guys are managing it, right?
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So, I'm coming towards the end. I don't want us to think that ministry is wrong or spending time with people is wrong.
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I'm talking more about doing things only for pleasing people, and wanting everybody to praise us as the only motives for picking up things to do.
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We have a great example of one man who suffered greatly in the Bible, and he never gave up on serving people.
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Look, as long as we're in ministry, as long as we're serving people, there's going to be some kind of suffering, right?
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Our sins, their sins, our emotion, their emotion, those should not prevent us from being in ministry, or giving our lives to serving and loving and caring for them, right?
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A lot of people need that. That's the way the church, God has made the church, but there's nothing wrong with being busy, but there's something wrong with being sinfully busy, right?
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If you look at the life of Paul, he was always busy, wouldn't you say? Wouldn't you say he was a super, super busy man?
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I mean, if he was alive, I think his tweet, he did most of the tweets, and we'd be all following him, wouldn't we?
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But he did busyness correctly. If he wasn't preaching the gospel, he was trying to stay alive.
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If he wasn't building a tent, he was defending his conscience and his actions. If he wasn't in a shipwreck, he was busy in prison, or being put to prison.
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Yet he stayed focused and on track. He loved the Lord and knew that dealing with people was messy and would take a lot of time and effort.
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He never stopped. Paul was busy in the right ways. So, I've got a few minutes to give you one good solution that'll help.
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Luke chapter 10, verse 38 to 42. This is the story of Martha and Mary, right?
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If you were here about three weeks ago, Elder Harry taught on this. It was a wonderful message.
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Can somebody quickly tell me what was the one point that you got out of that message? What did you learn out of that text? Joni? Right, right.
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Thank you, that's a very good summary, right? I like also what Elder Harry said.
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He said a lot of people, and even Martha, she was so distracted by everything around her, right?
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She was very anxious. She was very tight, right? Now, I like the way it's said.
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Martha is definitely doing something good. We all have to serve. We have to cook food, and serve, and do things, right?
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But in this particular context, Mary is doing what is best. She's sitting at the feet of the
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Lord, and she's praying, right? She's praying, she's learning from the
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Lord. Now, I'm not saying we all leave our jobs, abandon our houses, move to the
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Cape, not to the Cape, sorry, move to the Grand Canyon, and sit with a tent and a board that says,
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Linton told me to do this, right? I'm not saying that at all, but I am saying a lot of things are always vying for our attention and our time.
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I argue that a lot of them are distracting us from what is very important. And if you look at, one amazing thing about the
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Bible, and if you look at the context of Luke, right, especially Luke 10, have you noticed the section is between a bunch of things?
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Above, he says ministry, there's healing, there's ministry. The Lord is doing a lot of other things, right?
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And he's not saying any of those are not important. But look at the way it's positioned in Luke 10.
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One thing we can understand from the way it's put is that there's, healing is good, ministering is good, doing all this other stuff with other people is wonderful.
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But if you're not in the Word of God alone, if you don't have a devotion time of your own, no matter how old or young you are, that's more dangerous.
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So the way, the solution to this busy world is not to do a lot of things, it's to focus on the one thing really, really well, right?
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And that we can do, right? Isn't it easier to do one thing really well than try to fix all these other problems? And that is to focus on the
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Word of God continuously, to never sacrifice it even when we are busy, right?
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I'm not telling you how long, please, this is not an absolute teaching. It can be five minutes, it can be 10 minutes, it can be three hours if you like, how much ever you want.
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But when you choose that time and set it to read the Word, to meditate on it and to pray intentionally, see there's an intentional doing here.
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You're not passive in this, right? That's what we're doing. All this other stuff makes us more and more passive, but we're actively pursuing the
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Word of God. It makes a difference. And we can see that God will reward and bless faithfulness to us.
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I too often get a lot of phone calls from my fellow brothers who are sound in doctrine, but their lives are frenzied and frantic and chaotic.
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And I can tell you, there's always a common thread, always a common thread, an abandonment of either private or family devotion.
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Please, I know devotion is a very legalistic word, and I'm not trying to put something on you in any way that I shouldn't, okay?
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But it's a good thing. And if you abandon that private devotion time and that family devotion time, we show that everything else is more important, right?
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I argue doing a few things well for the glory of God is much better than doing a hundred things.
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Abandoning private worship, abandoning family worship, abandoning corporate worship, all of those things come at a big, big consequence.
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I like what Ryle said. J .C. Ryle is, he writes very well, and one of the things he talks about on the topic is this.
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A man may preach from false motives. A man may write books and make fine speeches and seem diligent in good works and yet be a
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Judas Iscariot. But man seldom goes into his closet and pours out his soul before God in secret unless he is serious.
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So please, that is a solution to this chaotic world. That is a solution to everything being thrown at us, because Christ died for us, because He loved us to follow
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Him. Okay, in closing, what can I say? Husbands, lead your homes.
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You have the responsibility to set the priorities for your home. I know that when
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I'm setting the priorities and helping my parents, my children and my wife, the home is calm, the home is stable, the home is secure.
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But if I'm running around focusing on all the other things that are trying to grab my eye, I neglect what's most important.
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We as husbands, fathers have a huge responsibility. I hope we don't abandon that because our phones are tickling us all day.
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A few years ago, Daniel Aitken spoke at BBC. I wasn't married then, I wasn't even thinking about marriage then, but it was one of the most important conferences
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I've ever attended in my life. And one of the things he said, which kind of shocked me is this, and again,
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I wanna close by talking to the men in particular. He said this, when we court and date our wives, or just before we ask them to marry us, have you noticed that our phones tend to be in our pockets longer?
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We tend to keep them away, we tend to keep distractions away a lot better. And I don't know why
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Aitken said this, but it stuck with me for years, maybe because I saw a lot of people doing that and I didn't think it was a problem.
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But here's what he said. Many of us fail to love and nourish and cherish our wives now that they are our wives and now that they are the mothers of our children, because we're affected by busyness, because we're constantly looking at the texts and emails that come to us, even on our dates, right?
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We have to work hard to put away these things. And it goes a long way to our marriage.
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Busyness affects a lot of things. It affects our relationship to God and it affects our relationship to our spouses, which is very, very important.
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And as hard as it is, it helps us to put these things away when it's time.
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There's a time for them, there's a time to look at them, there's a time to check them. But if we're always connected, we're always updating our status on Facebook.
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And while we're having a date in this wonderful restaurant in Boston and still texting, it doesn't matter how much you pay at the restaurant, if you're still texting, you're not focusing on your wife.
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And it's very important. We are called to love them, nourish them and cherish them. And in this busy world, we may get a lot of things wrong, but our marriages are very, very important.
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And I hope you take the time to do that. So in summary, understand where pride comes from.
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Is your motive to do good or look good? Beware of screen addiction. Prioritize rest.
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Prioritize to be in the Word and in prayer. Now, if you're a believer, I end with this note.
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Christ is the head from which every member must be supplied. Ephesians 4, 16.
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To live the life of daily faith in the Son of God and to be daily drawing out of His fullness the promised grace and strength which
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He has laid upon for His people. This is the great secret of progressive sanctification.
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Believers who seem at a standstill are generally neglecting close communion with Jesus and so grieving the
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Spirit. He that prayed, sanctified them the last night before His crucifixion is infinitely willing to help everyone who by faith applies to Him for help and desires to be made more holy.
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So if you're a believer, I wanna encourage you, you're not alone. You rest in the finished work of Christ, don't you?
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But He's resurrected and He's ascended. He's on the right hand of God the Father. He's our mediator.
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He's our great high priest. He enables us to walk in the good ways we've walked, right?
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Ephesians. We're not alone. We can pursue holiness by His grace and by His strength.
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If you're an unbeliever, sure, you've been listening to me for two weeks. Maybe some of these points may benefit you.
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Maybe you may get more organized as a result of this. Maybe your life is less chaotic and that's great.
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But without Christ, you cannot have eternal life. Without, He is the only one who's holy.
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He's the only one who can be your substitute. And no amount of order in your life can save you. So if you are an unbeliever,
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I plead with you, turn, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.
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And then when you are saved, one day I hope the Sunday School will help you to be more Christ -like, especially in this chaotic and busy world.
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Did anybody wanna add anything or say anything else? Okay, let's pray.
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Oh Lord Jesus, we thank you for bringing us here today to celebrate a wonderful, wonderful occasion, your resurrection and communion.
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We thank you, Lord, that we do so gladly. We thank you for, because you have conquered death and conquered sin, we have hope.
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And Lord, our hope is anchored in you. It's anchored in your finished, efficacious and meritorious work.
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We thank you so much for loving us, forgiving us and imputing your righteousness to us.
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Lord, we pray that you would help us in this world that is constantly busy, that is constantly pushing on us what seems to be important.
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And Lord, even with our own sins, our own pride, constantly looking to pull us away from your word and away from walking in the faith.
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Would you help us? Would you sanctify us? Would you forgive us if we have erred in these areas?
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And would you help our weakness, oh Lord? For any of us who's not saved, would you also grant us eternal life?
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And Lord, would you help us to trust in your finished work? We pray that you'd bless the rest of this day. May your name and your name alone be glorified.