Growing in Faith - Reformation Sunday: Sanity and Truth with Social Media - 10/26/2025

About a month ago, a colleague shared a story with me about two women who are

best friends in his congregation.

And for lack of better terms, one of these friends, a woman,

is conservative and one is liberal.

They have had a more difficult time recently understanding each other's perspectives

in our politically divisive environment.

And after the Charlie Kirk killing, one of them said to the other,

I do not understand how you can believe what you do.

And the other friend said, I can't believe how you think what you do.

And this gave them an idea. They sat side by side with their phones,

and they each typed Charlie Kirk into their Facebook feed and compared their responses.

The conservative friend got all positive posts, links, articles,

and memes about Charlie Kirk and his legacy.

The liberal friend got all negative posts, links, memes, and articles about

Kirk, his life, and what he stood for.

This was a revelation for these two friends because they realized that the social

media algorithms did not just reflect their opinions, they fed them.

They deepened their divide and they convinced each other that the other one was crazy.

It was their social media feeds that were working hard to divide them.

They as people were as far apart as the rhetoric led them to believe.

No wonder we are all so stressed.

We're not even looking at the same world anymore.

And then we wonder why our friendships, our families, and even our peace of mind are fraying.

And then you multiply that by, oh, a gazillion, jillion, it's a number I made up.

Posts and feeds across all social media platforms and all networks across the

world, and you have this divisive, toxic situation that we have today.

And then you add AI-generated fake videos, and we are not even sure what's real anymore.

I read a news article about this this past week, and an AI video creator reportedly

claimed the truth no longer matters anymore.

All you have to do is go viral.

I thought, oh, my God. And what

really blew my mind was the next point the author made in the article,

which was both audiences together is what makes fake videos go viral.

Those who agree with it and enjoy it, and also those who question it and its validity.

It takes both audiences that contribute to the viral spread of a falsehood.

I thought, oh, dang.

So we all live in this digital echo chamber.

We scroll through our feeds that reward and accentuate and expand our outrage

and our emotion and our narrow band of thinking.

And then we share our posts before we check if they're true.

And before long, we're exhausted and we're mentally and spiritually and emotionally wrung out.

And we think half the world is truly crazy, regardless of where we land on the political spectrum.

And the truth seems lost in this sea of fear and division and shouted opinions.

So into this mail stream we

celebrate the reformation today that

martin luther began in 1517 luther

who was a catholic priest and a monk he did not post on social media but he

did post on the version that he had in 1517 and legend tells us that that was

the chapel doors in Wittenberg,

where people posted or nailed notices, and he posted his 95 theses.

That's a T-H, theses, not an F. 95...

95 theses or ideas.

We could just call them 95 disputations or 95 ideas,

95 theses, on the chapel door at Wittenberg to reclaim the truth of God that

was lost in fear and falsehoods and the noise that plagued the church and society of his time.

And what were people fearing? I guess in a real sense, it wasn't all that different.

They feared judgment for their sins. They feared that loved ones were languishing

in purgatory or ignorance or something that was going to cause them to be in hell forever.

And that the path to forgiveness for all of them, both them in their earthly

life and those languishing in purgatory was money, right?

Okay, how different is that than today?

Was to purchase certificates of forgiveness called indulgences.

So people feared the church. They feared religious leaders.

They feared the power that they held over their lives. And they didn't understand

that the truth of God's grace had been distorted and that they were being sold.

What fake news from the church.

From the princes, from the government, from whoever was in power at the time,

that kept them in power and the people in poverty.

So through searching scripture from his own burdened soul,

Luther rediscovered the truth of God's love in Jesus Christ,

which set him and all of us free from sin.

And the line in the 16th century for Luther was that Jesus Christ set us free

from sin, death, and the devil, right?

The whole trifecta, whatever you're worried about, sin, death,

and the devil, Jesus Christ covers all of them.

And he set us free from all of it.

As Romans says in our reading today, for there is no distinction.

And in Romans, the Apostle Paul is referring in this instance,

the distinction between Jews and everybody else called Gentiles.

But we can say male and female, which he said in Galatians. And today we can

say between conservative and liberal.

Since all have sinned, all have sinned, all, no exceptions, and fall short of the glory of God.

They are now justified. How? Not by being right, but by his grace as a gift

through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

By his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works of the law,

justified by faith apart from works of the law.

That means you can't do a darn thing to earn it.

You can't do a darn thing to believe it right.

You can't do anything about it. God loves you, gosh darn it, and you cannot help it.

It's just the facts. Jesus saved you on the cross and loves you as you are,

and you can't do a darn thing about it.

All you can do is accept it. You are set free from sin, death,

and the devil. What are you afraid of? Sin, death, and the devil?

Whatever form it takes for you, you are set free from it.

And I think we need this message today more than ever to cut through the noise

of the world and to help us hear what is true. What is true?

Luther's discovery and what changed the church forever that day with 95 ideas, disputations, theses,

is that fear and falsehoods never have the last word.

God's truth in Jesus Christ absolutely does. Amen.

Thank you. Amen. Jesus Christ and

God's truth in him absolutely has the

last word and the first alpha and omega

the beginning and the end in the beginning was the word and the word was with

God and the word was God and nothing came into being without him in the beginning

and what is the end the omega Jesus Christ is the alpha and the omega he is

the end the resurrection and the life.

So the truth of the gospel cuts through all the noise.

We are justified by grace through faith and not by our own work,

faith, effort, not by our own effort, not by winning arguments,

not by one upping somebody on Facebook,

not by our correct political stance, not by getting the most likes,

not by Facebook, TikTok,

X, Truth Social, whatever you like.

Jesus says it plainly in John 8.

If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the

truth, and the truth will make you free.

The truth that sets us free is not a fact check or a trending post.

It is the living word of Jesus Christ himself.

Jesus Christ himself holds us steady when every algorithm designed to divide

us, every feed, every post shifts with the political winds.

Luther called this grace Christian freedom, not freedom to say and do whatever you want.

That's not freedom. That is bondage to sin. That is bondage to self. We confuse that.

Christian freedom is freedom from fear.

Christian freedom is freedom from judgment, freedom from the insanity of the world today.

But Christian freedom is even more than that.

We are not just freed from those kinds of earthly struggles, but we are freed for.

We are freed for the kingdom.

We are freed for love.

Jesus Christ sets us free so that we can be freed, not just from the bonds of

the world, but so that we might be freed for love.

Freedom in Christ is for acting justly. Freedom in Christ is for discerning wisely.

Freedom in Christ is for loving our neighbors, regardless of their politics,

even when the world seems bent on dividing us.

So the question is, how? How do we live in this world of half-truths designed to stress us out?

Because, by the way, who benefits from all this division? Not us.

Not those who are not getting paid by a Congress that can't get along. Not.

Right? The advertisers, those who own these companies, the rich and the powerful,

get more rich and powerful.

How about all those government workers and the military who are not getting

paid? They're not benefiting.

Am I right? Right? They're not, right? So how do we live this truth in a world

of half-truths that are designed to stress people out?

So I invite you to consider a few spiritual practices.

And the first one is to be intentional about what you're consuming and be intentional about your sources.

So recognize that all of your social media algorithms is feeding you what you want to hear.

It is keeping you in a bubble. So get outside of the bubble.

Jesus says, be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. This is the wise as serpents

part, in case you were wondering.

So don't get caught in your own ideological bubble. Go outside of your bubble to get some news.

Try international news. What is the BBC saying? What is Deutsche Bells saying?

How about do a fact check? Places like factcheck.org, PolitiFact,

or Full Fact out of the UK.

What happens when you get outside your bubble?

Second, I love this one. I made it up.

Spent much time with the Lord as

you do on social media. What if you did a one-for-one every day this week?

And you say, amen, right? Okay, what happens if you said, I just spent 30 minutes

scrolling through whatever, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.

Now I've got to spend 30 minutes in scripture and prayer.

How is that going to change your life? What does Jesus have to say about this

Facebook feed, this Instagram feed, this whatever feed?

You can download a Bible app, which I have on my phone, YouVersion.

They have devotions. They have studies. You can pick a book.

You can say, I want to do a devotion on anxiety, and it will pop up a dozen

different devotions on anxiety and have a reading every single day.

But if you've been on Facebook for 30 minutes, you can do the whole devotion

for two weeks in those 30 minutes.

You can read the whole thing on your phone. Let your feed be filtered through scripture and prayer.

I would love to have somebody do this and come to me at the end of the week

and say, Pastor, I did 30 minutes on social media and then 30 minutes in scripture

and prayer, and this is what I discovered.

Call me up. I'm dying for this appointment. I will buy you lunch.

Number three, engage in conversation with real people.

Try the experiment that these two women did. This is a real story.

It's Pastor Andy. I forget his last name in Minnesota. This is a real story.

He told me this story. So try this experiment with someone who has different

views from you and use that as a basis to start a conversation.

These are two very important questions about how people feel about how they

view the world. Ask them, what are you afraid of losing?

And then ask them, what are you afraid of not getting?

And ask that of yourself. And how does that inform how you view the world and

how you view the world politically?

And then listen, listen to understand, just not to form a rebuttal.

We have got to be willing to have conversations with real people.

Fourth, pause before you share. Pause before you react. Pause before you try

to correct everybody's misunderstanding.

Ask yourself, does what I am about to say reflect Christ's love?

Does it build up or does it tear down?

When my kids were young, I used to tell them, think.

Somebody else taught me this. I did not come up with this one. Think. T-H-I-N-K.

T, is it thoughtful? helpful?

H, is it helpful?

I, is it insightful or important? N, is it necessary?

Is it really necessary for you to open your mouth and say that?

Most of the time, I'm afraid, even for me, the answer is no.

Is it even my business, or are you just wanting to get up in somebody's dirty grill.

Am I right? Thank you. K, is it kind?

T-H-I-N-K, think before you speak.

Is it thoughtful, helpful, insightful, or important? Is it necessary?

Is it kind?

Is what I'm about to say reflect Christ's love? Is it even my business?

All right, so those are my four suggestions. Which one are you going to do?

Which one are you going to do?

Okay, so the truth is the world doesn't need louder voices.

It needs clearer ones. It needs Christ-like ones.

It needs calm, courageous, compassionate voices pointing to the truth of forgiveness,

pointing to the freedom of forgiveness that we have in Jesus Christ.

And when we speak with grace, when we act with integrity, when we refuse to

be swept up in fear and falsehood, then what are we doing?

We're being so Lutheran, right? We embody the work of the Reformation,

which is always ongoing because the Holy Spirit who reformed the church in 1517

is ongoing, and it is still reforming our hearts today.

It is still reforming the church today, and that is our calling,

to always be reformed and always being reforming.

And that is to bring sanity in the midst of chaos and truth,

truth and grace in Jesus Christ where there is confusion and peace where there is division.

So Jesus Christ, the son has already made you free. So be free.

You are free already. Be free indeed.

Amen. Go in peace, unstuck from stress and anchored in God's love.

Carry Christ's into a world that longs for hope as you love, serve, and welcome all.

Thanks be to God, and we will.