Sermon Tone Analysis

Peace Beyond Understanding

Peace can be yours, but it comes with a price

we live in a crazy world: death, floods, politics, tweets, walls,

We live in a crazy world

We live in The Matix

When was the last time you unplugged?

Teens Cling to Destructive Social Media

In her book American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers, researcher Mary Jo Sales reports a conversation with a teenage girl at a mall in LA who told her, "Social media is destroying our lives."

Sales told her, "So why don't you go off it?"

Nancy replied.

"Seems reasonable, doesn't it?

If something is destroying you, let it go.

Smash it.

Get rid of it."

The girl's response was instant: "Because then we would have no life."

In her book American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers, researcher Mary Jo Sales reports a conversation with a teenage girl at a mall in LA who told her, "Social media is destroying our lives."

Sales told her, "So why don't you go off it?"

Nancy replied.

"Seems reasonable, doesn't it?

If something is destroying you, let it go.

Smash it.

Get rid of it."

The girl's response was instant: "Because then we would have no life."

Trevin Wax comments: "If I were to cast that conversation in spiritual terms, I'd put it this way: My idol is destroying me, but if I smash my idol, then I disappear."

Internet Trains Us toward Superficial Thinking

Nicholas Carr, an expert on how technology is shaping our minds and lives, lamented how the Internet is, in his words, "chipping away at [his] capacity and contemplation."

"My mind expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles."

Then in an arresting image Carr writes, "Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words.

Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski."

Nicholas Carr, an expert on how technology is shaping our minds and lives, lamented how the Internet is, in his words, "chipping away at [his] capacity and contemplation."

"My mind expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles."

Then in an arresting image Carr writes, "Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words.

Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski."

This is what I’m NOT saying: technology is evil and we need to get rid of all of it.

That’s not the point.

The Enemy

Study Shows Cell Phone Separation Anxiety

Erin Blakemore, "Separate people from their phones and they perform less well," Smithsonian.com

(1-12-15)

Researchers from the University of Missouri wanted to know how subjects behaved when parted from their iPhones, so they recruited 208 students for a survey on "media usage."

The researchers used the survey to screen for iPhone users and eventually recruited a group of 41 respondents for an experiment in cell phone separation anxiety.

During the study, participants were placed in a cubicle and asked to perform word search puzzles.

Researchers monitored their anxiety levels, heart rate, and blood pressure while the subjects had their iPhones with them.

Then, the real experiment began.

Researchers told participants that their iPhones were causing interference with the blood pressure cuff and asked them to move their phones.

The phones were placed in a nearby cubicle close by.

Next, the researchers called the subjects' phones while they were working on the puzzle.

Immediately afterwards, they collected the same data.

The results changed dramatically.

Not only did the participants' puzzle performance decline significantly while the phones were off-limits, but their anxiety levels, blood pressure and heart rates skyrocketed.

One of the researchers concluded, "iPhones are capable of becoming an extension of selves such as that when separated, we experience a lessing of 'self' and a negative physiological state."

The Enemy

It’s not about the evils of tech: it’s about the human heart.

The heart that says, “I got this.

I should be able to understand this, all arguments, complexities.

I understand.”

Is New Tech Making Us Antisocial?

No, Just Revealing Our Hearts.

It's a commonly quoted sentiment that the day of the smartphone has destroyed human interaction.

Similar critiques were levied against the newspaper in its day.

At the popular PARSE site, blogger and minister Chris Ridgeway reminds us that the true alienating feature that we encounter in using technologies is internal (the heart), not simply external (the device).

Ridgeway says, "Socrates recounts Egyptian mythology saying that the new technology of "external marks" (writing!) will "create forgetfulness in the learner's souls" (Phaedrus), and ever since it's been natural for us to levy some strong charges against the new-fangled invention of the day.

But technology is not operating rogue.

Screens are not stealing us, our phones are not making it impossible to have a conversation, and e-mail is not taking us away from people.

These are not statements that deny the effects of technology in human lives (there are effects, and larger than we think), but phones aren't the cause, and putting down phones won't erase the effects.

Humans are the cause of technology."

If we're feeling adverse effects from Facebook or Twitter, we may well need to evaluate our habits.

But we also need to remember that the real problems won't just go away with the flip of a switch.

We're wired that way, not our phones.

This Crazy World is Trying to Tell You Who You Are

republican/democrat?

liberal/conservative?

Vegan/Paleo?

Rich/Poor?

Fox News/CNN?

: 1-5

Isreal is a divided kingdom: the 10 tribes in the north, and the 2 tribes in the south: Judah.

Isaiah is ministering, prophesying after his meeting the LORD in the temple, and Judah is this tiny, tiny power in the world.

A ruler, full of himself

A nation divided

The Day of The Lord

The point… Justice will come… until then, keep your mind on the LORD, our deliverer

The Office

we have borrowed our culture’s anxiety

Actress Jennifer Lawrence on Her Anxiety

People, The Week (5-23-14); original source: Aaron Gell, "Jennifer Lawrence Just Can't Help It," Marie Claire

The actress Jennifer Lawrence, famous for her role in The Hunger Games films, has had a long battle with anxiety and insecurity.

In a 2014 interview, she said:

[In middle school] there are all these peers judging you, and you're never good enough, never wearing the right outfit, saying the right thing.

I want everyone to like me.

Who doesn't?

Then you grow up and become famous, and it's the same thing multiplied by a billion.

When she saw herself on a recent TV program being interviewed, she had a full-fledged panic attack.

Ms. Lawrence said, "All of a sudden it was like being hit by a train—this realization of how many people are looking at me, how many opinions there are."

In her worst moments, she's certain her career will come crashing down.

"People are going to get sick of me," she said.

"I'm way too annoying.

But if people want to start a backlash [against me], I'm the captain of the team.

As much as you hate me, I'm ten steps ahead of you."

philippians 4:2

Contrast this with Flee, Be Silent, Pray: what were the words God spoke so His Son could hear?

What do you REALLY believe?