Speaker 1: Hello, everybody, Welcome to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. This is
Speaker 1: the Bible teaching ministry of Rick Warren. Hey, we're so
Speaker 1: glad you're here with us today. We are continuing in
Speaker 1: a series called Talking about Stuff That Matters Now. In
Speaker 1: this series, Rick looks into the scriptures and he's unpacking
Speaker 1: what it means to live in community, have real conversation
Speaker 1: about what matters most, and face discouragement with courage and faith.
Speaker 1: It's honest, hopeful. So stay tuned. You won't want to
Speaker 1: miss a second. All right, let's jump in. This is
Speaker 1: part one of a message called being a disciple in
Speaker 1: the Digital Age.
Speaker 2: If you have a smartphone, you hold in your hand
Speaker 2: more power than NASA had when they put a man
Speaker 2: on the moon. There's more power in one little cell
Speaker 2: phone than we had in existence when America put a
Speaker 2: man on the moon. You have more technology in your hand.
Speaker 2: Let me show you what the first hard drive looked like.
Speaker 2: Look up here on the screen.
Speaker 3: That was it.
Speaker 2: That was five megabytes of storage. Not very portable, about
Speaker 2: the size of two men, several thousand pounds. Now, that's
Speaker 2: five megabytes in your phone right now. You have a
Speaker 2: minimum even if you got a cheapy phone. You have
Speaker 2: a minimum of a thousand times that in your phone,
Speaker 2: and you can buy ten thousand times that and put
Speaker 2: it on your phone. You have no idea how much
Speaker 2: power you have in your pocket. That's why in two
Speaker 2: thousand and seven, Time magazine named the iPhone.
Speaker 3: That's the year it came out. This the invention of
Speaker 3: the year.
Speaker 2: Now since that's happened, it's been renamed because the cell phone,
Speaker 2: the smartphone, is by far the most behavior changing invention
Speaker 2: in the history of mankind. Nothing else comes close, not
Speaker 2: the wheel, not fire, not the steam.
Speaker 3: Engine, not the automobile.
Speaker 2: Nothing comes close to the power of this little invention.
Speaker 2: Why because like with a car, you can do maybe
Speaker 2: ten different things with a car, but with this, you
Speaker 2: can do thousands of things with this, thousands, literally thousands
Speaker 2: of things with this. You can have it direct you
Speaker 2: to the right place with GPS, it's a travel device.
Speaker 2: You can listen to music, obviously entertainment. You can check
Speaker 2: your heart, you can do all kinds of studies on
Speaker 2: your body. You literally can do thousands of things. When
Speaker 2: they decided to put a computer in a phone, it
Speaker 2: changed everything. Hundreds of thousands of people in the world
Speaker 2: hundreds of millions of people in the world on a computer,
Speaker 2: but billions own one of these, and that's their computer,
Speaker 2: and it's the access to everything. Now, when this came out,
Speaker 2: and it's only been a very short time, less than
Speaker 2: a decade, that it really changed everything. Daily life and
Speaker 2: daily habits radically were altered. You don't live the same
Speaker 2: way you did before this came out. You know, before
Speaker 2: the smartphone, people actually listened to a phone. Now we
Speaker 2: look at a phone. By the way, I'm taking a
Speaker 2: picture of you right now.
Speaker 3: There you go. I'll put that on Facebook. You'll all
Speaker 3: be rock stars.
Speaker 2: Everybody looks at the phone instead of simply listening to it.
Speaker 2: That's a major change in your behavior. In fact, we
Speaker 2: look constantly at our phone. So let me show you
Speaker 2: some images. We look at our phones while we're waiting.
Speaker 2: You ever seen a picture like ever seeing that happen.
Speaker 2: It's everywhere. Everybody's got their head down today. They're all
Speaker 2: looking down while they're waiting. We look at our phone
Speaker 2: when we're going to work. Look at this. Okay, now,
Speaker 2: there's interesting. I put that picture up there because there's
Speaker 2: an interesting story behind it. I got this out of
Speaker 2: a Boston newspaper. These guys are going to work on
Speaker 2: a train, elevated train or I don't know what it was,
Speaker 2: subway And a guy walked in, pulled out a gun,
Speaker 2: and nobody noticed.
Speaker 3: He put it back in his pocket.
Speaker 2: A few minutes later, he pulls it out again. Nobody
Speaker 2: pays attention. He puts it back in his pocket. A
Speaker 2: few minutes later, he pulls it out a third time.
Speaker 2: Nobody's paying attention. He put it back in his pocket,
Speaker 2: gave up and walked out because they were so distracted
Speaker 2: by one of these. We now look at these while
Speaker 2: we're eating. Here's a typical family meal, family of four.
Speaker 2: They're all looking at four screens right there. That's family fellowship.
Speaker 2: In the twenty first century, everybody's looking at their phone.
Speaker 2: We constantly look at our phones while we're walking. Have
Speaker 2: you ever seen this? You know, it's kind of interesting
Speaker 2: now because of this one invite, we are more familiar
Speaker 2: with the heads of people, the top of their head,
Speaker 2: than we are their face, because people are walking around
Speaker 2: like this all the time, so you recognize the top
Speaker 2: of their head rather than their face. Of course, we
Speaker 2: use these in the bathroom. You don't get a picture
Speaker 2: of that but you know what I'm talking about, all right,
Speaker 2: We even look at this screen while we're watching other screens.
Speaker 2: Here's a family watching TV and they've all got you know,
Speaker 2: because you can't be bored during the commercials, So we're
Speaker 2: all looking at our screens while we're actually on the
Speaker 2: sofa watching TV. And then of course even take them
Speaker 2: into the bedroom and we watch in bed. Now, this
Speaker 2: couple should be doing something else, but they are. They're
Speaker 2: looking at their screens. Now. The latest statistic, this is
Speaker 2: the most recent statistic, is that people check their phone
Speaker 2: every twelve minutes, on average, every twelve minutes. That means
Speaker 2: you look at this little screen eighty times a day,
Speaker 2: if you're an average person, eighty times a day, and
Speaker 2: that all that change has just happened in about a decade.
Speaker 2: We have to talk about the implications and the power,
Speaker 2: both the upside and the downside of this in your
Speaker 2: life now. Because everybody looks at their phone on an
Speaker 2: average eighty times a day. Even famous ad personalities want
Speaker 2: to get involved. Here's the Corona man. I don't always
Speaker 2: look at my phone, but when I do, it's.
Speaker 3: Because everybody else does.
Speaker 2: And that's the most mysterious man in the world, if
Speaker 2: you know who I'm talking about.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: The other good news is that if you're painfully shy,
Speaker 2: you're one of the people who's always worried about everybody
Speaker 2: might be looking at you, and you're worried.
Speaker 3: Is everybody looking at me? Right now?
Speaker 2: Relax, nobody's looking at you.
Speaker 3: Nobody's looking.
Speaker 2: Do you remember years ago there was a song that
Speaker 2: came out says you should dance like nobody's watching. Do
Speaker 2: you remember that song, dance like nobody's watching. Well, here's
Speaker 2: the truth. Dance like no one's watching because everyone is
Speaker 2: on their phone, so no one is watching you. So
Speaker 2: you can act like a total goofball. Nobody's going to
Speaker 2: pay attention. A guy can pull a gun out and
Speaker 2: you won't even notice. What is amazing, as I said,
Speaker 2: is that all this changed happened in real literally just
Speaker 2: a few years, in just a decade.
Speaker 3: I have to share this with you. This is on
Speaker 3: the internet.
Speaker 2: My kids asked what it was like growing up in
Speaker 2: the eighties, so I took away their phone and turned
Speaker 2: off the internet.
Speaker 3: That's it.
Speaker 2: That's the eighties, folks, all right, that's the eighties. This
Speaker 2: church was started January nineteen eighty that's the eighties, no phone,
Speaker 2: no Internet. That's how different it is now. If you're
Speaker 2: going to spend that much time looking at this the
Speaker 2: rest of your life, we need to deal with it
Speaker 2: as a spiritual issue too. So I want us this
Speaker 2: weekend to look at being a disciple in the digital age.
Speaker 2: How can I use this for good? And how can
Speaker 2: I minimize the negative parts of it? Okay, and I
Speaker 2: really want to do a couple things. First, I want
Speaker 2: us to understand some of the downsides. I don't have
Speaker 2: time to go into all the downsides, but some of
Speaker 2: the downsides in this technological power that you hold, and
Speaker 2: you actually carry it with you all the time, so
Speaker 2: you actually carry with you a new source for old temptations.
Speaker 2: The temptations have been around forever and ever and ever
Speaker 2: new source for old temptations, but you carry it with
Speaker 2: you in your purse or your pocket. And then I
Speaker 2: want to look at five ways to use your smart
Speaker 2: forum for the glory of God. So I want us
Speaker 2: to begin by looking at the spiritual hazards of digital tools.
Speaker 3: We all know what the upside. This is an amazing tool.
Speaker 2: It gives you access to the entire world, to the
Speaker 2: body of knowledge that's out there, and it's just it's
Speaker 2: hard to explain, explain how powerful this tool is. But
Speaker 2: there are spiritual downsites, and so let's look at the
Speaker 2: spiritual hazards of digital tools. I'm talking about iPhones, iPods, smartphones, laptops,
Speaker 2: any any device that connects you online to the internet.
Speaker 2: All right, By the way, what is a hazard? Well,
Speaker 2: if you're a golfer, you know what a hazard is.
Speaker 2: But a hazard is is a potential dangerous trap. If
Speaker 2: you're walking through a minefield where they buried mines in
Speaker 2: the ground, that's a hazardous field. And if you step
Speaker 2: on a mine, it'll blow you up. By the way,
Speaker 2: I like to keep you guys up to date, so
Speaker 2: as your pastor if you're a golfer, the word hazard
Speaker 2: is no longer acceptable after one hundred and fifty years at.
Speaker 3: The golf course. You probably don't know this, but I do.
Speaker 3: I'm going to tell you.
Speaker 2: In January one, nineteen twenty nineteen, all of the powers
Speaker 2: that be in golf, the PGA, LPGA, and all of
Speaker 2: the other golf associations that governing golf took the word
Speaker 2: hazard out of the official manual after one hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty years, so they're no longer called hazards. Now in golf,
Speaker 2: there are two kinds of hazards. There's water hazards and
Speaker 2: there's sand trap hazards. But now sand trap hazards are
Speaker 2: simply called bunkers. Everybody knows what that is, a bunker.
Speaker 2: But water hazards are now going to be called penalty areas.
Speaker 2: I'm not making this up. I just didn't want you
Speaker 2: to be embarrassed the next time you played golf. Don't
Speaker 2: use that word because it's now out of date according
Speaker 2: to the Official Rule Book of Golf. Some of you,
Speaker 2: that's all you needed here, Go home? Okay, Now I
Speaker 2: said that you carry a new source of old temptation
Speaker 2: in your pocket or in your purse all day long.
Speaker 2: Let me just give you six hazards you need to
Speaker 2: be aware of. Okay, write these down. We'll go through
Speaker 2: them pretty quickly. Number one is it can waste my time.
Speaker 2: I can waste time on my cell phone. Everybody agree
Speaker 2: with that. Yeah, of course, time is your most precious commodity.
Speaker 2: You only have a limited amount of time. If you
Speaker 2: are an average human being, you will live twenty seven thousand,
Speaker 2: three hundred and seventy five days. Twenty seven three hundred
Speaker 2: and seventy five days. That's the average number of days
Speaker 2: a human being lives on earth. If you're over twenty
Speaker 2: seven years of age, you've already passed ten thousand days
Speaker 2: are behind you, and the problem is you're not getting
Speaker 2: those back.
Speaker 3: Time is your.
Speaker 2: Most precious resource because you can't get it back. You
Speaker 2: can't get any.
Speaker 3: More of it.
Speaker 2: You can always get more money, you can always get
Speaker 2: more energy. There are a lot of things you can
Speaker 2: get more of. You can create, but you can't create
Speaker 2: more time. You have a certain number of days in
Speaker 2: your life and that's it, and when you spend it,
Speaker 2: it's gone. So life management is really time management. If
Speaker 2: you learn to manage your time, then you'll learn to
Speaker 2: manage your life. Now, here's what the Bible says, Ephesions,
Speaker 2: Chapter five, Verse fifteen and sixty. Be careful how you live.
Speaker 2: Don't live foolishly. Instead live as wise people, making every
Speaker 2: minute count because these are evil times.
Speaker 3: Now, notice it.
Speaker 2: Says be careful how you live. You might circle that
Speaker 2: word careful. We don't use the word careful like the
Speaker 2: diad in Bible times. Today, care careful has an implication
Speaker 2: of you're worried about something, be careful, watch out, don't
Speaker 2: fall off, be careful as you walk down that area.
Speaker 2: It has a This is not what it's saying here.
Speaker 2: The opposite of careful is careless. Careless, he said. Don't
Speaker 2: be careless with your life. Be careful, And that means
Speaker 2: be intentional. Around here, we call it being purpose driven
Speaker 2: with your time. That you're intentional, you're deliberate, you know
Speaker 2: where you're going. You're not wasting your time. You're not
Speaker 2: careless with your time. You're careful with your time. Now,
Speaker 2: the latest stat on these smartphones is that in America,
Speaker 2: you spend, since you look at it, eighty times a day,
Speaker 2: three point four hours a day looking at your screen,
Speaker 2: at your phone three point four hours a day. That
Speaker 2: adds up to twenty four total hours a week you're
Speaker 2: looking at this thing. And what that means is, if
Speaker 2: you are an average person, you live to an average age,
Speaker 2: you will eventually spend eleven solid years of your life
Speaker 2: looking at this eleven solid years looking at this screen. Now,
Speaker 2: that means we need to talk because I'm interested in
Speaker 2: you not wasting eleven hours or eleven years of your life.
Speaker 2: And by the way, that doesn't include watching TV. That's
Speaker 2: another screen. And that doesn't include video games that you
Speaker 2: play that aren't online. That's just being online through your phone.
Speaker 2: The Bible says this up here on the screen. First Corinthians,
Speaker 2: Chapter ten, verse twenty three. Now you may say I'm
Speaker 2: allowed to do anything, but not everything is helpful or beneficial.
Speaker 2: A thing may be permissible, but not everything is constructive
Speaker 2: and encourages growth. This is a Bible principle we need
Speaker 2: to apply here. What is it saying. It's saying some
Speaker 2: things aren't necessary wrong, they're just unnecessary. They're not necessarily wrong,
Speaker 2: they're just not necessary. It's not a sin for you
Speaker 2: to spend five hours watching cute kitty commercials on uh,
Speaker 2: you know, on YouTube, but it might not be the
Speaker 2: best use of your time.
Speaker 3: It's not a sin. It's not evil. What can mean bad, nasty.
Speaker 2: It's just like, some things aren't necessarily wrong, they're just
Speaker 2: not necessary. You need to say, is this worth me
Speaker 2: giving my life for? I just gave my life scrolling
Speaker 2: through a bunch of clickbait. How many of you I
Speaker 2: wonder have when you were dead tired? Instead of going
Speaker 2: to bed, you're sitting here scrolling through with your thumb.
Speaker 3: You're barely awake and you're gonna click click click click. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: that was funny. No, that wasn't. Yeah, that was funny, No,
Speaker 3: that wasn't.
Speaker 2: You know, if evolution were true, in one hundred years,
Speaker 2: everybody's gonna have giant thumbs, okay, because they're exercise so
Speaker 2: giant thumbs, big butts, little feet, we don't walk anywhere anymore, okay,
Speaker 2: and they're just scrolling on will look very very different.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: But how many times have you needed to go to
Speaker 2: bed and you wasted it on looking at stuff on
Speaker 2: the internet when really what you needed was sleep, And
Speaker 2: then you paid for it the next day because you
Speaker 2: spent a lot of time looking at stuff that didn't matter.
Speaker 2: The Bible says this on the screen Proverbs twelve, verse eleven.
Speaker 2: Only a fool idols away his time. So we know
Speaker 2: I don't have to teach you on this one. We
Speaker 2: all know it's easy to waste time on the internet. Okay,
Speaker 2: let me give you a couple of others. Number two.
Speaker 2: A second hazard is I can be seduced by the
Speaker 2: world's values. I can be seduced by what the world values.
Speaker 2: The world's value system, because the Internet and particularly social media,
Speaker 2: amplify stuff that is not important and make it seem
Speaker 2: like it's really, really, really important, and it's not. The
Speaker 2: world and all the advertisers in it are constantly telling
Speaker 2: you how to think, what to buy, how to feel,
Speaker 2: what's cool, what's not cool, what's hip, what's not hip.
Speaker 2: The world is constantly shouting at you through the Internet,
Speaker 2: and you're carrying it with you all day in your pocket. Now,
Speaker 2: that's not a temptation Previous generations of followers of Christ
Speaker 2: I had to deal with because they weren't carrying it
Speaker 2: with it. But you've got your caring advertising with you
Speaker 2: everywhere you go.
Speaker 3: And the world's.
Speaker 2: Value system of passion, possession and position or sex, salary
Speaker 2: and status. That's what the world's after. And if you
Speaker 2: listen to it long enough, you start thinking, well, that
Speaker 2: must be right and that must be okay, and you
Speaker 2: carry that voice with you. Whatever gets you gets your attention,
Speaker 2: And if you look at something long enough, you know
Speaker 2: what's going to happen. You're gonna start copying it, and
Speaker 2: you're gonna dress like that, You're gonna act like that,
Speaker 2: you're gonna think like that, You're gonna feel like that
Speaker 2: whatever you look at all the time, you're eventually gonna copy.
Speaker 2: That's why the Bible says this in Romans twelve, verse two.
Speaker 2: Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world. But
Speaker 2: let God transform you into a new person by changing
Speaker 2: the way you think. Okay, he says, don't copy the
Speaker 2: world's value says, what are the world's value system?
Speaker 3: Look up here on the screen.
Speaker 2: One John two fifteen to seventeen says this, do not
Speaker 2: love the world or anything in the world. If anyone
Speaker 2: loves the world, the love of the Father is not
Speaker 2: in him.
Speaker 3: Hang on here just a minut.
Speaker 2: Let me stop the guy who wrote this John In
Speaker 2: on one John two sixteen, he says, if anybody loves
Speaker 2: the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
Speaker 2: He's the same guy who wrote John three sixteen and
Speaker 2: another book which says God so loved the world. Okay,
Speaker 2: which is it?
Speaker 3: I mean? Come on?
Speaker 2: In John three sixteen, John says God so loved the world,
Speaker 2: And in first John two sixteen he says, don't love
Speaker 2: the world. Well, what am I supposed to do? Looks
Speaker 2: like a contradiction. The answer is in the definition of
Speaker 2: the word world.
Speaker 3: In John three p.
Speaker 2: Sixteen, where it says God so loved the world, he's
Speaker 2: talking about the people of the world. We are to
Speaker 2: love the people of the world because they were created
Speaker 2: in the image of God. They have dignity. We are
Speaker 2: to love every person. In one John two fifteen to seventeen,
Speaker 2: he's saying, don't love the value system of the world.
Speaker 2: So the Bible says we are to love the people
Speaker 2: in the world, but we are to hate the world's
Speaker 2: value system because it's anti God. Love the people, hate
Speaker 2: the value system. The problem is we do the exact opposite.
Speaker 2: We hate the people and we love the value system.
Speaker 2: We are as materialistic as everybody else, interested in sex
Speaker 2: and pleasure and living for fun and living making.
Speaker 3: That the highest goal of life.
Speaker 2: We're as interested in status and salary and sex and
Speaker 2: popularity and possessions and power as everybody else is. We
Speaker 2: get it backwards. Now look at that verse again. Don't
Speaker 2: love the world or anything in the world. If anyone
Speaker 2: loves the world, the love of the Father is not
Speaker 2: in him for what the world values.
Speaker 3: And the world has three big values.
Speaker 2: The lust for constant pleasure that's called hedonism, the greed
Speaker 2: for more things, that's called materialism, and the prideful positioning
Speaker 2: to appear important that's called secularism or humanism. It says,
Speaker 2: I am God, I'll be my own God.
Speaker 3: I don't need God. I'm more important.
Speaker 2: He says, of these three things, none of these things
Speaker 2: come from your father. The world and what it values
Speaker 2: is going to pass away. But whoever does the will
Speaker 2: of God that lives forever. So you gotta choose. I'm
Speaker 2: gonna go with God's value system or am I gonna
Speaker 2: go with the world's value system of you know, the
Speaker 2: temptation to have more, the temptation to feel more, the temptation.
Speaker 3: To be more, all of these kind of things that happen.
Speaker 3: He says.
Speaker 2: If you're hearing people shout at you all the time
Speaker 2: that you got to be popular, and you got to
Speaker 2: be beautiful, and you've got to be successful, and you
Speaker 2: got to be rich for you to have any value.
Speaker 3: That's a lie. It's a lie.
Speaker 2: It's the world's value system that only the wealthiest matter,
Speaker 2: only the most beautiful matter, Only those who are having
Speaker 2: the most fun matter. That means you don't matter because
Speaker 2: you're not in any of those categories. But that's what
Speaker 2: the world is constantly teaching you got to be thin
Speaker 2: and beautiful and sexy and rich, otherwise your life sucks.
Speaker 3: That's the world's value system.
Speaker 2: They are wrong, but you're hearing it all the time,
Speaker 2: and you're carrying it with you in your pocket, and
Speaker 2: you're reading on social media and things like that. If
Speaker 2: I see it enough, I start thinking, well, it must
Speaker 2: be okay. And what what what this does is this
Speaker 2: desensitizes me to sin. It desensitizes me to say, well,
Speaker 2: if everybody's doing it must be okay, it must be
Speaker 2: all right James four, verse four, And the Bible says this.
Speaker 2: Don't you know that to be a friend of the
Speaker 2: world is to be hostile to God. If you if
Speaker 2: your aim is to be popular with the world, you
Speaker 2: make yourself God's enemy. I didn't say that God does.
Speaker 2: He says, you've got to choose. Do you want to
Speaker 2: be a people pleaser or do you want to be
Speaker 2: a God pleaser. I highly recommend that you decide from
Speaker 2: this day forward, you're not going to be a people
Speaker 2: pleaser anymore. You're going to be a God pleaser. Because
Speaker 2: if you're a God pleaser, it will always be the
Speaker 2: right thing to do. And Actually there will be some
Speaker 2: good people who like that.
Speaker 1: Wow, such a great message today and every day. Thanks
Speaker 1: Pastor Rick. Hey, do you know someone who's graduating this year?
Speaker 1: Maybe it's your son, a daughter, grandchild, perhaps a neighbor
Speaker 1: or even a family friend. As you celebrate this important
Speaker 1: milestone and as they begin the next phase of their journey,
Speaker 1: they need to know that God created them, loves them,
Speaker 1: and has a plan for their life. So that's why
Speaker 1: Rick Warren created a special resource just for graduates called
Speaker 1: The Purpose Driven Life, Selected Thoughts and Scriptures for the Graduate.
Speaker 1: It's filled with inspirational scripture, biblical wisdom from Rick, and
Speaker 1: beautiful imagery. This unique hardcover gift book provides a priceless
Speaker 1: reminder of the bountiful life that God has planned for
Speaker 1: your graduate and it's going to inspire them to seek
Speaker 1: His unique plan and purpose for their life. So please
Speaker 1: don't miss this opportunity unity to minister to the graduate
Speaker 1: in your life today. Be sure to request your copy
Speaker 1: of The Purpose Driven Life for Graduates when you give
Speaker 1: a gift to Daily Hope. Just go to Pastorick dot
Speaker 1: com to get your copy of this great resource. That's
Speaker 1: Pastororick dot com or you can text the word hope
Speaker 1: to seven oh three oh nine. Again, that's the word
Speaker 1: hope to seven oh three oh nine. And we thank
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Speaker 1: Be sure to join us next time as we look
Speaker 1: into God's Word for our daily hope. This program is
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