The Dangers Of Social Media

The Dangers of Social Media & How to Find Real Happiness

Mattthew 5: 10-12

Our Summer Olympics began two weeks ago and one of the high points for Team USA is that we have won a total of medals of 105 medals: 31 of those being gold. Simone Biles has earned 4 medals, 3 being gold. All of this has not come without difficulty for her personally; in fact, it has come at great cost. Not just the obvious time, hard work and commitment necessary but the toll this kind of commitment has taken on athletes like Simone Biles. In the background of all of this, she has suffered a great deal with mental health issues. Prior to the Olympics, she found it necessary to take a two-year break from to focus on herself and tend to these issues.

The strains of life for many of us can be difficult. Pressure can often be unbearable, and we could easily say she is not alone in her struggles. You must ask, with all her success, with so much to be proud of, how she could possibly have so many struggles. She has been the point of a great deal of criticism; even a target of hatred by many and she has been blasted all over social media. Her husband as well. Simone stayed in a recent interview that she credits her faith in God for her success. She said, “I don’t physically understand how I am even able to do it. It is a god given talent. But I continue to lean on my faith to overcome the adversity that has come my way.”

This is the setting for this message for what Jesus had to say. It’s a sermon that Jesus preached on the Mount of Beatitudes which is a hill in northern Israel; people came from all over; from 10 different cities to hear what Jesus had to say. They came largely because they had been hearing about this man named Jesus. Jesus had come teaching and preaching and healed every kind of disease. The paralyzed, the epileptic, the lame, the deaf, the blind, even those who were demon possessed. The gospel writer John reminds us that “Jesus did many other things. And if they were all written down, I suppose the whole world could not contain the books that would be written.” So, we know that even with all these individuals that he healed, there were many more the scripture does not even mention. In this message we call the sermon on the mouth, in this one section, versus 3 – 11, Jesus uses the word blessed nine times and each time the word blessed means happy. This would easily be the largest crowd by the way that Jesus would ever speak to. Even bigger than the feeding of the 5000. Jesus must have decided prior to this that with this opportunity to speak to so many people it would be very important to choose his topic very carefully. So, he decided to speak to them about what truly mattered to all of us. Happiness.

• Happier are those who are poor – and then he tells us why….

• Happy are those who mourn

• Happy are those who hunger and thirst for justice

• Happy are those who are merciful

• Happy are those whose thoughts are pure

• Happy are those who work for peace

Vvs. 10 – 12. Happiness is an elusive thing. We seem to find it and in the next minute it’s gone. I believe it is because of a very simple but profound truth. We are looking in the wrong place.

True Happiness is found in Christ alone.

Some of us have coping mechanisms in place; addictions perhaps that keep us distracted from the life we should have in Christ . There are many reasons these addictions / distractions are necessary to us because too many of us deal with depression, anxiety, grief, pain in general and we need some way of coping. Let me mention a few.

• Alcohol/drinking too much

• Recreational drugs

• Food/overeating

• Television

• Social media

There are many reasons these addictions / distractions are “necessary” to us because too many of us deal with depression, anxiety, grief, and pain in general. So, we need some way of coping. CS Lewis said in a book I’m reading this week, The Problem of Pain “pain insists upon being tended to. God whispers to our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: pain is like a megaphone to wake up a world that won’t listen. Now I don’t believe for a moment that God causes or sends us pain, but he certainly allows it. He is obviously in charge of all things. So how do we address all of this? It’s even more difficult when we understand how body and mind work together. It’s a matter of the soul. There are three components we all possess. Body, mind and spirit. They all work together. If the body is not well it changes our thinking. It can change the way we feel in our spirit. If the mind is depressed it affects the body. And vice versa. Good exercise can help control depression.