CHALLIES: Well, good morning. Good morning, and thank you for being one
of the pre-conferencers, the people who are going to get every little bit of value out
of this event. That's the way to do it, and I wonder, as
I start out, I wonder, I wonder if you've ever found yourself daydreaming a little bit
about those times when there were still wild frontiers here in America. Have you ever wondered, just found yourself
wondering about what it would be like to be one of those first explorers, one of those
first pioneers, those people who lived when this country was still unknown and uncharted? And as you know, they began in the east and
they pushed west and they had no real idea of what lay ahead, and I guess it must have
been thrilling but also kind of scary, intimidating not knowing what lay ahead. When they went over the next hill, would there
be just more endless isolation? Would they stumble across some new civilization? Would they come up against the end of the
world? They just didn't know. Well, those days have come and gone of course. This whole continent, this whole world has
been charted and mapped, and now most of us carry those maps in our pockets with us on
our phones at all times. It's a very different day. But, we still live on a frontier, we live
on the frontier of a new world, a digital world, and it's changing everything, it's
changing everyone. We're living at the very cusp of this digital
explosion that's ushering in a whole new kind of world. It's changing everything, at the same time,
there's a sense in which it's not very changing very much at all. Even though we're people who have new technologies
in our hands and new technologies in our pockets, we're still the same people who have indwelling
sin in our hearts. We're still people living in this world created
by God and under the sovereignty of God. The French, those skeptical French, they've
got a saying I love. They say “Plus les choses, plus me la chose”
– the more things change, the more things really just stay the same.” And I think they're on to something here because
so much has changed in this world around us, but we're still living as God's people in
God's world, we're still charged with the same creation mandate, we're still called
to the same great commission, we're still battling against sin, we're still fighting
to put on holiness, we're still wishing and praying for Christ's return. So, even though the circumstances may have
changed a little bit, the call remains, and the call goes on. Well, I'm here this morning to talk just briefly
about purity in a digital world, and when we talk about this digital world, we're talking
about this massive, massive explosion that's taken place in just the last few decades,
and it has changed everything. It's changed how we learn, how we communicate,
how we access information, it's even changed how we understand our world. It's transformed the world around us. Now, people who study technology, everyone
who studies technology understands something. They understand that every new technology
brings with it opportunity and risk. Every new technology ushers in some good benefits,
and every new technology often ushers in some grave risks, and that makes sense because
technology exists in this world. It exists in this world where it too is caught
up in this battle between good and evil. Well, in the few minutes we've got together
this morning, I want to take a look at the world around us and to just suggest a few
ways that we need to be aware of some of those risks that we come across in this world. Before I go even one step farther, I want
to say this, technology is good. Technology in the big picture, capital ‘T’
technology is good. It's one of the ways we obey God. It's one of the ways we carry out our creation
mandate, one of the ways we carry out the great commission is through technology. We cannot exercise dominion over this earth. We cannot subdue creation, we cannot take
the gospel to the farthest corners of the world without technology. So, in the big picture, technology is a good
gift of God, but again, it exists in this world. Like everything else, it too is subject to
the fall and so we need to see how every technology can be used for good and how it can be used
for evil, and I believe the Bible calls us to do this. I believe the Bible calls us to closely examine
everything around us. When the Bible calls us to live as Christians,
it always talks in terms of putting off and putting on. You know this from when you read the New Testament. There's always putting off, putting off old
habits and patterns and behaviors and then putting on new habits and new patterns and
new behaviors, and I just want to follow that kind of pattern this morning. I want to look at some things in this world
we'll be tempted to do, we need to put those things off, and I want to look at the much
better alternative, the way we can honor God by putting on better behaviors. So, we'll talk about purity, but I don't want
to focus narrowly just on sexual purity, though that's obviously a serious concern in the
digital world, but a whole life of purity, a life of purity before the Lord, and I'll
give you six things to consider, six things to consider. The first three will speak to each one of
us personally, each one of us as individuals, and then the second set of three will speak
to families. So, three for individuals and then three that
will focus more on families – the family living purely in the digital age. So, let's talk first about three personal
temptations, temptations that each one of us, everybody in this room will face at one
time or another. These are not unique temptations in this digital
world, this isn't the only time people have faced these temptations, but they're carried
on by the digital world, they're enhanced by the digital world so we need to be especially
vigilant when we think about them. So, here's the first instruction I would have
for you is this, in this digital world, reject distraction and choose or put on focus. Put off all of that distraction that pollutes
this digital world and instead, embrace deep focus and deep concentration. Now, it's no great secret, you'll know this,
that this digital world brings all kinds of new ways to be distracted. Our technologies, it seems at least they're
always evolving toward distraction, they're evolving away from focus. Every new generation of cell phone as an example,
it finds new ways of calling us away from one thing and calling us toward another thing. They've gone from beeping, to buzzing, to
flashing, to chirping, to whatever they can do, whatever they need to do to gain our attention,
and in that way they're kind of symbolic of this digital world. And what's amazing is that over time, we've
trained ourselves to obey them, right? The phone buzzes, and we respond to it. It's worth thinking about. If you feel the need to respond every time
your phone beeps or buzzes or flashes, do you own your phone or does it own you? Who's really in charge here if you're the
one who's always responding to it when it beckons? So, our devices, they evolve toward distraction,
and here's my concern is that over time, we actually become people who enjoy that distraction. We start to long for that kind of distraction,
we almost come to depend upon it. Every time we're bored, we want to be distracted. Every time our thoughts come to the end of
a flow, we want to be distracted, we want something to jump in there, and over time
we're finding it harder and harder to focus. More and more difficult to do one thing at
a time and to do that one thing with all of our strength, with all of our focus and energy
we just love to be distracted, and there's a cost to this. You know that as Christians, we are called
by God to continually grow in wisdom, but you cannot grow in wisdom without putting
in effort. Wisdom requires effort. Now, information is easy, right? We all have information around us. We have more access to information now than
anyone ever before has had. Information is easy, but wisdom, wisdom comes
only through concentration, only through meditation. Wisdom comes when people ponder information,
when they apply God's word to the information around them, they let that sink deep down
into their hearts and into their souls and into their lives. But, how can we meditate, how can we concentrate
if we're always distracted? Now, for many, many years since my childhood,
I've done daily devotions using a printed Bible as I'm sure many of you have as well. And you know what, that Bible never once interrupted
me, it never once distracted me. There was not a single time I was doing my
morning devotions, and suddenly a notification popped up on my Bible saying, "You got to
watch this YouTube video." There was never a time I found myself thinking,
"I should just, one button and I could be watching Netflix instead of doing this." Right? The printed Bible is a one function device,
and it does that function very, very well. That's the only thing it does, and it does
it almost perfectly. Now today, we're starting to migrate to digital
Bibles. I, myself, I love using Logos on my tablet,
I love sitting there in a sermon looking at that. It gives me a – I really enjoy the form
and the function, but there may be a cost here. At least, we need to be careful here. There are lots of benefits to reading your
Bible on your phone or reading it on your tablet. Who hasn't been glad at one time or another
that the Bible is right there when they've wanted to call up a verse or they wanted to
think about something? But, it does open us up to all of these distractions. If we're not careful, we'll be reading the
Bible but then be distracted by all these other things that device can do. You're distracted by that text message or
that, that notification of your friend posting a picture of his lunch or whatever it is. All these things, they can be irresistible
for us, and we just can't help but look. And yet, here's the consistent call of the
Bible, ponder this book, think about this book, meditate on this book, focus your mind
on it and don't let it drift away until God has spoken to you. So, as people of the word, we need to ponder
the world around us and we need to ponder God's word, and that can only happen when
we put aside all of those distractions and just focus. So Christian, put off distraction and put
on concentration and meditation. Control your devices, and then control your
habits so that they serve you as you grow in wisdom and holiness and Godliness. There's a second instruction to each one of
us, reject isolation and embrace visibility. Put off the isolation of anonymity and put
on the accountability that comes with visibility. Go back in history just a little while, and
Admiral Lord Nelson once said, "Beyond Gibraltar, every man is a bachelor." Here's what he meant, once British sailors
sailed away from the borders of their own land, of their own empire, a change came over
them. They became different people. Once they moved beyond the accountability
that comes with visibility, they changed. As they sailed away from civilization, from
their wives, from their children, from their families, form all of these things, they also
sailed away from civilized behavior where they were alone, where they were unknown,
where there was no accountability. They were free to behave however they wanted
and they did. You can read a biography of someone like Newton,
John Newton, you can read about what he and his fellow sailors did and it's, it's shocking
and it's horrifying, and they never would have behaved like that in their own country. Well, on the internet today, it's very easy
for all of us to live beyond Gibraltar. It's easy for us to inhabit places where we
are anonymous, where we lose all of that great accountability that comes when we're visible,
when we're living our lives before other people. One of the very first Christian books I ever
read was a book on character. Simply that, character, and it shaped me deeply
because the author's point that he came to again and again is this: character is who
you are when no one is looking. It's that simple. Do you want to know who you really are? Do you want to know what you really love? Do you want to know your spiritual maturity? Then, take an accounting of what you do when
no one else is looking, when the night's dark, everyone else has gone to bed, you're all
alone – that right there, that is who you are. You reveal far more of your character in isolation
than in community. So, let me ask, when it's just you and your
computer and the internet, who are you? What do you do? How do you behave? Who are you when you go beyond Gibraltar? Several years ago I wrote a book about pornography
and since then, I've received hundreds and hundreds of emails from men, men who are just
utterly weighed down by the weight of their sin, of their addiction. They want to stop, they can't stop, they don't
even know how to stop. They're batting these competing desires, they
love it and they hate it, and my wife and I have gotten so many emails from women who
are brokenhearted when they found out what their husbands are doing in isolation. I've seen a whole class of people arise on
the internet who take it upon themselves to be the church's watch dogs, they peddle in
gossip, and they peddle in rumors, and they call it spiritual discernment. But, by in large, they’re people who are
hiding away. They're not known, they're not out in the
light, they're hiding away in invisibility and anonymity. They don't want to be seen, and so they hide
out in this dark corner of the internet. They go beyond Gibraltar, and when they go,
they leave behind Christian love, Christian charity. So much of this happens because people refuse
to embrace visibility. They do not open up their lives to Christian
brothers and sisters, they don't seek input or counsel from others, they use these amazing
digital technologies that can do so much good, they use them to feed the flesh instead of
serving the Lord. So Christian, you need to reject the isolation
that comes so easily in this world. It is so, so easy in this world to be invisible,
to be anonymous, to have two personalities, who you are when people are looking, who you
are when nobody's looking. You need to live the same life online and
offline, be the same person behind your screen as away from your screen. Put off, put off that anonymity, that invisibility
and put on accountability, put on community. And here's my third instruction for each one
of us, is reject indulgence and choose self-control. You know, every year the Oxford English Dictionary
they evaluate the English language. They just look out at the English language
and they choose some words, these words aren't being used anymore we'll take them away, these
words have come in and we'll start using those words. Based on my time in Florida so far, I think
the word ‘selfie stick’ will be coming in very soon. Amazing how many people are carrying those
things around. But, last year, the Oxford English Dictionary
added this word to the dictionary, they added ‘binge watch.’ Binge watch, here's the definition: to watch
multiple episodes of a television program in rapid succession typically by means of
DVDs or digital streaming. Now, you think about the word ‘binge,’
binge does not sound like the kind of word that should be associated with Christians. But, who of us hasn't fallen prey at one time
or another to something like this? And really, the newest trend in television
shows is not to release it over a long period of time, but to dump the whole thing out there
on day one and see how many people will watch the entire series in a single day or in a
single week. This is binge watching, and it's just one
of the ways that we can indulge and over-indulge in this digital world. Today's average teenager, as per the last
study I saw, is sending 3,364 text message a month. It sounds compulsive to me. The average adult is averaging more than eight
hours of screen time a day, and once you get over 65 it rockets upward in front of TV's
and computers and other things. That sounds compulsive. More than one third of women between the ages
of 18 and 34, before they even get out of bed in the morning, they get their phone and
they check Facebook to see what's happening. That sounds compulsive too. And then there's our habit of responding every
time our phone beckons for our attention. What ever happened to self-control? Whatever happened to it? And time would fail us to speak of the indulgence
of pornography or all the gossip blogs out there, or when you're supposed to be working
and you click a link, and then click another link and another link, and before you know
it two hours have gone by and you've accomplished absolutely nothing. I believe in this world, self-control is a
lost virtue or a misplaced virtue at any case, and that may be especially true for people
who hold to reformed theology because it seems someone's always close to playing the legalism
card, that putting self-control in place might just be legalism putting rules in place, but
you know what? The Bible calls for self-control many times
in many different ways. It says it's an undeniable fruit of the holy
spirit, because the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. But this fast-paced digital world, it caters
to our desire for indulgence and we allow it to, and you know, once you relax self-control
in one area of life you just take your foot off the pedal a little bit there, you open
up your life for a whole cascade of sin and indulgence to creep in. You're never far from letting go in other
areas when you let go of one. So much, so much in this digital world brings
us so much good, but, like so much else it's good in moderation. It is best in moderation. When we let go of self-control, we find diminishing
returns. We become enslaved to those things, and the
more we do them, the less we enjoy them. That's the insanity of sin. So, reject indulgence and instead display
self-control. Put to death those compulsive behaviors and
bring to life the fruit of the spirit. Take ownership of your devices, of your technology
before they take ownership of you. Again, there's so many ways in this world
that we can use these things for good. There are so many ways we can use these new
devices to carry out that creation mandate and that great commission, so many ways you
can use your phone or your Facebook account to do good to others and bring glory to God,
but we're always surrounded by these temptations and we must, we must battle against them. So Christian, reject distraction, reject isolation,
reject indulgence and in their place put on concentration and mediation. Put on visibility and accountability, put
on discipline and self-control. These are personal temptations I believe each
one of us comes up against here in this digital world. There are three things to consider personally. Let me move now, shift focus a little bit
to families. This is an area in my own life that's growing
as I try and instruct people on the digital family, an area that's been very underserved
so far. So, I want to speak to parents here and give
you three ways you need to put off and put on in this digital world, three temptations
you will have and three ways to battle against them. Here are three instructions for you. The first instruction is this, reject ignorance
and choose education. Put off ignorance and put on knowledge. You know, whenever a new technology comes
into society, whenever it invades society, we always see this consistent pattern. The older people tend to reject that technology,
the younger people tend to embrace that technology, right? The older people, they're perfectly content
with their technologies as they exist now. I've got my printed Bible, I see no reason
I'd ever want to move to an iPad Bible, and that's fine, but the younger people, they
see this thing that is much more natural to them, and they jump all over that new thing. Now, here's what happens, when a new technology
comes along, the older people like parents, they tend to remain ignorant about that technology. They just aren't interested, they don't see
the value, they're even intimidated by it, and so they never bother to investigate it,
they never really bother to figure it out. Instead, they just hand these things over
to their children and let their children figure it out, and that means their children are
the ones who bear all the risk. Just think about the dawn of the internet,
you go back a few years, this thing called the internet came along and everyone was talking
about this thing, like ‘This thing is the future. Everybody, parents, you've got to get your
kids on the internet, this thing, they've got to know how to use this thing.’ And they were right. So, parents got the internet, they signed
up with AOL or whatever it was, they got an account, they handed it over to their children,
they said, ‘Kids, figure this thing out.’ And you've got an entire generation of young
men addicted to pornography. Why? Because the parents did not do what the parents
should have done. It's so easy to blame young men for what happened,
but I think we've got to shift at least some of the blame to the parents, the parents who
chose to remain ignorant, they did not investigate, they just handed it off to their children. So, I want to call upon you parents, to reject
ignorance and to choose education. As new technologies come along, as existing
technologies evolve, you need to remain educated about them. Before you hand your child that shiny new
gadget or before you allow them to join whatever the next big social network is, you need to
investigate. You need to educate yourself. You're here today, so you're off to a good
start. You're starting, but it's only a start. You need to make it a point to understand
what your children are doing, how they're using these things. You need to try the apps they're using, you
need to use the devices they use, you need to just go online and look for information. How are people using these things? What are these apps all about? Look for benefits and look for risks. Understand your temptation here, you will
face the temptation to just put it all aside, just let your kids go with it. It may be the least interesting thing in the
world to you, but you need to do it. I've been amazed at how many parents let their
children use that app called ‘SnapChat.’ As I traveled around, people ask me about
it often, "My child’s using this, should I be concerned?" Well, SnapChat is just an app, a very, very
popular app that allows people to share photos. No big deal, right? There's lots of apps that allow people to
share photos, but here's the catch, SnapChat's photos disappear after just a few seconds. So, it's there on your phone and then it's
gone. Now, why does that app exist? That app was created specifically so people
could share nude photos of them with one another, and not bear as much of the risk of other
people finding it or other people sharing it. But parents haven't done their groundwork,
they don't know why this app exists. It will be used that way sooner or later;
if that's why it was created, at some point the kids will use it that way, and then the
parents act shocked, "How could my child have done this?" Well, that's what the app is for, eventually
it will be used that way. That's just one of many examples. Parents, reject that temptation to be passive
and to remain ignorant, and instead force yourself to be educated about what your children
are doing and what they're using. Second instruction to parents, to families,
reject folly and choose responsibility. Put off foolishness and choose responsibility. Here's what I mean, today in this digital
world we're handing our children power tools and then we're acting all shocked and surprised
when they cut their hands off. That's absurd. Parents, we should expect that our children
will make serious mistakes as we use these things, especially if we're not guiding them. So parents, you don't just need to educate
yourself, you need to take the leading role in educating your children. You need to have a plan, you need to have
a plan for introducing new technologies to your home and to your children, and you need
to have a plan that monitors them as they use these things, because again, you will
face that temptation to just, to just hand them over. Instead, you need to embrace the responsibility
of having a plan, and that plan needs to account for training them, it needs to account for
monitoring them. Not too long ago, I spoke to someone whose
young child, and eight year old girl was waking up early in the mornings before mom and dad
were up, and she'd grab the family iPad and she would go and look at pornography on that
thing, an eight-year-old girl. But her parents had never taught her, they
had never imagined, they had never educated themselves, they never thought about how this
thing might be used. She had been exposed to something and before
her mind was even old enough to grasp what she was seeing, she was out looking for it. Think about training a child to drive a car,
the last thing you would do when your child turns 16 is just hand them the keys and say,
"Go out, have a good time, make sure you've got the car home by midnight." Right? That would be absurd. Instead, you get in the car with them and
you take them off to a mall parking lot or something and they drive around slowly, and
you introduce them to the different functions, and maybe if they do really well, you let
them drive home, and over time they earn the right to go farther and farther afield. Eventually, they earn the right to drive on
their own, eventually they earn the right to take other people in the car with them. As they prove themselves, they get more and
more privilege. As they fail, you revoke or rescind their
privileges. Parents, you have no business handing your
children a mobile phone or signing them up on Facebook or anything else without first
teaching them and guiding them. If the Bible says anything about children,
it says that folly is bound up in the heart of a child, right? It's the consistent message of Proverbs. Young people are lacking in wisdom, and they
desperately need you, you their parents need to guide them. So, when you give your child that computer,
that mobile phone, that social media account, you are giving them something that has immense
power. They can use it to do so much good, they can
use it to do so much evil, but if folly is bound up in the heart of a child you must
assume that unless you guide them, unless you instruct them, they will use it for bad
purposes, and so you need a plan, a plan that will help you help them use these things responsibly. I know it can seem like the hardest thing
in the world, but parents, you've just simply got to have a plan, you've got to train your
children. So, reject the folly of just handing all these
things to your children without instructing them, and instead embrace the responsibility
of training them. One last instruction, reject fear and choose
familiarity. After all I've said here, it would probably
be easy to just look out at the landscape and say, "You know what, it's not worth it. I'm taking the Amish approach here and just,
I will not have anything to do with these technologies. It's just not worth it. I see the risks, and I don't think the benefit
is worth it." I, as a parent, trust me, I've felt that same
thing, but we can't do that. We simply can't, because this is the world
our children need to live in. We can't go back to the last world that was
a world of books, right? We're in this digital world, and we have to
train our children to live in it. How much better is it for you to train them
to live in this world now than to just set them out later and have them figure out on
their own? So, this is your solemn responsibility before
the Lord – train them in the discipline and instruction of the Lord even as they use
a mobile phone, even as they get their first Facebook account, do not give in to fear. I'm often asked if people can – if I can
predict the next great wave of technology. You know, on the other side of this digital
world, what's coming next? What will be the next big thing? I never really know what to say except this,
as I look to the future, I can predict that God will use every one of these new technologies
in amazing ways. God will glorify Himself through them. No matter who created them, no matter what
they were created for, sooner or later God will do amazing things through that technology. How do I know? Because we can just look to history and see
it. When writing was first – when writing was
first invented or writing first came along, people started taking their thoughts out of
their minds and putting it down on paper. There were a lot of people who were very,
very concerned. They would say, "You don't know anything if
it's on paper instead of your brain." Christians were concerned, God followers were
concerned, but what did the Lord do? He recorded His own words, the Bible on that
paper, on that Papyrus. So, even today thousands of years later, we
can look at them and see this is what God's Word said. It was recorded there for us. One of the greatest technologies when Jesus
was on this earth was the Roman road system. What was it created for? To subjugate peoples, to move soldiers quickly
from one place to another. How did God use those Roman roads? Well, the same roads that carried the soldiers,
they carried the missionaries as they went out from Jerusalem into all the world taking
the gospel with them, they went over those roads and the gospel went quickly. The printing press came along in the 1500's,
people were terrified of this explosion of written material. What would happen? Historians even believe the very first thing
printed on Gutenberg’s press was a Roman-Catholic indulgence, it was right away being used for
bad purposes, but what happened? Soon, the printing presses were just churning
out Bibles, and that sparked reformation, and the Bible became the most printed and
best-selling book of all time. Radio came along, and suddenly the gospel
was being broadcast all over the world. Television came along, the gospel was being
broadcast on the television. Apps came along, and I'm grateful for those
Christians who saw the opportunity, because today, so many people are reading the Bible
on their phone, reading the Bible through an app, and that's great, that is good. More and more people are experiencing God's
word through their device, and that is OK, that's beautiful. So, let me end with this, we tend to think,
as we look out at this digital world, we tend to think no one has ever had to endure what
we are enduring today. No one has ever had to deal with anything
this intimidating, but, time after time, after time, all throughout history, the world has
witnessed these explosions in technology that have changed everything, and today we're at
the frontier of one of those. Literally, we're just figuring this out. It's up to you and I to figure out how to
use these devices to the glory of God. But, we can have every faith, we can have
every faith that someday we'll look at digital technologies like we look at the book today. We look at the book, we forget that it's technology,
but it is, and it's a beautiful technology. We look at it as if it's harmless, near perfect. We see all the benefits it brings us. So instead of fear, instead of fearing these
new things, get familiar with them. Instead of fearing with them, investigate
them and look, how can we use these things for God's glory? How can we use these things to advance God's
cause? As Christians, lets carefully evaluate and
investigate the benefits and the risks. Let's learn how we can use all of these things
to carry out God's calling. Let's use them all for the good of others,
and the glory of God. Thank you.
