Cyber Talk - Communicating Through Email, Texts And Social Media Series

A. One day a man whose wife was addicted to her online activities sent her this email:

1. Dear Wife,

I’m sending you this email to bring up to date on the events of our family. I tried to talk to you while you were on your computer, but you just kept telling me that you would B-R-B... whatever that means. So, I decided to send you this email.

John Jr. cut his first tooth today. He’s the one you bounce on your knee while typing and surfing the internet.

Susie had her first date Saturday night. She had a good time and said to thank you for letting them use your car. She put the keys back on the key rack underneath the cobwebs where she found them.

Tim is playing football. He looks forward to going to school now that he has a sport to play. He wants to know if you would come to one of his games if we bought you a laptop to bring along?

Let’s see, what else is new since the last time I wrote you three months ago: the refrigerator had to be replaced, the dog died from old age, the church has a new minister, and oh yes...I have a new job.

Well, I think that's about it. I’ll email you again in about three months. You take care of yourself honey. We all “miss” you very much and will see you the next time the power goes off! Love, Your Husband

2. Although this illustration was about a wife who was too absorbed with her online activities, it could just as easily have been about husbands, young adults or teens who can’t seem to turn their attention from their laptops, Ipads, cellphones or gaming systems.

B. Today, as we continue in our SPEAK LIFE sermon series, I want us to turn our attention to our “cyber talk” – what we are communicating through email, texting and social media.

1. Obviously, this is not the use of our physical tongue, but it is the use of our words and the communication of who we are and what we believe.

2. Before we get into the specifics of “cyber talk,” I want us to spend some time assessing and addressing this internet and electronic age we live in.

3. While there are many advantages to social media and everything electronic, we should ask: “Is it good for us?”

4. Or more importantly, we should ask ourselves: “How can we obey the Great Commandment to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength while using Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Google?”

5. Some of the things I want to encourage us to think through in this sermon and afterward are these:

a. Am I seeking to glorify God through my use of the internet and social media?

b. Is my use of the internet and social media leading me into sin?

c. Has the use of the internet and social media become my master?

d. Is my use of the internet and social media wasting time and making me unproductive?

e. Do I value my use of the internet and social media more than real-life relationships?

f. Is my use of the internet and social media leading to my discontentment?

g. Is my use of the internet and social media leading to complaining, unwholesome talk, or unprofitable arguments?

h. Do people clearly see the light of Christ through what I post, tweet, text and email?

6. As I think you would agree, those are very important questions with very significant consequences and outcomes.

C. Tony Reinke made this admission in his article “Six Ways Your Phone is Changing You”: Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone at Macworld Expo 2007, and I got my first one a year later. I can’t remember life without it. For seven years an iPhone has always been within my reach, there to wake me in the morning, there to play my music library, there to keep my calendar, there to capture my life in pics and video, there for me to enjoy sling-shooting wingless birds into enemy swine, there as my ever-present portal to Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. My iPhone is such a part of my daily life, I rarely think self-reflectively about it.”

1. But that’s precisely what I want us to do to today…I want us to think about it.

2. David Wells, who is a careful thinker and has watched trends in the church for many decades, says: “What is it doing to our minds when we are living with this constant distraction? We are, in fact, now living with a parallel universe, a virtual universe that can take all of the time we have. So what happens to us when we are in constant motion, when we are addicted to constant visual stimulation? What happens to us? That is the big question.”