[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, thanks so much for listening to this message. My name is Jason and I'm one of the ministers here at the Madison Church of Christ. It's our hope and prayer that the teaching you hear today will bless your life and draw you closer to God. If you're ever in the Madison area, we'd love for you to stop by and study the Bible with us on Sundays at 5pm or Wednesdays at 7pm if you have questions about the Bible or want to know more about the Madison Church, you can find us
[email protected] be sure to subscribe to this podcast as well as our Sermons podcast, Madison Church of Christ Sermons. Thanks again for stopping by. I hope this study is a blessing to you.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: Okay. All right, so I'm going to go ahead and get straight to it tonight because we do have a lot to cover. And I want to go ahead and tell you this. Tonight's topic is a very heavy one, but I think it'll create a good discussion. But also, more than anything, I think it'll give us the openness that we're going to talk about is where forgiveness is expressed, experienced, healing is experienced. And so I am glad that we are talking about what we're going to talk about tonight. Now, before I get into it, when you see on the screen what you see right there, forsake the fake and relish the real, I don't know what pops into your mind, but maybe one of the things that might pop in your mind that you're thinking we're going to cover tonight in class is social media. You know, a lot of times what we see, of course, is people's highlight reels. And when we compare where they're at to where we're at, it can cause us at times to not appreciate what we have. And so we go after, you know, what maybe is fake or maybe is real, but it causes us to miss out in the realness we have. And so if you think we're talking about social media, we are. And you also might see this topic and think, well, I bet what they're also going to talk about is pornography. Because, you know, when you think about the fake, you know, you think about the images that might be in front of people's eyes or in front of your eyes, and how when you've made that choice and forsook what was real for the fake, you kind of felt that sinking feeling inside. But also you've seen where it's led you. So if you think we're going to talk about pornography tonight, we are.
And if you also look at that and think, well, he could be talking about video games and that's impact. And if you think we're talking about video games, we are. You might also look at that and think it could be alcohol.
I've maybe used alcohol to cover up something for a bigger issue that I have. And so I went after something that I thought would deliver and turns out that I missed out or hurt the people that I love the most. The real. And so, again, I don't know what pops in your head when you hear that or see that phrase, but I do want to address this from the very beginning that I know we have a lot of different people with a lot of different backgrounds. And some of you, you might even get a little anxiety as we talk about some of the things I just mentioned. Your mind might go back to like fifth and sixth grade and the uncomfort conversation that your PE coach had with you. That's not how I view this tonight, and I hope you don't either.
I love so much Brandon's class, if you never had an opportunity to go through it, where we have an open discussion about sexuality, we have an open discussion about how our brains work and how we deal with different temptations. And so that's what I want us to view this as, something like that. And maybe some of you, as you sit there, you wonder, is this even a needed or talked about subject that we need even mention in a class?
And one of the several things that I thought about, especially with the pornography part, is so over the past few years, anytime I get asked to do a marriage workshop or a family retreat or something like that, I have my standard lessons that I go to. But I also know that some people have specific needs at their churches. So what I'll do is I'll say, hey, these are things that I've talked about before. What would you like?
And every single time but one. And then also between now and the next year with marriage retreats, every single one of the churches has picked, except for one pornography that. Will you please talk about it? Will you please address it? And so again, whether you see it as an issue within the church, it is. But I also see that from this standpoint, we all play a role in supporting each other in whatever battles each other might be facing. And I'll give you this as an example. Think about the Sermon on the Mount. You know, Jesus in Matthew 5 and 6, as he's teaching all these things, he gets to marriage. And there were probably people in that crowd that were not married. But he didn't say, hey, listen, if y'all please excuse yourselves for just a second, all the married folks leave, then we're going to talk about marriage, and then y'all can come back. That's not how he viewed it. He saw, you know, he was already creating a little bit of that understanding that we are part of the body of Christ. So we do serve a role in encouraging and supporting each other in this. So I do want to give us that from the very beginning, when we are about to deal with some very heavy stuff, to keep in mind that we all play a role in supporting each other, but being supportive within the body of Christ, because our kids are going to go through stuff, our friends are going to go through stuff. And a mindset that we have will help us to respond when we do hear certain things. So when I see this, one of the things that I think about is how I have had times in my life where something felt like it would be the right thing. It felt good, but it turned out to not be what I thought it was going to be. And I think we understand that sin works like that a lot of times. What oftentimes causes us to fall into a certain sin maybe, is that we thought of it to be one thing, and it turned out to be a completely another thing on a very superficial level. I'll give you an example.
I've seen this a lot with. Since you could purchase things online that I thought I was buying one thing. Then I got it from temu. It was completely different than what I thought I was going to be getting. One of the first times that this happened to us was a few years ago. We asked our boys what they wanted for their birthday and what kind of birthday party we were going to do a joint birthday party. And they were still young enough to accept that. And so we were trying to take advantage of the joint birthday party thing. And I said, what do y'all want to do? And they said, we want a LeBron James Lakers birthday party. I was like, okay. They said, but we want Lakers jerseys. Like, we want LeBron jerseys. I was like, that's. No. Okay, that's not too bad. We were already saving money combining the birthdays, so I went to the store to go purchase, as I thought, a LeBron James jersey.
You don't know how much those things are.
So, long story short, I was like, okay, I'm not buying that. I mean, it was more. Those two jerseys were gonna be more than the birthday party itself. And so I had A buddy of mine named Philip that was like, man, there's this thing called dhgate.
It's this company in China, and you gotta use the app. And I got on there, and it was super sketchy. He said, and I'll go and tell you, you don't. You know, you might get it in a month. You might get in a month and a half, so you might want to order it now. And So I bought two LeBron James Lakers jerseys for under 20 bucks. So I was super excited about what I purchased. The pictures look great. Then we get them, and turns out a size like 1012 in China is like a 4, 6 in the US and then cams like 7, 8 turned out to be like a 2, 3, you know, like a toddler size. So they get these shirts, and it kind of looks a little bit like a belly shirt. But then the problem was when we washed them, all the colors blended together. And the purple wasn't as deep purple. It was more like a light hue. And the purple and the yellow had a baby, and that's the color of the jersey. And so again, we thought we were, you know, gonna have one thing, and we got a whole nother thing. Another time that I remember this, I was. I looked everywhere for the picture, and I even text. The lady that I knew took it. She was trying to find it. And if I get it, I'll try to show it to you individually. And I don't want to embarrass him, but he was fine with this. So when we were getting. It was around Halloween time, and kids at, you know, we homeschool, so you don't get a lot of opportunities to get out. So since we did, we were like, all right, we're gonna, you know, dress up for Halloween through our home school. So everybody, you know, was dressing up in that homeschool group. And as you can already tell by my fact that I bought a LeBron James jersey that came in the same day for the birthday party that was under 20 bucks that I'm cheap. So Cruz said, hey, dad, we had to dress up for school tomorrow as ninjas. I was going to dress up. I want to dress up as a ninja. Excuse me. I said, okay, awesome. He said, if you go to Walmart like that, I already saw it. They had this whole outfit. I was like, oh, there's no need to buy a whole outfit.
You can make a ninja costume. I said, just, you got some black sweatpants, you got a black shirt, and then Mom's got some fabric. We'll just, like, I'll cut it and, like, do the little eye thing and put two holes in it and you can see out it. And then we'll go Dollar Tree and buy some, like, ninja swords. So that's exactly what we did. Okay. And keep in mind, I have one kid that would call me out and say, I'm not going in that. Cruz. Really, he's a sweet boy. And he was. He's like, okay, that's fine. And so I cut it out and, like, the eyes are not really straight. And then he gets the swords and he's tucked some into his sweatpants, and he walks in. And when he walks in, no kidding, his best friend that goes to Robert Stale, that was also in our homeschool group, he had the outfit that you get at Walmart and crew saw in him. And he walked back and he starts walking towards me. He goes like this, like, I'm not going in there. And so we got a picture of them together. And y'all, it is awfully. It's terrible and awful, but also hilarious at the same time, right? It was one of those pictures that, you know, he had this picture in his mind of what it was going to be, but it didn't turn out well.
That's the way that a lot of things are, right? A lot of the things that really seem like it's something turns out to be nothing. We've seen this throughout Scripture, and especially in this instance where we are convinced we're getting one thing, we end up getting another. Go back to the Garden of Eden. If you remember, Adam and Eve were living a awesome life with God. They were basically experiencing heaven on earth. God said, listen, just don't eat of this tree. Well, then, of course, Satan shows up and he talks to him and says, hey, listen, I know he said, don't eat of this tree. But, you know, if you eat of this tree, it promises that it will actually make you like God. And you got to try to put yourself in their shoes. If they're thinking, they're thinking, well, I mean, if I could be like, God, we love God, and what we have with God is great. So this sounds like it's a really real thing. And the Bible even mentions what they're about to do is to exchange the truth of God for a lie.
And so what they do is they eat that fruit, and instead of it delivering what they thought it was going to deliver, what did it deliver? It delivered emptiness. It delivered isolation. And I know we have that verse to describe this moment, which, by the way, very well Placed leaves in hair.
But I thought. I love this verse a lot that really describes it. Food gained by fraud. It tastes sweet, but one ends up with a mouthful of gravel. I like that verse for several reasons. Number one, if you're looking for like an emo punk rock band name, Mouthful of Gravel is a really good one. The second reason that it's good is because it's so true that we thought something would deliver. And instead of life being more full because of it, we've had less life.
One of the examples that the book gives, and we're going to get into a deeper example here in just a second.
One of them was this girl that she wrote about her experiences when she was trying to find love, as she put it, in the NFL and the NBA. She wanted to have that kind of life. And so what she did is she slept with a lot of people that were in the NFL and a lot of people in the NBA. And one of the quotes she made that she mentioned in the book, which is a very sad thing, is she said this. I just thought that one of them would love me. Now that's an example. But notice what she's asking and thinking, really, I just thought one of them would what, give me connection, right? One of them would actually love me.
But the means to which she found to try to experience that connection was resorting to that. All right, here's another example the book gives. If you've read the book, you've seen this one. This is very eye opening.
In 2022, Forbes magazine did a study trying to look at how things are progressing when it comes to pornography, where things are, I guess, with anything related to that industry. And they found that sex robots and their purchasing had gone up 51%.
And what was interesting about it, according to their article, is that when they interviewed the guy that is producing like the biggest plant producing these sex robots, what he said is this, that we cannot keep up with the demand.
In fact, as you read the book before, he talks about how the.
The 51%, it would have been way more if they could have produced more. He said, we can't keep enough in stock. And he said, but here's what's interesting is when we. And two things I want to tell you that I think is interesting about it. He said, when we were talking to the guy that produced them, he said this, he said, you would have thought that all of this is just about sexual pleasure, that what they were after. He said, but actually what we found is the one thing that they talk about is the connection that they were experiencing. The sex robot would ask me questions, how am I doing? And how my day was. But here's where it would begin and end, is that when the sex robot, being that it's not a real woman, that it wasn't fulfilling all of my needs, that they would go and purchase another sex robot to see if that one would. They would purchase another sex robot to see if that one would. And on and on it goes. And the other part that was very interesting was, is not just the fact that they were highlighting the fact that it was really about the connection and the intimacy that they were looking for. But here's the other thing that was interesting is. And this is mentioned, yes, in the book, but if you look up some other things about it is that those that are going after the sex robots, purchasing one, then purchasing another, a lot of their lives lead to anxiety, depression, and many have led to suicide.
And so, you know, those are just a few examples of the things we're talking about. And so I was thinking the book made these two quotes.
And I know when we hear this, we could. And we'll get to this in a second. Yes, we're covering a lot, right? Sex robots, pornography, social media. But I've decided to put a blank here because this could be anything. When blank is under the veneer of companionship and connection. Instead of calling you out on the ways that we need to be a better person and leaders, it makes us less of one.
And one of the quotes he had here next that I thought was really interesting is he said, the female mind is one that adds to us, challenges us, compliments us, confounded us, confronts us, and makes us grow. Basically, what he's getting at is the sex robots. They're not challenging the man. They're only giving the man the answers that he wants. They're only giving him the ways to meet his own desires. He said, but the beauty of the female mind is she challenges us. And I don't know if you guys felt like this going into marriage and then felt different maybe a year or two after marriage, but did a lot of you going into marriage think that you were a very, very patient person before marriage.
Maybe this is just me, but if you would ask me if Donnie Hilliard sat with me. Andrew, do you think you're patient? Oh, yeah. Well, turns out I'm not as patient as I thought I was. Okay.
Andrew, you know, do little things get under your skin? No, not really. Turns out little things really do get under my skin. But here's what this is not a knock on my wife. This is a realization though too, that I think we would all say that because I have been challenged, also been complimented, but also at the same time, while the confounding part happens, I've also experienced growth in all of that. And so that's kind of what he's getting at here is a lot of times we're picking the path of least resistance, but the challenge is that there's not a lot of growth that sometimes is taking place. So this is one of the things he says in the book.
He says my sin is a sin. We could say my addiction is an addiction.
My struggle is a struggle, whatever it is. And the reason is because it stops me from being who I'm supposed to be and what I could have been. So I want us to look at two passages. The first one is Proverbs 5. I want you to turn there with me. And yes, this is a text that is written to warn us about adultery, and it's one that is warning us about the dangers of sexual sin. But in this text, it does highlight some very important things that we have to keep in our hearts and minds as we are challenged with a lot of different things. So if someone will read, go ahead and read verses one through three.
My son, pay attention to my wisdom. Lend your ear to my understanding that you may preserve discretion and your lips may keep knowledge.
[00:17:42] Speaker C: For the lips of an immoral woman.
[00:17:44] Speaker B: Drip honey and her mouth is smoother than oil. Alright, stopping there for a second. A few things. Notice, he says in the text, My son, incline your ear to my understanding, so you may have understanding. And guard your lips that you may guard knowledge. So notice what he's doing here. He's actually saying, hey, I need your eyes and I need your attention, but I also need your ears and your understanding. He's like saying, I need in order. And one of the things that the commentary brought out is in order for this to happen, there has to be a quiet mouth.
So this means that we have to put ourselves in a posture to listen and to see what is a reality in order to understand and comprehend. So it's like I need you to incline all of your senses. Okay, read verses four through nine.
[00:18:38] Speaker D: But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two edged sword. Her feet go down to death, her steps take hold on hell, lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life. Her ways are movable, that thou canst not know them.
Hear me now therefore, O ye children, and depart not from the words of my mouth. Remove thy way far from her, and some not nigh the door of her house. Least thou give thou honor unto others, and thy years unto the cruel.
[00:19:17] Speaker B: Now, the part about that I want to highlight, look at verse 8.
Keep away from her, and do not even go near the door of her house. Now, a few things there.
He's basically saying one of your greatest defenses is distance. Keep your distance, go away from her, but don't even go near the door of the house. Okay, I want you to hold on to that, because what we're going to read from Psalm 1 is going to connect with that in just a second. Someone read verses 10 through, let's just say, 14.
[00:19:53] Speaker E: Lest aliens be filled with your wealth and your labors, Go to the house of a foreigner and you mourn at last. And when your flesh and your body are consumed, and say, and how I have hated the instruction and my heart despised correction. I have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined my ear to those who instructed me. I was on the verge of total ruin in the midst of the assembly.
[00:20:12] Speaker B: And the congregation, a little bit of a play on words here of what they knew in their culture. In verse 10, when he says, hey, your laborer is just going to go to somebody else. It's kind of like how here, you know, if y'all have ever had a loved one that's passed away that didn't have a will or something like that, there's a lot of assumptions with people. Well, just because I got family, even if I don't have a will, everybody's going to take care of it, right? Well, if you've ever lived through that, you know that's not the case. Right?
And that's kind of what he's using here as a play for them is, hey, if you have not taken the proper steps and made proper measurements, all you've worked for is going to go somebody else. But then, look what he says. That part of what led this, because you said, how. How I hated discipline and my heart despised reproof. And so again, that makes me think, am I at a place that I'm okay, receiving discipline?
Am I posturing myself for someone to say, hey, this is something you got to really listen to and take serious? Keep reading verses 15 through 20.
[00:21:17] Speaker C: Drink water from your own sister, running water from your own well. Should your springs overflow in the streets, your streams of water in the public squares, let them be yours alone, never to be shared with strangers. May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your Youth, a loving doe, a graceful deer. May her breast satisfy you always. May you ever be intoxicated with her love. Why, my son, be intoxicated with another man's wife? Why embrace the bosom of a wayward woman.
[00:21:48] Speaker B: All right. And so now read verse 21. 23. Whoever's there for the ways of a.
[00:21:54] Speaker D: Man are before the eyes of the Lord.
[00:21:56] Speaker B: And he watches all his paths.
[00:21:58] Speaker C: His own iniquities will capture the wicked.
[00:22:00] Speaker B: And he will be held with the.
[00:22:01] Speaker C: Cords of his sin.
[00:22:03] Speaker D: He will die for lack of instruction.
[00:22:05] Speaker B: And in the greatness of his folly, he will go astray. Okay, so that word in verse 21, I want you to underline for a man's ways, that word, ways. Some translations I had here had goings paths, but there was a Hebrew scholar that said the best way to explain, really what ways is. He said that they would have understood that to be like wagon wheel tracks, he said. Or what did you say?
[00:22:32] Speaker D: Ruts.
[00:22:32] Speaker B: Ruts. That's exactly right. He said it was. If we were to translate that best today, the most accurate Hebrew to English translation would be habits. Isn't that interesting that he's saying that if you keep walking down that, what are you actually starting to create a rut? Alright, it's more than just, hey, I went down this. No, you went down. It's because what we're going to talk about as the cure for whatever, we're substituting fake for real every time we choose that, we're making a path.
Alright? And I've given the example before because y'all have probably heard of them. The neurological pathways that our yard, when I was growing up, dad, we moved somewhere where the neighbor's grass looked good and mine, ours was basically, Andrew, cut it when you can. Okay? So he was like, all right, now I got to start taking grass serious. And the people before us, you know, they had walked a path in that grass. And so it was easy for us to walk that path. And it cut a shortcut between the driveway and the house to walk through the grass. And so we kept making that bigger and bigger. Well, as their grass looks better and better, we have to. In order for that grass to go back. What do we have to do? It grows back instantly, right?
No, it's several days of walking. What, the opposite. So if it took a while for your, you know, that pathway that you've created to be created, it's also going to take, what, a wild fork? It's going to take some time, right, to grow that path back. Right. It doesn't all happen at once. And here's what he says the danger of if you notice, he says if you create that path that you keep walking down. He said it doesn't just say it's sin. But it was interesting. And I don't have time to get in this word, but it is. It's similar to a word that we see, the Okaruma word in the Greek, which is it locks you up. He said, it's a cord of sin. It's not just a sin. It's a cord of sin. It's not just something that you feel like I can get out of quickly. So he's. He's trying to highlight to them the seriousness of the understanding of the path. But here's what I also. And we don't have time to study it now, but a lot of your cross references go to Psalm 1, and Psalm 1 also talks about paths. You remember he said, be careful to not walk in the counsel of the wicked. You know, walking is kind of the idea that I'm walking with people I shouldn't. Then he says, you'll stand in the seat of scoffers, right? And then eventually you'll sit. It's the idea that you don't just wake up one day and you're sitting with people you shouldn't. It started out by walking first with people you shouldn't, then you stood there a while, kind of you're taking it in, and then before you knew it, you full on moved in. It's a progression that he's showing. That's kind of what this text is getting at, is giving us the reality and the highlighting the progression. And so one of the examples that was given in the book was a guy named Nicholas Tinbergen. And he was trying to figure out if birds, I mean, butterflies and birds would settle for the fake. And so what he did is he put fake eggs that were a lot prettier but also had more color and to see if the birds would want to sit on them. You think they did?
Yes, they did. They went after what was prettier, the butterflies. They said he constructed a butterfly that was fake. It was made out of cardboard, really colorful. Guess what all the butterflies did? The male ones, they were trying to mate with the piece of cardboard. And the point he was trying to make is he's showing that, yes, it's within these animals and all these different things, but it's the same thing we struggle with. And it's this, that when we go for the exaggerated fake. Here's what happened. Is those butterflies, those birds, when they were presented with their actual real eggs, guess what happened? They didn't want to sit there when the butterflies were put in front of actual other butterflies. When they had the opportunity to mate with the fake, guess what they didn't want to do?
Mate with the real.
And Jason gave me a book that was really eye opening, and I'm going to read part of that book a little bit later if we get to it. This is two weeks, so we're not going to get through everything tonight.
But it talks about, for us the dangers of what happens when we go for the exaggerated fake. We actually start losing our appetite. This means with several things. Sexually speaking, if we have a addiction to pornography, number one, it can cause erectile dysfunction. It can cause us to not sexually perform as well.
There is a direct connection between those things that we view and our sexual intimacy that we experience. Okay. The other thing is, is that there's a direct connection between abuse and I'm going to get into some of those numbers within Christian circles and non Christian circles when people have made this trade.
Another thing that was really interesting is this was an older study. This was done in, like, the 60s.
What they did is they looked at a study of boys that were, like, middle school to high school that had regularly looked at images of Playboys and things like that. Because, you know, again, another reason why we need to talk about this today, they had to go somewhere to go get a Playboy or had to have a friend that had one today. Bam. It's on your phone instantly, if you want it to be on your phone instantly. And so what they did is they took these boys that had. And then these middle school and high school boys that had not. And they then put images of women on the screen. The boys who did not view any pornography before, they said, hey, we want you to describe these women to us.
The boys that had not. What they found about them is, number one, they weren't acting up in school. They were also making really good grades. But here was one of the most striking things, because one of the articles I read that really just, like, gave me a kick in the pants. To help us understand the seriousness of it, I told Jason this. Here's what the article is entitled. This is who's dating your daughter?
Okay. All right. So keep that in mind. But the boys that had not regularly viewed pornography, and again, their access is far less than we would have gotten today, so keep that in mind, too.
They said that when they looked at the pictures of the women, they said, they referred to things about what they thought their personalities would be like. And she looks like she would be nice. She looks like she would be a good person or she would be somebody like you would want to hang out with. I bet she would. So it was more about that person.
Well, then the boys that had regularly viewed and had seen pornographic images, their grades were lower.
They were getting in more fights at school. But the other thing that they noticed about those boys, too, is the way that they describe the women, as the article put it. They described them in terms of objects.
The boys over here were talking more about what they thought their personalities were and how their personality was shining through in the picture. But over here, they were talking about them. And here's what they said. They were talking about them just as one would talk about a car. Okay.
And we can probably think of other examples. Anything that pops in your mind where you see this, where we go for the exaggerated fake and we start losing the appetite for real. The other examples, of course, that you can assume is, and knew that were probably the case anyway is people that regularly look at pornography. The sex that they have with their wife goes down, but also the quality of the sex also goes down. Any other thoughts exaggerating the fake for the real? I think about this, too. It's kind of like with food, you know, if you eat something bad and then kind of get used to it, you kind of start to make that same trade for fake and real. You kind of get used to it over time. And I do want to say this.
I know we're very pornography heavy because the book is. But again, this could be about anything.
This can be about social media.
This can be about alcohol.
I will say this. I was thinking about.
I was having a discussion with a couple the other day about this very thing, and they were asking me my thoughts on alcohol, for instance. And because maybe in your mind, when you see fake for real, that's one of the questions you have. And I was thinking about how the three, if I were to rank, and I'd love to hear Brandon's thoughts on this, but, like, if I were to take the biggest marriage challenges that I've had to walk couples through, I know hands down, what number one is alcohol, no question.
And there's four couples that I know that have struggled, one of them or both of them with alcohol, three of them of the four ended in divorce, and the other, the only one that didn't end a divorce is because they understood that that was an issue. So I know we could have a Debate on that. All we wanted. I'm not here to debate that, but I. I know my evidence, and I know what I've seen. Okay. So I'll just say this. I hate it. I hate it. So that's just my thoughts there. But here's what was interesting. When I was talking with him, I told him my close second of what we worked through and got through, but it was still a challenge. Was social media and video games in marriage like those two causing challenges? So we're going to get into some of those. So I want to ask you this question before we get into the different ones. Where do you think we do relish the fake and forsake the real? Any other areas that I'm not thinking of or the book doesn't mention?
[00:32:42] Speaker D: I'd say in a lot of ways, we even do this with the church that we focus on just the good message, the, you know, love, the forgiveness and ignore a lot of the real hearts of the gospel of what Jesus taught.
[00:32:57] Speaker B: Yeah, that's true. Which were a lot of hard commands.
That's right. Yeah. He would give love, but then tell them to go on sin no more. All right.
[00:33:06] Speaker D: A lot of times people do it in relationships. They surround themselves with people, but they.
[00:33:09] Speaker B: Really don't want to get into the.
[00:33:10] Speaker D: Deep relationship convicting relationship people that hold them accountable.
[00:33:15] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. All right. Well, I was gonna say, too. I mean, not even a specific area, but there's been a lot of study and research now about, like, dopamine addiction. Yeah. Yourself being addicted to hits of dopamine in your brain. And that can cross everything.
[00:33:30] Speaker C: I mean, it can be.
[00:33:32] Speaker B: It might not even be that someone struggles with a specific sin, but that they're trying to get a hit from their sexual side of dopamine or the food side of dopamine or the entertainment side. And so it all blends together.
Yeah. And I'm glad you mentioned the dopamine. Jason could speak more probably to this too. But one of the things that Jason mentioned, we were talking about this and how, you know, it's kind of like those wagon wheels that we talked about and that dopamine that if you say, hey to somebody that is struggling, say, with pornography. Well, just quit, like Jason said. Well, yeah, they want to. They want to quit. That's not the problem that I don't want to quit. It's just I have to change the way I think. And the dopamine is real. You had a statement, work versus your family life. So you're a workaholic. And you're not paying any attention to your family. Okay. Focusing on the real aspect there, too. Okay. In case you didn't hear Hayden exchange, you know, how you are at work versus how you are with your family. Okay. Man, great leader at work.
Fall off, you know, the. I guess the leadership spectrum a little bit when you get home. Brandon.
[00:34:43] Speaker C: I don't know if Paul's executive in this category, but the idea that sometimes we look at someone else's life and we have envy for what we think they have.
But as you know, everybody puts forward their best foot, you know, when they're approaching other people, when they're putting something on social media or whatever, they're presenting what they want you to see.
And sometimes we can buy into the idea that that is perfection.
And what I have is not as perfect as that. And so we find ourselves coveting, envious of that kind of lifestyle or that experience that we see. You know, like, not everybody goes to Disney every day, Right. But you see those. Those things constantly posted, and you begin to think, we don't do that. And in the middle of all that, you're. You're fantasizing over that lifestyle, and you're neglecting to deal with and to love and to nurture the family you have right there in front of you. And I think that's. I think that we can be really guilty of that. And think of the greener grass isn't some other way. It's more money. It's more time away. It's all these things. And really what we have is relationships right in front of us to hold onto.
[00:35:52] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Anybody else?
All right, so let's deal with the first one. Social media. We won't have time today, probably, to get in pornography by. Probably we're not going to have time to get in pornography today.
But social media, I want to. Before I go to the next slide, there is a lot of good from social media. I want to start with that. It has been super helpful to me and maybe it has to you. I know, especially here at the church when we. So one of the things we get every week is a guest list, and we get a list of everybody who's visited. And I. If it weren't for social media, I wouldn't know who half of our guests were when they come back the second time. But when I can go through the guest list and see, all right, what their name is, you know what I do, I Facebook stalk them. Well, it's not really stalking if they're putting their picture out there. So I get on there and I'm like, all right, that's who that is. Okay. And so I'll screen. There is a.
If you look at my phone, you're like, what is wrong with him? He's filled with screenshots of you. I'm just kidding. But no, but that's how I have to know who people. So it really does help me to be able to have these pictures and to be able to look. I think it's so neat how it's. We have a wonderful ministry here, thanks to your wife of and other people's wives of taking meals to people that a lot of times happens through social media and we know who's able to have needs met and all those kind of things. So a lot of good can come from social media.
However, we also know and would admit that it can be a big distraction. Social media can pull our eyes and minds and hearts away from our spouses and lead us to find connection elsewhere. Now, I want to stop here for a second.
I don't know if you've ever had it hit to you before. Maybe it was the one, you know, where it says your screen time for the past week that kind of hit you in the gut or whatever it was. But I'll give you an example for me that I didn't realize it was this bad. I had a friend that I called about a big time decision that our family was making. And actually I'll just come. It was about coming here and we were. I said, I need some advice. Like I'm trying to make sure, you know, I've been praying a lot about it. And then he said this. He said, well, have you fasted? And I was like, well, no, I like to eat. He's like, well, no, you don't have to do a food one. He said, here's what I would do is what is it that you find yourself getting really sucked into? I was like, Twitter and Facebook, hands down, that's me. I don't even think enough people besides me are still on Twitter, but Twitter and Facebook. And he said, well, here's what I would do. Every time you're tempted to get on Twitter or Facebook, spend that time in prayer to pray about that. Just pray instead of like when you have the urge. I want to get on Twitter. Nope, Pray about that very thing. Turns out I didn't know I got on Twitter and Facebook. I prayed basically all day and. Which is good, but at the same time, what does that tell you?
Yes, but it's bigger than social media.
Do you see the wagon wheels I created, I will also tell you it became a little bit of a dependence.
Here's another way to rephrase this. Addiction. Right? All right.
And so I have a few. Now, this is. Keep in mind, the study that I'm about to share with you guys is mainly directed towards marriage, but you can apply it towards whatever you want.
One of the things that this expert. This is a mixture of the people.
So there's two groups. And one of these groups, basically, they are the ones. They have intercepted a lot of school shootings through social media. They're a Christian organization. I got to hear the leaders speak at a conference in Atlanta a few years ago. Awesome, awesome group. But they were talking about the impact specifically to marriage. But here's a few things that they talked about is the harmful side is social media distracts us from just being us. If we're always on it, we're always looking at it, we're not, of course, spending that time together. And I know that's probably a pretty obvious one, but here's the one that I thought was really interesting that he shared is how one of the things that he's seen a lot is how it creates jealousy, and a lot of times leads to unfaithfulness.
And so he said it happens in a few areas. You see what other people have or what they're doing, and your mind gets turning. And so then you're with the very person that your mind should be turning about. But then the other thing that I thought was really interesting, he highlighted a friend of his that was a Christian divorce attorney. Okay. Now, I didn't know that you could be in the same sentence. I'm just kidding. But no, a Christian divorce attorney. And what he did is he shared what. When he has Christians even that are coming to him wanting to get a divorce. And the amount of people he's getting when it comes to social media, he said, is super high. And he said it's almost like clockwork. This is the progression of the conversation. Here's what he said.
Number one, started out with this. Well, they spent too much time on Facebook.
Number two, I got suspicious.
Number three, it started out just as an emotional affair. And number four, they had the affair. Notice anything in that progression at all? And am I saying also, is that what they're saying? Just you can't ever get on it?
You know, the example that I think of in terrible acting, good message, fireproof, if you've ever seen it before, if you love the acting, I'm sorry. But if you remember the part in the movie where Kirk Cameron gets his computer and he puts it on the trash can. He gets a hammer and just smashes it. And it's like, okay, good, he got rid of it. Did that fix it?
Right.
You can get rid of, you know, something. You can throw away something, but especially now, it's not so much getting rid of it. We're going to get to that in Galatians 5 next week about how we handle our own desires. And it's not just removing something, but it's more than anything about putting something in its place. Right. And so anyway, I'm not saying that it's stay way bad, but at the same time, think back to Proverbs 5.
Think about Psalm 1. What does Proverbs 5 and Psalm 1 thinking about those things in light of this, any thoughts come to mind about some of the things we mentioned from Proverbs 5 or Psalm 1 in light of that, stay away from the door.
Yeah, y'all both said the same one. Be careful to keep away from that door.
Anything else?
[00:42:55] Speaker E: Things look better on social media than they are about. When it says, like, her lips drip with honey, it's like, it's just in reality, when you're, you know, living day to day with somebody, you're gonna have, like, disagreements, and they're not always going to look like their lips drip with honey. That's just a reality. And then you see this person on social media that just looks perfect because that's what they're putting out there. I can see how that would lead to a progression of this.
[00:43:24] Speaker B: Yeah, well, it's kind of like going back to the sex doll illustration he gave in the book Brent Hanson did when he said, hey, it promises. Hey, I'll tell you what you want to hear. Well, you just had an argument with this person that told you what you didn't want to hear. All right, what do you do then? All right, any other thoughts?
Here's the number three, Increased emotional distance due to online distractions. Here was an interesting fact that they posted is that Facebook released these statistics that for every 20% increase in Facebook new accounts, 4.8% on average, divorce rates also went up. So with each. Each time. So it was. It was escalating, which I thought was very interesting. The other thing that I was going to tell you guys that another reason why I thought this was important. Have you all heard that the moment that you get on your phone, if you're with somebody or by yourself, the average time it takes you to get back on Task.
You know what it is? 23 minutes.
Now, what does that have to do with anything? Does it have to do with anything?
[00:44:52] Speaker E: That was time you could have been with your spouse. You're looking at it in terms of marriage.
[00:44:55] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:44:56] Speaker E: Or working on something more important.
[00:44:57] Speaker B: That's right. Time you could have been with your spouse or dealing with something more important.
What? Yeah. What did you miss?
What'd you miss, Lynn?
[00:45:10] Speaker C: I think second bail and I'm staying here.
[00:45:12] Speaker B: You'll stay? I'll stay.
[00:45:14] Speaker C: But question for all of us and I know my answer is social media.
[00:45:22] Speaker B: Overall a net positive or a lit negative.
Hey, yeah, you won't hear it today because the second bell did ring.
Isn't that nice how that worked?
No, that is a very good question and I do think it is. You could. And by the way, that question he asked applied a lot of stuff. Right.
And I think we. But again, it comes back to I want us to be thinking about the pathways, wagon wheels that we're creating. And so next week we're going to get into. Just to kind of give you a little bit of a heads up as to what we're going to be talking about is I'm going to give you some different tips just real quick on this. But we're going to go through pornography and we're going to talk about the stats within the church and non Christians and thanks to Jason and all the studies he's done on this, we have some very eye opening statistics of churches of Christ and I can't wait to share those with you. But then we're going to talk about how we should respond if we do, if our kids do and how we should respond to ourselves in dealing with the reality of those temptations. So I know we just kind of hit the big picture, but again, I want to encourage you, cherish what's real. Forsake the fake. All right? That's what this is all about. Cherish what is real. Forsake the fake. Thank you all for being here.
