From the Feed to the Word

Good morning, church. Great seeing all of you here this morning. We’re kicking off a new sermon series, a 4-week sermon series entitled Connected: Finding Real Community in a Digital World. And the truth is that we’re more digitally connected than ever, but we’re also more lonely than ever. This is what psychologists and others have reported, that loneliness is an epidemic in America today.

And though technology can draw us closer together, it can also push us apart. But the answer isn’t just ditching our devices, it’s refocusing what we’re devoted to. It’s making a decision to lean into what God really made us for. And he made us for himself and he made us for one another. And so that’s what this series is about.

We’re gonna just talk about how we can pull our affections away from those things that distract and put our affections more fully on the Lord. Now, for those of you that are here for the first time, you’re probably here because of Kids Fest this week. We invited you and you’ve come, and we got to hear the children give their, uh, their song they learned and some, uh, their Prove It verse, which was amazing, adults, right? I mean, that was a pretty long passage that they memorized. And so we’re thankful for them, and, and we love kids, and that’s why we make such a big deal about kids.

Jesus said, suffer the little children to come unto me, for such is the kingdom of heaven. And we believe that And so this week, thanks for sharing your kids with us. This week, all in the building all week long, the laughter, the singing, the hearing of the gospel. We’re so thankful that you trusted your kids with us. And speaking of guests, I wanna give a welcome to Pastor Ralph here, Ralph Downing and his wife, who’s here visiting with us today.

Give everybody a wave there, Pastor Ralph. He attends the monthly meeting of pastors our Christ Together for Wilson Pastors prayer that meets monthly. And so, uh, we’ve become prayer warriors together for this city, for the revival of this city. And I greatly appreciate, appreciate you, Pastor Ralph, being here today. Now, as, as we’re thinking about Kids Fest, I, I want to give you some feedback about how it went this week.

And we, we heard some of the things they learned. We saw a quick video of some of the things they did. But let’s get to really what matters most, and that’s this. How did they respond? How many came?

That sort of thing. And so we had 159 kids come to the Wilson campus. We had 63, so that’s 222 kids that we served this week, right? That’s awesome. 222 kids that we were able, we fed them dinner every evening.

We taught them the scripture. It was a fantastic week. Here’s a number that really matters a lot to me. 70%, 70% of the 222 kids did not, they don’t go to our church. They’re guests.

And so only 30% are members of our church. And I think that’s attributable, uh, to you inviting people to come to church. I’m so thankful your kids invited their friends to come to church and also your faithful giving to our It’s Time generosity initiative, which enabled us to, uh, spend money on our community engagement so that people knew that we were having this event. And so we’re thankful for you and your inviting and your generosity that made it possible for us to reach that many children. Did you know that we had a 1-to-1 ratio of volunteers to children?

So we had 222 kids and we had a little over that volunteers. We actually had more volunteers than we had kids at both campuses. That’s amazing, isn’t it? Now here’s, here’s the bottom line though. Did you know that 23 kids prayed to receive Jesus in Wilson this week?

23. And 13— I’m sorry, 15. 15 at the Rocky Mount campus, right? So that’s 38 kids that said yes to Jesus this week. And many other decisions were made as they heard a clear presentation of the gospel.

We had— I’m looking. Yeah, we had like 30-some kids in Wilson, about that many in Rocky Mount who said, hey, I want to know more about it. You know, I want you to tell me more about it. And some of them said, I want to be baptized. They’d already made a decision.

So this is what we were doing this past week, if you were wondering. I was talking to some of the volunteers a little bit ago and I said, how you doing? They said, I’m just now starting to recover. Okay, it was a full week, but wasn’t it worth it? Wasn’t it worth it?

Now, as we think about our kids, as we think about them, and as I think about them as a father and as a grandfather of 10 grandchildren now, and perhaps you’ve been thinking of some of the things I’ve been thinking, so many of our kids, as they come to be with us, and as grandparents they come with us, they all bring with them their iPads and their iPhones. They all bring it with them. And often I have to compete with those things just to talk to them as their pawpaw, right? This is a new phenomenon, but it’s not that new, but it’s becoming more and more, more and more connected to this generation. Uh, perhaps you’re concerned about it like I am, not just for the kids and the grandkids, But for me too, screen time, how much time we spend connected in the digital world.

Did you know that this past May, May 2026, that the Attorney General of the United States put out this? He put out the Surgeon General’s warning on the harms of screen use. He says this, children today spend more time on screens than sleeping, than exercising, or engaging face-to-face with friends. Family and friends. And we are seeing the consequences in rising rates of anxiety, depression, obesity, and developmental challenges.

And so it’s gotten so serious that it’s like a warning on the side of a cigarette package. So there ought to be a warning, Surgeon General’s warning, on the side of your smartphone, right? That, that too much use of this leads to— and you already heard the list. The advisory goes on to put out a study that says adolescents are now looking at screens 7 to 9 hours out of every day. 7 to 9 hours out of every day.

Last week in the sermon I reported I was gonna tell you more about this and I reported that sleeping is the number one human activity. If you took 70 years, you would say 20 years of your 70 years you spent being asleep. And then number 2 was looking at a screen. That’s what I said last week. I got it wrong with the next generation that’s coming up.

It’s actually, Screen time is now becoming more than sleep. Why? Because they take their smartphones and their pads to bed with them. And so we see students showing up at school and teachers— you teachers are reporting this to me— they show up exhausted and the teacher asks, why are you so tired? Because I didn’t go to sleep until 3 AM.

What were you doing until 3 AM? I was, I was looking at my phone. I was talking to my friends. I was watching reels. This is a problem that we’re seeing, and it’s a growing problem.

And now maybe some of you are doing the math right now, and you’re thinking, I wonder how many hours a day I spend looking at screens. It’s not just kids, and it’s not just grandkids. It’s not just adults. How much time am I spending looking at screens? And you’re trying to do the math on it.

And I got to tell you, I’ve done the math on it myself as I’ve been looking, and I’m concerned about it too for my 68-year-old self who grew up without all this stuff, but it’s easy to become too well connected to it. So here’s what the advisory says to parents. It says it isn’t just the amount of hours that they’re spending, it’s the irritability when you try to take the device away from them. It’s the secrecy. It’s the secrecy where they’re not telling you what they’re looking at.

It’s the withdrawal from everything in the real world so that they’re living in this fictitious world, this virtual world. It’s when you try repeatedly to take those devices away from them, the outrage that you experience from the children. You see, it’s more than a screen time problem, it’s a bondage problem. People are becoming addicted. Those are the marks of something that owns you.

There’s even a word for it now that psychologists have coined. It’s called nomophobia. You heard of this? No mo— no mobile phone phobia. It’s the anxiety you feel at the thought of being without your phone.

I got a dead battery. Wait a minute, there’s no signal. There’s no signal. Uh-oh, I left my phone at home. I got to turn around and go back home and get that thing.

I can’t leave home without it. Uh, psychologists describe real symptoms: agitation, racing heart, panic. We’ve invented a device that our bodies now grieve the absence of. I got to have my— I got to have it. Jonathan Haidt, the author of the book The Anxious Generation, he’s a, uh, social psychologist at New York University.

Not, not a Christian, a scientist reading the data. He says this, my central claim in this book is that these 2 trends, overprotection in the real world and underprotection in the virtual world, are the major reasons why children born after 1995 became the anxious generation. Overprotection in the real world, underprotection in the virtual world. We live in a world where a 12-year-old cannot ride their bicycle around the block without parental supervisory, you know, supervision, but we’ll give them the entire internet in a pad and send them to their room and let them go to bed with it. This is upside down.

We’ve locked the front door and left the back door swinging wide open because a feed is not neutral. A feed is not just a window that you’re looking into. It’s not just a window, but it’s a hand reaching back out towards you. We call it an algorithm. It’s built not to help you, it’s built to know you.

It’s built to know what you click on, what you scroll past, what you linger on. It’s built as a business model to make you linger and stay and keep gazing. It’s designed to own you. Now, to be clear, it doesn’t hate you. It’s just a machine, and an algorithm is just a mathematical formula, but it doesn’t care about you either.

And the truth is, we should all be concerned about what happens to you if you spend 8 hours a day doing anything. It’s forming our children. It’s forming us right now. Something that doesn’t care about us, doesn’t desire any good for us. It only wants to sell us something.

This is not a new problem. It’s an old ache in new clothes. Listen to the Apostle John, an old man writing his second letter. It’s in the Bible, 2 John, verse 12. He says, though I have much to write to you, I’d rather not use paper and ink, Instead, I hope to come to you and talk face to face so that our joy may be complete.

Here he is 2,000 years ago and he says, pen and paper’s not good enough. It’s the best I can do right now. I’m gonna send you this letter, but I can’t wait to be with you face to face so that our joy may be complete because real connection happens face to face.

Can you just kind of think about that? Real connection The way God made you happens face to face. And that leads us to our series theme verse, and this is how we’ll roll out our 4 sermons during this season. What are we supposed to be devoted to? What should we spend our time doing?

And the book of Acts says that the first century church devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and the prayers. And so that kind of gives us the formula for the next 4 sermons, and we’ll start with the apostles’ teaching, which is Scripture. They were devoted to that. The Apostle Paul, in his second letter to Timothy, says he urges Timothy to be devoted to the Scriptures. Why?

Why does he want him to be devoted? Why should we be devoted to the Scriptures? And so that’s what our message is about. The text gives us 3 reasons why we are called to be devoted to the Scripture. So let’s go to 2 Timothy chapter 3, we’ll pick up at verse 14, and we’ll see what the Apostle Paul tells his spiritual son in the Lord Timothy about what you should be living most of your life spending time and devotion towards.

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. This is God’s Word. Amen. Looking for 3 reasons why be devoted to God’s Word.

Here’s the first. Because it leads us to Christ. Why does the Apostle Paul tell Timothy to be continually in God’s Word, devoted to God’s Word? Because it makes us wise unto salvation. It leads us to Christ.

Paul begins with this phrase, but as for you, and that’s the transition from who he’s been talking about. He talks about those who are evil people and imposters, This is verse 13, who go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. And so there are all kinds of opinions. There’s all sorts of sources of truth. We have more access to knowledge today than we’ve ever had.

It all comes to us. All we have to do is Google it. And you don’t even have to punch it in anymore. You can hit that little microphone thing and just ask it the question. And it goes out into the Google universe and gives us the truth.

Or at least as it can discover. And so everyone’s an expert now. We don’t need doctors and lawyers and pastors anymore. We don’t need people who go to school and learn how to do all these things. We can just Google it.

We can know these things. But the Apostle Paul says, don’t be deceived. As for you, Timothy, I want you to stay in what you’ve learned and what you put your faith in, what you’ve believed. And you learned this from your childhood. This is what he says, look, but as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you’ve been acquainted with the sacred writings, which is the Scriptures, the Holy Scriptures, sacred writings.

But as for you, Instead of spending your time listening to all these contrary voices, listen to the Scripture. Devote yourself to that. There’s really only one— if you read this in the Greek, which is the original language of the New Testament, there’s really only one imperative verb here, and it arrives early in verse 14, but as for you, continue in. And that’s the That’s the command, Paul, continue in. That could be translated, be devoted to, spend your time, abide in would be a really good translation.

But as for you, live in, pitch your tent here in God’s Word, continue in it, abide in it, be devoted to it. And then he begins to tell, Timothy, why, why? And the first reason he gives is in verse 15, and he says, because it’s able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. It reveals Jesus to us. I’m always telling people, when you read the Bible, look for Jesus on every page.

Look for Jesus on every page, because the book, it tells us about us, it tells you about you, it tells you about me, But it’s mostly a book about God. And it’s mostly pointing us so that we might have faith and salvation in Jesus Christ. He refers to his childhood, what you learned and what you firmly believed. What’s the context of this? What, continuing what you grew up in, what you had from your childhood.

All we have to do is go back a couple chapters and see how he opened up his second letter to Timothy. He’s talking about this. 2 Timothy 1:5, I think this is what he’s connecting to. He says, I’m reminded of your sincere faith, the faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and now I’m sure dwells in you as well. And so he says, hey, you grew up with your mother and your grandmother Lois and Eunice teaching you the sacred scriptures, teaching you God’s word, continue in that.

Don’t go astray from that. Boy, that’s a great testimony. Paul knows Timothy really well. He’s known him since he was young. He calls him his spiritual son in the Lord.

He loves him. He knew his, he knew his mother and his grandmother. And so, uh, he, he names them and goes, hey, you need to continue. They were trustworthy. Look at their life.

Look at how they followed God. And now they pass the scriptures on to you and says, I’ve taught you. And, and so there’s credible sources that have passed this on to you. Parents, grandparents, I hope you’re acting as Lois and Eunice did for Timothy. I hope you’re passing on the word of God to them that, that can make you wise unto salvation so that your children can join you in heaven someday.

Because of all the, all the accomplishments that you could educate your children for and all, all the ways you could, you could help them, it seems to me that you could give them the opportunity for the gift of eternal life would be one of the greatest gifts you could give them. And so he says, keep in that because it makes you wise unto salvation. Now look, I gotta say, I don’t know who Lois and Eunice are, but they sound like they’re from Black Creek to me. They sound really local. And I have kind of a testimony like Timothy.

Some of you have Timothy testimonies. And when I was younger, I thought I’d go to a revival service or something and I would hear someone give their testimony and they would be like, yeah, I was so bad.

I was doing this. I was, I was, I, you know, I was in prison and, you know, I, you know, I killed somebody. I mean, they would tell these horrible things and you’ll all be like, wow, you really were bad. And but then Jesus came, but God, and, and they would have these testimonies of this like road to Damascus, the Apostle Paul being blinded. And I would be like, man, that’s a great testimony.

And then somebody would ask me, Gary, what’s your testimony? I’d go, I got a Timothy testimony and I’d kind of apologize for it. You know, like my mother and grandmother, ’cause my father died when I was 8 years old and my mother and my grandmother raised me from my infancy in the scriptures. That wasn’t Lois and Eunice, it was Wilda and Eddie Elizabeth.

And there’s my grandmother with a big old black Bible on her lap and I can still see her reading it to myself and all the grandkids. She had 21 of them, so she kept her busy. I’m thankful now for a boring Timothy testimony. I thought it was a problem at one time. Like Paul says, you got a Timothy testimony, don’t depart from it.

And if you don’t have a Timothy testimony, maybe you got a Paul testimony, don’t depart from that either. Continue in it. Here’s what Jesus said, as he talked about the scriptures, and he’s talking to those who are even students of the scriptures in John chapter 5, he says, you search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life. And it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. He was even teaching those that were students of the scriptures, but yet they had not believed in him because they proclaim him.

Google Maps can lead you to a place, But only God’s Word can lead you to a person, and that’s the person of Jesus Christ. Do you know him today? And this is one of the main reasons why Paul says that we are to devote ourselves. And to do that, to devote yourself to something means that you’re not devoting yourself to something else. And here’s the real meaning of worship, I think.

It’s to pull your affections off of your idols and to put them on Jesus. To pull them off, that’s— and to put them on. And so to pull them off, sometimes that’s what you got to do. And you’ll lose, you’ll lose 30 minutes or an hour sometimes. You didn’t even notice how it happened.

It’s because this thing just pulls you in. Ask yourself, what receives my first Priority attention each day. How do I start my day? Do I start it with the news? Do I start it with, uh, that which was formerly known as Twitter, X?

Do I start it with Instagram? How do I start my day and then wonder why am I anxious the rest of the day? Or do I give the first part of my day, give my first attention abiding and continuing in God’s word? This is the first reason that he gives for why you should continue, because it leads you to salvation in Jesus. Here’s the second reason he gives, we find it in verse 16.

It’s because it speaks with God’s authority. Why, why should you give your attention to this book? Because it’s the only book in the library. It’s only the only book in the, in the library of the world that speaks with God’s authority. Look at verse 16.

All scripture— how much of the scripture?

All, all Scripture is breathed out by God. Interesting Greek word, theopneustos. It’s a compound Greek word. It only occurs one time in the New Testament. In Greek studies, they call it a hapax legomenon, a one-word only, only one word.

It— that’s if you’re studying Greek and you’re trying to build up your Greek vocabulary, which I I used to call it baby Greek ’cause I had to rock it to sleep every night. I mean, it’s just studying Greek. But that word only happens once. Thank you, Paul. Only once.

It’s nowhere else in the whole Bible. It’s translated here, all Scripture is breathed out by God, but it literally is all Scripture is God-breathed. Theos, God, pneustos, breath, spirit. God inspired.

It was written by over 40 human authors over a period of 1,600 years. There’s no other book like it, but its internal claim is that God breathed it into these men who then wrote it down. He did not do harm to their personalities or the way they spoke. If they were Hebrew, they spoke in Hebrew. If they were in In 2,000 years ago time when the national or the international language, really the language of the marketplace was Koine Greek, which means common Greek, they wrote it in Greek.

They wrote with their own personality because when God breathes life into you, he retains your personality, but then he breathes his word into you. And so when they wrote it down, they wrote exactly what the Spirit told them to write. But according to the way they would write. Does that make sense? I could talk more about it, but that’s what is all there.

All scripture is God-breathed. All scripture is theopneustos. It’s all God-breathed. If you don’t get anything else, get that. There’s no other book like it on planet Earth.

God wrote a love letter, and it’s to you, and it’s to me. It’s breathed out by God. And it’s, it’s not just a book that you ought to be like, well, that’s a really important book, let’s put it in a— and on, you know, like let’s put it under glass and let’s present like that. No, it’s profitable. It doesn’t just belong in a museum.

It’s profitable. It’s useful. It’s practical. You can use it for your life. How could you use it?

He gives us 4 ways you can use it. You can use it for teaching, which teaches you what’s right. You want to know what’s right? Put this in your hard drive.

It reproves, it shows you what’s wrong. So it teaches you what’s right, it proves to you what’s wrong, it reproves you. It corrects, it gets you back on the right path. Interesting Greek word, I’ll stop on this one. I don’t think I’m going to give you any more Greek, but here’s another, I couldn’t help it on this one.

The word correction has at its root ortho, like orthodontist, straighten your teeth. Orthopedic surgeon, straighten out your crooked leg, right? And it’s the idea of to straighten out that which is crooked, correction. You got to admit there was some meat on the bone there, I had to give it to you. It puts you back on the right path.

And then the word training, it teaches you how to stay on that path so that you— 4 ways that that this God-breathed book, this Word, is useful teaching, reproof, correction, and training. In what? In righteousness. And what is righteousness? It’s that which satisfies God.

It’s that which pleases God. You want to please God? Get in his Word. Let it saturate your— saturate your thinking and your soul and God’s Word is more powerful than any human algorithm. In fact, the book of Hebrews describes it like this: For the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit and of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

It’s like a scalpel. It’s like a surgeon. And it tells you who you are and who God wants you to be and how to live in a relationship, righteous relationship with him, and how to live in a righteous relationship with others.

I spent years before the pastorate running drugstores. I used to be a district manager for a major drugstore chain for 12 years. And one of the things that you learn as a retailer, and you’ve heard it before, the customer is always— customer is always right. That’s not a moral principle, that’s a business principle. You want the customer to be happy so they’ll stay in your store and keep buying stuff.

And that’s the algorithm, it’s the business principle. You’re always right. Stay.

Buy more. Speaking of that, have you ever been like looking— not on social media now— you’re over here at the walmart.com or the amazon.com and you look for something that you’d like to buy. You’re not ready to buy it yet, but you’re looking at it. Or you’re over there at cars.com or wherever it is .com, you looked at a certain vehicle, and then the next time you open your social media, there that car is. Every place I go, that car there, that car is again.

And then you just feel like, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta have that car.

Doesn’t matter if you got the money. I feel like I gotta have it. Well, that’s what is going on with that algorithm. It’s almost like the first time that happens to you and that pops up and you go, I gotta get— what? I believe the devil’s in there.

And maybe he is. I’m not talking about the phone, I’m not talking about the algorithm. I’m just saying he’s out there and maybe he takes advantage of it. Now what if doctors thought like business people thought? What if they said that the patient is always right?

What if that— what if doctors thought that way? You come to the doctor, you pay your copay, you pay your 20% or whatever the insurance company says you’ve got to pay, and the doctor says you’re doing great. Take some tests. They look at the test. You’re awesome.

Year from now, you’re dying. Go back to the doctor and you say, why’d you tell me that? Well, I thought it might make you feel better. Plus, I want you to come back for your annual checkup because I’m trying to make some money off of you. Boy, what kind of doctor would that be?

That’s got to be malpractice, doesn’t it? I mean, so here’s the diagnostic. Your feed is a salesman. God’s Word is a physician, the Great Physician. And only one of them is telling you the truth.

Only one of them cares about you. When was the last time your Bible told you something you didn’t want to hear? Because it— every time I open it, it tells me something I didn’t want to hear. It corrects. It sets straight that which is crooked.

And boy, it doesn’t take me but 24 hours to get some things out of line.

It teaches, it exposes, it corrects, it trains. It’s God-breathed. And the goal of God’s Word is to bring you into alignment with God’s Spirit and God’s will so that he might breathe into you, make you a new creation. And so he’s given us 2 reasons now why we should continue in God’s Word. He says it’s because it It makes you wise unto salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

It’s God-breathed. It has God’s authority. And here’s the third reason he gives. It’s because it equips us for good work.

It equips. It’s practical. It equips us. We’re at verse 17 now, and here we arrive at the purpose clause. Here’s where the plane lands.

That the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. Verse 17. You want to be complete? You want to be whole spiritually? Spiritually whole, healthy spiritually, relationally, physically, mentally?

God’s Word, it equips you unto completion. It completes so that you can live according to God’s purpose for your life so that you accomplish the work he made you for. And make no mistake, you were made for a reason. You’re not an accident. God made you for his purposes.

He has a purpose for your life. He loves you and he’s called you and he’s given you this love letter, his word, to make you complete. This is why we should pull our affection off of other distracting things and devote it to God’s Word so that we might be complete, equipped. This word equipped, some translations say thoroughly equipped, has the idea perhaps of someone on a job site that’s got his toolbox and his uniform, or maybe a soldier who the military has equipped with the uniform and all the weapons needed and all the things to take care of every possible mission that’s been given to them. It has that idea that God’s Word is so practical that it equips you and completes you.

But you have to do it. You can’t just read it and forget it. That’s what James says in chapter 1 of James. He said, be doers of the Word, not hearers only, deceiving yourself. It’s not enough just to know it.

You have to do it. You have to carry it out. You have to practice it. Ephesians, Paul says to the church at Ephesus, he said, we’re, we’re God’s workmanship. Created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

You were made for a purpose. He’s prepared you for it.

You ever, you ever driven by or walked into a fire station? There’s one over here on, on Forest Hills. Every time I drive to the church, there’s a flashing yellow light there unless the alarm goes off, and then it turns red and the garage doors open and the fire truck comes out. And that happens sometimes. You got to wait for that and let them go because they’ve got an emergency.

You got to let them go. If you ever look in there, they are thoroughly equipped. They are thoroughly— they got, they got these fancy trucks and sirens. They got uniforms they wear that keep them safe in, in, in heat and in fire. They’ve got oxygen masks and they’ve got all kinds of axes and drills.

They’ve got this thing called the jaws of life that can open up a car that’s been in a car accident. They’ve got They’re thoroughly equipped up in there. But imagine this, imagine a fire station and the alarm goes off. They’ve been training, they got all the equipment, the alarm goes off and the garage door don’t open. They go, we’re good.

That wouldn’t be a fire station, that would be some kind of club.

And that’s a lot of churches. We, we’re thoroughly equipped, but the bell goes ring and we don’t get up and move. And the bell’s ringing today, friends.

Be doers of the Word. You want to be complete? Go do it. Devote yourself to it and then go do it. And, and so we— I guess if you were to look at our church, we might be one of the best-equipped churches We got— we’re very highly equipped here, and the bell’s been ringing the whole time.

How are you answering it? Not just hearing it, not just reading it, not just studying it, but also doing it. And so you hear that someone in your community group been in the hospital, and they just got home, and you want to help them out, but you don’t want to bother them. So you send them a text message with 3 emojis because you really love them.

It would scare them to death probably if you showed up and rang the doorbell and brought them a meal that you personally prepared. Now don’t stay too long. They’re not feeling well. But when the bell rings, You’re equipped. Go.

You’ve been equipped to pray for them. You’ve been equipped to pray over them in faith. Go and say, hey, I’m just going to drop off this food for you. I love you. Just want to pray for you for a minute, and then I’m going to get out of here.

I hope you enjoy the meal. It would— people would be like, you know, my own family doesn’t love me like that.

My own family doesn’t love me like that. What if we started being the people Getting back to what we’re really talking about here, who experience the complete joy of living life face to face. So that as we devote ourselves to God’s Word, we get face to face as his Holy Spirit breathes life into us, this God-breathed Word. And then he empowers us to go and live face to face with each other, not like some I see sitting around a table at the restaurant, 4 people all with their phones waiting for their food, no conversation. But what if we started saying, I’m going to put that away.

I’m not saying you need to throw it in the garbage. I’m not saying you need to smash it on your driveway. I’m just saying learn some self-control from the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, give me some self-control to, to say no to that so I can say yes to more face-to-face relationships with God and one another.

So when the bell rings, are you going to answer? When the bell rings and God calls you to do something, you’ve made time for it. Our feeds promise connection, but they really leave us distracted, divided, and spiritually hungry.

God’s Word offers something better. It gives us the wisdom to have faith in Jesus and to receive salvation. It speaks with God’s authority and equips us thoroughly for God’s work. So the invitation today is not throw away your phone, it’s to examine who or what has your devotion. Your feed is constantly being refreshed, but it can never refresh your soul.

Only God can do that. And go back to verse 15, because I don’t want this passage in this sermon to become like a burden of, of making you feel guilty. Remember what this Bible promises. Verse 15, it’s able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ. It’s not your devotion to God’s word that saves you.

It’s your devotion to God’s word that gives you the wisdom to put your faith in Jesus. See, that’s the gospel. It’s God, it’s Jesus that saves. And as you’ve been sitting here thinking and you’ve been doing the math going, I wonder how many hours a day I’m giving to screens, and I wonder how many hours a day my children, my, my teens are giving. And as you’re letting that all work out, the enemy would love nothing more today for you to walk out of here and make some kind of new resolution in your own strength that you’ll fail at.

So let me give you a breath of fresh air. Let me give you the good news from Jesus, because the gospel is not try harder. The gospel’s not make a new resolution. Try harder never made anybody complete. There is a word that was breathed out, and, and here it is.

And there is a word, John tells us, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And then in verse 14, and the Word became flesh. He left heaven and he visited us. He came in person. He didn’t just send a text, an Instagram.

He didn’t even write with pen. He came in person and he became one of us, and he took our sin upon himself, and he died on a cruel cross. Took my death, took my shame, took my sin, took my separation from the Father, crying out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

That’s what he did. And then on the 3rd day, he was raised back to life again so that all who place their faith in him might have that which he laid aside on our behalf so that we could have his eternal life, we could have his righteousness. And we could have his adoption and be part of God’s family. That’s the good news. And we can be devoted to this Word, not, not because we come to it doing or earning, but because we come to it as a table that’s been set by someone else for us.

So are you hungry?

Come and let him fill you. Are you lost? Let him find you. Come and surrender and let him save you. Why be devoted to his word?

Because he spoke. He wrote you a letter. Why not read it? Why not meet Jesus? Do you know him today?

Let’s pray.

Father, I first of all pray for that person that’s here today and you’ve never given your life to the Lord. You never surrendered your life to Jesus. The scripture says that if you confess that Jesus is Lord with your mouth and, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. And so I invite you right now, right in your seat, right where you are, to pray. You can pray like this: Dear Lord Jesus, I’m a sinner, but I believe you died on the cross for me, that you were raised from the grave, that you live today.

Come and live in me. Forgive me of my sin. I confess you as my Savior and my Lord. Adopt me into your family. I want to be a child of God and follow you all the days of my life.

I surrender my life to you. If you’re praying that prayer of faith, believing he’ll save you. Others are here today and you’re a believer, you’re a follower of Jesus, but this word has convicted you. And so don’t leave beat up, but leave with the grace of Jesus, knowing that he who commands and calls also empowers, and say, Lord, would you give me the wisdom now to devote myself more fully to your word and to have self-control in the area of screen usage for myself, but also for my children and for my grandchildren, so that we rightly learn to use these tools that can be good, but they can also be tools of evil if improperly used. Lord, give us wisdom and grace in this.

In Jesus’ name, amen.