Radiant Church
Eyes Up, Phones Down | David Perkins
“Prioritize your devotional life by intentionally planning your digital life.”
Join us as Pastor David Perkins brings an encouraging and timely message just for you!
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MusicBed SyncID: MB01SMWFTC7HQ4K
- Duration:
- 53m
- Broadcast on:
- 24 Jul 2024
- Audio Format:
- mp3
(upbeat music) - Hey, thanks for listening to The Radiant Church Podcast. This is David Perkins and we're so glad that you're listening. Hey, if you're a part of our family meeting online or in person, we would encourage you to get connected at Radiant Church KC across all social media platforms. God is doing something incredible in Kansas City and we love connecting with you, whether it's through our app or even through all the content available on our YouTube page. Hey, our prayer is that God uses this message to change your life and that you could become a dynamic disciple of Jesus. Thanks for listening, enjoy this message. Well, happy summer everybody. It's mid summer, are you loving it? Are you having a good summer? Good, good, good, good. We got any swimmers, you're going to the pool a lot, anybody goes to the pool a lot? Nope, nobody, all right. Couple of you. How many buddy, barbecueing, barbecueing, barbecueers? All right, couple of you, all right. Okay, how many just working your tail off like this? (laughing) All right. All right, well, if you're happy, say I am. Hey, it's great to see all of you. What do you think of the new paint on the exterior? You feel good about it? Yay, all right. Okay, yeah, me too. I think it's super fun, super great. Love what God's doing. Hey, a couple of things I want to tell you about. One is this weekend, Friday night and Saturday, is our first ever discipleship summit. And mom and dad, can you stand real quick? This is my parents, everybody. Hey, hey, hey, yeah, so great. (audience applauding) And so my parents are putting this on and my dad serves here as the pastor of discipleship. And it'll be Friday night, all day Saturday. And we already have 94 registered, which is awesome. It'll be right up here in the prayer chapel. And I love that. I love that there's so many of you that are willing to take a Friday night and all day Saturday to learn number one, how to be a disciple and then number two, how to make disciples. And so if you're interested in that, whether you're gonna be a small group leader or not, it's a great opportunity for you. In addition, if you'd like to step into leading a small group in the fall, this would be a great, incredible training on Friday night and Saturday, it's free. And so if you want mine signing up for that, you can do that either right out here at the info booth. Yeah. - Have you ever done this before? - Yeah. Yes, okay. Or if you would like to help disciple your children. And so it's a great step. And so these people are incredible. I mean, look what they've produced everybody. And so that was a great set of them. Okay, so it'd be great for parents as well. And so anyway, it's gonna be a great time. So good, discipleship summit, Friday Saturday. And then also the following week on Saturday, August 3rd, we will have our serve day. And so this is our chance to put on our matching t-shirts. We have three different places where we will be serving, serve our city. And so I wanna encourage you to be a part of that and to register, sign up for that. We'll give you a little bit more next Sunday as that'll be the Sunday before and we'll talk a little bit more about that. But that's coming up. And if you're able to put that on your calendar to serve together, we're gonna make a difference and be a radiant light in our city. So serve day's coming up. That'll be great. And then also I wanted to give you just a heads up one more. I'm actually gonna direct the message towards this today. But August 4th through 24th, we'll have concluded our summer semester of small groups. We'll be before we launch our fall small group semester. So our summer semester is six weeks and then our fall semester is 13 weeks. And right there, we're gonna do 21 days of prayer again. And as you know, we take 21 days of prayer in January where it's focused on intercessory prayer and fasting and 21 days of prayer and fasting in January. And then in August, we've been doing 21 days of devotional prayer. And we're gonna continue that, 21 days of devotional prayer. And this year I'm gonna add this. I told you I was gonna do this at the beginning of the summer. So here we go that today's the day. I'm gonna invite you to in some way do a digital fast. So I wanna talk about that a little bit today. But it's a way to put aside some things that take up our time and our space in order to have time to give God our attention. And then on the Sunday, or on the Saturday actually, of August 24th right there, we're gonna gather together for the finale. We're gonna come together and worship and pray together on that Saturday. So that's gonna be a great time. And I just wanna invite you to put those on your calendar, think through them. And then today, I wanna go after this idea of this digital fast. And so we are in this summer of transformation where we've talked about serving, we've talked about simplifying our lives, we've talked a lot about prayer. Today, I wanna go after fasting, but I wanna do this in the context of a digital fast. And I do this at a risk. I'm not at all saying, obviously when we read Jesus in Matthew six, and he's talking about fasting, talking about fasting food. And so I don't wanna in any way belittle that because that's what we, and that's what we aim at in January, that you would fast something and many fast food or do juice fasts. And we do live in the 21st century where there is technology that is taking over so many of our lives. And so just like you would stack a habit, we've been doing 21 days of prayer, devotional in August, and this year I wanna stack a digital fast. So we wanna encourage everybody to spend time with God every day. And I wanna invite you, I'm intentionally doing this two weeks out to give you two weeks to think and pray and strategize and to think about what you might fast digitally, all right, in order to make space, to make room, to be with God. And so we're in this series, Summer of Transformation, where we're talking about spiritual formation, spiritual disciplines, spiritual habits. And we're in, I think this is week seven. And so let's all stand together and read the scripture. I think most of us may have this memorized by now. This first one out of the NIV, I'd like us to read it together, says this. You can say it with me. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, his good, pleasing, and perfect will. Let me give it to you in the message paraphrase. Don't become so well adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. Say attention. You'll be changed from the inside out, readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity. God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. Then let me just read Hebrews 12. I want to take that idea of give God your attention. Transform our mind. So we got Romans 12 to NIV message. Let's just look at this Hebrews 12.1. So I want to take this idea about what we'd look at or giving God our attention. Famous verse. Dear first, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let's throw off everything. Throw off everything. Throw off everything that hinders. So not just the sin, it gets to the sin, but even those that hinder. Really that hinder is, I think where we're going to marinate a lot today. That hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance, the race marked out for us. Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfect of our faith. Father, we love you today. We ask Lord Jesus that you would help us in a culture so filled with digital resources, digital addictions. We ask Lord that you would help us to live in a way that Jesus would live if he lived right now in 2024. Help us God. Help us not to live like victims, but disciples. God help us, we need you. We pray for supernatural strength. Open our eyes to see. We love you, we honor you in Jesus name. And then you may be seated. So recently I was driving in Kansas City and saw a sign that I've never seen before. Obviously, I'm used to seeing signs like a mile marker sign, a stop sign, a yield sign, a speed limit sign. And there was a sign that I'd never seen before. It was a new sign that actually made me smirk, but it was a big orange sign. Maybe you've seen it, it said phones down. And the idea that they were saying is, "Hey, pay attention for your own sake and for other people's safety. Pay attention to driving." So today as sermon illustration, just like if you were ninth graders, I'd like you to pull out your phone. And I'd like you to turn it face down. Now I know many of you say, "Hey, David, this is where I take notes." And many of you say, "This is where I take notes, but actually you're looking at Instagram or fantasy football." All right? So just for today, I'd like you to actually just go ahead with me and today it's an all play. Let's just put our phones down for a moment and try to pay attention, just so that you remember this message today. And I wanna talk about giving God our attention. I imagine that if you're doing it in traffic where they're saying, "Hey, give all your attention." What would it look like for us if we were to take 21 days, put our phones down? I'll get to it, don't freak out. I'm not saying you break your phone. I'm not saying, but if we were intentional about a digital fast or a digital detox, taking a step away from some of the things, social media, some of the apps, some of the entertainment, some of the sports, some of the news, some of the, all of those things that take up your time in order to give God our full attention. They say that the average American spends anywhere from about four hours and 37 minutes a day on their phone. Now that statistic is different. So I don't wanna give you a hard stat because on my research there is different numbers given by different researchers. Some were putting just over three hours, some in the four hours, some is up into the five hour. But no matter what, if you're gonna take it in that three, four, five hours, it's a significant part of our generation, our day where people are spending time on screens, on phones. My goal is if you take, let's just call it four hours today. There were some that said five, there were some that said even up to six, I don't know which ones to believe. I just know that it's a lot. And what I'm aiming at is if you have that four hour window, what I'm aiming at is to take away a piece of this time and set it for 21 days to be with God, lower. So your phone may become very, like a utility phone and less of an entertainment phone. You might still need to text, there might be things, some of you might be Instagram influencers as a career and so you just cannot, I mean, I don't know. I'm not at all going to say it's an all play everybody, throw your, you know, crush your phone, throw it in a bonfire like we did in the 80s, youth group CDs, but I am saying that I want you to be intentional and for 21 days, give God attention in a special way. And you could play that out and however you decide, I'm asking you to ask God in the next two weeks. So over the course of the next 14 days, before we launch this, I would invite you to begin to ask God what it could look like for you. And I'm believing that in those 21 days, you could have a personal revival. In those personal days, you would be surprised how just getting, we just sang that song about, take out the clutter, right? And we sang it better than that, but if we got rid of some of the clutter, if you were able to take out some of those things in order to fix your eyes on Jesus, in order to, in that message paraphrase, give God your attention, what God might do. And so I want to invite you to a fast. It's a digital fast. It is some form of fasting. And I believe that you will watch your heart grow in relationship with God. They say that 21 days is how you form a habit. Our aim is that in addition to that space of you being alone with God each day, it's possible that you may even permanently delete an app or two. It's possible that you may be, start to develop your own law, your own rule. You might take some personal courage or strength that you set on yourself. I call it personal legalism, and I put it on myself. So it's not that I'm legalistic, it's that because I have been saved by grace, and I am a new person, a new creature. And because of that, I know that I live in an age in a day where there is the constant bombardment of all kinds of things trying to take me out. So the scripture says that the enemy prowls around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. So be sober and alert, first Peter five. My goal is to be sober and alert about the day that I live in. And so there are some things that I'm gonna be, I'm gonna just, the personal legalism actually helps me. So when I was dating Renata in the late 90s, there was something called Blockbuster, right? I know, many of you don't know what that is. But I had a rule, when I was dating Renata, because when I would go into Blockbuster, there were more images of immorality than I was ever used to in any other part of my life. And so when we started dating, I said, you go pick the movie, all right? And then I'll wait here. Not wait here, I didn't have a cell phone, there wasn't like, I'll wait here and scroll, that would be a new thing in today's kind of world. But it was, I'll wait here, you pick it up. I don't wanna put myself in that environment. That would have been personal legalism. It's not, it's not I'm doing 'cause I'm a legalistic and I'm trying to appease. It's because not at the overflow of my desire to follow God, I'm just not gonna do that, right? So you can only imagine that today, that looks like child's play and small compared to the allurements, the temptation, the deception that is living on our screens right in front of our eyes all the time. And so I'm gonna invite you to actually take a step, it's your own, it's your own step. It's not, hey, we as a church are asking you, we are shutting down Instagram for 21 days. There will be no TikTok get our, no, no, no, that's what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is I wanna invite you for two weeks to pray and ask God. And then for 21 days, you know, you know that you spend X amount of time doing something, the video game, the app, whatever it is, and I'm gonna invite you to just ask God, God, what would it look like for me to voluntarily forgo this thing that I love? I love Tetris or whatever it is, sorry, I know. That's silly, I'm just showing off my age, right? I love this fantasy football app, I love Instagram, I love, I don't know, some other app, but God, I love you more. And so as a statement of love, I'm gonna voluntarily delete this. I'm gonna voluntarily place some rule, I'll give you some ideas today, some rule in order to fast. I think, I was just a magic, what do it be like if Jesus, literally we're living in 2024. And I don't know if Jesus would have an iPhone, but let's say that he did. I don't know if he would, that's a whole nother question, but how would he handle it? What would it look like? And of course, our aim is to be like Jesus, and so we wanna take every part of the Christian life and say, Jesus, you own it all. So you own my iPhone. So, God help me. And I wanna take 21 days and intentionally take a step back. Just like when you would fast food, you would say, okay, man does not live on bread alone, you know, and that temptation that the enemy comes in, you know, says to Jesus and he's coming after Jesus, right? And all of us have this temptation. And when we say, in fasting food, we say, I need food, I desire food, I like food, I was made for food, but I'm actually gonna go without food. That's a, I know this is hard for you to believe it. That's actually a stronger need than you have than your iPhone, no. Yeah, 92% of Americans own a smartphone, all right? So for the 2% of you that don't own an iPhone, I accidentally keep saying iPhone. But most of us have this engagement, this addiction. If it's four hours, it's significant in our lives. And so my aim is for us is to grow closer to Jesus and maybe we could be a church that doesn't allow that this do not conform to the pattern of this world. So there is a pattern that's four hours a day in our culture and it would be good for us to actually say, God, not as a rule of radiant, but because I'm a disciple, what do you want my phone use to look like? Matthew 24, Jesus says this at that time, many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other. And many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. But of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold. That's what I think is happening in our culture. I don't think that it's like a tidal wave of like hate towards God. I think for you and me, the way that the enemy comes, it's just like a drip, drip, drip, just maybe toleration of this scroll, toleration of this video, whoops, another hour went by. I think that it's easy to allow our hearts to grow cold. And what we let into our eyes, we start to desire and then many start to act upon. And so today, I just want us to ask this question. What would it look like for you for 21 days? Two weeks, what we're going to pray about, what you're fast is going to look like. Then 21 days of your fast. And then I'll tell you this, here's my goal. My aim is that after those 21 days, some of those apps never reappear. Some of the personal legalism that you put yourself in, you fall in love with. Some of you go, man, I am finally free from something that I thought I would never have freedom in. And some of the bondage would be broken. And I don't think that, when I look at being a disciple in every kind of century or every kind of decade, it's different for all of us. It's different in different parts of the world, different in different ages, different. But I think we didn't ask for this. Like technology just kind of came upon us. So we didn't choose this, but we will choose how we respond to it. I was getting my haircut a few weeks ago and a guy walked into where I was getting the haircut. And I think he was in his 80s, could have been late 70s, and he came in, he was a happy guy. And the lady said, did you check in online? And he said, no, I'm just here for a haircut. Happy, perky kind of guy. And she said, oh, well, do you have the app? He said, no, I don't have the app. I just walked in, I just wanna get a haircut. And she said, well, if you didn't check in on the app or online, it'll be a four and a half hour wait. You could just have a seat. And I just watched the whole guy's whole face in his demeanor just go, ugh. And I just felt bad for him and I just thought, man, that's so challenging, that's so hard. He didn't pick this. He probably would have walked in the 80s to get his haircut and be like, hey, have a seat. We'll be ready in 30 minutes. It's gonna be cheap, it's gonna be great, but not now, right? And I just think I think that we didn't choose this. Like this is just the age that we live in, but we're responsible for how we respond in it and maybe even how we use it. How we use it to be a light. So not just that we're gonna protect the eye-gate and the heart, but also God, what does it look like in our age? And I do think that right now, parents, kids, I think, and every age group, I think this is a real challenge. I spent most of my adult life doing youth conferences. And so in the fall of '19, I went to a youth conference in the summer of 1995. I signed up with them 'cause it changed my life and we did conferences in Chicago and we did a fall tour in the fall of '95 and I've done it ever since. But I'll never forget, we did it '95, '96, '97, '98, and in '19, 2000, '21, '23, '45, '67, '89, '10. And I think it was around 2011. I can't remember exactly. I know that the iPhone was created in 2007. So I guess 2011, 2012, I'll just never forget walking out. And we had thousands of kids worshiping God. And then for years, I would always say, "Hey, guys, stay in the session." And then I would always kind of refer to the people out in the parking lot or the people that are skipping sessions as kind of like rebellious, you know? And I would always say, "Don't go make out in the parking lot. "Don't go do it." And I was kind of like juxtaposing two different extremes. Being here worshiping, don't be out there, out in the parking lot, rebelling, right? That was kind of my joke. But I'll never forget walking out of a session in 2012 and here we have brought in some of the best bands we brought in some of the best speakers that we can to try to influence these kids. And, you know, 2012, I don't remember the bands, whatever was the skinny, jean wearing, long-haired rock and roll Jesus band of that year. That's who we had. And, but I do remember walking out in about 2012 and seeing a third category. Not just kids in the room, not just kids out in the parking lot that are like skipping, but distracted kids. Like all in the hallways, we had a circular auditorium. And so the hallway outside of it was circular. And I remember just them sitting against the wall and just seeing a whole generation of kids now staring at screens. And it's just to illustrate this idea that we've got this very real battle. We're really in it. And I want to invite you to just begin to ask the question. Okay, God, how can this help my life but not take over my life? God, what would it look like for me as a Christian, as a disciple with my phone? What's my relationship with my phone going to be? And I want to just go back to that text I read earlier in Hebrews 12 'cause I invite you to throw up a few ideas. Therefore, since we're surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that's so easily entangles. I want to invite you, first of all, to throw off distraction. Distraction. I believe that this is a massive form of distraction. I think that you could ask the question, am I trading the infinite for the insignificant? So I've got, everybody's got 24 hours in a day, 168 hours a week, 365 days a year. And my life, Psalm 39 says that my life is but a mere breath. Psalm 90 says I live 80, 90 years. And my goal is to be a disciple of Jesus that does all that I can for the kingdom of God. I want to walk with Jesus and be the light that he's called me to be. And am I distracted to where this is distracting me from knowing God and accomplishing what he's called me to? In 2 Corinthians 2, 9, it says that the enemy has the potential to outwit us. And then he says, for we are not unaware of his schemes. I just think that's interesting, for I have forgiven in the sight of Christ for you, for your sake, in order that Satan might not outwit us, for we are not unaware of his schemes. I think that this is a way, as Paul speaks to the church in Corinth and says, hey, the enemy's got schemes, he's scheming against you. I think this might be a device, a little black box that we have a high toleration for, that we conform to being just like the culture and because the culture engages with it so much, we engage with it that much and that it's doing damage that we don't even realize, that it becomes this distraction. And so instead of living for things that are infinite, worship infinite, we will worship forever. God, infinite, people will live with him in heaven or hell, heaven and hell are realities. So the role that I play makes a measurable difference and so it's infinite. If somebody comes to know Jesus because you played a part in helping them come to know Jesus, that has infinite value. If you help someone mature and grow as a disciple, that has infinite value and it's easy for us to spend our time less on infinitely valuable things and more time on things that aren't gonna last, on insignificant things. And I just want us to be real about that. I think that it would be challenging to live in this day as a shepherd, as a pastor and not talk about this reality. I think that if this is taking over our culture at such a rapid pace and there's companies that are making millions of dollars based upon your attention, based upon your thumbs, based upon what you look at, based upon what you engage with and they're targeting you. And so there is within you the potential to live like a redeemed disciple or to have that inner greed or to have that inner anxiety and comparison to have to have what other people have or that lust or that materialism and this little portal this little device is often what we'll spend our time, distracted doing and I want to invite you for 21 days to throw off distraction. I think that there are things that are of infinite value. We'll say with parents, your kids are worth infinite value. I walked in last week and there was volleyball tryouts in here, which is great. We're in a fun season where our church has volleyball going on as well as basketball going on during the week. I was talking to someone, they were like, is this the church that you go to? I go here and they were like, yeah, this is cool. Instead of like chicken and pickle, it's like church and basketball. And I was like, very similar. And so, but I watched as there was all these people, these kids playing volleyball and I just watched like all these parents in the stands. Kids infinite value. The latest cat video or the latest Instagram reel, not infinite value. And I watched as she had just an army of parents just staring at their phones. And I don't know what they're watching. I mean, I think that this could be something that you use for the kingdom, or it could be very much a distraction. I do know that those kids have infinite value. And maybe it's possible that, hey, we love technology and all of us are so glad that we never have to pull out a paper map ever again, right? Like there's things that are great, we're so grateful for. It could be that they are pulling out their phones and take videos of the kid bump set spike, right? And they're just like, I'm just videoing it, that's amazing. It could be that they're distracted and they miss the kid because they're just too busy with something else. Kid worth infinite value. People that don't know Jesus, infinite value. People that you're leading to come to know Jesus, infinite value. The people that you're discipling, infinite value. People that we serve to help them to be where we're alight. And they say, I want what's inside of you, infinite value. I was joking around, I think that they could be videoing. And that's one of the things that's great about the phone, right? You could use it for great things. I am not, this by itself is just glass and plastic and I don't know what else, but some other stuff, right? And so I'm not angry at phones. I'm wanting us to be good stewards. I want to invite us to think through it. When I was a kid, my mom would come to my soccer games and she didn't have one of these cool little phones, right? She came with the whole, do any of you guys remember like the video cameras that it was like a whole VCR on here and a big old strap within? And my mom always had her mouth open when she would video. I don't know why she did it. Her brother, my uncle Bob, did it too. And so on the sideline, all the other kids, their parents were just sitting there watching the game, but not my mom. If she had had an iPhone, man, I would have loved that because I was the only one with the mom that was like, all right, we got it, right? And she would have loved it. I loved that. I love the idea that there are some good things. I'm not slamming phones. I'm inviting you to ask a question how you're using it. And are you trading? What's infinite? What you could be spending some of those precious four hours a day that probably equates to about five years of your life, or are you wasting it? I think another thing is, I want to say, not just throw off distraction, but throw up deception. We know that when Jesus goes to explain Satan, he calls him the father of lies, John 8. The father of lies. And so, no matter what, who's coming through this portal to literally anything in the world, there is, I mean, there's millions of lies coming at you. And I think this is one of the ways that the enemy can outwit us is that we're not aware of the real deception that exists. And so in the Genesis three story where Eve is deceived, I just want to read it to you. Verse six, when the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for evil and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave it to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. So just let's look at where I started. When the woman saw, when she saw it, she usually starts, saw. So your eye gate, this is the gate. You're deciding, she said in Matthew six that the eye is the lamp of the body. You're deciding, what am I going to look at? What you look at matters? Well, no, I'm tough. I'm stronger than other people. There's nobody like me. I can watch immorality, I can watch greed, I can watch perpetual, other people's houses, other people selling me and have it not apply to me. Wrong. You're just a grown up teenager lying to yourself. It does impact you. And so you see this right here where the enemy comes and the woman's response, Eve's response is, first she sees it, and then it says she desired. First step, see. Takes a little root, grows into desire. Two desire. Third step, take. It's over and over in the scriptures. That's that same play. So you do well to even think very clearly about, what am I going to allow into the eye gate? If the eye is the lamp of the body, what am I going to look at? How much time will it look at? What apps will I have? It matters to me. What's my screen time? It matters to me. How much will I spend time on entertainment and social media? It matters, why? Because you're a disciple of Jesus and you're trying to build your whole life around what Jesus said. And Jesus gave us in the Sermon on the Mount what it looks like to be a disciple of Jesus. And it's very easy for us to build our lives on sin instead of on the rock. And Jesus made it really clear that the eye is the lamp, the body, it matters. And I remember, I'll never forget, pastoring in Colorado Springs, sitting with a guy at a Starbucks where he's weeping about the challenges in his family, the train wreck. And God ended up working and there was a level of healing that took place. But I just began to ask questions. And I said, why did you make this terrible decision? How did you get in this place? Right now, kids are in pain, your wife's in pain. Where did we get here? Just tell me the story. And he said it happened in 24 hours. He said, it was a normal day, saw a woman at work, began to have thoughts, began to have desires, took a certain step, mid-afternoon, and by evening, he made a decision that it just, it was devastating. Real quick, just real quick, just see it, desire it, take it. And I want to invite us as followers of Jesus, not to call, not to make fun of churches that are too legalistic, not to find a reason to just do whatever we want, but instead to be really honest with the Lord and say, God, I care about you, I care about my spiritual health, my mental health, I care about making right decision, care about my children, care about my family. And so God, I don't want to be outwitted by the enemy. And this has the potential. If you don't use wisdom, if you're not careful, and I want to invite us to watch what you see, so that you watch what you desire, what goes in your mind, your thought life. Paul says it this way to the church in Corinth. He says, we demolish arguments in every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. We take captive, we capture every thought, and we're working towards every thought to be obedient to Christ. I mean, that's a strong statement, but that's what we're working for. And really, what we'll do is we'll just let our brain go idle, and it's another video, whether it's social media or whatever it is, and we just disregard it. It's the way the culture is, everybody's doing it. Don't conform to this world. Be transformed by the renewing of your minds. No, you want to be transformed. Renew, God help me. This idea of taking every thought captive. Your thoughts will follow what you're looking at. Your thoughts go there. So it matters what you see, and then it matters your thought life. So I want to invite you to be clear on this, to work on it, to care, to think about it, talk about it, talk about it in your small group. If you don't have a small group, get in a small group, dialogue about this. No, my whole church life is just the songs and David talking on Sundays. No, you want to engage with people, say, okay, here's how I'm applying it, here's how I'm working on it. And you got to fight for it. It's hard, actually, at both conference, a couple of weeks ago. I love all the language right now that I hear so many people talking about, we want to help people, kids have an encounter with God. I love that language. It's great. John Wesley had a moment where he said, my heart was strangely warmed. It was an encounter, it was a moment. I love that encounter, but I want to be honest with you what I told the teenagers, I didn't have an encounter where I just suddenly felt something. I had a fight as a teenager to believe and to fight to believe truth over lies. And that fighting to believe truth, warring in my mind, I will believe that Jesus, who he says he is, I will believe that my identity is in Christ. I will believe that my choices make a difference. I will believe that God will use me if I'll, da, da, da, da, instead of just a moment that I, and I love that. Sometimes there's a sovereign surprise. I mean, Saul got one. A lot of people get him. But I want to invite you not to just wait, think, oh, I'm gonna wait for that sovereign surprise moment. No, fight, take every thought captive and care about it. And you'll watch your formation into Christ's lightness increase. When Renaud and I bought our first house in Colorado Springs, we had a mouse problem. And so I'll never forget, we were hosting people and we're sitting in the living room. It was some of the first guests we'd ever had in our house. And across the kitchen, I saw mice running across the floor. And I was just so grossed out, like I was just like, ugh. And I spent a considerable amount of time. We must capture every mouse. We will capture all of them. We will not be embarrassed where people come to our house and there's mice running around. I am declaring war on mice in my home, right? Listen, those mice, short time, I did kill them. But the thoughts that you have, the thoughts, it has eternal ramifications. And you have a high tolerance. And you go, it's just like the culture. We do better to go, no, it matters. I'm gonna take every thought captive. I care about the eye gate. I care about where the desires start to go so that then my actions look more and more like Jesus. And to think that we get really mad about, I've lived in this my whole life. 'Cause I told you that story about blockbuster. I had so many people, and I would talk about that when I was in my 20s and I had people, oh, you're just a legalist. And I wrestled with that. I was like, what, am I a legalist? I don't know, what does that mean? But what I realized is, is at some point, many people will create a boundary, but there's no transformation of the heart and they haven't made pre-decision decisions. So what I'm talking about is that you get this right. You do 21 days of prayer where Jesus, we make space, we make room, we get rid of all the clutter. And what you put in becomes more of the word of God. What you put in is more of relationship with Him, transforming my heart to where then those, I actually don't have the desire to do the evil things. So American church culture is this, it's easy to do. Hey, we desire everything in the world, we just go to church on Sunday. That's a miserable way to live. 'Cause then you're kind of just live like guilty Americans, like, well, at least I go to church. I'm just telling you, I don't wanna live for that. Like, that's not my heart to plant a church in Kansas City. My heart is, hey, let's be authentic. We got one life. So God, help me. God, I wanna put before my eyes. It grows in my heart. And it's not just putting this away. This whole sermon's on putting this away. But I'll tell you this, if you get to Hebrews 12, fix your eyes on Jesus. The author and protector of your old school church where you sing, "Turn your eyes upon Jesus. "Look full in his wonderful face." Here's the phrase, "And the things of earth "will grow strangely dim." That's your glorious day. You don't believe it. You, I don't know. I don't know, oh, it's possible. It's possible. It's possible that the things of earth grow strangely dim. David said this on 1013. "I will set no worthless thing before my eyes." Psalm 119, 37, "Turn my eyes away from worthless things." That's what I'm aiming at for 21 days for you and for me. 21 days. God, all the, I have this buffet of technological options, but I'm gonna voluntarily push it away. And just like you would push the plate away for 21 days in January, or push the buffet away. In our age, I think that we will take spiritual ground. If you will push away Instagram for 21 days, or push away, whatever it is that fills in your screen time and say, God for the season. And I wanna also say, I think we'll throw off detachment. Here's what I mean by detachment. One of my sadnesses is all the things that we could be doing for the kingdom that we're not doing because we're attached to the phone. And so I wanna invite us to see. I was talking to my son this week, who's beginning his freshman year of high school. And we were talking about his new school, and I said, if you'll take these next four years and you'll go all in with the school, like whatever, sports, student council, academically, whatever, but you just be all in. Like, you don't have to wear the mascot, but theoretically you're wearing the mascot. Like you are one of them, you know? If you'll go all in with that, you will watch no matter of public school or Christian school, big school, small school. If you'll go all in, I think that you'll build relationships and you'll find enjoyment and delight. But if you stay at a distance and you're critical, and I find this with church, I find that one of the things that keeps people from engaging with the church is just, there's just methods to try to help you fulfill your calling. So it's actually your calling to make disciples. It's actually your calling to serve. It's actually your calling to pray. It's actually what Jesus called you to do. So, but people go, I'm that is somebody that hurt me somewhere 10 years ago, and I've got too much to do. I'm too busy. And they're scroll hours, they're Netflix hours. Netflix says that they're one number one rival. They're number one rival is sleep, right? They're fighting against sleep. Why? 'Cause they want you to binge, late into the night. And so we're all tired, we're on phones, we're watching shows, and it starts off with just, oh, just 10 minutes at lunch break, and then your full hour later, you're like, oh, better go back. I saw yet another cat video, yet another sports video, yet another who's gonna be on my fantasy football league this year, right, like something. Or, I'm just gonna watch one episode, and then you just gotta see the next and the next, and then you've seen the whole series. And are you with me? This is a part of the culture that we live in. And I know you're like, wow, I'm so sad, I invited my friend to come to church today. We got grumpy old preacher today. Listen, I just wanna invite you to ask this question for you, because it's very possible that you are tolerating something, that if you find freedom from it, you'll watch your spiritual life flourish. You'll take a step, maybe not in a moment, but in a season, in a year. And I just wanna ask you this question, like, what's the price of your device? What's it costing you? How much is your device gonna cost you an eternity? How much is your device gonna cost the people that you could be a light to, that you could be discipling, that you could be witnessing to, that you could be sharing your faith with, that you could be serving, but you're just too tired because you're scrolling, and you're too busy, and you tell everybody I'm so busy. I hear this nonsense, I'm no, I'm sorry, just, I'm grumpy old David today. I hear it nonsense, I'm just so busy, and I just wanna invite you, okay? You do you, but ask the Lord, am I doing the things that you've called me to? 'Cause if you will give your attention towards God, instead of a scream, attention leads to adoration. So if I turn my eyes from worthless things, fix my eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of my faith, you'll watch over time, your adoration goes up. You'll watch, I care about what he cares about. I took, Renata took Adolin, our 16 year old in this week, to upgrade her phone. And interesting, I'm preaching on it, talking about that, and they said, her trade in, they said the value of your phone is $3.15, which shows you how long she's had that phone. But it made me think about that question I just asked you. Oh, what, there's a dollar amount? And I just thought, what's the eternal return on phones down? (claps) Like, what's the eternal? If you and I, we don't have to live like the culture. Four hours, are you kidding me? Addicted to Netflix? And I'm not even talking about all the wickedness, which causes our hearts to grow cold. I'm just talking about the level of getting so detached from the church and the kingdom of God, and what God's called you to do, because you're just too busy, and you lie to yourself, that's what we do. We all lie to ourselves. It's actually because of that. But then you go and you look at real facts. Do I want to just give you a few ideas just to be practical on your, on your fasts, coming up, and giving you two weeks? Now, it might, maybe I should have done a week before I couldn't tell. I just wanted, I wanted it to be, I wanted to be alert and sober about it. And then I want to talk about it next week, and I want to say, is everybody praying about it? You know, 'cause I just want to, I feel this. So I feel this, I won't tell you all the things that Renata and I do as parents to fight this battle. But what I realized was, was I had a little bit of a disconnect that I call myself a dad, and I'm so clear on this with Renata. She's the clear one. Actually, we made the joke. Renata loves Christmas, like it's her favorite season, 12 days of Christmas, right? Like, but we decided the 21 days of digital fast will surpass the 12 days of Christmas, 'cause she is so excited about this. But anyway, we're so intentional with our family, and I just realized, am I really loving you if I don't talk about this to you? Like, if I just, 'cause I don't, because I think that a good shepherd has to look at where we're at, and I know, I know, like I was a really nice youth pastor in my 20s and 30s, but it's easy to be in my 40s and look at you guys and be like, oh man, you tell them about their phone, they're just gonna get mad, right? Because you know why, 'cause it's an idol. There I said it. It is an idol, and you know what Moses did is he smashed idols and then made people smash it up and made them drink it. I'm not gonna have us do that. (congregation laughing) But sometimes that's what I feel with my kids. Sometimes I feel that's what I want in my own life. 'Cause you know what? I don't love, I don't, I am preaching this to myself, 'cause I want to have a rule of this that would make Jesus go, well done, David. You got this. And I'm telling you, I'm telling you we live in a day where we tolerate it. I just know that we do, we tolerate it. And so imagine in these 21 days, what could it look like? Most Americans, the first thing they do, they reach for their phone when they wake up in the morning. They reach for it, most Americans, it's the last thing that they look at before they go to bed. What would it look like for you? One idea? So I'm 92, says this. It is almost high proclaiming your love in the morning and your faithfulness at night. What it could be for you if you just said for 21 days, I'm gonna talk to God before I look at my phone. David, it's my alarm clock. I have purchased an alarm clock for $9 at Target. Old school, 80s, baby. You don't have to, this doesn't have to be here to let our alarm clock. It's possible to keep your phone in a room other than your bedroom. Dude, what is this little house in the Prairie, 1800s? Maybe, like I'm just telling you, pick a plan. But imagine how much your life, your spiritual life would take off if instead of the first thing you looked up was Instagram, or an email, or for me, a text, ugh. Right, like, oh, but instead, God, I love you. In my first love, keep my heart ablaze. Go to bed at night. Not last thing. Just before my eyes stay up, like, scroll, scroll, scroll, or email or text, but just, no, keep it out. And today, you've been faithful. Faithfulness at night, you've been so good. Build that relationship. That could be an idea. You could go devotional before you go digital. I think you could just use this digital fast to create more time to be with God. Just that simple, just delete Facebook. I'm not saying you have to delete your account, but just take it off your phone and just don't get on it for 21 days. (gasping) If you have that feeling, you need to delete it. (audience laughing) It's just true. I know, I don't know, this has been, this has changed my life in 2023. I've waited a year. I don't know how honest that, so, okay. I didn't tell the last services. I'm just crying in this one, so now I'm gonna tell you this, but I had a conversation last summer where one of my children challenged me. On my phone. Sorry. God. Sorry. So I deleted a bunch of stuff, created some new rules in my life, and I like what God's done this year. So I'm just happy. I'm just happy with it. I'm just happy. But I had the thought, you know, imagine if parents, like I like to ask my kids, you know, "What's one thing that I can do to be a better dad?" And this was what my daughter's response. I was talking to a buddy of mine, and he said, "You know, my biggest father wound." He said it was, when I was a kid playing basketball, my dad, he would bring his books, his dad was a pastor. Bring his books to his basketball games, and he would read his theology books during his son's games. And he said, "I felt like my dad was just checking the father box. He didn't see me score. He was just reading. He wasn't fully present." And my friend said it's a father wound. I'm just out of parents now. Like we're fighting books times 10 in the digital age. And I just think if we're not careful, it's gonna sneak away from us. We're not gonna be who we want to be with the Lord, who we want to be in our marriage, who we want to be with our children, who we want to be as evangelists, and witnesses, and servants, and disciple makers. I just think, I was just thinking about, you know, that John 10, 10. Then he comes to kill, rob, destroy. How many of us kill in our families? It's destroying our joy. It's robbing our time, and I just want to invite you. Go to battle, do something. Ask God, be strong. Just close your eyes, bow your heads. Just the Holy Spirit. God, what's my next step? How do I apply this to my life? Maybe you could just ask God. So we're going to August. We're gonna do great discipleship summit this week. We'll do a great serve day the next week. And we'll go into these 21 days. And I'm praying for freedom. I'm asking, form us around Christ, maybe not conform to the patterns of this world. God, I pray, Lord Jesus, that this would be a power alley of radiant church. It's all private. It's all what we do in secret, but people being set free. God, would you be at work? We pray. Maybe you're in the room today, and you need the new life that comes from Christ Jesus. Maybe you find yourself addicted, hurting, and you need Jesus. At radiant, it's our dream to help you take a step. And we dream about you becoming a disciple of Jesus. And your first step is to acknowledge there is one God. He sent his son, Jesus, to die in my place for my sin. And I believe that Jesus is who he says he is. And I confess with my mouth, he is Lord of all, and I give you my life. Today, if you'd like to, become a disciple of Jesus, I'm gonna give you that opportunity, I invite you. Just pray this prayer just between you and the Lord, just you and God right there at your seat. Jesus, I give you my life. Save me. Thank you for going to the cross to die in my place for my sin. I received the free gift of salvation. Make me a new person. I give you everything in Jesus name. Amen.