Influencer, Part 2: Creating a Digital Rule of Life // Eric Robertson

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We hope that this message helps you in your walk with Jesus and encourages you to belong, believe, and become.

And I'm excited to be able to share with you guys this morning in part two of a series that we started last week called Influencer, where we're talking about how our screens, how the digital media in our life guides us.

And Pastor Jamie introduced a very important concept last week that I want to build upon today.

And it's the idea that you are being discipled by what has your attention.

And whatever has your attention will eventually have your allegiance.

And so we're going to be kind of building on that idea.

But I want to start off by saying this message, it's going to be a difficult one to swallow.

It is not one of those like, I'm not going to step on your toes or anything like that.

But the reason that it's difficult is preaching is serious business.

You don't do it just in front of a computer screen or in front of an open book.

You do it in front of a mirror.

You look at yourself, you examine yourself first.

And so some of the things that I'm going to be talking about today, I want you to know I'm wrestling with them as well.

As I prayed through the development of this message, my eyes were open to some of the things and some of the habits around digital technology that I had.

And so I want you to know that I almost told my wife to bring our mirror and sit it right there so I could look at myself and talk to myself a little bit.

But this is what I want you to do.

When I say some of these things, you're going to be like, Pastor, there's no way that's even possible.

But here's the thing: I want to wrestle with this with you.

I want to fail with you.

I want to win with you because we need to get a handle on our digital media use so that our allegiance isn't to someone on a screen worlds away, but our allegiance is to King Jesus.

Amen?

And so I want to start with a big idea that's going to kind of shape this whole message this morning.

And it's this when we don't have boundaries, the things that we were meant to control will eventually control us.

I'm going to say that again.

When we don't have boundaries, the things that we were meant to control will have control over us.

And this is especially true when it comes to digital media use.

And it was funny when I was preparing for this message, you know, I'm not super old.

I had, I did have someone tell me one time that I was born in the 1900s, which is technically true.

And so when I, my generation, I'm a younger millennial.

We were one of the last, you know, generations to have like an analog life.

Like when I was a kid, there were cell phones, but they weren't great.

And the first smartphone was horrific.

I never thought it was gonna go anywhere.

Um but I got to thinking about things that we used to have to do the old-fashioned way.

Um, and it's amazing how much convenience digital technology has brought to our lives.

But here's a couple of the things that I used to have to do the old-fashioned way.

Now, some of you are like, look, these things were technological advances.

Um, but for me, these were that's just the old-fashioned way.

So let's see if you remember any of these things.

So, five things we used to do the old-fashioned way.

The first one, does everybody remember having to call the movie theater to check show times?

Like right now, you can get on Fandango and you actually get to pick what seat you're gonna sit in.

And it's like, it's crazy.

Back in the day, you used to have to like call.

You gotta, if you had a paper, you could see it in the paper.

My family, we didn't get the Sunday paper, so you called uh the little hotline and you had to listen to it three or four times.

The first two was just to figure out what movies we're playing, and then the last two were to figure out what showtime we were gonna go to.

And so calling the movie theater to check show times, what else?

Printing out map quest directions.

Look, I know there's some people you guys had to learn with the maps, but there was something special about having to use map quest because number one, you had to have three things that weren't common.

You had to have a computer with internet and a printer.

And if you didn't have all three of those things, you couldn't get map quests.

So I remember printing out map quest directions and like my first uh solo trip to Panama City to visit with my friends, um, I printed out like five or six pages of map quest directions, but only like a page and a half was actually directions, because you had to print out all the pop-up ads with it, too.

And so this next one's my favorite though.

Having to call your friend's house phone and have an awkward conversation with their stepdad first.

Like, yes, uh, Mr.

Jim, this is uh yeah, this is Eric Robertson.

Yeah.

Yes, this is the fourth time I'm calling this evening.

Is Jimmy there?

You know?

And kind of you never knew, especially, man, if you were dating or something and you called the house phone, you were like on pens and needles, like you just really hope they answered first and not their parents.

This is how we learn how to talk to adults back when I was a kid.

What else?

Call did anybody call into radio shows to request songs?

Yeah.

Dude, when I was a kid, where's Maps and Maz here?

We would sit around the radio and call like Star 989, uh Hank 999, uh Hot 1049, we would call in and request songs, and I had no understanding of like the time delay on radio stations or how they also had other people calling in.

And so if they didn't play my song, if they didn't play Usher the very next song, I was gonna call them again.

And it was like so crazy thinking like my little 11-year-old self was controlling what thousands of people were about to listen to.

Because we didn't have Spotify.

That was the last thing.

Oh yeah.

You remember like the pre-Netflix days?

One episode per week.

And if they got like, man, if you were watching Lost and they left you on a cliffhanger, cliffhanger at the end of the season, it was gonna be six months before you found out the end of the story.

Or you actually had to be you had to be in front of your television when it came on.

Like I remember before DVR you couldn't record things, and so if you missed it, you had to like ask your friends, hey, what happened?

And then you just kind of came in blind.

So these are all these are a couple of the things that we used to have to do the old-fashioned way.

And you know what?

I'm super thankful that we don't have to do some of these things anymore.

And digital media has kind of made it possible for us to circumvent some of the awkwardness and clunkiness of some of these uh tasks.

But digital technology has fundamentally changed the way that we live our lives in such a short period of time.

This is what we don't understand.

See, centuries ago, the year 1870 didn't look much different than 1770.

Same way means of communication, same technology, still horse and carriage.

There were a few advancements, but that's crazy to think that over a hundred years span, not much changed in our culture.

But 2026 looks like a different world compared to 2006.

Even ministry and church ministry has changed so much.

I have about five or six composition notebooks at my house that contain my first few dozen handwritten sermons.

Now, here's the thing computers existed when I started preaching, but we didn't have one.

And so I would sit down and I would handwrite sermons, and I had something called, here's this is for the Bible nerds, a Thompson Chain Reference Bible.

Anyone know what a Thompson Chain Reference Bible is?

Yeah.

It was almost it was like AI before there was AI, because it had all of the topics you could think of in terms of biblical preaching, and it had all the verses in one place.

So if you wanted to preach a sermon on patience, you just went to the patient section and then started reading scripture.

I had Matthew Henry commentary, which is like a multi-volume commentary.

Now I have a computer program, and I just search a few keywords and I have all of this information in the touch of my fingers.

But technology has provided so many benefits to the world, but have those benefits reach the point of diminishing returns in our lives.

See, the idea of diminishing returns is that more of a good thing doesn't always make things better.

In fact, sometimes more of a good thing actually makes things worse.

And my question is, are we there with technology?

Or I believe personally that we've far passed the point of diminishing returns with technology.

Guys, there have been times in my life where I'm in the same room physically with someone, but mentally I'm on the other side of the world.

I've spent so much time researching about things on the internet that in the time I spent researching, I could have mastered it if I would have just started.

I felt that at times my reliance on digital technology is not making me smarter.

It's actually making me more reliant on outside sources.

I mean, how many times do I have to Google the proper water to rice ratio before I commit it to memory?

Every time.

I forget every time.

And God forbid you buy short grain, and then it's all messed up.

The time that I spent alone is never really alone.

It's actually more anxious and connected than ever.

I feel like I know more about people than I do actually knowing them intimately.

I know so much about everyone in this room, but there are so many of you I don't truly know.

I know when your niece graduated from kindergarten, I know when you got a promotion, I know when you got a new car, but I don't know you.

Better yet, there are people that know more about me than I'd be willing to tell anyone.

Technology has saved me so much inconvenience, but I am wasting more of my time than I ever have my entire life.

Do you feel that way?

Do you feel more anxious?

You know, it used to be like as people got older, they got more peaceful.

Things were starting to line up financially, they got to the place where they felt comfortable, they had what they thought they needed, but now it seems that as we get older, we get more anxious.

We feel overexposed.

We find ourselves in this constant loop of comparison where we see the life that God has blessed us with, the life that we have worked so hard for, but it looks like junk compared to the influencers who have perfectly curated this vision of their life that they want you to see.

And it leaves us wanting more, more than what God has given us.

You know, many people look to digital technology to help solve a problem or provide just a little bit of entertainment between the moments.

But what has happened overall, something that none of us ever expected, was that digital technology has taken a place of prominence in our lives.

Like something we never would imagine.

My first smartphone, I thought it was a piece of junk.

Like the screen kept freezing, the touch screen was weird, I wanted real tactile buttons.

It cost like a hundred dollars a minute to get on the internet.

Found that out the hard way via my parents.

But here they are.

Even Steve Jobs, the creator of the iPhone, I read an interesting anecdote.

He never thought that there would be a period of time that people would walk around with supercomputers in their pockets.

The only problem that Apple was trying to solve was taking two devices and turning them into one.

An iPod and an iPhone.

They never thought that it would turn into what it has today.

We didn't have a plan.

Technology evolved so quickly that it caught us off guard.

And when you don't have a plan for something, you create space for chaos.

This is true of any aspect of our lives, but something that we're feeling the ramifications of every single day with digital technology.

Our lives, we think they're more ordered, we think they're more convenient, but they're actually more chaotic than they ever have been in history.

Early Christians were faced with a similar dilemma.

Not with digital media, unless you believe this stuff on the history channel about aliens and technology, but with idolatry.

The early Christians were in a world that was completely imprinted with pagan idolatry.

Everywhere they went, the markets, the stores, the temples, the streets, the social places.

But Christians knew that to follow Jesus was to be different than the world.

And these Christians, they paid a price to be different from the world around them.

They paid a major price.

Some of them lost their jobs, they lost their social status, and even some lost their lives.

But they knew that the call to be different than the world was more important than doing what the world was doing.

Romans 12, 2.

Paul says, do not conform to the pattern of this world.

This world has a pattern, a repeating pattern of life.

But be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Then you'll be able to test and approve what God's will is.

His good, pleasing, and perfect will.

Here's the deal, guys.

Some of us want so desperately to know what the will of God is for your life.

You feel so lost and you feel like you're swimming out in this ocean, but your screen time is five hours a week and you haven't read the Bible in six months.

You want to hear the voice of God so desperately, but you can't hear God over the blazing noise of the reels that we scroll for hours before we go to bed.

If we want to hear the voice of God, if we want to know the will of God, we have to be different.

You know, God is a God of order and not chaos.

This is something that we know to be true immediately.

At the beginning of the Bible, the first thing we learn about God is that He is a God of order.

Everything has a place and a time.

And we see that in the order of creation itself.

Day one, God creates the light.

Day two, God creates the space between the earth and sky.

Day three, God separates the water from the land.

Day four, God creates the celestial bodies, the stars and the moon.

Day five, God creates the birds of the air and the fish of the sea.

And then finally on day six, he creates beast and man to rule over all of it.

But God had a plan before he placed man in the garden.

Imagine if one of these aspects would be miss would be missing.

Imagine if there was no separation of land and sea, it would be chaos.

Imagine if there would be, if there was no light, there would be darkness.

Imagine if there was no fish or birds, there'd be nothing to eat, there'd be no KFC.

Come on.

God has an order, God has a structure, and before he released man to steward over his good creation, he created boundaries and he created order.

In other words, God had a plan.

Boundaries are important to the Bible, not because God is trying to make life less fun or enjoyable, but because it's boundaries that protect that enjoyment.

It's actually the boundaries that we place around things that protect their importance.

Think about marriage.

A marriage is a covenant, a type of boundary where we respect one another, we commit our lives to one another till death do us part.

It protects the relationship that we have.

And we need to have that same kind of boundaries around other aspects of our lives.

When we fail to have boundaries, again, the things that we were meant to rule over will ultimately rule over us.

We've come to this place with digital technology.

And so what you need is you need a rule of life.

More particular, you need a digital rule of life.

And that term rule of life is probably a new word for a lot of us here.

It was new to me up until a few years ago, but it's actually a very ancient concept.

A rule of life is this idea that I place specific times and boundaries around the things that I enjoy so that I may bear more fruit from them.

A rule of life is an intentional pattern of practices and boundaries that structure how you spend your attention, affections and actions.

It's an intentional pattern of practices and boundaries that structure how you spend your attention, affections, and actions.

And these practices and boundaries are personally tailored to your life to ensure that you flourish.

In other words, a rule of life is having a game plan before you have a problem.

And that word rule, it probably messes a lot of us up because we're like, man, we don't want more rules and regulations.

But the word rule in this instance comes from the word regula.

That's where we get the word regulation.

It's also where we get the word trellis.

I got any gardeners in here?

You know what a trellis is then?

A trellis is a support structure that you put near a plant so that it has a place for the growth to go.

Because when you don't have a trellis, the vine grows to the ground, the fruit that is created rots or gets stepped on, or it doesn't create fruit at all.

And so a rule of life is a consistent set of patterns and boundaries that we place around something, not so that we can take away the fun, but so that we can bear more fruit around this thing.

It's not a cage that we're building around it, it's a support structure.

And we need to have a support structure around the way that we approach digital media.

Guys, you are being formed whether you realize it or not.

And a lot of us already have a rule of life.

The problem with it is if you don't know what your rule of life is, it's the rule of life that was created for you by the media companies that you patron.

And it's to keep you on this app as long as humanly possible so that I can monetize your attention.

That's your rule of life.

If you don't know what your rule of life is, it's probably wake up, check your phone, scroll Facebook, go brush your teeth, make coffee, check your phone, scroll social media again, check emails, get in your car, start the good murder podcast first thing in the morning on the way to work, check social media right before you go into the office, make another cup of coffee, get to the desk, check social media again.

Right?

That's a rule of life.

That is a pattern or a way of living with digital technology.

And so it's not that you don't have one, it's that you don't know what it is and it was created for you.

The point of a rule of life is to create a personally tailored system that helps you bear fruit in whatever stage of life that you're in.

A digital rule of life is a plan for your technology.

And the system that you have right now is perfectly designed to get the results that you're currently getting.

Look at your life.

What is your relationship with digital media?

What is your screen time?

How does it make you feel?

Do you feel like you use it too much?

Do you feel like you might possibly be addicted to it in ways, or at least have a compulsive behavior around it?

Over 80% of people with smartphones have developed a compulsive behavioral habit around cell phone or digital media use.

But you have a system that has created that.

The key to building to overcoming that is actually being intentional about how you approach digital media.

See, loneliness and anxiety and all of these negative things that Jamie talked about last week, they're rising among all generations, not just the younger generations, all generations.

And guys, it's no longer a theory.

It's directly correlated with the amount of time that we spend using our digital devices.

And so if we want to change, we now have to take responsibility.

If we want to be different and offer people hope in a world that are stuck in the cycle of digital anxiousness, we have to create an environment together as a church where we use digital media as God intended it to be used.

So that we may love God well and love others well.

We have to take responsibility.

And so we're going to talk about for the rest of this time how to create your very own digital rule of life.

And there's a couple things I want you to understand.

Number one is that these are all meant to be personally tailored to your specific situation.

This is not about legalism, this is not about everybody do what I do.

Everybody has different proclivities and things that they tend towards.

Like a good example is I don't really struggle with like TV usage.

That's I love movies and stuff like that, but I've always had a pretty decent rule in my life around TV usage.

Like I don't I try not to watch TV by myself.

So but TV or Netflix binging, it might be something that you deal with.

I'll tell you something I do deal with Instagram reels.

So I'm right there with you.

So this stuff needs to be tailored to your specific way of life and your job and different things.

The second thing I want to point out is I in studying for this sermon, I relied heavily on a really great resource.

I recommend if you have time to get it and read it.

It's an excellent book.

It's called Digital Minimalism by author Cal Newport.

And that's also in the VFC sermon notes on the app as well.

It's not a Christian book, but Cal Newport is a computer scientist that's done a lot of really great work.

And the book Digital Minimalism is really an eye-opener, and I think it really summarizes what we're talking about in this series.

And so I'll be pulling from that a lot in these next few sections.

But let's start off with how to create a digital rule of life.

Are you ready?

Are you ready for change?

Number one, start with a digital detox.

Start with a digital detox.

Now, this may not be necessary for everyone, but regardless of where you're at in your digital media use, I recommend everybody give this a shot.

See, the problem with digital media use is that we've all tried to cut it down incrementally, and we've all failed at it.

Right?

Like I'm gonna keep Facebook on my phone, but I'm not just gonna open up, I'm just not gonna open up the videos on it.

And that lasts me, I don't know about you, but guys, that lasts me all of about 30 minutes.

Or you know what, I'm gonna delete, I don't really use Instagram, so I'm just gonna delete Facebook off of my phone, but I'm gonna leave Instagram.

Well, pretty soon there I am mainlining Instagram because I don't have Facebook, okay?

So the idea of a digital detox is a 30-day period in which you take a break from all optional technologies in your life.

And this is a big deal.

Now, this isn't how things need to be for the rest of your life, but this is a way to unhook your brain from the compulsive behavior of digital device usage.

It's a way of just going cold turkey.

Um, and so set aside a 30-day period in which you take a break from optional technologies.

Well, how do we know if something is an optional technology?

Cal Newport defines an optional technology.

Um it says, consider technology optional unless its temporary removal would harm or significantly disrupt the daily operation of your professional or personal life.

So here's the thing: don't delete your work email from your company phone.

That'll get you fired.

But maybe put boundaries around when you check your company email.

Maybe decide to check it three times a day or at different intervals depending on the frequency or how much your company uses email.

Again, this is where stuff needs to be personal.

You're not gonna go back to your boss and say, hey, my pastor said I don't need to use my work phone anymore.

That's not what I'm saying.

Use your work phone.

But create some intentional rules.

Some other ideas is maybe remove all social media, streaming, and ordering apps from your digital device for 30 days.

Leave your phone in your car when you travel.

That's actually something I've been practicing this week.

One of the things that that I have a tendency to do is when I'm when I'm meeting with someone one-on-one and I get a notification on my watch or my phone that says, hey, I need to talk to you.

Now all I'm thinking about is what this person on my watch needs to talk about, and not the person right in front of me.

Right?

And so something that I've been practicing recently is leave I take my phone with me.

People know where I'm at.

I'm not, my wife has my location, but I'm leaving my phone in my vehicle while I'm having one-on-one time with people.

So these are just a few ideas to purge digital media, but again, it needs to be contextual.

Also, the other thing to remember is if you have an average screen time of four to six hours a week, and all of a sudden you purge all of your social media and ordering apps and stuff like that from your phone, all of your optional technologies, you now have four to six hours that you need to fill.

The problem that people run into is they will purge all of this optional technology, but then they find themselves two hours in bored out of their minds because they haven't replaced it with anything helpful or wholesome.

You need to replace this time with an activity that adds value to your life, whether it be something that you're passionate about, something creative, or something that's going to draw you closer to God or other people.

Maybe you incorporate a dedicated Bible reading time into your daily regimen if you don't already.

Hey, it's easy now because you don't have Facebook on your phone.

Or maybe you spend some time in prayer.

Maybe instead of reaching out to that friend online, maybe you give them a call and you set up a lunch date.

This is all about reforming analog and natural relationships to teach us how to be human again.

At the end of the break, once you get done with your 30 days, reintroduce optional technologies starting from a blank slate.

Now that you removed everything, you now have an opportunity to only bring back in the things that truly add value to your life, which leads us to the next phase.

After we do a digital detox, if that's what you want to do.

You need to be specific.

As you're reintroducing digital media back into your life, you have to be specific.

One of the problems when we try to make rules around things is we're not specific enough, and we turn everything into an exception.

And when everything is an exception, you have no rules.

And so, what are some questions that we can ask ourselves when it comes to digital technology use?

What technology will I use?

What things, what devices are am I gonna add back into my life?

When will I use it?

This is very important.

Some people in Cal Newport's study did not go back to using social media after they detoxed from it for 30 days.

Some people went back to using social media because they found it valuable to their relationships, but instead of downloading it on their phone, they kept it on a tablet at their house or on their personal computer and they only checked it one or two times per week for about 10 or 15 minutes.

And so that's how specific I'm telling you to be.

If you decide to reintroduce social media, say, I will only have Facebook on my personal computer at my home, and I will only check it on Wednesdays and Fridays for 10 minutes at a time.

And you write that down.

That's your rule.

That is freeing you up to do other things that are more fulfilling, but also allowing you the convenience of social media.

Um, how will I maximize the value and minimize the harm?

Here, there's a plus side, there's a good side and a bad side to all digital media.

Another person from Newport study indicated that Netflix binging was a major issue in his life, that he would spend up to six hours a day after he got off from work watching television on Netflix.

But one of the things that he found out was watching TV with his spouse was an important relationship-building tool.

And so what he did instead was he decided that he would only watch Netflix for two hours a week and only with another person.

That way he took an isolating activity like Netflix binging and turned it into something that was good relationally with his spouse.

And so, again, this is about knowing yourself, knowing your boundaries, and being specific about them.

Um, does it support something I deeply value?

Maybe you're trying maybe you're going for a promotion at your work and there's something that you need to be studying.

Or maybe you're trying to be a better parent, a more present parent in your life, and you're looking at Snapchat.

Well, ask yourself, is Snapchat going to make me a better parent right now?

You have to ask yourself, does this digital media, does this app or this device, does it add to me?

Does it support something that I'm valuing?

And the most important question that we ask ourselves is how will it form me into the kind of person Jesus is inviting me to be in this season?

How is this piece of digital technology or media forming me into the kind of person that God wants me to be right now?

And once we go through those questions, we can decide whether or not a piece of digital media is going to be helpful or harmful.

What else?

Be realistic.

You've got to be realistic about this.

Guys, we have different lives.

And I'll be honest with you, working at a church, my job relies heavily on digital media.

And so the idea of complete, like not getting on social media ever again, as much as I would like to do that, that's just not possible because so much of what we do here is about community engagement and doing it on the platforms that people visit.

And so I have to be realistic about my need to be on social media.

I trust me, I would love to cut it out altogether, but I can't because it would make me an ineffective pastor in this culture.

And so I've decided to create very specific boundaries around it.

Currently, there is no social media on my phone, but you know where there is social media on my laptop that's around me often.

But you know what it's not fun to do on your laptop while you're sitting in your office?

Scroll reels.

So I've become realistic.

Maybe you only check social media on Fridays for 15 minutes.

Maybe you decide to get on Facebook and you this is something really interesting from Cal Newport's book.

Um, he encourages people not to click the like button.

Because the clicking the like button encourages this false sense of affirmation and connection.

It's almost the equivalent to waving at someone across the county fair, hey, I see you.

How about maybe instead of clicking the like button, we intentionally call that person and affirm them?

Or maybe even send them a text from phone to phone instead of on social media just clicking the like.

I know that too.

When people like my stuff, I'm like looking through it.

But what if we were intentional with our relationships?

Maybe that's a realistic rule that you can add.

Um, this is the other thing Cal Newport says he says, don't confuse convenient with critical.

Just because something is really convenient to your life doesn't mean that it's critical, that you need to have it.

Sometimes the inconvenience and the boredom actually allows space for growth.

Allows you an area to process something.

And then my quote, don't get fired.

Right?

If your company relies on some sort of digital technology, utilize it, but place boundaries around it.

I set my phone on uh, it's not do not disturb, there's like a downtime.

So downtime from 6 p.m.

to set or to 8 a.m.

That means nothing that my phone is useless except for calling and texting people.

But if people really need me, they can get me that way.

Right?

I am not going to miss out with precious time with my daughter for the sake of responding to a work email.

And that is something that we should take very seriously.

One of the things that hurts my heart, and I'm guilty of it as well, but I've seen it in public where you have a family at a dinner table and everybody's face is stuck in a phone, including the parent.

And then you have there have been times, and again, I've been guilty of this too, but there have been times where I've witnessed, I'm just calling it out, where you there's a kid, mama, mama, daddy, mama, mama, mama, mama, mama.

And I'm just, I want to say, what, my child?

I will give you the world if you stop talking.

You have to be realistic.

And then finally, guys, you gotta be flexible.

You have to be flexible.

Our seasons of life change, and so should our rules.

I can tell you right now, the months of August and September are very busy for me because of all of the ministries that we're launching.

It requires me to be on my phone more than I would like to, but I understand that this is just for a season.

It's just for a season.

And so after this period of time, I'll readjust.

And so it's okay for you to have a down week.

If you have a project due, if there's a lot going on, if there's things that you need to manage, be flexible.

This, see, this isn't about legalism, and this is the problem that Jesus had with the Pharisees.

See, the Far Jesus understood the spirit of the law of Moses, that it was meant to protect human flourishing.

But the Pharisees understood the law that if you broke it, you were a rank sinner.

So if you have a rule of life that you're developing, breaking it isn't the end of the world.

Breaking it is not a sin.

You need to understand that you need to be flexible in certain seasons.

Well, a good quote related to rules of life in general is by Saint Benedict, who was an early church monk, and he said, your rule should give the strong something to reach for and the weak nothing to fear.

So, whatever boundaries that you place around your digital technology, whether or not you decide to do a detox, they need to be strong enough to challenge you, but not so strong that they beat you down.

The idea of this is not walking around in condemnation.

The idea is transformation of our hearts, being more present with our families.

Because here's the deal a digital rule of life is how a husband starts looking at his wife instead of notifications on his phone.

It's how a parent experiences every precious moment of their child's life instead of staying up to date on the latest van renovation.

I love those videos.

When we have godly boundaries around our digital media, we can allow God to use it as a tool to make our lives more fulfilling and more vibrant instead of comparing our lives to others on a screen.

Here's the deal.

Screens, they're here to stay.

And if that's true, Christians must live differently to provide the world a place of hope.

Paul says this in 1 Corinthians 6.12.

Oh, this is good.

The rule exists to serve you.

1 Corinthians 6.12.

We heard this last week.

This is Paul's response to something that the Corinthians were saying.

They would say, I have the right to do anything.

Paul says, not everything is beneficial.

This is so true of digital media use.

Yes, you could bend your phone for eight hours a day, but should you?

No, it's hurting your soul.

I have the right to do anything.

But Paul says, I will be mastered by nothing.

There is nothing that is going to captivate my attention, my affections, or my actions other than Jesus himself.

And so my question for you guys this morning is Is your digital media use forming you into the image of Jesus?

It's a very simple way to put this.

Ask yourself or remind yourself, how do I use digital media?

How do I use my phone?

How often am I checking those things?

How how captivated am I by notifications and screen time?

And is my digital media use drawing me closer to God and others?

Or is it pulling me away?

Am I replacing real relationship and conversation with cheap tactile affirmations like a like button?

Please stand with me.

Guys, this is difficult.

It is difficult because I'm going through it myself.

This is nothing that I haven't been through and am currently going through.

But guys, we need to change.

Let's change together as a church family.

Let's be real.

Let's start a digital recovery group at CR.

I'll be the first one there.

Let's show the world that our allegiance belongs to Jesus and not Meta.

Not Apple, not Samsung.

Close your eyes.

I'm going to say this prayer, and this prayer is truly my prayer, but I want you guys to say it with me.

Say, Dear Heavenly Father, I recognize that my digital media use is out of balance.

It's cost me relationships.

It's cost me spiritual growth.

It's cost me time with you.

And I repent.

And Holy Spirit, I ask that you would transform me from the inside out.

Help me to create a digital rule of life that is specific, that is realistic, and that's flexible.

So that I can control digital media and it doesn't control me.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Awesome, awesome.

Thanks for listening to the VFC Podcast.

If you live in the Thomasville area, we would love for you to connect with us in person.

For more information about our weekly gatherings, including service times and directions, you can visit us at bfcthomasville.org.