February 18, 2024 • 33 mins
Welcome to another enlightening episode of the Post Sermon Reflections Podcast. In this insightful discussion, your hosts, Ruth and Josh, unravel the teachings from the book of Daniel, emphasizing the need for self-control in various aspects of life to remain faithful to Jesus. They offer a comprehensive spiritual view of daily practices like diet and use of technology. The episode is part of "The Test," an ongoing series that fosters a deep reflection on lifestyle choices vis-à-vis the teachings of Jesus.
Throughout the dialogue, Ruth and Josh shed light on the profound impact of technology on their faith journey and overall emotional well-being. They share their personal experiences, highlighting both challenges and victories in finding balance and attaining spiritual growth. Key topics discussed include the role of technology as a diversion mechanism and the benefits of purposefully stepping back from it.
Further, the hosts also delve into the subtle connections of our habitual behavior, such as sugar consumption and the subsequent effect on our health and lifestyle. Listeners are encouraged to critically revaluate these patterns as they influence our physical and spiritual wellbeing.
The episode concludes on an empowering note, summing up the transformative journey from an automated life distracted by technology, towards a serene existence underscored by peace, presence, depth, and deeper connections with God and loved ones. As you tune in, prepare to be stirred and inspired to re-evaluate your relationship with technology within a Christian perspective.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of the Post-Sermon Reflections Podcast,
where we want to apply Sunday morning learning into Monday morning living as
we connect others to the love of Jesus and help them live on gospel mission.
My name is Ruth, and I am joined by my friend Josh, who I am excited to have
here because he is someone's brain who I pick when it comes to a relationship
(00:22):
with technology and when it comes to trying to submit areas of our life that
are hard to submit to Jesus and the culture are not submitting to Jesus.
And And so I am really excited for you to tune in and get to hear our conversation
about what God has been teaching us and ways that he's been challenging us through
the book of Daniel and the sermon series, The Test.
And if you are not subscribed to this podcast, we just ask that you would subscribe
(00:44):
so you get a notification every time we post a new podcast.
I am excited for my friend Josh to give us a little recap. And so he's going
to give us a recap on the text cover this morning so we can hop into what stuck
out to us, what encouraged us, and what challenged us today.
Josh, hit us with it. Great. Thanks, Ruth.
So today we were in Daniel chapter two, and it starts out with King Nebuchadnezzar.
(01:05):
He has a dream where he has a lot of symbolism and is just like really troubled
by it because he just can't seem to understand what to make of that dream.
So he consults some people around. He consults kind of like present day fortune
tellers and some magicians and occult people to figure out this dream,
but he won't tell it to them. So no one is able to figure it out.
(01:28):
And King Nebuchadnezzar is really upset by this.
He's really frustrated and angry and threatens the lives of everybody if no
one figures out his dream.
He really wants to know so badly that he can't even sleep.
So eventually everyone's kind of like,
Just going wild about it. They're really, you know, scared.
(01:48):
Kind of flipping out. Flipping out, yes. And they seek out Daniel.
They ask Daniel, like, hey, can you figure out this dream?
Like, we can't. And like, if no one does, we're done.
Yes, everyone's dead. Everyone's dead. No one wants that.
So Daniel, in response to this hopeless situation, seemingly hopeless situation.
(02:09):
He goes to his people and they pray together. They pray to God about the situation
they're in, and he goes to sleep.
He's at peace, and he's confident that God heard his prayer, and he goes to sleep.
And in his rest, God gives him
a vision of King Nebuchadnezzar's dream and tells him exactly what it is.
And Daniel knows what it means in great detail.
(02:31):
And he goes to the king and tells him the dream and gives all credit and glory
to God for giving it to him.
And the king thinks very highly of Daniel afterwards and just promotes him to
high status and is just like very happy that Daniel was able to interpret it.
That is so good. And we're kind of having this framed conversation of looking
(02:52):
at someone who was in a hopeless situation that was able to look to God and
to seek him and then therefore receive the blessing of peace because he turned his heart to God.
And we're recognizing that there's this dissonance in the lives of believers
and in the lives of obviously all of our culture, because oftentimes they just
turn to things that make them feel more comfortable, things like food and things like technology,
(03:15):
and they numb themselves to this reality.
And so we're kind of hopping in. This is our second week of the test series.
And so last week we challenged our friends to take very seriously their sugar
intake to say we often emotionally eat or we just live on autopilot.
And so Josh, tell me if you've been changing anything about your diet recently or in the past past year?
(03:36):
Recently, so this year.
Liam Gonzalez and I, we challenged each other to give something up for a whole year. Okay, amazing.
So this year, honestly, the past few years, I've kind of been on a little health
journey, just like a personal thing.
But this year, I told myself, I'm not going to buy any junk food myself.
(03:56):
If my mom's birthday is happening and she has cake, then yeah,
I'll eat it. But I'm not going to go to Wawa and just buy some snacks.
So that's the challenge I made for myself this year.
And it's been really eye-opening to see the different situations that can kind
of prompt me if it's like a long day at work, how I really want to go to Wawa
(04:17):
and get a Reese's cup. Get a little Reese's cup.
Just a Reese's cup. Just to eat my little feelings away.
Yep. And it's so subtle. But now that I can't, I really recognize the moments
that I really want to do that.
That's so good. Yeah, I'm in a similar journey. journey. I started my test kind of with the church.
And the big things for me were purchasing fast food, either when I'm alone,
(04:39):
like buying fast food, I'm alone is like something I always feel convicted about
to be like, I could just wait like 25 more minutes and go to my house and eat whatever to my fridge.
And the other was like taking seriously sweets and coffee creamer.
And so I drink a decent amount of coffee.
And one of the areas in which I intake sugar a
lot is in my coffee creamer and like we'll drink more coffee because
(05:00):
it's sweet and like it's just something to have yeah and
so i have been drinking either black coffee or just with milk
this past week and i've just noticed like oh like i enjoy
this cup of coffee but i don't enjoy it as much and so
like dealing with my relationship to coffee at the same time and
saying oh wow this is just areas
i would naturally intake sugar or we one of
(05:20):
my roommates who's a lot of us are in different food challenges in
our house right now and she also is not eating any sugar anything
and she just put a plate of candy out i'm like
get that out of here nobody can handle that like i do
not have the emotional capacity at 11 p.m for there to be just Reese's hanging
out in the kitchen not helping anyone and so we just laugh about even how like
(05:42):
situations with each other like going out to a bible study and there being cake
or like you're in situations where sugar is there they are constantly.
And when you're trying to go away from it completely, it's just being able to
say like, no, I'm comfortable not having dessert when everyone else has dessert.
I'm comfortable just drinking water when everyone else is drinking whatever
else. Or I'm comfortable saying, hey, I could have that, but I also could not.
(06:04):
And that's also our right. And so we kind of had a test rolled out today.
Do you want to give us like a little overview of kind of what was challenged in the test today?
Yes. So in the sermon, kind of pointing to the hopeless situation that the people
were in when, you know, their lives were threatened in the dream.
It was connected to how in technology today, we often use it to distract,
(06:28):
to numb ourselves, to just kind of.
Remove us from what's in front of us in a lot of different situations.
And I think it's so good that we are, you know, hitting these topics of sugar
and technology and finances because they're so, they can be subtle,
but more so they're so normal in our culture. Like no one thinks much of them.
(06:51):
It's just such a, it's the way a lot of people live.
So it's so awesome that we are addressing these normative things and seeing,
you know, the spiritual aspect and how it's actually like not that helpful in a lot of ways.
Yeah. Yeah. It's one of those, we laugh, there's sins that feel above the surface
where you're like, everyone clearly from all religions can look and be like,
(07:12):
it's bad that you do A, B, C, and D.
Like it is bad. Like nobody should be doing those things. Nobody should be killing people.
Nobody should just be like living a hateful life. Like that is not good.
But our relationship to things that are just generically unhelpful and then
move into dominating us, but it happens slowly. Like Janet talked about last
week, it's the frog being boiled.
(07:33):
Like that's what it feels like, our relationship to technology when you grew
up in it. Like both of us are 23, 24, 25, right?
Like we're in that age, we're in that age, right? So we didn't grow up with
iPads, but very early on they were introduced.
And so we're on the older age of the Gen Z.
And so therefore we just, it was normalized in our life. We got laptops in college.
(07:54):
We have always had two to three devices on us at all times. All you know. It's all we know.
And to say, what does it mean that we're being formed by all that we know,
and God may be calling us to live differently.
And so I want to hop right into that conversation to say, what stuck out to
you about the sermon and the encouragement from the book of Daniel today?
Yes. So I was really, he really stuck out and encouraged me.
(08:18):
Firstly, Daniel's response to his hopeless situation that in a situation where
it seemed like things were really bad for for them, he responded in prayer and
not just prayer, but confident prayer.
Like he knew that God heard his prayer and maybe even not certainly knowing
what the outcome would be.
He knows that the God of the universe hears him and is for him.
(08:41):
And in that he can trust that whatever happens is in his will and he was able to rest easy.
So that was really encouraging to just see Daniel's response there and just
in our own lives, kind of taking that as a model that we can trust that when
we bring things to God, we know that he hears them and he responds perfectly.
(09:01):
Yeah. So that was really encouraging to me.
And also just knowing that God is pleased by our devotion to him and he's pleased
by when we may set ourselves apart for him and.
God being pleased may look different for everybody. It doesn't necessarily mean
that, okay, God is pleased. So he's just going to give you what you want.
(09:24):
But just like knowing that, you know, once again, God, our father is pleased
when we surrender to him in different ways. Yeah.
That's really encouraging for me. Yeah. Yeah. I think what comes to mind is
a passage from the Sermon on the Mount when it's done talking about worrying
about all the things in our life, whatever we're going to eat,
whatever we're going to drink, whatever we're going to wear,
what's going to happen the next day. and it says, seek first the kingdom of God.
(09:46):
And to say, setting our lives apart in eating, in how we spend our time,
in how we interact with other people and how we interact with our treasure.
What it's saying is I'm prioritizing seeking first the kingdom of God and everything
else being added to me after it.
And I think what we see in the life of Daniel and Daniel's friends is a heaven
(10:10):
bound attitude that is seeking first God's kingdom, even when they're in a foreign land.
Like we're told that we're in a foreign land, that we're in exile right now.
But in exile, in modern day Babylon, which me and you exist in,
we can say, hey, what changes my relationship to God?
And how can I get rid of it, adjust it, or modify it so that it does not distract,
(10:33):
from the person I'm supposed to be becoming because I'm putting him ever before me?
All right, I gotta ask, because I gotta ask about your journey.
So when did your journey with technology really begin for you when you started
questioning your relationship to technology?
Yes. So it began for me a few years ago, and I'll backtrack to 2020.
(10:53):
So I was like- Bring it back. Bring it back. 2020. And everyone remembers that
year, COVID year and all the shutdowns and whatnot.
But I was your typical technology consumed 20-year-old.
And I was very much using it as as a distraction in my life.
At that point, I was pretty far from God and I hit a point later in the year
(11:14):
where I just reached my absolute low and just thought God hated me and I hated me.
We were in unity in hating me. I was convinced.
We got this right, me and you. We do not like Josh. That's where we're in agreement.
That is tough. But that's where I was really thinking and thinking of that emotional
(11:37):
atheism, you know, my thoughts towards God was really changing what I believed about him. And,
I was at a point of absolute hopelessness. And for some reason,
I believe it was God. Yeah.
He put it on my heart. I was just like, I just need to unplug.
And I mean, my screen time was like 11 hours some days.
Like if you're sleeping eight hours, that's like almost your life.
(12:00):
11 hours. You're like, let's count them, everybody. One, two. Yeah, that's crazy.
It was a lot. And that's not even including like TV too. Yeah. So I.
The device while you're watching another device. Yeah. Because that is if you
if any of you watch Netflix with any of your family, it's like we are on our
phones and watching TV and possibly doing something else. Yes.
(12:21):
It's absolutely insane. It happens.
Yes. So I like at that point, I just felt like I needed to break for 30 days.
So I was committing.
I was like, I don't know what I'm going to get out of this. Really.
I just feel like I need to do it. So I went 30 days. I deleted all my social
media apps and I didn't really know what was going to come from it, but I just did it.
(12:45):
And it was the most life-changing month of my life. Yeah.
Most importantly was just kind of revitalizing my relationship with God was
huge, but also just like recognizing how much I used technology to distract myself and to...
Hide my mind from the thoughts I really
(13:05):
needed to pay attention to and you know
I was forced to sit down and like be alone in silence
with my thoughts yeah to deal with you and have
him deal with you with me have God deal with me yes and even I mean it was a
huge change to go outside and walk in nature and see God's creation and not
be on my phone so that happened and it was life-changing and I got so much peace
(13:28):
out of it and afterwards I kind of tried to go back and it's just like Like,
no, it was just so much better.
So just over the years, it's been like a constant kind of purging out and kind
of reevaluating how I deal with technology.
And at this point, like two years ago, I got rid of my smartphone and switched
to a pretty basic phone. Yes.
(13:50):
Then I don't really use socials. I don't use TV and I don't say any of this
that it should be prescriptive and that it's a rule for everybody.
But I've just seen so much peace and just cutting out the distractions and it's
been such a blessing to my life. Yeah, that is so good.
And I think it's helpful to recognize that there are options out there.
(14:11):
That if you are seeing sin in your life come from technology and you wanna take
that sin seriously and it may feel like, oh my gosh, I have nowhere to turn.
I want you to know there are people who can resource you with ways that they've turned to flip phones.
They've turned to, Josh and I both had purchased the light phone at a time. We both laughed.
I think Josh can get away with being a bad communicator. I learned I could not
in my life. So I've had to adjust other ways of navigating. Work.
(14:35):
Things on your phone that you can do. You can lock up certain things on your
phone if you don't have access to internet.
Yep. So if you are sensing God calling you to take more seriously your relationship
with technology and you're going to need some things that are going to block
you, there's ways to do that. There are resources you can get.
There are ways to make your phone less addictive, to make it more similar to a dumb phone.
Yeah. And so that's important to recognize that, hey, either technology owns
(14:58):
you or you own technology. and most of us are owned by technology and not the other way around.
And that can be really scary.
And so when we look at what we're avoiding, what are we most often avoiding
in our like pursuit of technology?
I think we're most often avoiding often areas where we feel like we lack control
(15:19):
and things that come up that are out of our control, things that may be fearful to us,
the situations where we really have to trust in God and even bring things to
him that are not enjoyable,
those can all be means of causing us to turn to technology instead because it's so much easier.
I think it's the hard things, really, just the hard things in life.
(15:41):
You have something so easy in your pocket that you can just turn to.
I think that's a big push for it.
Yeah. I was telling you that in my brain, there's this illustration of I am
a young adult. I work with junior hires.
I work with high school students. And I even work with small kids.
And when I look at an awkward situation where kids or youth or young adults
(16:05):
are in, they'll just bring their phones out and it'll be like a binky to them,
more like a pacifier, if you guys can use the word binky. binky.
And it's what they're using to self-soothe themselves so that they can engage
if another person is not engaging with them, making them feel comfortable.
And so our relationship to our binkies or our pacifiers is recognizing we need
something external to self-soothe us instead of us learning to ask God,
(16:30):
hey, God, why do I feel uncomfortable right now?
How can I invite God into what I'm experiencing?
Or how can I not just be focused on me and my feelings, but to say,
say, hey, what in this room does God want to minister to?
And that can be really scary. I'm a seventh grade girl. That's really scary.
But to learn at such a young age, like God has something for these people.
(16:50):
And am I looking for it? Am I looking for him? Am I looking for who's lonely
in this room? Even if I'm feeling lonely, can he strengthen me?
So I can look for eyes that are looking for eyes, looking for them, even at a young age.
And you're sitting in the lunchroom and you're saying, hey, someone in this
room needs to be encouraged.
Yes. But we have to be looking up. We can't be looking down to know who needs to be encouraged.
(17:13):
We have to be looking up. And that's the invitation to, I think Ben said, unplug to plug in.
When you think of you're in a situation, you have to unplug from your phone
to plug into the people that are there. Yes. Because you're choosing to plug into something.
You're choosing to be present to something. But are you choosing to be present to reality?
And so when you started choosing to be present to reality, what do you feel
(17:34):
like changed in your heart?
A lot of change. I, first of all, love that analogy with the pacifier. That's awesome.
It's very helpful to look at things that way. Now you're going to look at,
you're going to picture people with binkies in.
I promise. You'll start being embarrassed that you're putting a binky in your
mouth. And I'm going to start asking people, how's your binky?
Have you put your binky away?
It's going to cut deep. Have you ever tried to de-binky a child?
(17:57):
It's a freaking nightmare. It's an absolute nightmare.
Children are addicted. They're holding four binkies at one time going to bed.
They have bingies on all their fingers. Yeah. And if they don't, they won't sleep.
I love it. Yeah.
Ruth, I need the question again. No problem. We got distracted and that's on
me. And that is totally on me.
The question is, is what has changed in your heart as you have kind of chosen
(18:22):
to try to live a less distracted life?
Yeah, thank you. So a lot has changed. I feel so much peace,
first of all, just having an undivided mind or less divided.
I can't say my mind is just perfectly in place, but it's so much better than it was.
It's really powerful. powerful. I actually have a story I wanted to share.
(18:42):
This was a few months after I started following Christ just a few years ago.
And I was at Wawa.
It was the summertime and it was packed because it was like a beach weekend
and everyone's getting their hoagies and whatnot.
So I'm there and the place is packed and I'm standing there and my life has
taken this whole 180 where I used to live such an anxious life.
(19:05):
And now people tell me that I just seem so calm and unfazed and it's all all
from God and I'm standing at Wawa just in line with a bunch of other people
and this man comes up to me and is like, you just look so at peace with life, it's crazy.
And like, I'm doing nothing different than I usually do. And at the time,
you know, I'm like a new-ish believer.
(19:26):
I'm like, I don't know why he said that. And as I reflected on it,
I'm like, that's all God.
Like that's from his spirit. It's the Holy Spirit permeating out of your life.
Yes, the Holy Spirit just pushing
to have devotion, complete devotion to him in my life. And it shows.
And in a life where everyone is so anxious, it's so prevalent where people can't
(19:47):
sleep consistently and just are plagued by fear and anxiety.
When you have a life and a mind that's undivided and has peace and is devoted
to God, it's unique in the world we live in. It's really powerful.
So I would say that was one huge change.
I'm so thankful to God for it because I just remember...
(20:11):
My life with anxiety. And I'm so glad I like no longer have to deal with it
by the grace of God. Yeah.
But also, Pastor Brennan mentioned kind of pressing more into the people around
you, rather than, you know, being on Facebook, Susie from second grade,
seeing, you know, what is Susie up to?
Yeah, never gonna see Susie again, probably, but not even praying for Susie,
(20:34):
just curious, just curious.
But instead, like, using that energy that you're keeping up with with other
people and instead pressing in to maybe like the two or three close people in
your life and just devoting that energy to those who are like actually present in your life.
I think it's been huge to really cultivate deeper relationships with the people
in my life has been really powerful.
(20:57):
I don't think I've ever experienced such depth and relationship since the past
few years where I've really weaned off from the keeping up with everybody.
So that's just a few. you yeah no that is
so good and that is like really encouraging to me to say
like the testimony to the non-believing world is that
we ought to not be anxious people and anxious with the cares of the world and
(21:21):
the way we become anxious with the cares of the world is we're just feeding
it yes all we're eating right every time we're on social media we're just eating
the cares of the world we're just listening to people complain or make jokes
or make light of wickedness and brokenness and sadness and pain
and even doing it in funny ways. I love a meme. I think they're hilarious.
They're great. Love a silly video. Oh my gosh, I live for a silly video but
(21:41):
all that does is I just put the binky in my mouth and I say,
I don't need to care about what God cares about right now.
I just need to laugh or I just need to be empathized with this stranger that
doesn't know me and I think we are kind of talking about a generational but
like my grandparents watch TV more than any other person I've ever met and so like.
Our generation's relationship to technology may be different kinds of technology
(22:02):
but everyone's addicted. And so whether you are...
Sitting at home worrying about when the show at 8 p.m. is going to come on on
Fox Channel or you're worried about when CBS is going to come out with a new
episode of Young Sheldon.
Whatever that is, it's important for like, you can't just yell at one generation
who's on their phone, but you are watching 9 to 15 hours of TV.
(22:25):
And so I would just say like, we're asking everyone to evaluate the relationship,
even if it's not your phone.
If it's TV, if it's news. If you're sitting and you're watching one news outlet
and you're just eating that news outlet up and your heart is changing because
it's all you're thinking about is like what is happening in the world.
I promise you it's not making you more prayerful. No. And therefore, we have to adjust it.
(22:49):
I'm not saying don't put your head in the sand, but you probably could read
one newspaper, pray and read your Bible and be as informed as you need to be
to live a faithful life to Jesus. Does that feel fair?
Yes, definitely fair. you'll still be relevant with
what's keeping up in the world enough as you need to be yeah
but so much of that seems necessary isn't necessary
(23:11):
yes and it's really helpful that you pointed that
out and just you know i think it's it's good for just everyone to take a step
back and look at their own life and see just like look at your time yeah and
see how it's divided and be honest like yeah just be honest with where is your
time devoted to and where is your attention devoted devoted to.
(23:32):
And Pastor Brennan mentioned as well that these devices aren't just isolated,
but they do influence us.
What we choose to put our eyes on and fill our minds with, they do influence
us. We are not immune at all.
So it's really a really good and helpful thing to maybe just like write down
(23:53):
just like, what is my day looking like?
And that could be very very eye-opening and kind of analyzing.
Yeah. And like, if you want to look at that really practically,
I do this sometimes retroactively.
And so if I have a really stressful week, I'll write out everything that I did
that week. So I'll write out to say like, hey, where did I, what went wrong?
(24:13):
Because sometimes I'm overloaded with events and that just looks like,
hey, I have not taken time to exist in rest and renewal.
I don't have a Sabbath this week, or I don't have a time where I'm setting apart
for God, where I'm being rejuvenated by his his presence and reminded that it's not about what we do.
It's about who he is and our relationship to who he is.
It might be important for some people to say, hey, I'm shutting off the phone.
(24:37):
I'm shutting off the TV. I'm putting it in the cupboard. And write down after
your first day, hey, what happened today?
Who did I interact with? I mean, just taking little notes to say like,
oh, I talked to someone I wouldn't have talked to at lunch because I would have
typically just been eating my lunch and looking at my phone.
But I looked up at lunch. There you go.
And I asked someone a question. Say, hey, how's your day? And me and Tom had a great conversation.
Or me and Tom looked at me super weird because he was on his phone.
(24:58):
And I just encouraged Tom like, hey, Tom, if you want to talk to me,
I'm taking some some time away from my phone because I realized that I'm not plugged into God.
Would you be interested in chit-chatting with me just a little bit today?
And you get to tell a testimony about what God's doing in your life as you're
in progress. You're not even proclaiming to be good at it yet.
You're just saying, man, I've been goofing up all this. And I'd love some help.
And so I think that's really important.
(25:19):
And Josh, I would love to hear just some practical things that you want to challenge
people with kind of in congruence with what, no, in joint with what But Pastor
Brendan has been encouraging people
in taking technology kind of off their regimen for a portion of time.
Yes. So my preferred practical method is often cold turkey.
(25:40):
Yeah, cut your legs off, cut your hands off, cut your ears off,
put your eyes off. Right away. Yeah. Get out. Yes.
Urgent. But I recognize it's not the call for everybody.
I really was blessed by doing a 30-day break from social media.
I remember when I did it, I didn't deactivate everything, but I just deleted
the apps from my phone and I committed like 30 days.
(26:02):
I'm going to just not use Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and whatever else I
fill up my time with, I'll figure it out. Yeah.
But there's that option, whether it be a week or maybe a certain day of the week.
I think that's a great option to just set time aside where you would normally
use it and instead not use it and just see, you know, what you go to instead
(26:23):
or even plan out beforehand. Like, yeah, I'm going to go to this instead.
I think that is a great way. The same applies for TV, I think.
Really just like whatever you use in technology.
Whatever your binky is. Whatever it is. And it's so important to realize too
that there are positive aspects of technology.
And it has great directions. And it can help you navigate.
(26:48):
If you have like your own business, it may be really important for you to be on social media.
So there's not- But even putting that in its proper place.
Yes. To say, you think it might be this important, but to say,
hey, how much time would you not waste for your business if you posted and you
said one hour a day when you did work on social media and then you didn't touch it?
I would say you have to recognize in which ways it owns you and you think you own it. Yeah.
(27:11):
And the only way you're going to recognize that is by taking it off. So true.
Yeah. Yeah. It's important to recognize the place it has in your life.
And, you know, you think of, you know, idols and idolatry, and it's putting something above God.
I'm just, you know, looking at these things and thinking like,
all right, this may not be bad in and of itself, but what place is it taking
(27:34):
up in my life? And is that healthy?
So that's really big. And one other thing I would say, attempt to do different
things that you, say, take a walk or have a meal, just like baby steps.
If going the huge mile is too much, just take baby steps there.
(27:56):
And I think a great one that I hear a lot of Christians try and implement in
their life is starting your mornings without using technology until you spent time with the Lord.
Some people like to do their Bible reading or spend time in prayer in the morning
or even sing some songs in the morning.
Whatever that looks like, just putting God first in your day,
(28:16):
it really directs the trajectory of your day and just sets your mind on the
things of God before you die.
Even see the notification bubble that someone messaged you. Like even seeing
that without even seeing the message, it's just like, oh, someone messaged me.
Like, what do they have to say? And it just throws you off.
So just putting God first and a lot of different things, but especially your
morning, I think is a great challenge that I'd encourage people to do. That's so good.
(28:40):
Yeah, an author that I really enjoy talks about, he puts his phone to bed every single night.
And so it lives in a desk that he doesn't go into until he's finished his full
morning routine of praying and spending time with Jesus.
And he then wakes his phone up to have to do the things that his phone needs to do.
But he wanted his phone to be something he is parenting instead of his phone parenting him.
(29:01):
And so I think that can be really important. I think that's something I feel
really challenged to do is to say, hey, after a certain period of time, there's no technology.
And then that doesn't get re-engaged until I've done the things I think God's
calling me to in living a life set apart for him.
Where my day is started by, hey, I just want, I want what you want.
And I can't want what he wants is when I care about what everyone else wants. Amen.
(29:24):
And when I'm connected to my phone, that's all I'm worried about.
It's like, oh, what do you need? Oh, yeah. What do I need?
That's what we do in our head. We're like, I just gotta go up to our tent.
I just gotta, I just wanna make sure they know that I matter.
And I just gotta, we do all these goofy things. I do that.
And we talked about something that I can't not bring up as we kind of land this
(29:44):
plane, is that we need to care about the sin that technology produces.
Yes. And me and you talked about like, Lust is something that people often think
about when they think about the relationship to technology, but you are jealous
because of your engagement, oftentimes in social media.
Yes. We are lazy. We are covetousness. We experience covetousness. And...
(30:05):
It's important that we recognize how that's forming us. Yeah.
That like, I know you talk about in your dream to be like, I don't need to be
worried about what Susie's doing or trying to keep up with Susie.
Yes. Because like Susie is in her community and I can bless the missionaries
that are in Susie's community.
Yep. It may not be who's in my community now. Right. And I think that's important.
Is there anything you want to add to that?
Yes. Like just thinking of the verse, you know, where it's told,
(30:28):
you know, something causes you to sin, you know.
Yeah. Cut off your hand, pluck out your eye, whatever that may be.
And it's like important. You
know, you read in Proverbs how seriously the sluggard is talking about.
And in many cases, phones and computers, television, it is. It makes us lazy.
Yes, makes us lazy. It wastes our time. And that is sin.
(30:49):
Laziness and being sluggish is sinful. Yeah.
And, you know, you hear those verses, like you said, of cut something out and
you may immediately think maybe like lust or deep hate or something.
Thing but also like covetousness and laziness it's
just as bad as your preciousness and lust if it's breathing that then
cut it out yeah so i think it's important
(31:10):
to you know look at that like what like you said what sin issues is this really
festering up in my life aside from maybe the obvious one and yeah i think if
you ask the lord you know can you please reveal these blind spots to me yeah
that technology may be you know negatively affecting in my life he will i'm
sure sure he will honor that prayer.
Yeah, I'm positive. Yes, absolutely positive.
(31:33):
Yeah, that's so good. Well, whether your binky is gaming or whether your binky
is your phone or whether your binky is that TV or that news outlet,
we'd encourage you to practice self-control and ask that the Holy Spirit would
grow self-control as you put that binky to the side and you trust that you can
look up and find God, seek first the kingdom of God and rejoice in his heart for us.
(31:54):
Man, I need you to pray us out so we can pray for our friends as they grow in
and self-control. Yes, I would love to.
Let's pray. Dear Lord, thank you for today. I thank you, Lord,
for your word and just the lessons we can learn from the book of Daniel.
I've been so encouraged just going through the beginning of this book, Lord.
I thank you, God, for your protection, God.
(32:15):
I thank you, Lord, that devotion to you, Lord, however that may look,
is so worth it, God, that putting lesser things aside for greater gain is so worth it, God.
And I pray, Lord, that following this sermon, Lord, Lord, following this podcast
that you through your spirit may push us to respond,
Lord, to not just think, but respond, Lord, to how food or technology or finances
(32:40):
may be idolatrous in our lives, God.
I pray, Lord, that you may show us the blind spots in our lives.
Show us the sin that it may be festering up in our lives.
Show us the time how it could be better used, Lord.
I thank you, God, that you honor these prayers, Lord, and that we can trust in you, you, Lord.
I thank you for bringing us out of sin so that we may even have the desire to
(33:03):
want to honor you with our time.
That only comes from you, Lord. It's not from us, Lord.
We thank you and praise you for this. We thank you for this sermon series, Lord.
We thank you for Pastor Brennan just hitting on these topics that need to be addressed, Lord.
We thank you for you and your spirit that empowers us, Lord.
In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Amen.
What a joy, brother. You guys have an awesome rest of your week.
(33:23):
And if you're not subscribed or you want to show us with a friend,
it'd be a blessing to the ministry of this podcast. Have an awesome rest of your week.
Welcome back to another episode of the Post-Sermon Reflections Podcast,
where we want to apply Sunday morning learning into Monday morning living as
we connect others to the love of Jesus and help them live on gospel mission.
My name is Ruth, and I am joined by my friend Josh, who I am excited to have
here because he is someone's brain who I pick when it comes to a relationship
(00:22):
with technology and when it comes to trying to submit areas of our life that
are hard to submit to Jesus and the culture are not submitting to Jesus.
And And so I am really excited for you to tune in and get to hear our conversation
about what God has been teaching us and ways that he's been challenging us through
the book of Daniel and the sermon series, The Test.
And if you are not subscribed to this podcast, we just ask that you would subscribe
(00:44):
so you get a notification every time we post a new podcast.
I am excited for my friend Josh to give us a little recap. And so he's going
to give us a recap on the text cover this morning so we can hop into what stuck
out to us, what encouraged us, and what challenged us today.
Josh, hit us with it. Great. Thanks, Ruth.
So today we were in Daniel chapter two, and it starts out with King Nebuchadnezzar.
(01:05):
He has a dream where he has a lot of symbolism and is just like really troubled
by it because he just can't seem to understand what to make of that dream.
So he consults some people around. He consults kind of like present day fortune
tellers and some magicians and occult people to figure out this dream,
but he won't tell it to them. So no one is able to figure it out.
(01:28):
And King Nebuchadnezzar is really upset by this.
He's really frustrated and angry and threatens the lives of everybody if no
one figures out his dream.
He really wants to know so badly that he can't even sleep.
So eventually everyone's kind of like,
Just going wild about it. They're really, you know, scared.
(01:48):
Kind of flipping out. Flipping out, yes. And they seek out Daniel.
They ask Daniel, like, hey, can you figure out this dream?
Like, we can't. And like, if no one does, we're done.
Yes, everyone's dead. Everyone's dead. No one wants that.
So Daniel, in response to this hopeless situation, seemingly hopeless situation.
(02:09):
He goes to his people and they pray together. They pray to God about the situation
they're in, and he goes to sleep.
He's at peace, and he's confident that God heard his prayer, and he goes to sleep.
And in his rest, God gives him
a vision of King Nebuchadnezzar's dream and tells him exactly what it is.
And Daniel knows what it means in great detail.
(02:31):
And he goes to the king and tells him the dream and gives all credit and glory
to God for giving it to him.
And the king thinks very highly of Daniel afterwards and just promotes him to
high status and is just like very happy that Daniel was able to interpret it.
That is so good. And we're kind of having this framed conversation of looking
(02:52):
at someone who was in a hopeless situation that was able to look to God and
to seek him and then therefore receive the blessing of peace because he turned his heart to God.
And we're recognizing that there's this dissonance in the lives of believers
and in the lives of obviously all of our culture, because oftentimes they just
turn to things that make them feel more comfortable, things like food and things like technology,
(03:15):
and they numb themselves to this reality.
And so we're kind of hopping in. This is our second week of the test series.
And so last week we challenged our friends to take very seriously their sugar
intake to say we often emotionally eat or we just live on autopilot.
And so Josh, tell me if you've been changing anything about your diet recently or in the past past year?
(03:36):
Recently, so this year.
Liam Gonzalez and I, we challenged each other to give something up for a whole year. Okay, amazing.
So this year, honestly, the past few years, I've kind of been on a little health
journey, just like a personal thing.
But this year, I told myself, I'm not going to buy any junk food myself.
(03:56):
If my mom's birthday is happening and she has cake, then yeah,
I'll eat it. But I'm not going to go to Wawa and just buy some snacks.
So that's the challenge I made for myself this year.
And it's been really eye-opening to see the different situations that can kind
of prompt me if it's like a long day at work, how I really want to go to Wawa
(04:17):
and get a Reese's cup. Get a little Reese's cup.
Just a Reese's cup. Just to eat my little feelings away.
Yep. And it's so subtle. But now that I can't, I really recognize the moments
that I really want to do that.
That's so good. Yeah, I'm in a similar journey. journey. I started my test kind of with the church.
And the big things for me were purchasing fast food, either when I'm alone,
(04:39):
like buying fast food, I'm alone is like something I always feel convicted about
to be like, I could just wait like 25 more minutes and go to my house and eat whatever to my fridge.
And the other was like taking seriously sweets and coffee creamer.
And so I drink a decent amount of coffee.
And one of the areas in which I intake sugar a
lot is in my coffee creamer and like we'll drink more coffee because
(05:00):
it's sweet and like it's just something to have yeah and
so i have been drinking either black coffee or just with milk
this past week and i've just noticed like oh like i enjoy
this cup of coffee but i don't enjoy it as much and so
like dealing with my relationship to coffee at the same time and
saying oh wow this is just areas
i would naturally intake sugar or we one of
(05:20):
my roommates who's a lot of us are in different food challenges in
our house right now and she also is not eating any sugar anything
and she just put a plate of candy out i'm like
get that out of here nobody can handle that like i do
not have the emotional capacity at 11 p.m for there to be just Reese's hanging
out in the kitchen not helping anyone and so we just laugh about even how like
(05:42):
situations with each other like going out to a bible study and there being cake
or like you're in situations where sugar is there they are constantly.
And when you're trying to go away from it completely, it's just being able to
say like, no, I'm comfortable not having dessert when everyone else has dessert.
I'm comfortable just drinking water when everyone else is drinking whatever
else. Or I'm comfortable saying, hey, I could have that, but I also could not.
(06:04):
And that's also our right. And so we kind of had a test rolled out today.
Do you want to give us like a little overview of kind of what was challenged in the test today?
Yes. So in the sermon, kind of pointing to the hopeless situation that the people
were in when, you know, their lives were threatened in the dream.
It was connected to how in technology today, we often use it to distract,
(06:28):
to numb ourselves, to just kind of.
Remove us from what's in front of us in a lot of different situations.
And I think it's so good that we are, you know, hitting these topics of sugar
and technology and finances because they're so, they can be subtle,
but more so they're so normal in our culture. Like no one thinks much of them.
(06:51):
It's just such a, it's the way a lot of people live.
So it's so awesome that we are addressing these normative things and seeing,
you know, the spiritual aspect and how it's actually like not that helpful in a lot of ways.
Yeah. Yeah. It's one of those, we laugh, there's sins that feel above the surface
where you're like, everyone clearly from all religions can look and be like,
(07:12):
it's bad that you do A, B, C, and D.
Like it is bad. Like nobody should be doing those things. Nobody should be killing people.
Nobody should just be like living a hateful life. Like that is not good.
But our relationship to things that are just generically unhelpful and then
move into dominating us, but it happens slowly. Like Janet talked about last
week, it's the frog being boiled.
(07:33):
Like that's what it feels like, our relationship to technology when you grew
up in it. Like both of us are 23, 24, 25, right?
Like we're in that age, we're in that age, right? So we didn't grow up with
iPads, but very early on they were introduced.
And so we're on the older age of the Gen Z.
And so therefore we just, it was normalized in our life. We got laptops in college.
(07:54):
We have always had two to three devices on us at all times. All you know. It's all we know.
And to say, what does it mean that we're being formed by all that we know,
and God may be calling us to live differently.
And so I want to hop right into that conversation to say, what stuck out to
you about the sermon and the encouragement from the book of Daniel today?
Yes. So I was really, he really stuck out and encouraged me.
(08:18):
Firstly, Daniel's response to his hopeless situation that in a situation where
it seemed like things were really bad for for them, he responded in prayer and
not just prayer, but confident prayer.
Like he knew that God heard his prayer and maybe even not certainly knowing
what the outcome would be.
He knows that the God of the universe hears him and is for him.
(08:41):
And in that he can trust that whatever happens is in his will and he was able to rest easy.
So that was really encouraging to just see Daniel's response there and just
in our own lives, kind of taking that as a model that we can trust that when
we bring things to God, we know that he hears them and he responds perfectly.
(09:01):
Yeah. So that was really encouraging to me.
And also just knowing that God is pleased by our devotion to him and he's pleased
by when we may set ourselves apart for him and.
God being pleased may look different for everybody. It doesn't necessarily mean
that, okay, God is pleased. So he's just going to give you what you want.
(09:24):
But just like knowing that, you know, once again, God, our father is pleased
when we surrender to him in different ways. Yeah.
That's really encouraging for me. Yeah. Yeah. I think what comes to mind is
a passage from the Sermon on the Mount when it's done talking about worrying
about all the things in our life, whatever we're going to eat,
whatever we're going to drink, whatever we're going to wear,
what's going to happen the next day. and it says, seek first the kingdom of God.
(09:46):
And to say, setting our lives apart in eating, in how we spend our time,
in how we interact with other people and how we interact with our treasure.
What it's saying is I'm prioritizing seeking first the kingdom of God and everything
else being added to me after it.
And I think what we see in the life of Daniel and Daniel's friends is a heaven
(10:10):
bound attitude that is seeking first God's kingdom, even when they're in a foreign land.
Like we're told that we're in a foreign land, that we're in exile right now.
But in exile, in modern day Babylon, which me and you exist in,
we can say, hey, what changes my relationship to God?
And how can I get rid of it, adjust it, or modify it so that it does not distract,
(10:33):
from the person I'm supposed to be becoming because I'm putting him ever before me?
All right, I gotta ask, because I gotta ask about your journey.
So when did your journey with technology really begin for you when you started
questioning your relationship to technology?
Yes. So it began for me a few years ago, and I'll backtrack to 2020.
(10:53):
So I was like- Bring it back. Bring it back. 2020. And everyone remembers that
year, COVID year and all the shutdowns and whatnot.
But I was your typical technology consumed 20-year-old.
And I was very much using it as as a distraction in my life.
At that point, I was pretty far from God and I hit a point later in the year
(11:14):
where I just reached my absolute low and just thought God hated me and I hated me.
We were in unity in hating me. I was convinced.
We got this right, me and you. We do not like Josh. That's where we're in agreement.
That is tough. But that's where I was really thinking and thinking of that emotional
(11:37):
atheism, you know, my thoughts towards God was really changing what I believed about him. And,
I was at a point of absolute hopelessness. And for some reason,
I believe it was God. Yeah.
He put it on my heart. I was just like, I just need to unplug.
And I mean, my screen time was like 11 hours some days.
Like if you're sleeping eight hours, that's like almost your life.
(12:00):
11 hours. You're like, let's count them, everybody. One, two. Yeah, that's crazy.
It was a lot. And that's not even including like TV too. Yeah. So I.
The device while you're watching another device. Yeah. Because that is if you
if any of you watch Netflix with any of your family, it's like we are on our
phones and watching TV and possibly doing something else. Yes.
(12:21):
It's absolutely insane. It happens.
Yes. So I like at that point, I just felt like I needed to break for 30 days.
So I was committing.
I was like, I don't know what I'm going to get out of this. Really.
I just feel like I need to do it. So I went 30 days. I deleted all my social
media apps and I didn't really know what was going to come from it, but I just did it.
(12:45):
And it was the most life-changing month of my life. Yeah.
Most importantly was just kind of revitalizing my relationship with God was
huge, but also just like recognizing how much I used technology to distract myself and to...
Hide my mind from the thoughts I really
(13:05):
needed to pay attention to and you know
I was forced to sit down and like be alone in silence
with my thoughts yeah to deal with you and have
him deal with you with me have God deal with me yes and even I mean it was a
huge change to go outside and walk in nature and see God's creation and not
be on my phone so that happened and it was life-changing and I got so much peace
(13:28):
out of it and afterwards I kind of tried to go back and it's just like Like,
no, it was just so much better.
So just over the years, it's been like a constant kind of purging out and kind
of reevaluating how I deal with technology.
And at this point, like two years ago, I got rid of my smartphone and switched
to a pretty basic phone. Yes.
(13:50):
Then I don't really use socials. I don't use TV and I don't say any of this
that it should be prescriptive and that it's a rule for everybody.
But I've just seen so much peace and just cutting out the distractions and it's
been such a blessing to my life. Yeah, that is so good.
And I think it's helpful to recognize that there are options out there.
(14:11):
That if you are seeing sin in your life come from technology and you wanna take
that sin seriously and it may feel like, oh my gosh, I have nowhere to turn.
I want you to know there are people who can resource you with ways that they've turned to flip phones.
They've turned to, Josh and I both had purchased the light phone at a time. We both laughed.
I think Josh can get away with being a bad communicator. I learned I could not
in my life. So I've had to adjust other ways of navigating. Work.
(14:35):
Things on your phone that you can do. You can lock up certain things on your
phone if you don't have access to internet.
Yep. So if you are sensing God calling you to take more seriously your relationship
with technology and you're going to need some things that are going to block
you, there's ways to do that. There are resources you can get.
There are ways to make your phone less addictive, to make it more similar to a dumb phone.
Yeah. And so that's important to recognize that, hey, either technology owns
(14:58):
you or you own technology. and most of us are owned by technology and not the other way around.
And that can be really scary.
And so when we look at what we're avoiding, what are we most often avoiding
in our like pursuit of technology?
I think we're most often avoiding often areas where we feel like we lack control
(15:19):
and things that come up that are out of our control, things that may be fearful to us,
the situations where we really have to trust in God and even bring things to
him that are not enjoyable,
those can all be means of causing us to turn to technology instead because it's so much easier.
I think it's the hard things, really, just the hard things in life.
(15:41):
You have something so easy in your pocket that you can just turn to.
I think that's a big push for it.
Yeah. I was telling you that in my brain, there's this illustration of I am
a young adult. I work with junior hires.
I work with high school students. And I even work with small kids.
And when I look at an awkward situation where kids or youth or young adults
(16:05):
are in, they'll just bring their phones out and it'll be like a binky to them,
more like a pacifier, if you guys can use the word binky. binky.
And it's what they're using to self-soothe themselves so that they can engage
if another person is not engaging with them, making them feel comfortable.
And so our relationship to our binkies or our pacifiers is recognizing we need
something external to self-soothe us instead of us learning to ask God,
(16:30):
hey, God, why do I feel uncomfortable right now?
How can I invite God into what I'm experiencing?
Or how can I not just be focused on me and my feelings, but to say,
say, hey, what in this room does God want to minister to?
And that can be really scary. I'm a seventh grade girl. That's really scary.
But to learn at such a young age, like God has something for these people.
(16:50):
And am I looking for it? Am I looking for him? Am I looking for who's lonely
in this room? Even if I'm feeling lonely, can he strengthen me?
So I can look for eyes that are looking for eyes, looking for them, even at a young age.
And you're sitting in the lunchroom and you're saying, hey, someone in this
room needs to be encouraged.
Yes. But we have to be looking up. We can't be looking down to know who needs to be encouraged.
(17:13):
We have to be looking up. And that's the invitation to, I think Ben said, unplug to plug in.
When you think of you're in a situation, you have to unplug from your phone
to plug into the people that are there. Yes. Because you're choosing to plug into something.
You're choosing to be present to something. But are you choosing to be present to reality?
And so when you started choosing to be present to reality, what do you feel
(17:34):
like changed in your heart?
A lot of change. I, first of all, love that analogy with the pacifier. That's awesome.
It's very helpful to look at things that way. Now you're going to look at,
you're going to picture people with binkies in.
I promise. You'll start being embarrassed that you're putting a binky in your
mouth. And I'm going to start asking people, how's your binky?
Have you put your binky away?
It's going to cut deep. Have you ever tried to de-binky a child?
(17:57):
It's a freaking nightmare. It's an absolute nightmare.
Children are addicted. They're holding four binkies at one time going to bed.
They have bingies on all their fingers. Yeah. And if they don't, they won't sleep.
I love it. Yeah.
Ruth, I need the question again. No problem. We got distracted and that's on
me. And that is totally on me.
The question is, is what has changed in your heart as you have kind of chosen
(18:22):
to try to live a less distracted life?
Yeah, thank you. So a lot has changed. I feel so much peace,
first of all, just having an undivided mind or less divided.
I can't say my mind is just perfectly in place, but it's so much better than it was.
It's really powerful. powerful. I actually have a story I wanted to share.
(18:42):
This was a few months after I started following Christ just a few years ago.
And I was at Wawa.
It was the summertime and it was packed because it was like a beach weekend
and everyone's getting their hoagies and whatnot.
So I'm there and the place is packed and I'm standing there and my life has
taken this whole 180 where I used to live such an anxious life.
(19:05):
And now people tell me that I just seem so calm and unfazed and it's all all
from God and I'm standing at Wawa just in line with a bunch of other people
and this man comes up to me and is like, you just look so at peace with life, it's crazy.
And like, I'm doing nothing different than I usually do. And at the time,
you know, I'm like a new-ish believer.
(19:26):
I'm like, I don't know why he said that. And as I reflected on it,
I'm like, that's all God.
Like that's from his spirit. It's the Holy Spirit permeating out of your life.
Yes, the Holy Spirit just pushing
to have devotion, complete devotion to him in my life. And it shows.
And in a life where everyone is so anxious, it's so prevalent where people can't
(19:47):
sleep consistently and just are plagued by fear and anxiety.
When you have a life and a mind that's undivided and has peace and is devoted
to God, it's unique in the world we live in. It's really powerful.
So I would say that was one huge change.
I'm so thankful to God for it because I just remember...
(20:11):
My life with anxiety. And I'm so glad I like no longer have to deal with it
by the grace of God. Yeah.
But also, Pastor Brennan mentioned kind of pressing more into the people around
you, rather than, you know, being on Facebook, Susie from second grade,
seeing, you know, what is Susie up to?
Yeah, never gonna see Susie again, probably, but not even praying for Susie,
(20:34):
just curious, just curious.
But instead, like, using that energy that you're keeping up with with other
people and instead pressing in to maybe like the two or three close people in
your life and just devoting that energy to those who are like actually present in your life.
I think it's been huge to really cultivate deeper relationships with the people
in my life has been really powerful.
(20:57):
I don't think I've ever experienced such depth and relationship since the past
few years where I've really weaned off from the keeping up with everybody.
So that's just a few. you yeah no that is
so good and that is like really encouraging to me to say
like the testimony to the non-believing world is that
we ought to not be anxious people and anxious with the cares of the world and
(21:21):
the way we become anxious with the cares of the world is we're just feeding
it yes all we're eating right every time we're on social media we're just eating
the cares of the world we're just listening to people complain or make jokes
or make light of wickedness and brokenness and sadness and pain
and even doing it in funny ways. I love a meme. I think they're hilarious.
They're great. Love a silly video. Oh my gosh, I live for a silly video but
(21:41):
all that does is I just put the binky in my mouth and I say,
I don't need to care about what God cares about right now.
I just need to laugh or I just need to be empathized with this stranger that
doesn't know me and I think we are kind of talking about a generational but
like my grandparents watch TV more than any other person I've ever met and so like.
Our generation's relationship to technology may be different kinds of technology
(22:02):
but everyone's addicted. And so whether you are...
Sitting at home worrying about when the show at 8 p.m. is going to come on on
Fox Channel or you're worried about when CBS is going to come out with a new
episode of Young Sheldon.
Whatever that is, it's important for like, you can't just yell at one generation
who's on their phone, but you are watching 9 to 15 hours of TV.
(22:25):
And so I would just say like, we're asking everyone to evaluate the relationship,
even if it's not your phone.
If it's TV, if it's news. If you're sitting and you're watching one news outlet
and you're just eating that news outlet up and your heart is changing because
it's all you're thinking about is like what is happening in the world.
I promise you it's not making you more prayerful. No. And therefore, we have to adjust it.
(22:49):
I'm not saying don't put your head in the sand, but you probably could read
one newspaper, pray and read your Bible and be as informed as you need to be
to live a faithful life to Jesus. Does that feel fair?
Yes, definitely fair. you'll still be relevant with
what's keeping up in the world enough as you need to be yeah
but so much of that seems necessary isn't necessary
(23:11):
yes and it's really helpful that you pointed that
out and just you know i think it's it's good for just everyone to take a step
back and look at their own life and see just like look at your time yeah and
see how it's divided and be honest like yeah just be honest with where is your
time devoted to and where is your attention devoted devoted to.
(23:32):
And Pastor Brennan mentioned as well that these devices aren't just isolated,
but they do influence us.
What we choose to put our eyes on and fill our minds with, they do influence
us. We are not immune at all.
So it's really a really good and helpful thing to maybe just like write down
(23:53):
just like, what is my day looking like?
And that could be very very eye-opening and kind of analyzing.
Yeah. And like, if you want to look at that really practically,
I do this sometimes retroactively.
And so if I have a really stressful week, I'll write out everything that I did
that week. So I'll write out to say like, hey, where did I, what went wrong?
(24:13):
Because sometimes I'm overloaded with events and that just looks like,
hey, I have not taken time to exist in rest and renewal.
I don't have a Sabbath this week, or I don't have a time where I'm setting apart
for God, where I'm being rejuvenated by his his presence and reminded that it's not about what we do.
It's about who he is and our relationship to who he is.
It might be important for some people to say, hey, I'm shutting off the phone.
(24:37):
I'm shutting off the TV. I'm putting it in the cupboard. And write down after
your first day, hey, what happened today?
Who did I interact with? I mean, just taking little notes to say like,
oh, I talked to someone I wouldn't have talked to at lunch because I would have
typically just been eating my lunch and looking at my phone.
But I looked up at lunch. There you go.
And I asked someone a question. Say, hey, how's your day? And me and Tom had a great conversation.
Or me and Tom looked at me super weird because he was on his phone.
(24:58):
And I just encouraged Tom like, hey, Tom, if you want to talk to me,
I'm taking some some time away from my phone because I realized that I'm not plugged into God.
Would you be interested in chit-chatting with me just a little bit today?
And you get to tell a testimony about what God's doing in your life as you're
in progress. You're not even proclaiming to be good at it yet.
You're just saying, man, I've been goofing up all this. And I'd love some help.
And so I think that's really important.
(25:19):
And Josh, I would love to hear just some practical things that you want to challenge
people with kind of in congruence with what, no, in joint with what But Pastor
Brendan has been encouraging people
in taking technology kind of off their regimen for a portion of time.
Yes. So my preferred practical method is often cold turkey.
(25:40):
Yeah, cut your legs off, cut your hands off, cut your ears off,
put your eyes off. Right away. Yeah. Get out. Yes.
Urgent. But I recognize it's not the call for everybody.
I really was blessed by doing a 30-day break from social media.
I remember when I did it, I didn't deactivate everything, but I just deleted
the apps from my phone and I committed like 30 days.
(26:02):
I'm going to just not use Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and whatever else I
fill up my time with, I'll figure it out. Yeah.
But there's that option, whether it be a week or maybe a certain day of the week.
I think that's a great option to just set time aside where you would normally
use it and instead not use it and just see, you know, what you go to instead
(26:23):
or even plan out beforehand. Like, yeah, I'm going to go to this instead.
I think that is a great way. The same applies for TV, I think.
Really just like whatever you use in technology.
Whatever your binky is. Whatever it is. And it's so important to realize too
that there are positive aspects of technology.
And it has great directions. And it can help you navigate.
(26:48):
If you have like your own business, it may be really important for you to be on social media.
So there's not- But even putting that in its proper place.
Yes. To say, you think it might be this important, but to say,
hey, how much time would you not waste for your business if you posted and you
said one hour a day when you did work on social media and then you didn't touch it?
I would say you have to recognize in which ways it owns you and you think you own it. Yeah.
(27:11):
And the only way you're going to recognize that is by taking it off. So true.
Yeah. Yeah. It's important to recognize the place it has in your life.
And, you know, you think of, you know, idols and idolatry, and it's putting something above God.
I'm just, you know, looking at these things and thinking like,
all right, this may not be bad in and of itself, but what place is it taking
(27:34):
up in my life? And is that healthy?
So that's really big. And one other thing I would say, attempt to do different
things that you, say, take a walk or have a meal, just like baby steps.
If going the huge mile is too much, just take baby steps there.
(27:56):
And I think a great one that I hear a lot of Christians try and implement in
their life is starting your mornings without using technology until you spent time with the Lord.
Some people like to do their Bible reading or spend time in prayer in the morning
or even sing some songs in the morning.
Whatever that looks like, just putting God first in your day,
(28:16):
it really directs the trajectory of your day and just sets your mind on the
things of God before you die.
Even see the notification bubble that someone messaged you. Like even seeing
that without even seeing the message, it's just like, oh, someone messaged me.
Like, what do they have to say? And it just throws you off.
So just putting God first and a lot of different things, but especially your
morning, I think is a great challenge that I'd encourage people to do. That's so good.
(28:40):
Yeah, an author that I really enjoy talks about, he puts his phone to bed every single night.
And so it lives in a desk that he doesn't go into until he's finished his full
morning routine of praying and spending time with Jesus.
And he then wakes his phone up to have to do the things that his phone needs to do.
But he wanted his phone to be something he is parenting instead of his phone parenting him.
(29:01):
And so I think that can be really important. I think that's something I feel
really challenged to do is to say, hey, after a certain period of time, there's no technology.
And then that doesn't get re-engaged until I've done the things I think God's
calling me to in living a life set apart for him.
Where my day is started by, hey, I just want, I want what you want.
And I can't want what he wants is when I care about what everyone else wants. Amen.
(29:24):
And when I'm connected to my phone, that's all I'm worried about.
It's like, oh, what do you need? Oh, yeah. What do I need?
That's what we do in our head. We're like, I just gotta go up to our tent.
I just gotta, I just wanna make sure they know that I matter.
And I just gotta, we do all these goofy things. I do that.
And we talked about something that I can't not bring up as we kind of land this
(29:44):
plane, is that we need to care about the sin that technology produces.
Yes. And me and you talked about like, Lust is something that people often think
about when they think about the relationship to technology, but you are jealous
because of your engagement, oftentimes in social media.
Yes. We are lazy. We are covetousness. We experience covetousness. And...
(30:05):
It's important that we recognize how that's forming us. Yeah.
That like, I know you talk about in your dream to be like, I don't need to be
worried about what Susie's doing or trying to keep up with Susie.
Yes. Because like Susie is in her community and I can bless the missionaries
that are in Susie's community.
Yep. It may not be who's in my community now. Right. And I think that's important.
Is there anything you want to add to that?
Yes. Like just thinking of the verse, you know, where it's told,
(30:28):
you know, something causes you to sin, you know.
Yeah. Cut off your hand, pluck out your eye, whatever that may be.
And it's like important. You
know, you read in Proverbs how seriously the sluggard is talking about.
And in many cases, phones and computers, television, it is. It makes us lazy.
Yes, makes us lazy. It wastes our time. And that is sin.
(30:49):
Laziness and being sluggish is sinful. Yeah.
And, you know, you hear those verses, like you said, of cut something out and
you may immediately think maybe like lust or deep hate or something.
Thing but also like covetousness and laziness it's
just as bad as your preciousness and lust if it's breathing that then
cut it out yeah so i think it's important
(31:10):
to you know look at that like what like you said what sin issues is this really
festering up in my life aside from maybe the obvious one and yeah i think if
you ask the lord you know can you please reveal these blind spots to me yeah
that technology may be you know negatively affecting in my life he will i'm
sure sure he will honor that prayer.
Yeah, I'm positive. Yes, absolutely positive.
(31:33):
Yeah, that's so good. Well, whether your binky is gaming or whether your binky
is your phone or whether your binky is that TV or that news outlet,
we'd encourage you to practice self-control and ask that the Holy Spirit would
grow self-control as you put that binky to the side and you trust that you can
look up and find God, seek first the kingdom of God and rejoice in his heart for us.
(31:54):
Man, I need you to pray us out so we can pray for our friends as they grow in
and self-control. Yes, I would love to.
Let's pray. Dear Lord, thank you for today. I thank you, Lord,
for your word and just the lessons we can learn from the book of Daniel.
I've been so encouraged just going through the beginning of this book, Lord.
I thank you, God, for your protection, God.
(32:15):
I thank you, Lord, that devotion to you, Lord, however that may look,
is so worth it, God, that putting lesser things aside for greater gain is so worth it, God.
And I pray, Lord, that following this sermon, Lord, Lord, following this podcast
that you through your spirit may push us to respond,
Lord, to not just think, but respond, Lord, to how food or technology or finances
(32:40):
may be idolatrous in our lives, God.
I pray, Lord, that you may show us the blind spots in our lives.
Show us the sin that it may be festering up in our lives.
Show us the time how it could be better used, Lord.
I thank you, God, that you honor these prayers, Lord, and that we can trust in you, you, Lord.
I thank you for bringing us out of sin so that we may even have the desire to
(33:03):
want to honor you with our time.
That only comes from you, Lord. It's not from us, Lord.
We thank you and praise you for this. We thank you for this sermon series, Lord.
We thank you for Pastor Brennan just hitting on these topics that need to be addressed, Lord.
We thank you for you and your spirit that empowers us, Lord.
In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Amen.
What a joy, brother. You guys have an awesome rest of your week.
(33:23):
And if you're not subscribed or you want to show us with a friend,
it'd be a blessing to the ministry of this podcast. Have an awesome rest of your week.
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