“THE MEDIA MONSTER” Phil. 4:8
FBCF – 5/29/22
Jon Daniels
INTRO – Not an expert in social media. Most 57 yr.-old adults aren’t! But you don’t have to be an expert to know that social media & other forms of media & technology impact our lives & our kids’ lives every day – even right now. This service is being live-streamed on Facebook & YouTube. Since coming into this room, some of y’all have probably checked your social media pages or posted something on social media. Some of you have checked the weather on your phones, a sports score, or read a news report.
Not going to bore you w/ a ton of stats but do want to share a few to lay a foundation. The crazy thing is that these stats will most likely be obsolete in no time as the influence of social media widens & deepens exponentially.
- 58.4% of the world population uses social media – About 4.7 billion users worldwide
- Facebook: Over 2.9 billion users. Largest age group – 25-34 yr-olds. Some of y’all may have thought the age group would have been older since your grandmother is constantly posting on her Facebook page!
- Instagram: 2 billion users. 25-34 yr-olds with 18-23 yr-olds running a close 2nd.
- TikTok: 1 billion users. 10-19 yr-olds w/ about 2/3 being females
- Twitter: 211 million users. 18-29 yr-olds.
- Pinterest: 431 million users. 50-64 yr-olds w/ nearly 80% being females.
- Snapchat: 319 million. 15-25 yr-olds.
- YouTube: Over 2 billion users. 15-35 yr-olds.
Then just this stark reminder: It is astounding how quickly a child w/ an iPhone or an iPad in their hand can access pornographic content. With just 2 clicks, they can be exposed to some of the most vile, graphic images & videos imaginable. Average age of child’s first exposure is 11 yrs. old. Children under the age of 10 now account for 22% of consumption of this kind of material under 18 yrs. old. Parents, if your child is upper elementary or early middle school & you’re not talking w/ them about this, you’re already behind.
EXPLANATION – Philippians 4:8
A lot of verses in Philippians are familiar to many Christ-followers:
- Philippians 1:3 – “I thank my God every time I remember you.”
- Philippians 1:6 – “…He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it…”
- Philippians 2:10-11 – “…at the name of Jesus…”
- Philippians 3:13-14 – “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
- Philippians 4:4 – “Rejoice in the Lord always…”
- Philippians 4:6-7 – “Be anxious for nothing…”
- Philippians 4:13 – “I can do all things…”
- Philippians 4:19 – “…my God shall supply all your needs…”
Philippians 4:8 is also one of those verses that is familiar to many of us. Follows on the heels of the “don’t worry about anything – pray about everything” verses. Right praying is definitely important to securing a peaceful mind & having victory over worry. And making sure that your mind is focused on the right stuff is also an important part of keeping worry at bay. Look back at v. 7. God’s peace will guard our heart AND our mind. The heart has to do w/ our feelings & the mind has to do w/ our thinking.
One of our memory verses from a few months ago was Isaiah 26:3 – “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you b/c he trusts in you.” “Stayed” means that your mind is leaning on the Lord; being sustained by the Lord; being supported & upheld by the Lord.
What does this all have to do w/ media & technology? The ONLY way we can stay strong in our walk w/ the Lord & stand against the constant influence of all sorts of media sources is to “stay” our mind on the Lord. And that’s what Philippians 4:8 reminds us to do.
APPLICATION – We must be prepared to deal with the impact that media has on our families or we’re going to be in big trouble!
GET SERIOUS ABOUT THIS! – We need to realize that, if left unchecked, the impact of media – especially social media has on our lives & on our kids’ lives can be extremely detrimental & dangerous.
Why get serious? Lot of reasons. Here are 3:
Protection – Uvalde school shooting – One of most difficult things to hear in the aftermath was the heartbroken, devastated parents trying to process what has happened to them. All of us as parents know that one of our primary responsibilities in life is to protect our kids.
Protection of loved ones is a driving motivation for many of the things we do – lock our doors at night – security systems – guns – childproofing our homes when we still have little ones there.
We do all of these things, & yet we leave our children unprotected many times as so many of them of all ages are allowed to have unsupervised, unfiltered access to cellphones, iPads, & tablets. We get lazy, or busy, or just need them to get out of hair for a little while. So the phone or the tablet becomes the babysitter. Get serious about protecting your kids & family. Do the research! Talk to & team up w/ other parents! Set the boundaries! Get help when needed! Don’t take this lightly! Our kids are being eaten alive by the media monster!
Peace of mind – Just finished up my 40-day social media fast this past Friday. I can testify that one of the greatest blessings that came out of those weeks of no Facebook or Twitter or Instagram was the peace that I experienced in the midst of some of the heaviest spiritual attacks I’ve ever experienced in my life & ministry. Not saying that the peace I experienced was all b/c of my fast, but I can assure you that not having the constant deluge of information & images from my social media feeds definitely contributed to a calmer state of mind for me. Get serious about cultivating the peace of mind that the Holy Spirit gives to us. The media monster is out to decimate this peace of mind.
Priorities – Those things that are truly important to us are the things we are going to devote our time to. Avg time spent on social media daily is 2 ½ hours a day. Imagine if we spent that time in Bible study & prayer – or even half that amount of time in Bible study & prayer.
Passed a house on my way to church every day in Byram. Every time I passed it, I could see their big screen TV in their den or living room from the road. And every time it was on Fox News. Don’t know these people. Nothing inherently wrong with that. But how many of us just leave the TV on nonstop just b/c we’ve got to have some noise going on.
Get serious about prioritizing your time to build & deepen your walk w/ Christ, which, for most of us, means we need to decrease our media input time & increase our time spent in the Word & prayer. Which leads to next point:
GRAB YOUR BIBLE! – If you & I are going to be victorious in our spiritual battles, we’ve got to go to the Word, know the Word, & grow in the Word.
Our verse for this sermon is so important in this ongoing battle w/ the media monster that we are all in. The true battlefield is our mind. This is where the enemy strikes the most frequently & the most intensely. That’s why it is SO important that we saturate our minds w/ the truths of God’s Word. Here in this one verse, we are instructed to occupy our minds w/ things that are:
- “True” – The media world is filled w/ stuff that is just wrong! - false teachers, wrong ideologies, deceptive philosophies
- “Honorable” – “noble” (NIV) – Lofty, majestic things that lift us above the world’s dirt & scandals
- “Just” – “right” – Thinking right steers us away from unnecessary, unfruitful quarreling & fighting & toward thinking about the needs of the other person.
- “Pure” – Our minds are constantly attacked w/ impure images & thoughts through media. Battle back w/ pure thoughts.
- “Lovely” – Rare word that refers to things that attract others to bring them together in peace instead of in opposition to one another.
- “Commendable” – Things that are worth talking about. Things that build a good, Godly reputation.
- “Excellence & worthy of praise” – If something has excellence, it motivates us to live better. If it is worthy of praise, it is something we can commend to others. We can’t waste our time thinking about things that tear us down or tear others down.
When the media monster is attacking, you need to be grabbing that Bible & swinging your sword!
GUARD THE GATES! – Proverbs 23:7 – “As [a man] thinks in his heart, so is he” (KJV). What you think about, what you put into your mind & pour into your heart, that’s what you will become. And what you put into your mind & heart is what is going to come out of your mouth when you are under pressure. What you put into your mind & heart is what is going to be evident to all those around you as you live your life. That’s why we’ve got to tenaciously guard the gates of our lives.
A gate is an entrance. Not usually an entrance right into your home. But it’s an entrance to your property or your neighborhood or your yard. May have one at the end of your driveway or the entrance of your subdivision. Sometimes there’s a guard shack there. Or an intercom there. Or a keypad for a code. Have to get permission to come onto property or into neighborhood. Gates are places where we stop unwanted people from gaining access to our homes & our loved ones. We use gates to keep thieves & murderers & rapists out of our homes.
Allowing your kids to have unfiltered, unsupervised access to social media means you are giving the gate code to their hearts & lives to Satan. It means you are giving him permission to come onto your property & do a home invasion so he can steal, kill, & destroy, b/c that’s what a thief does when he gains access to your home. When you & I as adults choose to mindlessly & constantly fill our minds w/ images & information that is not true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, & worthy of praise, we are not guarding the gates to our lives & the enemy is coming in as quickly & as aggressively as he can.
CONCLUSION/TAKEAWAYS – There’s a TV commercial for an insurance company that makes fun of the storyline of most horror movies. The viewers of horror movies always know where the monster is & know that the characters in the movie are headed right toward it. The actors always seem to make stupid decisions that lead to their demise.
You & I know that there’s a monster lurking in the influence of media in our lives. Let’s make sure that we aren’t making stupid decisions, but are guarding our lives & our families’ lives so we can live for the Lord!
