Sharing Faith On Facebook Series

OPEN: On the way home from church a little girl who said, “Mom, I’ve been thinking.”

The mother said, “Oh! About what?”

The girl replied, “Well, my teacher this morning said God is bigger than we are. Is that true?”

“Yes, that’s true,” the mother replied.

“He also said that God lives within us. Is that true too?”

Again the mother replied, “Yes.”

“Well,” said the girl. “If God is bigger than us and He lives in us, wouldn’t He show through?”

APPLY: A basic principle of life. Whatever is most important to you - whatever is “biggest” in your life – will shine through.

And on Facebook this especially becomes true. Who a person is will shine through. Because whatever is BIGGEST in their lives – shows.

You can tell what is important in a person’s life on Facebook by what…

· they talk about the most

· and what they say they “like “

· and what kind of photos they “share”

One of the most common aspects of Facebooking is this “Sharing” feature.

People on Facebook share photos like these:

1. Humorous (put up humorous postings on the overhead)

2. Political (political photos)

3. Affection or Love (affection related postings on Facebook)

4. Patriotic (patriotic photo)

You can tell a lot about a person is like by what they share on Facebook.

And that’s been the conclusion of a couple of studies mentioned in Forbes Magazine http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/03/05/facebook-can-tell-you-if-a-person-is-worth-hiring/

These studies were conducted by Don Kluemper, of Northern Illinois University.

In one of these studies, he asked employers to give impressions of a candidate based solely on their Facebook page. They were to visit the Facebook page of prospective employees and then assign each person a score for qualities important to a good employee,

Six months later Kluemper went back to those companies to see how well the employer’s first impressions had been. What they found was a strong correlation between the employers’ reviews of Facebook and how the employee actually behaved at that company.

Then he did another study where they examined their Facebook pages of College Students and had them take personality and IQ tests (called cognitive tests). Then, they looked at the grade points of the students.

Kluemper said “We were able to better predict a student’s academic success based on their Facebook page than on the cognitive tests”

The whole point of those studies was this:

You can tell a lot about a person by what they share on their Facebook.

Whatever is most important in their lives – will show through.

So, if you ARE on Facebook.

OR if you WERE on Facebook.

What would show through?

What kind of things would you share?

Would it mostly be about family?

Or your political beliefs?

Or music you like?

Or the movies you’ve watched or books you’ve read?

What would be the kind of thing you’d share the most?

A couple of my “Facebook friends” share Christ on their Facebook pages.

(We ran through religious photos they’d shared on their Facebook, ranging from humorous, to Bible verses, to little Bible lessons).

Then, there’s Lyla and her friends who keep up the Church Facebook page. They post pictures of activities in the church here and write about things that are important to them about our congregation.

You can tell how much they love Jesus because of what they share on their Facebook page. Jesus is important to them… so He shines through – even there.

Now, that got me to thinking…

If people love Jesus, they share their faith on Facebook.

So, how should folks share their faith on the internet?

As I studied our text for this morning I learned that – first

If He’s real to you… He’ll show through.

John wrote:

“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched— this we proclaim concerning the Word of life…. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard…” I John 1:1 & 3a

Notice what John is saying:

We HEARD these things.

We SAW these things.

We HANDLED these things.

And that’s what we’re telling you about.

In other words, this isn’t a religious game he’s playing.

He’s not doing this for show.

In fact, like the other apostles, John ends up suffering for his faith. He’s the only one not martyred because of what he preaches. But the authorities do end up exiling John to the Isle of Patmos so that they can keep him from preaching and teaching others about Christ.

But even that doesn’t stop him.

John preached Jesus because he had tell about Jesus.

He was DRIVEN to do this because he loved Jesus so much.

John was sharing something he KNOWS is true.