Narrative

We are IMMERSED in the digital world...and for many, the digital "voice" is the LOUDEST voice in our lives. As we kick off this new series we'll explore what "narrative" does the digital world try to fool us into believing about our identity, and how we can turn down the volume to hear the voice of Jesus telling us the true story of who he is, and who we are as a result. 

For more info about RPYA check us out on Instagram @rpyoungadults or at our landing page on rockypeak.org

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

What is up, RPYA? How you doing? Tonight I get to uh read the scripture. My name's Avon, for those of you don't know me. Um so get out your Bibles or your phones, whatever you want to get out, get it out to read the scripture. We're gonna be in Colossians 2. It's in the second half of your Bible of the New Testament. Uh Colossians 2, verses 6 through 15. So get your Bibles out and let's read it together. I'll give you a second to get there. Alright, here we go. So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in Him, rooted and built up in Him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness. See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ. For in Christ all the fullness of the deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority. In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self, ruled by the flesh, was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him, through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ, he forgave us all our sins, having cancelled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us, he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross, and having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

You have an excellent reading voice. That was soothing to listen to. Oh, it is a joy to be with you once again. I deeply look forward to these Sunday nights. Uh, for those of you that are here for the very first time, welcome to RPYA. That stands for Rocky Peak Young Adults. If we haven't had a chance to meet yet, my name is Dre. I'm the young adult pastor here at Rocky Peak. And that picture actually was from this last Wednesday night. Like actually, some of you that are hooting and hollering, right now our middle school ministry called Wildlife is doing an epic event, multi-week event called Tournament Series, in which they create a place for this to be for people that normally wouldn't come to church. And so it's an amazing event in which the gospel's being presented. We have an opportunity to make a difference, and I get to wear a costume and be Doc Brown. And so I'm excited for that over these next couple of weeks. But also I'm thankful as I look out and see all the faces of those of you that are serving and volunteering. What an amazing thing. But for those of you that are here for the first time, we want to take a few moments just at the top to just tell you what you got yourself into. Like I mentioned, RPYA stands for Rocky Peak Young Adult. We are the young adult ministry here at the Church of Rocky Peak, and we exist because we believe that God wants to change the world through your generation. We exist because we believe that God wants to unleash a movement of passionate, Christ-following young adults between the ages of 18 to 25. And we primarily try to partner with the Lord by these Sunday nights. This isn't just simply a time where we open up the room, get together, and have fun, although that's a beautiful byproduct. The reason why we do this is because if you're a believer in Jesus, you're one of the saints of God, and there's power when the saints gather. And so we design our Sunday nights to be a place of encounter where real people get to come as they are to encounter the real Jesus. And one of the things that we do most of the times we gather together is we go into a time of teaching. And if you've not been around church before, I want to under I want you to understand my heart behind this time of teaching. I have no interest this evening or any evening to talk to you. My heart is to learn alongside you. And so we get to open up God's word together, which we believe to be living and active. And we get to say, Jesus, encounter us. Jesus, meet us. And not only that, but Jesus teach us what it looks like to encounter you in my real life when I leave this place. So that's what this time of teaching is all about. So I'm gonna pray to uh lead us in, but before I do, I want to go ahead and invite you, would you take one or two just deep breaths where you're at? There's nothing weird or mystical about it. It just pauses us, it just focuses us. Would you go ahead and close your eyes? And before I lead us in prayer, would you just take a moment and would you just pray wherever you're at to Jesus? And in the stillness of your own head and the quiet of your own heart, what did you bring into this room with you emotionally? And did you bring joy and excitement? Then I want to let you give that and say, Jesus, thank you for that. Hey, if you brought something else, did you bring in fear? Did you bring in anger? Did you bring in exhaustion? If I'm being honest with you, I walked into this room with anxiety. I walked into this room with insecurity. Did you bring temptation in with you? Did you feel shame or guilt with you? Whatever it is, would you just take a moment and say, Jesus, take this from me? Couldn't you take a few moments? Jesus Christ, you died and rose again for real people. And real people are messy, real people are flawed, real people are imperfect, and that's what makes us beautiful. When you meet us, you don't ask us to be anything about what we are in this moment. And the gift of your Holy Spirit is you transform us into something more than we could have ever imagined for ourselves. And so church is not meant to be a museum for seemingly perfect people, it's meant to be a hospital for real broken people. So here we are as real people with the exhaustion of midterms, with the trials of life, with the temptations we face each and every day. And we say, King Jesus, meet us as we are. But thank you, because of your great love for us, you don't leave us there. Meeting you changes everything. If there's anybody here tonight that would say, I don't yet believe in Jesus, may tonight be a step they take closer to encountering that you are real, you are who you say you are, and you have died and rose again for each and every one of us. Would tonight be a moment in which bondage would be broken? Would chains be broken? Would forgiveness be experienced? Would we feel the power of your Holy Spirit? And even though our circumstances are still challenging, would we leave this place in joy at King Jesus? Because we encountered you here. Would we leave this place in joy? Because the King that we encountered in this room is the one we take with us into our everyday lives. Finally, Jesus, the communicator, I just pray that I would become blessed. And that you, King of Kings, Lord of Lords would become much, much more. And it's in your name. We all said. Amen. Hey, when you sat down, you sat down on a note sheet and a pen. That's gonna be a great tool to help you follow along with it. But this week we are kicking off a brand new series called Digital Reset. And the reason why we're starting this series is because your world is a digital world. And it's not digital in part, it's not digital in just a small portion of it. The reality is your generation is growing up in a world that is immersed in the digital world. There is no longer any separation. In fact, like a fish lives in water, you have grown up as the first generation living post the invention of the iPhone in a digital world where it's integrated and again immersed in everything you do. And I stand as an older brother in a very unique position that I got to live through both. I remember the world before it became digital, and now I'm living in the same world with you. And so the question is: how did we get to the digital world that we live in today? And so, what I want to do, if you would indulge me, is I want to take you on a brief history of technology and software, because it informs why today is so unique, why this is so integrated, why we're immersed in this. And so historically, for centuries, they used to chronicle they used to chronicle time in what was BC and AD. The BC was before Christ. The AD was actually a Latin term, which was Anno Domini, in the year of our Lord. And so the reason why historians would do that was the birth of Christ, whether you believed in Christ or not, but it was such a turning point that that was a key demarcation point that the world would never be the same again. So in the digital world, that line is the iPhone. When the iPhone came into existence, that changed everything. So let's talk about the world. Let's talk about what that looked like. So we're going back in time to the year 2007. Were any of you born in 2007? One in the back. Awesome. Good to have you. So in 2007, Steve Jobs, the now past CEO of Apple, introduced the original iPhone. And having lived it and having already been married a year into it, everybody thought he was crazy. Because that's not how phones worked, right? And even as you look at it in his hand, it looked super unimpressive by today's standards, right? But at the time, it was a completely revolutionary device. So this is how much power it was packing. It had one camera with two megapixels. One camera with two megapixels, your only storage options were four gigabytes and eight gigabytes. That's like one text message now. Four gigabytes and eight textabytes. And here's also crazy nobody, no phone carrier thought this would succeed. The only place you could get an iPhone was ATT. And some of you know firsthand, ATT sucks. So some of you, so if you wanted an iPhone, you needed to jump ship to ATT, which 2007 Dre did. But we had never seen a device that was primarily controlled by a touch screen. But not only that, here's why the iPhone changed everything. Because it really was the first device whose actual promise was to put the internet in your pocket. It was really the first device that was not just talking a big game, but was backing it up that we want to be able to put the internet, the world wide web, in your pocket so that you take it wherever you go. Being a proud sci-fi geek growing up, that had only been fantasy up to that point. And so, you know what was also interesting was it was still seen as like a niche or a niche product. And one of the key reasons why is the original iPhone did not launch with the App Store. And the interesting thing is the App Store came out to be about a year later. And so when apps came out, they were kind of this new thing. And also one of the questions was well, what's the purpose of these apps? Because the original apps were novelty apps. And so if you look at the picture to the right, one of the most popular apps in the original app store was this beer mug app, in which your screen looked like a full mug of beer, and when you tipped it, you drank it and it went away. There was a point in which the guy that invented it was making like 20 grand a week. And the other most popular apps at the time were fart sound machines, in which they were just buttons, you would press them, and they would sound like different farts. So, Megan, my wife and I, we found that hilarious. That was the best $2 I had ever spent in my life. But that was what the app store meant at the time. Now, at the same time, around this thing in the early 2000s, social media was picking up steam, and something called MySpace became a juggernaut. Have any of you ever heard of MySpace? So MySpace is the first of what we would now call a social networking site. See, before that, there were ways to connect with other people online. There were chat rooms, there were other websites you could go to. But MySpace was not only the first of its kind when it came to social media, but it was the first one to become massively popular. And so MySpace's peak was about 2005-2008. At its peak, it had over 100 million users. In the year 2006, the year that I got married, it was the most visited site in the United States. And again, understand something, all of this was accomplished without an app. People were doing this on their computers and their desktops. But you know why MySpace, I feel like, was so revolutionary at the time? Is because of two key things. One, it gave people the appearance of giving you an individual voice. And so in your MySpace profile, you could customize everything about it. You could customize the picture, the background, the font. MySpace had a music player, so you got to pick which song was going on. It lets you customize the page. It was one of the first apps that really emphasized profile pictures. So now you got to post pictures of yourself and what you look like. And here's the thing about this individuality. Not only did MySpace give you the tools to express yourself, MySpace actually gave you the tools to create the person you wish you were. The person you want other people to believe you are. What I call a persona. It was the first of its kind. MySpace also gave you a voice that other people would talk. Do you know what blogging is? Do you know it's just like online journals and everything? Blogging had existed since the 90s, but nobody ever read them. MySpace gave you the opportunity to blog, and your friends were now reading your thoughts. And it's a bunch of emotional teenagers, so think about what those thoughts were all about. No one understands me. No one gets what I'm going through. Sad song lyric. By the way, as a proud early 2000 emos kid, I was all about that. But the other thing that MySpace gave was it gave social value based on who your friends were. One of the most important features of MySpace, and probably one of its most controversial, is what was called its top eight. So no matter how many friends you had in MySpace, you could control what was your top eight, your top favorite friends, and you were switching out all the time who your friend who your friends were. Can you do you think this caused more than a little bit of drama? This is how you knew people were fighting. This is how you knew somebody wanted to date the other person. This is how you knew they were dating. This is how you knew they broke up, was because of who is in your top eight. And so again, most people are thinking, who could I put there that's gonna make people think I'm awesome? If we fast forward a little bit, MySpace eventually lost Steam and lost the social media war, and they lost it to a little rinky dink site called Facebook. And the funny thing is, if we think about Facebook now, the only reason anybody ever uses Facebook now is for Facebook Marketplace, which was brilliant on their end because it kept them alive. Because it's Facebook Marketplace or it's your grandma's post right now, right? But Facebook became a juggernaut, and the reality is Facebook started in a college. Some of you have watched the social network, the Mark Zuckerberg movie. But the reality is old school Facebook showed up because if MySpace looked like a kid's toy, MySpace was like where junior hires were hung out. But if you're cool young adults, Facebook is where you're at. And Facebook, it didn't have, again, the flashing going in because grownups, young adults don't need that, even though it still had some games. But Facebook felt mature, or that was the illusion into it. And Facebook also introduced two more key things that changed the digital world. Really, Facebook popularized status updates. Now you could do that with MySpace, you could do that with other apps like Twitter and other things like that, but Facebook now got more eyes into it. And so people were now, you were now inviting people into your everyday life. And it was as annoying as it sounds. Because people were thinking everybody wants to know everything that I'm doing. And so Facebook statuses were like, oh, just ate breakfast. Ten minutes later, breakfast was amazing, on my way to work, ten minutes later, man, I'm on my way to work, excited for the day. Ten minutes later, I can't stand that coworker. It started with everyday stuff. And then people started posting their thoughts, their emotions, their opinions. This is what MySpace blogging became. People were using Facebook statuses to go, I can't believe this person would treat me like this. Hey, if you think this, you are wrong. I can't believe my kids would say or do something like this. And not only that, because statuses alone wouldn't have been that big of a deal if it wasn't for the second invention that Facebook really popularized, and that was the like button. Because now whatever you posted gave you validation. Oh, some people liked my picture of Captain Crunch. I should do more of that. Oh, I got into this really big fight with my friends, and I talked about it on Facebook status, and 25 people liked me, so that means they're supporting me in this fight and not her. Oh, I just gave this like political opinion, or the spiritual opinion, or the social opinion, and now there's people that are liking it. I must be right. This also started Facebook arguing and comments and tearing each other down. But let's be honest, the idea of people liking and validating what we say, do, think, and feel feels good, doesn't it? And so now we're seeing again how this is now immersing our world. So as all of this was happening, Apple didn't stop making iPhones, right? They have not clearly stopped now. But they kept there was a time, believe it or not, when Apple used to innovate. And they would actually create technologies in their iPhones. And so when we fast forward to 2010 to the iPhone 4, the iPhone Phone introduced something that is so normal now, but at the time was, again, revolutionary, and that was a phone with a front-facing camera. Up until that point, selfies were not a thing. Selfie culture did not exist. And so ever since this point, what got normalized? The fact that there's a camera facing us at all times. It always made me laugh, and I'm not trying to be snarky on this when people get that little cover for their MacBook camera, but they just have their phones facing them at all times. It's like, do you think one is magic and one isn't? But that normalized not only a camera facing us, but what became immersive was now for men and women, I need to be camera ready at all times. I need to be ready to go because pictures are going to be taken at all times. Now, at the same time while all of this happens, there was another social media site that was building and building and building, and that was YouTube. And the thing is, YouTube started in the early 2000s. This was one of the original YouTube layout. And it feels so foreign when you think of what YouTube looks like now. But in the original days, YouTube was built on viral videos. And viral, as we know, is when things get really, really popular, but it wasn't viral videos because influencers didn't exist yet. It was things like a skateboarding dog. It was something called keyboard cat of this cat playing a keyboard. It was something called the evolution of dance. And that built Facebook into a juggernaut, excuse me, YouTube into another juggernaut. In fact, when we think about the early days of YouTube, YouTube did not have these personalities that we have today. If there were people that were on YouTube, they were often playing a character, they were doing skits or something like that. But a lot changed in 2006 because Google bought YouTube for $1.6 billion. And when they did that, they're like, how do we make money off of YouTube? And now we live in a world of ads and subscriptions and YouTube Premium. But not only that, around 2010 and moving on, the landscape of YouTube began changing, and now there was a brand new word, two brand new words, vlogging and influencer. Vlogging started taking off on YouTube. And the reason why vlogging took off was because these people we were watching seemed like ordinary, everyday people just like us. We've grown up watching Hollywood celebrities act in movies, right? And we've often known that Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, whatever actor or actor. You like, they are not real human beings. They can't relate with real human problems. But these vloggers, they're just like us. They're living in their mom's basement. They're struggling with a relationship. They're struggling with school. They're struggling going on. They feel relatable in a way that other people on a screen can't. And they began growing and growing and growing in popularity. And one of the things that started happening when we went from vlogging to influencer culture was vlogging started with people saying, Come and I'm going to invite you into my life. What began to take off in influencer culture is now I'm going to tell you how to live your life. Man, are you drinking these shakes? Are you taking these supplements? Man, are you dressed this way? Are you crocheting like this? Do you look like that? Are you angry about the right things? Are you doing this? Are you doing that? Because I'm just like you. But if you want to succeed, you need to be just like me. And so that started evolving everything. And then there was another site that took hold and kind of just spread like wildfire, and that was Instagram. And it seems so strange now, but Instagram, if you even look at the old logo, started as a place for still pictures. And originally, the only people you saw on your feed in Instagram were the people you chose to follow. Imagine that. But where Instagram really changed the game is that they were the first social media sites that was all you could only be a part of by downloading an app. Everything else, Facebook, MySpace, even Twitter, Vine, anything like that, you couldn't you could uh interact with on a computer or a desktop. It's only been in the last like six or eight months that Instagram has actually let you control it on a desktop. So they held out for a long, long time. And so not only was that a huge deal, but as we know, this is the old layout of Instagram. But up to this point, what did Instagram do? It took the validation we learned to love from Facebook, and now it turned it into notifications and it put it in your pockets. So these notifications, this validation followed you everywhere. People liking your post, people commenting on your posts, people sending you DMs, that was all with you now. You didn't have to wait till you got home or till you got to a place with Wi-Fi, till you got to Starbucks and opened up your laptop. It was now in your pocket. So not only did you have the opportunity for validation everywhere that you go, but now you could post from wherever you are. You could let people, I am in this moment right now. I am listening to Dre talk. I am at this concert. I am in line. I am mad beyond belief right now. I'm crying right now. I am doing all of this right now in real time. And Instagram did not invent this, but it now immersed and it changed the heart, the posture of our heart to go. What could I post that will get the most response from other people? I know I'm not the only one that has ever thought that on Instagram, right? What could I say or what could I post right now that is gonna get? So not only is it the opportunity for validation, but it's the opportunity for disappointment, right? Because if you don't get the val the likes or the notifications or what you're hoping for, it hurts, doesn't it? And so now this is immersing and breaking through into our hearts. And so if we add all of this up, now social media is starting to become like a slot machine. Have you ever played a slot machine? You ever been around a slot machine? Have you ever wondered why there's people that will settle at a slot machine for hours and just play even though they're objectively losing money? The reason is because of endorphins. So some basic biology. Endorphins are a chemical that your body releases to help your mood and to help you feel good. You release endorphins when you're happy, you release endorphins when you smile, you release endorphins when you laugh, you release endorphins when you feel like you have succeeded or you have won at something. And so the way that a slot machine actually is designed, there's a lot of science behind it. A slot machine is designed to mess with our endorphins because it allows you to win every so often, and that release of endorphins feels so so good that you believe it can happen again. It can happen again if I just give it enough time and give it enough money. And so your body starts sitting there in anticipation, hoping and waiting. What if I get to it? What if I get to the win? What if I get to the wind? What if I get to the wind? What if I get to the win? Then after an hour, I won! Oh my gosh, I won a dollar. And that felt good. And so I'm gonna give it the next couple of hours. And as kind of cynical as I sound, all of these social media sites and technology are owned by corporations and they know this. They know this about us. And so they're trying to keep you on by getting you into a point in which it releases endorphins. And so all of this was utilizing what people have learned through slot machines, but I would say that the social media site that learned how to do this the best is TikTok. You know why? Because TikTok is a literal slot machine. Because TikTok kind of did away with, hey, you're gonna get to see people that you follow. TikTok's like, you don't even know what you're gonna get. You're gonna get puppies, you're gonna get angry at politics, you're gonna get birds, you're gonna get spiritual stuff, you're gonna get it all. The question is, what's gonna make you feel like you won? What's gonna release the endorphins? And so now the game is what kind of content is good enough to get you to stop scrolling? That's winning the slot machine. But TikTok also ushered in a new term into our language, and it's the term doom scrolling. Because we will be scrolling and scrolling and scrolling until we find something that makes us stop. In other words, we will scroll and scroll and scroll until we get that relief of endorphins. And when we sit there, we go, okay, I can be done now, or I could play my luck and try to go again and keep going and keep going and keep going. And not only has that proven profitable at keeping our attention, have you noticed that TikTok has changed every other social media site? Instagram now looks like TikTok. YouTube tends to give you reels before anything else. Have you noticed I do this on my YouTube app that if I don't like the things that recommends the reels, the reels and the shores, I'll just close the app and open it up again to see if I win, to see if there's something more into my interest, to see if there's something I like. Some of you are nodding to be like, we're all in this together. It's okay. I thought this was a joke when I first came across this, and I realized that if you go on Amazon right now, you can buy little Bluetooth rings to help you scroll without touching your phone, so that you never have to stop watching TikTok. So that you could be working out, you could be cooking, you could be doing this. I thought it was one thing when TikTok said, like, now we can turn like we can just turn on autoplay, but now they're like, hey, are you not getting enough? Buy a ring. Guys, uh, I didn't even cover Twitter. I didn't cover Snapchat, which by the way, if you look into the history of how Snapchat started, it was originally called Peekaboo. It was designed by a couple frat bros to justify sexting. Snapchat is disgusting. And that's a harsh statement, but if you look into the history, you see it's there. They've refused to uh support certain subpoenas that might put away pedophiles for the sake of privacy. I didn't get into Snapchat, I didn't get in Twitter, I didn't get into Vine, I didn't get into a lot of that. I just gave you a I barely scratched the surface. But again, it brings us back to our initial point that the digital world is one that we're immersed in. It's not one platform, it is everything, and it is everywhere. And so that is why it matters that as we gather at church, we learn to talk about this, but not just talk about it. We learn how do we think well about the digital world when we are disciples of Jesus. And so over the next three weeks, we're in this series called Digital Reset. And I want you to please hear my heart and please hear my goal. My goal is not for us to go back to the Stone Age. I do not want to give up Google Maps. I do not want to give up my music, I do not want to give up that. That is not my goal. My goal is not to stand up here over the next three weeks and to tell you burn it down, to tell you throw your iPhones in a like act of defiance off the hill or anything like that. But here's what I want to do. My goal is to give you an opportunity to let Jesus speak into your spiritual life, because your digital life, because here's the truth. Many of us don't realize that because we have been immersed in the digital world, that the digital world is the king of our lives. If something is king, then that means it has authority over us. And so, as believers in Jesus, we need to be able to recognize that as well as to be able to move away from that because we have one king. There's only one Savior, there is only one Christ that rose from the grave. And so we want to invite Jesus to teach us how do we reset our view and our behavior and our hearts towards the digital world. Again, my goal in this series is not to burn it to the ground. But my goal to this series is for us to put the digital world in its proper place. To say, you are a good tool, you can be great for entertainment, you are helpful at times, but you are not the king of my life. And so that's our goal over the next couple of weeks. And so there in your note sheet. Let's start off by asking, why does we need a reset? And your first fill-in is this the digital world has become the loudest voice in our lives. The digital world has become the loudest voice in our lives. That's how immersed we are in it. And the number one way to be able to judge to be able to prove that is by just examining your screen time. The digital world has become the loudest voice in our life just because we s the amount of time we spend in it. And again, this isn't always bad or even avoidable in the world that we live in, right? But let's think about most of us in an average day. Most of us begin and end our day in the digital world. Most of us won't wake up in the morning, the very first thing we do is we reach for a device and we engage in the digital world. For many of us, the way that we do school is in the digital world. For many of us, a lot of our jobs involve some type of incorporation with the digital world. For some of us, our jobs are the digital world. And that's not a bad thing. For some of us, for most of us, the digital world is how we communicate. Some of you are weirdos that still make phone calls, but the rest of us, we're sending text messages out, right? We're sending communication, WhatsApp, we're using other apps to be able to communicate to other people. For most of us, the digital world is how we seek information. I mentioned things like Google Maps, Apple Maps is terrible. So Google Maps, we look for answers. How often are we typing things into Chat GPT to be like, what is this math? How do I cook this? What do I do that? For many of us, the digital world is how we deal with boredom. Here's an experiment I want you to be able to run. The next time you stop at the checker of anything, time how long it takes you before you pull out your phone. Oh, dude, the room got really silent on that one. The next time there's somebody in front of you at bar uh at Starbucks, the next time you're in the car in the drive-thru at Chick-fil-A, how long does it take until you pull out your phone? Red lights? Somebody walks away for a second. The digital world has also, for many of us, become the primary place of how we deal with our dig our spiritual lives. Hear me. Oh my gosh, hear me. Digital Bibles, awesome! There's good that can happen into that, but we need to understand that we are spending more and more time. And for most of us, we rarely find ourselves in a given day away from a screen. And let's be honest, wouldn't most of us say that it would feel unit feels unnatural when our phone isn't on us? When we're away, when we're wondering, am I missing something? Man, that's been an eye-opener to me as I've been trying to grow in my own household. I've been trying to get better at putting my phone down and kind of just walking away for a while. And it's amazing almost how much like my my side aches. It's almost like you feel those phantom like notification panes, kind of like, wait, what happened? What's going on? For most of us, we are rarely ever away from a screen. And the reason why this matters, your next villain, is the loudest voice is what forms us. Hey, the loudest voice in your life is the voice that is forming you. And if that term is unfamiliar to you, formation has everything to do with identity. The loudest voice in our life is the voice that is shaping everything that makes us us. Who, how we see ourselves, how we see the world, how we see right and wrong, how we see faith, how we see other people, how we see conflict, how we see hurt, how we see joy, how we see priority, how we see purpose. And in fact, think about it, and again, just think about it in this moment. How much of you being you has been shaped or impacted by digit by the digital world? How much of what you think, how much of what you're into, how much of what you like, and again, that's not always necessarily a bad thing, but we want to think about the influence that it has in us. And so the loudest voice in our lives, for many of us, tends to be the digital voice. And that voice is not neutral. That voice is communicating something about our identity. The digital world is aiming to form us, to shape us. And in fact, the word I want to introduce is the word narrative. The digital world is creating a narrative about our identity. And so I want to unpack this a little bit more there in your note sheet. You've got a section titled The Digital Narrative Double Future. So, to me, taking a step back, having lived through this, having watching this unfold, now that I've got my own children who are engaging in the digital world, I would say that no matter where you are, how you engage in the digital world, what apps you use, what time you spend, there are two narratives that the digital world is trying to say about who we are, about our identity. So the first one is this there is something fundamentally wrong with you. The first narrative that the digital world is communicating about each and every one of us is that there is something fundamentally wrong with you. Now, let's get kind of wild, and we need to acknowledge truth where we find it. That statement is absolutely true. There is something fundamentally wrong with each and every one of us at the level of our heart, and that is sin. That is rebelling against God, that is rebelling against the source of life, that is rebelling against God's leadership in our life. So this statement is absolutely true. However, our digital world by and large is missing the point of the problem. Is we is is telling us, no, no, no, no, no. What's wrong is not what's inside of you. What's wrong is the outside part of you. And so the digital world is saying there is something wrong with you, and it is trying to sell you a solution that you can accomplish on your own. And so the digital world is communicating. There is something wrong with your appearance, there is something wrong with the way you look, there is something wrong with your hairstyle, your hair color, with your lack of muscles, your build, with your weight, with your height, with the way your proportions are. There is something wrong with your voice. There is something wrong with the clothes you wear. There is something wrong with this. And if only you buy this, if only you do this, then it will deal with it. There is something wrong with you at the level of health. So buy my supplements, buy my vitamins, buy my protein shakes, buy my this, because that will fix you. There is something wrong with your lack of friends. You may not have enough friends, you may not have the right friends. So you need to be more like this. This is the personality, this is the outgoing, this is what charms people, this is what's going on, this is what's gonna fix it. There is something wrong with you as a per from in your personality. There's something wrong in the stuff you're into, there's something wrong. This is why people don't like you. So you just need to be this, you need to be this person, you need to be this. There is something missing in you, and the only way to fill that is with pornography and sex. So we're gonna feed you and recommend things without you even looking for it. I was kind of praying to the Lord earlier if I was gonna go on the sidebar and I'm going to. Because I feel like the Lord's going in. Guys, can I just talk to you directly? And I'm not milking to guilt and shame, but I need to talk to you, not just as an older brother, but as a father. Our addiction to pornography is wrecking our sisters. Absolutely wrecking women that are made in the image of God and deserve better. And we're really good at justifying and coming up with excuses. But hear me, as a pastor who marries people, I've gotten to the point that when a couple comes up to me, I ask the guys, is pornography a part of your life? And if it is, my answer is no. Because you are not yet ready to treat her the way that God the way that she deserves in God's eyes. So this isn't the focus of the message. This is kind of a freebie. But Jesus once told us if sin is getting hold of our lives, we gouge our eye out and we cut off our hand. And so, to you, if pornography has got its grips on you, then I'm not kidding when I say then maybe you're the one that needs to throw your phone off the hill. Whatever it takes. Because I believe in the husband and father you can be one day. But it starts now the decisions we make. Alright, scary Dre over. Here's the second narrative that social media that social media is communicating a better identity. You are right and everyone else is wrong. Oh, I left an anne in there. Look at that. You are right and everyone else is wrong. Oh my gosh, this is all over the digital world, isn't it? And in fact, the word wrong is a really polite word with the aggression we tend to find online, right? It's probably more like you are right and everybody else is an idiot, everybody else is evil, everybody else should be canceled and have their lives destroyed. And so what is it communicating about our identity? The lie is that one of the most important things about your identity is that you're right. Not that you're righteous, but one of the most important things is that you are right about everything. That you are right about how to fix the world, you are right about how to find purpose, you are right about the best way to engage with Jesus. Not only is the most important thing for you to be right, but you need to be around only people that agree with you, that are right too, that are right, and never leave that echo chamber. And if anybody disagrees with you, fight them. Whether physically or fight them online, fight them emotionally. You need to make videos about how wrong this person is, because unless they hear how right you are, they are never gonna be saved. And you know what that has done? It is immersed and it has normalized aggression. And we're surrounded by aggression, and it's just normal. Can I read something to you? So I've been on staff for 23 years, I've been one of our teaching pastors for about 15 years. Over the years, I've gotten the opportunity to teach at our Good Friday services as we go into Easter series. So I taught one of our Good Friday services years ago. This is back when I was still on Instagram, and there was somebody that had come to that service that was so mad at what I had to say that he was trying to find Rocky Peaks Instagram to post this long rant, and instead he accidentally posted it on mine. Do you want to hear what he had to say about me? Gotta say, my heart breaks for this church. Went to the 4 p.m. Good Friday service, or should I say, discipline? Service, the pastor, me gave a very watered down, quote, sermon which contained zero scriptures with the exception of two very brief mentions of Colossians and Revelations, so not exactly zero. Didn't even start his quote sermon with an opening prayer, as he went on, it felt more like story time rather than a church service. What was more concerning is no one seemed to notice or care that he was mixing truth with lies, very deceptive. And lastly, and most obscene was the quote, pastor started his own new tradition, which is a take on a Catholic practice of Ash Wednesday, and encouraged the crowd to mark their hands with palm ash. For those of you who don't know, Ash Wednesday has pagan origins and is unbiblical. This is my first and last time attending this church. Churches like this are dangerous, lukewarm, and fail to preach the true gospel of Jesus Christ, which is repentance and faith. Read the book of Acts. Do you know what the comment right above that says? Amazing. By the way, the whole he's completely wrong about the whole Ash Wednesday thing, because when you research it, it starts in Protestant Reformed traditions, but that's neither here nor there. But isn't this normal? Isn't this normal? This is what's become normalized. This is the world we've been formed into. And you know what's one of the most heartbreaking things to me is I can read people say things like this about any topic online. And yet when you encounter them in real life, they're like a completely different person. They're like incredibly nice and sweet. And it's hard because I've seen some young adults, particularly some men in my life recently, that in person they're the type of man I would want my sons to be. And online, they are the complete opposite of what I want my sons to be. And yet that's just normal. So we need a new narrative. Because as we look at these, see you, the narrative, there's something wrong with you, and the only solution is what the digital world says, or there's something, or you're right, and everybody else is wrong. We need to just ask this question: if this is the narrative that the digital world is saying, is it gonna lead you to fulfillment? Is it gonna fill what your heart is longing for? Can we ask the question, is it working? Is it working? The United States National Survey on Drug Use and Health did a multi-long research project on young adults like yourselves. And so this is just looking at the prevalence of clinical anxiety. So if you notice from 2010 in particular to 2022, so four years ago, in your age group, there was a 161% increase in clinical anxiety. So if I do my math correctly, which is always a big if with me, that means about one in four of you suffer from legitimate clinical anxiety. And if you notice for the age group right above you, 26 to 34 year olds, there was a 111 in percent increase in them. Now, there's multiple more slides in the study. It's true for depression, it's true for most mental illnesses, it's also true for suicide rates. The other thing that's heartbreaking is this is also all disproportionately true and higher for women. But why not the 35 to 49 year olds and why not the 50-year-olds? It's the age group that the digital world has immersed. It's the age group. So is it working? And the question got asked by a researcher: what happened in 2010 that started sending everything upwards? We went through that history. What happened in 2010 was when the digital world started becoming a side and started becoming reality and started immersing us, and these narratives started permeating every part of our lives. Now I gotta tell you, if I'm honest with you, going through all of this with you so far, this is depressing, isn't it? This is heartbreaking. Man, if I stopped and prayed right here and said goodnight, this would be a bummer. But the reality is we need to acknowledge truth so that we can understand hope. So that we can understand the hope that only Jesus gives. And hope is not a wish, hope is not, man. I hope it works out, kind of like I hope my sports teams wins and they never do. Hope is real, hope is tangible, hope is Jesus. And in fact, again, I want to speak to you as a father. Ever since my kids were young, and particularly when they were in elementary school, I would often walk them up to the gates of school. And something that I would tell them repeatedly, because I needed it to be repeated so that it would permeate their souls, something I still tell them now as teenagers is that when you walk into this place, as you live your life, there is going to be an abundance of voices that are trying to tell you who you're supposed to be. And understand something. There is only one voice that has the authority to tell you who you really are. That is the voice of Jesus, and that voice has already spoken. And that's how we put the digital world in our play, in its place. So if we go back to our scripture, this is the narrative that Jesus invites us into. When we were dead in our sins, before we could earn it, before we deserved it, before there was anything good about us, God made us alive with Christ. And so if you look at it, our sin, our rebellion, our guilt, Jesus nailed it to the cross. He made us alive. That is the narrative that determines our lives. That is the narrative that determines our eternity. That is the narrative of life, and that is your narrative as a Christ follower. That is what Jesus invites you to live in. And so there in Yochi, let's break this down in three brief statements. So the first one, the narrative, your narrative is that you are alive because of Christ. Not because you earned it, not because you were good enough, not because you had enough followers, not because of your success. You are alive because of what Jesus has already done for you. That is the fundamentals of what we call the gospel. The next one, the next villain. You now live with Christ. Jesus is not the celebrity that lives on a mountaintop and says, I will see you twice a year. Jesus comes into your life and says, now let's learn to do all of life. Every moment, every step, every aspect. You are doing it with Christ. And you know what's beautiful about that narrative? Because you now do every step of life with Christ. That means there is no step you take in which you are not loved, in which you are not forgiven, in which you are not empowered, in which you are not given value and worth. Man, if some of you have some massive social media followings, if you deleted it all right now, you would still be loved by Jesus. And that is never gonna change. And the third one is that your identity is defined by Christ. It means you're forgiven. It means you are loved, and it means you have the gift of the Holy Spirit to strengthen you to live differently. And that impacts everything. And so because Jesus is now your identity, you now get to go to school, but ask the question: how is being loved by Jesus impacting my life as a student? How is being loved by Jesus impacting my life as an employee? How is being loved by Jesus impacting my life as a son or a daughter, as a brother or a sister? How is being loved by Jesus impacting how I respond when people hurt me? How is being loved by Jesus impacting when I hurt other people because I'm limited and I fail at times? How is temptation being impacted because I'm loved by Jesus? How are my priorities, how I spend my time, how I date, how I treat the opposite sex? We could go on and on and on. But the big question we've been asking this evening is how is the digital world, how is your digital world impacted because you are loved by Jesus? You know, Colossians 2.8, one of the verses we read said, see to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ. Kind of makes me think of pirates, doesn't it? See to it that no one takes you captive. Well, nobody's bursting through the doors to actually tie us up and take us away on a ship. So what is this talking about? See to it that the enemy, the devil, does not take you captive with a false narrative. And so how do we fight a false narrative with the true one? You are forgiven, you are loved, you are empowered, and you do life with Christ. And so there, the last thing on your note sheet. I like to say neon lights. If you don't remember anything else in the Simon teaching, would you remember this? And it's a question: what narrative do you believe about yourself? What narrative do you believe about yourself? Do you believe the narrative that the Bible tells us about you? Or do you believe the story that the digital world has been spinning? What narrative do you believe about yourself? And what is Jesus inviting you to experience? And so this isn't on your noche, but as we wrap things up, one of the most important things that we need to be able to do with lies is to turn down the volume. Because what can happen is that the louder a lie is and the more frequently we hear it, the more believable it comes becomes. And we need to be able to turn down the volume. Anna, can you go to him and play the song? Thank you, Enem. That was uncomfortable, huh? So here's the truth. There's a really good song in there. There's a really good song in there. But it's buried under a lot of noise. And the only way to be able to hear it is to turn down the volume on the noise. So, what does that look like for you in your digital life? What does it look like to turn down the volume? You know, in the weeks to come, we'll talk about some practical things. Like, honestly, and they're not hard steps. Sometimes turning down the volume is just using downtime on our phones, setting app limits. Sometimes turning down the volume is uh turning off notifications. I heard somebody say this once that one of the best things they did for their mental health was to turn off all notifications unless it was an actual human being trying to reach them. Sometimes one of the best ways we turn down the volume is by buying an actual clock and using that to wake up rather than our phones. Sometimes we turn down the volume by giving a wise older saint access to our social media accounts. To be like, hey, is there anything here that brings you worry or boss? Sometimes we turn down the noise by unfollowing accounts that just make us feel bad about ourselves. Sometimes we turn down the volume by deleting an app. Sometimes we turn down volume by going in. But what I want to do is I want to give us one practical thing, and it's what I would call, I already talked about that, what I would call focus in on one. And here's the progression that I think would make a big difference in most of our lives. Starting tomorrow, for those of you willing to take me up on this. What's one meal, breakfast, lunch, or dinner, that you will have without your device? What's one meal that you will have without your device? What's one hour? By the way, this is a card you guys can take home so you don't have to worry about taking pictures. Okay. What's one hour in a 24-hour period in which intentionally you will turn your device off and let the notifications just sit there? And the hope is to build up what's one day each week in which your social media life is off. In which I am on Instagram or TikTok or whatever the other six days, hopefully in a healthy moderation. But on Sundays, no. Or on Mondays, no. The intent is not to do all of these necessarily at once. Start with the first step. Pick a meal and try it. And for some of you, man, having breakfast without your phone is gonna feel weird. And it's gonna feel uncomfortable. And that's okay whenever we do anything that's new. But keep at it. And then the next pick the hour. Man, when I get home, for me, that's when I try to do that hour, is like go up to the counter, say hi to my kids, say how to Megan, and I put my phone down and I try to walk away. And I put it down face down intentionally so I don't see the screen turn on. So I try to just walk away. And then what's that day? When's that day? And by the way, when you get to the point of day, one challenge I always like to give is compare your mental health on that day versus the other days and see if there's a difference.