Glowing Rectangles | Clayton Hentzel

Man, I don't know about you, but I am so glad I decided to come

to church today, man. It's been good, I tell you what,

I am, just so thankful. We get to spend some time

together. I want to welcome those of you

joining here and all of our different locations.

Those of you who are part of the crossing inside, special

shout-out to those of you who are watching The Crossing

online. Cool story.

Last week, we're preaching on circles are where the be the

village shirt. Lot of you guys went and bought

some sweatshirts and shirts that link still available if you want

to buy some But a person who lives in a different state was

watching our services online, heard about that Ministry.

They've been setting aside a pile of cash and looking for

something to do with it on Thursday before, I went to

preach, I got a call from the lady who works in our office.

Who runs the not-for-profit. She had some out-of-town check

from a guy saying, hey, we just believe in what you're doing.

We want to support you. So those of you were part of a

Crossing online. How cool are you guys?

And we're so thankful that we get to do ministry with you, And

I know a lot of you are getting ready to start watching services

online from the Lake of the Ozarks.

I know that's about to happen, and I want you to know that if

you want someone to preach that sermon live, You like someone

Dockside, you know, Jesus did a lot of ministry on the shores of

a lake, and if you want help, I'll come and I can even baptize

you in that water. Okay, I'll do will do live.

Sermons will take the service live from your living room.

Your Lakeside living room, nice Windows.

That's what I'm going for now. We've been in a sermon series

called better, how to win at home because we believe that

everyone wants to win at home, and we started off the sermon

series. The core belief that we have

here at the Crossing which is that we believe that God can

redeem anything and everything and that includes your family

and we talked about can Suki that sometimes the broken

pieces, the pieces that we want to throw away and discard that

we think no longer have any value in any use that if they're

placed in God's hands that his golden finger of redemption can

put things back together in a way, that is beautiful and

breathtaking. And that, when he's done the end

product can Really sometimes end up looking better than what the

original product looked like. And we believe that God can do

that in your life, in your relationships, and in your

family. But we believe that in order for

your family to have the best chance of success, you need to

have a strong foundation and that there is no better

Foundation than Jesus Christ. No matter what the world throws

at you. If your life, your family, your

marriage are rooted in God and his word and you trust your put

your life on that Solid Rock, you will not?

Be shaken or destroyed. And then we talked about how we

are wired, generally around gender, and generally around our

emotions and then we encourage you guys to go on date night

challenging if you guys haven't done that yet, you should

definitely do that. And I'll give you a link in a

second where you can get some of those challenges but hearing the

stories of how the conversations happen inside of those marriages

and what they learned about each other and how it shaped the way

that they're operating is just a tremendous gift that you gave

yourself and your kids and your Sure kids and then last week we

talked about parenting and how we're all on a journey, a

journey from control to consultant and that the way that

God equipped us to navigate that transition is through circles.

And we agree that everyone needs a better Circle that a better

Circle makes for a better experience and that every Circle

needs to challenge us. And we talked about one of the

shifts that we're making here at the Crossing and that we're no

longer calling our 02:18 Ministries next-gen.

We're going to start I'm them this gin because they're not

next there. Now we don't want them to just

be Leaders of Tomorrow. We want them to be leaders of

today and we asked you guys all to take time to write.

Thank you cards to the circle, makers and circle, fillers in

your life. And we also talked about this

boardroom and I hope you guys will use this in your own life

that in the boredom of your life, you have 8 to 12 seats and

you have to ask yourself who are the people that are sitting in

the boardroom of my life. Life now because whoever you put

around this table in your life, it's going to impact your

marriage, it's going to impact your parenting, it's going to

impact your physical health, your emotional health, your

Spiritual Development, your finances, who you put in your

circle and in the circle of your kids is life matters.

Now, some of you are going to, man.

I feel like I've missed a lot because you're traveling, you

have something going on. So I want you to know, if you're

wanting to get access to some of the tools, the resources, and

even some of the messages, you can go to this website.

Down here or you can do the phone thing.

The crossing dotnet / family, where you can get access to

everything that we've been doing in the sermon series.

So if you know, for you, or if you're like me and I that family

had their windows open yesterday and I think they need this

sermon because my neighbor might be good.

Yeah, you could send it. Okay, now today we're going to

talk about glowing rectangles, everybody said glowing

rectangles, Now, before I get into this message, a couple

things one, there's going to be a part of you during the

semester that you might think that I am like your right wing

champion and that like you know, I'm you know, going way too old

school and I just need, you know upfront.

Nope that's not what I'm actually trying to do.

I'm going to try and put you in a position where you can make an

informed decision about how to lead yourself and your family.

And I'm going to put your in the Receipt, you're the expert.

What I want to do is I want to make sure you're at least giving

yourself the opportunity to have the conversations.

And in order to do that, I want to kind of talk to you today

with a pastoral voice. And, you know, we can use a lot

of different voices. You know, we can sometimes talk

from a leadership voice and cast a compelling vision and paint a

clearer picture of how we're going to get to our future and

that's all well and good. And and we can sometimes, you

know, we can have kind of a counselor voice and help us

navigate eight through some of the emotions or we can be a

teacher and help us understand something more fully today.

I really want to kind of speak to you with a pastoral heart and

you kind of have to give me permission to do that because

you know, you get to decide how much of you know of your pastor.

I get to be your not but let me explain what I'm getting at.

When the Bible talks about pastors, it usually uses the

imagery of a shepherd. That a good.

Pastor is a Good Shepherd. In a Shepherd, does a really

good job of taking care of his sheep?

And so, what a Shepherd supposed to do is go, hey sheep, look at

that water. That's some really good water.

You should drink that water, and look at that grass.

That is some really good grass. You should eat that grass and

that that's a wolf. Wolves bite.

You shouldn't go anywhere close to that thing.

And those are thistles and you know, the way God Made You, you

got a lot of wool on you if you get in those thistles.

You're going to get hung up and stuck and that's poop and we

don't eat poop. Okay, that's that's what that's

what a Shepherd does. And so what I want to do today

is I want to kind of talk to you the Pastoral heart and go.

Hey guys, those are thistles, those are wolves, and I wouldn't

eat that. And you listen, you make the

decision but I feel like I have an obligation to spend a little

bit of time, talking about something that I think is,

impacting us all, we're all aware of it, but maybe, We're

not necessarily taking the steps that we need to take to address

it. Here we go.

When I was growing up, we had choices.

Everything was a different conversation.

We had a phone in our house. And then what we did is some of

you. We had friends who they went out

and spent money on like the 150 foot long cord, that could go

from the kitchen down the hall into their daughter's room into

the bathroom and into her walk-in closet.

And this thing just spun all the way anybody.

How many of you guys have that phone?

Oh yeah, okay, yeah, and then some of us, some of you grew up

a little rich. You had call waiting.

You're on the phone. One moment, please.

Hello. Yes, he is here but I'm on the

other line, right? Yeah.

Okay. Some of you you came from like

super rich people and at Christmas like, you got your own

phone line at the house, like, you had a separate line.

You guys were total Ballers and like you would give like after

Christmas, you give somebody your number, like I still

remember Nikki's phone number. Oh 58-37, 20 585, Sarah orts.

372 7631. This is back.

When you actually remembered people's phone numbers, like,

you knew Pizza Hut, like you knew Papa, John's like you knew

him, you called him up and I like, what's up, man?

They just knew your voice. Well, I guess.

Same thing saying, yeah, I want, you know, I want to pepperonis

on with the stuff Crescent, you know, where to deliver it

because you know who this is, That's How okay, yeah, this is

it's a whole different world. Some of you like, tell me more

okay, like we were so young in the cell phone game That my

dad's phone number is nine one of his phone numbers is nine

thousand. One of them is two thousand and

one of them is 9,500, that's how early we were to the cell phone

game. Okay?

Now, before I before, the cell phone game came, there was

though the wireless phone. Remember when you got one of

those, no wires had the big long.

Antennae that when you're my height get stuck in the ceiling

fan. Okay.

Here's walking through there. I can't hear you.

Okay? And it was huge member Have that

thing and you put it on and like wrapped all the way around your

face. You need a spotter when you're

walking around with it. Okay.

And so whether or not you were going to get one of those was a

big deal because it was a big investment.

Then there was a discussion of whether or not we got the TV in

my room. And there's a discussion about

whether or not we were going to get cable, fun fact, my parents

have never had cable. They have watched whatever was

free their whole lives. If they wanted to watch a game

that was going to be on cable kid, you not?

They would rent a hotel room. Because I had came with cable

but no joke, or they just hang out in the lobby at a hotel.

Like we're just like, okay, this is how it is part of that was

because of the finances and part of it was because some of the

programming that was on cable, late at night, wasn't

necessarily suitable for the spiritual development of a

family. Then there was a discussion

about whether or not we were going to have a gaming device.

There was going to be the you know, can I have the Nintendo?

No, Super Nintendo. Nope.

Can I have the Sega Genesis? Yeah, Street Fighter.

No couldn't have that either. In fact, I did not get a gaming

device until I was a junior in college and I paid for it with

my own money. A lot of my friends had game

boys so they can play Tetris in the car ride.

Yeah, I didn't get that either. Then and this is going to make

some of you go. How old is Clayton?

Listen, I am very young and attractive, okay, I was a

freshman in high school when I logged onto the internet for the

first time, I remember the it loading slowly as I looked up

stock prices, you're like Clayton, you're a freshman

looking up stock prices. Yes, suckers I was wish out

about Google. Okay, and I mean, this was back

when Ask Jeeves was where you hung out, okay?

And I remember it loading and back then, you couldn't we got

internet at my parents house and you bought it by the minute.

We bought like a an hour of internet for the whole month.

Spend it wisely kids, and you spent 28 of it loading, right?

And you couldn't sneak onto the internet at your house. you

know, if you know Right? You couldn't you couldn't just

be online. They like everybody's waking up

thinking that there's a tornado know that I'm just pulling up

Yahoo that's what I'm doing. Okay, you guys have been there.

Now we give our kids a phone and we're giving them all of this

and more. They're getting a phone, a

messaging device. The internet VCR.

Some of your like VCR tell you ask her parents.

It's super cool email and a gaming device.

There was a time when our kids were isolated from the craziness

that we saw on the east coast and the West Coast.

Some of the things that we saw and heard is Dan.

Rather reported in the evening news, our kids were kept from if

they wanted to see something explicit content, you had to go

into the video store and you had to go to the very back and you

had to go into a room that was off-limits to anybody who wasn't

over the age of 18. And there was a video camera

there to make sure that nobody went in there.

That wasn't supposed to go in there.

If you wanted to get us other kinds of content, you had to go

to the gas station and you add to ask the lady who was working

at the register to reach behind the register and grab something,

and you had to call it by name. And then she picked it up and it

came in a black thing and they put it on the tip you had to ask

for it. And now all the things that we

used to be able to protect our kids from are now sent to them

on their phone, Jesus uses a perfect illustration of what

it's like trying to lead through change and this is what he says.

In Matthew chapter 9, no one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth

Matthew 9 · chapter mention

on an old garment. For the patch will pull away

from the Garment making the tear worse.

Neither do people pour new wine into Old wineskins?

If they do the Skins will burst and the wine will run out and

the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new

wineskins and both are preserved.

The goal of this sermon is to make sure that things don't

burst things aren't ruined but that you and your family are

preserved. In other words, the new patch of

Technology will not work with the parenting styles that you

inherited from your parents. The newness of Technology will

burst our old parenting techniques and there is too much

that is changed and there is too much at stake.

We need new methods while our desires can be the same and our

principles may be the same our method and our approach.

Must be drastically, different and Kingdom focused.

God gives us a cheat code on how to live the life that we were

designed to live. You can find the cheat code and

Proverbs chapter 4 he says above all else preeminent.

Proverbs 4 · chapter mention

Number one, Numero Uno. Get this thing right above all

else, guard your heart. The most important thing for you

to do, is to guard your heart. Why, why is this important?

He tells us for everything, you do flows from it.

We must be committed to guarding our hearts and the hearts of our

kids. And I hear regularly parents

talking about the frustration that they have with social media

and the impact that it is having on their kids and they have

plenty to be frustrated by the link between social media and

depression is staggering with some studies, showing a 66%

increase. Hear that?

but since the introduction of the smartphone between 8th grade

and 12th grade between that subset of people among girls in

that age category, the suicide rate for girls has gone up by

65% The studies are completely conclusive.

The more time you spend on Instagram, the more you will

struggle with anxiety. Kids with smartphones who get to

take them to bed are getting one less hour of sleep than parents

who make their kids turn in their phones before they go to

bed. And that one hour is robbing

them of the time that they need for the brain to restore and

develop and be healthy, which means it makes it harder for

them to learn which makes it harder for them to pass.

Get good grades in school which makes it harder for them to

compete in the marketplace long term, which will long-term have

economic impact negatively for them.

Also changes the way that their brain is a healed.

So that way, they have a harder time relating to people the next

day, which means that they're gonna have a harder time

relating with you, their parent. Which means that that an extra

hour of sleep is actually putting more tension on a

relationship that already has. A lot of tension.

And as you try to navigate from control to consultant, you're

doing it with the kid. That's not actually in a proper

place to be able to receive coaching and consultation.

Everybody say five. Five years ago.

Sixty-two percent of teenagers say they have received a nude

image on their phone. That was five years ago.

Five years ago, forty percent say they have sent one.

I know why Miss in the sermon. You guys are all going.

Not my kid, but I can promise you.

There is not another church somewhere.

Where all of them. We're going.

I guess it's all of us. This is real.

Furthermore, you're having to fight an algorithm.

And this algorithm is hard to fight because the algorithm is

smarter than you. It is designed to keep your

attention and keep your focus. Everything about it is designed

to keep things moving. Have you noticed that when

you're scrolling through Netflix, it already starts

playing the video. When you pull up YouTube on your

phone, do you notice how to automatically go straight to the

shorts sometimes because it just wants to suck you in.

The whole purpose is for you to spend a little bit more time

looking, and it notices, what you look at, it notices, what

you cook on it, notices, how long you pause over certain

content and certain articles, it notices, how long you linger.

Even if you don't click on it it notices how long you watch it

without even the sound being on? And then it begins to send you

more and more similar content. Recently a pastor on Twitter you

know from like a pretty proudful standpoint says parents, keep

all your kids off a tick tock because my Tick Tock feed is

nothing but girls who aren't dressed appropriately dancing.

Like, there's some comments in the one person wrote.

Hey, dude. It's an algorithm.

The reason why your feet looks like that is because that's what

you look at it. That's what happens is the

algorithm creates a world in which you think that everybody

believes exactly what you believe in.

Everybody is seeing exactly what you see.

If you notice how many people get caught up in a conspiracy

theory because you read one article from crazy people and

the algorithm says, oh, you like crazy things.

I'll send you more crazy things and you see more and more crazy

things than eventually you see everybody who's crazy as normal

because that's all you, see? And then when somebody else

tries to talk to you about how crazy you are, all you can do is

see the Front of you that you've known your whole life as the

crazy person and the people you trust are the people you've

never met. Online.

Parents, what happens in the algorithm is, your daughter is

having a bad day. She doesn't feel as pretty as

she normally does. And so, she hops on and for some

reason because she's just kind of down and having kind of a

challenging day. She gravitates to somebody else

who's having a difficult day and so she clicks on that video and

she watches that video. And that video is talks about a

girl who's struggling with her body image and well, the longer

your daughter watches that thing on body image.

The algorithm goes, this girl likes to watch content about

girls who struggle with body image.

And so it starts, populating her feed with more and more girls

who are struggling with, how they look.

And then all of a sudden, your precious little girl who you see

as absolutely beautiful and who is radiant by every standard and

all of a sudden she's realizing that my goodness look at all

these girls looks like everybody has a problem with the way that

their body looks and if those girls have a problem with the

way that their body looks and their body looks better than

mine, maybe I should have a problem with the way that my

body looks because my body doesn't look as good as theirs.

There's an overtime. Your daughter starts to

experience depression thoughts of self-harm or maybe begins to

wrestle with anorexia or bulimia.

Parents who have sons. Your son is trying to figure out

how to navigate his emotions in his hormones and there's no

doubt about it. He likes the sight of pretty

girls and from what I've been told the internet's full of

pictures of women and so he finds himself online and he sees

a picture of a pretty girl and then he sees another picture of

a pretty girl in the algorithm goes whoever's on this device

really likes pictures of pretty girls and then it notices which

kind of pictures he stays out longer and which kind of

pictures. Do you think your son would stay

at and look at longer and all of a sudden you're innocent child,

he wants one day to have a great and compelling relationship with

his wife. There's all of a sudden

bombarded by just pictures of pretty girls in overtime.

It erodes his desire to love and care and nurture and overtime.

It teaches him to objectify, women, as a way for him, to get

take care of his desires instead of a way for him to serve and

love and care. This is how kids end up

experimenting sexually and how they end up experimenting with

drugs. This is how kids end up eating

Tide Pods I know that sounds crazy.

There was a time when I laughed a ton about like the whole tide

pod crais because I'm like, like they know, it's so bright.

And I mean, this weekend is I was doing laundry humblebrag.

My house. We have Tide Pods And I'll be

darned if they haven't made those things impossible to get

out of the bag. And I'm sitting there thinking

like how did this happen? Listen it wasn't from absent

parents, it wasn't from bad parents.

They're those kids who are eating Tide Pods, their parents

look, just like you and me. It was that those kids is feeds.

Got filled with the world of people who are eating detergent

and getting popular for it and the kids were like, I guess I

could probably try and eat one too.

Look what it says in Ephesians 5.

Be very careful then how you live not as unwise but as wise

making the most of every opportunity because the days are

evil. Parents, be careful, be wise,

make the most of every opportunity because the days are

evil as Christians. We have a choice.

We can either reject receive, or redeem technology.

Some of you may choose right now to reject it and go, you know

what, the we're not going to be doing it.

We're tapping out, or Of you might say, you know what, not

now maybe later we'll have that discussion but we're not going

to be having that happen. Now I hear a lot of parents, get

frustrated saying that their kids are always on their phone.

And inside, I always want to say, you know, you can take it

away, right? Like like you can you can take

it away. Are you can get a phone that

just talks and texts and that's it.

So you know that they got to where they were supposed to go

safely and when they need to reach out to you and get in

touch with you, they can you could buy the Light phone.

This is a phone that was put together by a group of guys that

were at Google and they got charged to develop a new app and

what they realized is the world doesn't need another app, it

needs a phone that doesn't have apps and so they created this

like yeah, here you go kid. You know, when you get cold call

me, I'll pick you up. Hear me some of your kids.

Some of your kids are going to wrestle with anxiety,

depression, self-harm low, self-esteem, explicit, content,

and Suicidal Thoughts. Because of their use of

technology and social media. And some of you might need to

make a tough call today, in order to have a better future

with your kids. Tomorrow, most of us are way

more educated about alcohol and its effects on our kids than we

are about social media. And I'm telling you, social

media and Technology are going to have a much more profound

impact on your kid than a Jack and Coke ever will.

Some of your kids are listening to me right now and you're going

of all the services for us to come to God.

Why do you hate me? Can I come here?

I need you to hear me say this. We are for you.

And I am telling you that there is a life for you to live an

experience that is infinitely better than anything.

You can watch on a device and I know it's hard.

Okay I appreciate I appreciate that.

Just remember who clapped We're going to have to love our kids

through this. Because it has become an

addiction that they're going to have to be freed from and some

of them are going there. Freaking out right now like what

our mom and dad are going to do after church, and you need to

lovingly help them through because you let them get there.

You let them get hooked. Now, so you can reject it, you

can receive it go. Hey, social media is good.

I want to know how my grandma is doing on Facebook and I want to

know how my aunt's doing and look.

How good she is at making cakes. She's so good.

And youyou need that information in your life and some of you

want to know how to change a tire.

And so you want, YouTube, okay, you're going to receive it, but

you're not going to spend all your time on it and there might

be some of you are going. You know what, I want to redeem

it. I want to be a force for good.

I want to go out there and and Encouraging content to uplift

people. I want to be a light in a dark

place, and you can do that too. And I mean, like, for me, I try

carefully not to be on it too much.

I don't even answer my messages. There's a team of people here

that do it because I try not to be on it that much.

Because if I get on and I might not I might not get out, right?

Some of your like oh yeah Clayton we get eat each other,

we can redeem it. We can we can choose to just

post and maybe you know not spend a whole lot of time

scrolling as much but the other challenge that we're facing with

technology. Is how it affects our time

because it will, it will it creates a Time trap and the

algorithm is specifically designed to steal your time in

the beginning of the year. I preached a sermon about

sometimes when it comes to starting a relationship with

Jesus Christ, it just takes time.

And one of the most important factors that you need as a

parent with your kids to help raise them in a way that honors,

the Lord is you need time. And I heard this a while back, I

don't know who to give this credit for.

I'm going to walk you through these things because I've never

been able to forget. But I need you to know that I

didn't come up with it but I don't know who to give credit

to. Okay, so I don't want you going

man. Clayton is really getting smart.

Nope. This is not me.

Okay, look at this. Time overtime is history and if

you lose time, you don't have history and you're going to need

history with your kids. As you try to become a

consultant in their future. Love over time.

That's how your child gets worth.

And if you'd lose time with your kids, they're not going to have

a sense of their worth. They're not gonna be able to see

themselves through God's eyes, and they're not gonna be able to

see themselves through your eyes and listen to me.

Love overtime is the most is the most powerful.

It's more powerful consistently than it ever is in grandiose

moments. You see those people who spend

big money on weddings and big money on honeymoons and big

money on cars and big money on a cool experience.

Listen, if you can do that. Cool, great.

But listen to me. Those grandiose moments are not

more powerful than regular time with your mom and dad.

Like, daily time with your mom and dad.

That's where you're going to win inconsistency in every day,

every week, every month, making strategic Investments to show

them, your love. That's more powerful than

anything you could ever purchase words over time.

That's Direction. And if you lose time, you're not

gonna be able to guide them. When you're no longer in control

stories over time, that's perspective.

This is how you get your kids to see the bigger picture and

they'll see your words. As if you don't have time,

they're going to see your words as controlling.

Instead of wise counsel. Tribe over time.

That's belonging. The word we would use here at

the Crossing is circles circles over time as belonging the

longer they have with the better Circle, the greater sense of

belonging that they will have those spend more time being

accepted by you than trying to be accepted by nameless.

Faceless people online, a child with a strong sense of belonging

will not spend all their time trying to fit in because they

already have a significant place in their own Circle.

And fun overtime is connection and if you don't have time with

your kids you will not have fun with your kids.

We were working on, rehabbing our 02:18 Ministries, we met

with leaders, all across the country and one of the things

that one of the leaders we met with said, was brilliant, we

couldn't shake it. He said, fun is the language of

kids. Have you ever noticed that the

younger child is, the more they laugh and play and then you look

at you, right? If you want to speak kids, you

need to learn to speak fun. Serious question.

When was the last time you had like, so much fun with your kid

that your head was like back, your throat was completely

exposed your stomach hurt. Your sides were like, wow, It's

in those fun moments that we have connections with our kids,

that's when we speak their language and we need to make

time for memories, lots and lots of memories, some of them

planned in some of them spontaneous, I need you to hear

me say this, my wife went on a girls trip with the women in my

family this week because it was spring break.

Okay. And so I was, I was at home with

the boys and I wrote this sermon on Monday and Tuesday.

And I had them spend the days on their iPad so I could write this

message. I need you to, I'm coming to you

as one of you. So on Wednesday, I loaded them

up and I took them up to my parents house is about an hour

away. I bought it you know 12-pack of

Mountain Dew, grabbing another guy who works on staff and his

two dogs which are Border Collies and we have the one of

those ugly goldendoodles. And so they thought it was a

sheep. And so they basically just

hurted my dog for hours because I loved it.

I was like watching, I was like, yeah, make him run.

Okay, it didn't cost us too much.

I mean, we had to drive an hour, which was, you know, like 800

bucks in gas, but for the most part, like pretty Double and

I'll guess listen to what we did.

We drink Mountain Dew. We watched our dog, getting

hurted. We rode four-wheelers and we

just walked in the woods and you two thought.

My boys were walking on the surface of the Moon.

They thought they were Lewis and Clark.

Not once. Did they ask for their iPad?

Here's the problem. I did math this week.

From the time, your kid enters into kindergarten all the way

until they graduate from high school.

You have 4745 days with them. That's what you have.

It's it. That's 113,000, 8:00.

Of that time. You're going to spend if you're

lucky, they're going to sleep eight hours a day.

Some of you with young kids, God bless you, it's coming one of

these days, they'll be teenagers and you won't be able to get

them out of bed till 11 a.m. on a Saturday.

They'll learn to sleep, God bless them.

If you sleep 8 hours a day which is what your doctor recommends,

1/3 of the remaining time you have with your kids is gone.

If you're a parent and you love your kids and you love the Lord

and you're capable, you're going to do the honorable thing and

you're going to go get a job and you're going to work hard to

provide for them and make sure that they have a chance to have

their needs met. And so, you're going to spend

thirty two hundred and fifty days at work 26,000 hours.

If you divide all that by 24, you're going to spend 1083 total

days at work. That is 1/4.

You've lost 1/3 to sleep. You've lost 1/4 to work.

This is all you have left. That's it. 2081 24-hour time

periods with your kids. The average person spends 5

hours a day on their phone. Those of you who have iPhones

during this message, you've received your iPhone report.

You know, I'm preaching the gospel.

The average American spends five hours a day on their phone over

the next 13 years. They're going to spend 988 days

on their phone. They're going to spend half of

the remaining time they have left with their kids on their

phone. remember, when you were clapping about kids getting off

their phone, they want you to get off yours.

Like you're clapping like, man. My kidneys to put the phone

down. Yeah, this is what adults are

spending not kids, kids is worse.

But why would they put their phone down?

if you're not putting, give them an alternative, this guy, This

guy right here. Oh, this little guy, these 17

days. Well the average person at our

church comes to church, 1.8 times a month, which means

they're going to come 21.6 weekends a year.

If you were to be here for an hour and a half, which means

you'd be here, 15 minutes early and stay 15 minutes late.

And I know you That ain't you? We're going to get 17 days with

your kid. 17. Total.

Why do you think? We push Camp so hard?

Because it's a force multiplier in the spiritual development of

your kid's life? We're not asking you to send

your kid to camp for us. We're begging you to send your

kid to camp on behalf of your kid.

Because we only get 17 days. And then our people here at our

church are good. They're not that good.

Because they're going to spend fifty eight more times on their

phone, they're going to be discipled by this.

And you think we're going to try and fix it with 17 days against

988 and look how much time you have with them.

I can barely lift this thing. We're given half of it to our

phones. Is that how you want it to be?

Look at this verse in First Corinthians, I have the right to

do anything. You all have a right to

technology. You all have a right to social

media. You have a right to it.

All you say, but not everything is beneficial.

I have the right to do anything but not everything is

constructive. No one should seek their own

good but the good of others, I want some of you to ask

yourself. This question is this beneficial

is this constructive? And is this good for my family?

Here's what I want you to do at all of our locations, I have two

challenges for you. One I want you to attend the

tech class that we're offering at are different locations

because there are tools that we want to put in your tool belt to

help you navigate your kids usage of Technology.

Okay, you get to make the decision of how you want to do

it but we if you're going to use it we at least want you to be

informed. So you know, how to navigate it.

And our people have been working on this because we love you and

we're for you and we want you to win at home.

Second thing, here's the challenge, this week, at least

two nights, everybody say, at least, at least two nights are

like, if you're going to leave our church leave after you do

this, okay, two nights this week from six to eight.

I want you to turn your phone off.

All of them turn your TV's off. All of it, no devices.

You like well, what if Grandma dies she ain't going to call you

anyway. Like right now, I got me.

I'm never. I mean, if you're getting calls

from dead people, you know, call me.

Okay, listen, there's gonna be a day where Grandpa or Grandma or

something bad is going to happen, but you are not listen

to me. You are not leaving your phone

off for all of those things. Like some of your like I'm an ER

doctor. Yeah, you have a pager which is

weird that you make all that money and you still Rock a pager

but cool some of your like, what's a pager?

Yeah. That's what I'm getting at.

Look at me two hours, you're not going to solve any of it and two

hours, you can pick up the pieces.

You've all been on planes. And you've made it to hours

without your phone ringing and guess what?

The world just kept on spinning because you're not that

important. You just need to recognize that

turn it off. What are we going to do for two

hours? Clayton?

Check it out. It's going to sound crazy.

Cook a meal. It might not be that delicious.

Eat it. Anyway with your kids, go for a

walk. Throw a ball.

Play a board game. Make a memory at least twice

this week and at the end of the week, I want you to ask yourself

this question, was it better? And you already know I'm right.

You already going. This is I can't wait make

spaghetti and wear white shirts and make it into a Color Run.

You make a memory and don't stop halfway through it to Post

online and brag about how cool your spaghetti shirts are.

Just be in the moment and stop trying to be a celebrity, just

be a mom, just be a dad. Go on a walk and do something

silly to a neighbor laugh. like, Some of your like why I'm

single, what should I do? But your phone down.

Go grab a meal, read your Bible, find someone who you want to be

like and take him out to eat and just talk to him.

Find someone that you want to invest in and spend time with

them. Stop trying to escape all the

time and Technology. Here's what's happening.

We are slowly over time being convinced that our life is not

worth living. And the best thing we can do

with our life is to watch other people live their lives online.

And what you're saying is that you don't think your life has

value and purpose and meaning and significance because you

don't have anything to contribute and add and change.

We are watching other people. Instead of living the life that

God breathed into us. We are watching what God

breathed into others. Instead of offering our piece of

the contribution, you might not think your life was worth all

that much. But I need you to know.

It was worth enough that God sent his son.

In fact, he was willing to send his son to die so that way you

could live. You might be looking at your

life going. I don't have that much to offer.

I need you to know. It was enough that God sent his

son to offer on your behalf. Stop wasting the life that God

is trying to redeem. I want you to think about that,

as we're moving to a time of decision.

It's been weird, a lot of old people really like this sermon.

I had someone on Thursday night, come up to me with tears, in his

eyes saying that whole sermon reminded me of my dad who every

time when he came home for work, he would take me out in the

backyard and he would throw the ball back and forth with me and

it wasn't long before. All the kids in the neighborhood

were in my backyard. And I got a little frustrated,

all my friends came over to play, catch with my dad and

little, I didn't realize that. I was the lucky one, who had a

dad, who would spend time with his kid.

And all the other kids in my neighborhood, were just hungry

for someone to invest in them. And I know there's plenty of

dads in this room who are frustrated with what you're

seeing in the world. And I'm wondering, you're

frustrated what you see in your neighborhood.

And I'm wondering if anything would be different.

If instead of complaining about it, you got you went to Dick's

and you bought a new glove today.

And you went home and you just said, alright, well, we're going

to play catch. Until your arm hurts?

Or my arm hurts, you're not making memories watching a

movie. Do something with them.

Mom's, I wonder what would happen if you were to, like,

open up your home, and let some kids come in and hang out and

laugh with them and sit around the table, and tell stories, and

tell jokes, and make mac and cheese just spend time with

them. I don't know, parents are some

of you in here that I'm writing this sermon, I get done with it,

I preaching on Thursday, I'm watching the NCAA tournament

late on Friday night and a commercial comes on by Duracell

and they're telling you which brand you should pick and

they're going. Because if you pick the wrong

one then it flashes to a kid in the car screaming because you

don't want your battery to die. Because of the battery dies,

you're going to have to interact with your kid.

You're choosing which battery you want based on whether or not

you have to interact with your kid.

And by in here, old enough to remember, when it was the car

rides that you actually got to ask that questions.

It was when Mom would tell you stories.

And what do we do? God forbid, we get in the car

and go somewhere without something to turn on.

And we are going to wake up one day and they will be gone and we

will want them to know that God loves them and he cares for them

and that he believes in that they can do great things but

they We'll never hear it. Because they'll never hear it

from us. Here's what I'm asking you to

do. I'm asking you to take these two

challenges parents. I'm asking you to come up here.

Get down on your knees and pray that God will bring about

clarity about how you are supposed to proceed and we need

to proceed in humility, parents. If you're going home thinking

your kids, the problem. Chances are your kid, doesn't

have a job. They didn't buy it, you gave it

to them. Thinking you were cool and you

like yours just as much as they like, there's we're going to

have to leave through this one with a lot of humility.

But I think deep down inside, I know you want it.

You want a different family, you want to win.

Well, it's start that. To the rest of you in this room,

you're going man. What is up with this church?

Listen, hear me. We're going to get back to it,

trust me. But we needed to just pause and

spend some serious time. Helping people went home.

But the core belief that our church is that anybody can have

an intimate personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

You heard me say that the end of my message, your life has

purpose and value. Not only did God create you, he

sent his son to redeem you. And if you've been coming to

this church for a really long time and you've never started

that relationship, we'd like to help you answer some of the

questions you I have about how to start it then it just a few

moments me and somebody else we're gonna be right over by

that baptistry. And we would love to talk to you

about what that looks like because we believe that will be

one of the best decisions I've ever made.

Would you guys stand with me? God, use this moment right now,

in a powerful way to bring about a change.

That only, you can bring got as we get down on our knees as we

pray to, you gotta meet us here, meet us in a profound way.

I'm asking you to heal and redeem and restore things that

are broken in our home. And draw those who are far away

clothes, you know, my praying.