The Elephant in the Room: Entertainment and the Renewed Mind

well friends you may have a seat if we've not had the privilege to meet my name is keith i want to welcome you to journey church in 1814 a russian author wrote a fable entitled the inquisitive man and he tells the story of a man that goes to a museum and goes about the museum and discovers all the tiny things throughout the museum and yet he seems to miss this massive elephant in the middle of the museum and from that fable came the phrase elephant in the room it's come to symbolize a truth or a problem that everyone seems to know yet it's ignored the church is notorious for ignoring the elephants

in the room while the world can see it and they talk about it the church goes generations just allowing this elephant to keep getting bigger jesus is the king of acknowledging the elephants in the room there is no one greater than jesus telling us the truth of who he is and what's happening in the world there's no topic that's too big for him he's not shy to tackle the tough subjects in the sermon on the mount jesus said six times you have heard that it was said he's implying you may believe one way you might think one way but that does not mean it's the right way so he teaches us he tells us the truth

in matthew 6 verse 27 he says you have heard that it was said you shall not commit adultery but i say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart do you hear this jesus is teaching us that you might think that your behavior matters to god you might think that maybe because you're not as bad as someone else maybe because you've never had an affair with someone that maybe you might be okay in god's eyes or in front of everyone else but jesus is implying that he's not so concerned how you look on the outside jesus is concerned with your heart on the inside but it doesn't matter what you look like

it's not about behavior it's about how and who you are on the inside so what we want to do is learn from jesus if he confronts the elephants in the room then we ought to as well and not only can we learn from jesus we can live like jesus for a journey church we say it's all about jesus so if you're new here or you're a skeptic or you're wondering who this jesus is you are most welcome we have a mission to lead people on a journey of transformation in jesus not some people all people need jesus and the wonderful thing about jesus is you can come as you are he loves you that much that you can come as you are but he loves you way too much to leave

you the same he wants you to be transformed he wants you to know who he is he wants you to know what life is really about so this summer we're going to look at some of these elephants in the room some of these topics that are being talked about around the world and we're going to discover what the bible has to say about such issues like politics lgbtq plus substances like marijuana and alcohol race religion we're going to look what does god say about such things now how do we address elephants in the room what does the bible teach us about such things and what can we learn when paul writes a letter to the church in ephesus we see that this word still

speaks to us today in ephesians chapter 5 he tells us look carefully how you walk not as the unwise but as wise in the new international version it says look carefully how you live for the idea of walking is an analogy of life how you walk in life consider if you will if you have a big dog and a small yard you're careful where you walk you're going to consider the reality that there might be a mess in life i may not wear i mean i may wear shoes when i go into the backyard with a big dog and a small are you going to look carefully how you walk you're not going to be unwise he continues and says making the best use of time because the days are evil this word in the original

language greek is not the word kronos where we get the word chronological it doesn't mean uh hey be a good steward of your time it's actually the word kairos which is this idea of time being an opportunity making the best use of the opportunities that god has given you and he implies the days are evil you you need to have a plan for your life if you don't have a plan for your life the devil will give you a plan he will waste your time he will use your time and abuse your time where next thing you know you wonder what happened to life but when you are wise instead of unwise when you're careful where you walk when you are intentional and you want to make the best use of this opportunity you're going to experience all that god has for you i've got an apple watch that tells me

much more than just the chronological time it tells me the kairos the opportunities throughout the day my watch will actually tell me breathe as if my watch knows that i'm stressed out and i've stopped breathing so it's just just relax a little bit throughout your day my watch will tell me when i stand up to use the restroom you did it well done you stood up as if prophetically that we would all live out the movie wally just sitting down doing nothing with our lives and what these uh this author paul is telling us in ephesians chapter five is that we're to do the same with our lives and then he says in verse 17 therefore do not be foolish

but understand what the will of the lord is this author's paul's point is if you are intentional with your life you're going to know what god's best life is for you in other words you can know what god's will is for your life many of you are not content you're not happy with where you are and you want to be where god wants you to be let's just say god's plan is the best plan and you want to be there how can you do that we've got to live this intentional life together so what's today's elephant topic this elephant is entertainment which would include and not limited to movies television series media books

and much more see the elephant in the room for a christian is that christians don't look a whole lot different than non-christians what we watch what we listen to what we read and how we live our lives if we look back at this last year some of us have watched more tv in the past year than all of the years of our lives combined what else do you do in a lockdown when nothing is open and you can't even go to work you know you're not in that zoom meeting you're really watching a tv show on the side when so many of us binged what's on television many of us have gotten addicted to our phones we start the day off by looking at our phones and we go to bed looking at our phones we have notifications that tell us when we have a text message and email when we

have social media alert and updates with updates when something happens in the news anywhere in the world we get alerted on our phones according to a study at uc irvine it says that when you look at your phone it takes an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds to get back to a deep focus on the task that you were distracted it takes some time for your mind to readjust one recent study found that adults spend three hours and 43 minutes on average on their cell phones that's roughly 50 days a year that we spend looking at our phones one study found that because of the pandemic electronic device usage doubled among kids in the u.s still another study found

that because of covet 19 the effects on adolescents and young adults these are teenagers they went from an average of three and a half hours per day on the phone to over five hours per day on the phone now this is not a message of condemnation or or judgment on your screen time or to make you feel guilty or shame you the good news is when you meet jesus someday he's not going to ask you how many hours you spent on the screen but what jesus is concerned about is your heart so i need to be loud and clear this message is not a message of what we're against this whole series this summer will not be a message of what journey church is against it will be a message of what we're for this is not a message of here are the do's and don'ts to being a good christian here's how to live a life as a

christian this is a message of the abundant life that's found in jesus christ that you would want what god has for you when jesus was asked in matthew chapter 22 verse 36 teacher which is the great commandment in the law of all the things that we find in the scripture what should be the most important what should you turn your attention to and jesus actually answered and said in verse 37 and jesus said to him you shall love the lord your god with all your heart with all your soul with all your mind this jesus said is the first and great commandment this is the great and first commandment this is what we ought to focus our lives on this is where we should point our attention to when you wake up in the day and you say what's my

purpose what should i be doing with my life jesus says the greatest thing you can do is look to the lord to love the lord now loving the lord does not mean going to church loving the lord does not mean following rules or religion loving the lord jesus teaches us is surrendering your whole life your heart your soul and your mind the brain is the best organ that we have god did a great job with the brain it's this miraculous creation that actually has a hundred billion neurons we think computers are crazy our brains are better your brain can hold a hundred trillion thoughts

your brain is so important that it shapes who you are the way you think about you become what you believe shapes how you behave your brain is so important that jesus said if you're going to love the lord you've got to use your brain you've got to use your mind love the lord you god with all your mind meaning what you think you see if you think small about god you will live a small life you won't pray big bold prayers you won't live as if god is real but what you believe will shape your behavior and if you're not thinking about god you'll just think about yourself the psalmist writes in psalm 119 verse 11 i have stored your word in my heart that i may not sin against you

how can you know what sin is how can you know how not to send sin separates us from god so if you want a right relationship with god get into his word store it into your life and you'll know what god has planned for you so how can we live a right life and know what to watch what to listen to and what to read in our lives in romans 12 i want to spend some time where the author paul writes to the christians in rome and i want to look at two specific verses that can speak to us on how we should live our lives today romans 12 1 the author paul writes i appeal to you therefore brothers do you hear the urgency it's as if paul is saying i beg you and from this preacher to your heart i appeal to you

i beg you to hear this message today i beg you that this is worth taking serious i beg you that you would not just come to church but you would leave and be changed by god i appeal to you by the mercies of god oh the scriptures teach us in lamentations three god's mercies are new every morning which means god gives you an opportunity every day to follow him his mercies are new every morning should awaken your soul that doesn't matter what you did yesterday what matters is what you're going to do with the time god gave you today to seize that opportunity to make the most of it not to live as the unwise but to live as the wise that his mercies are are not to leave you the same so i beg you i appeal to you by the mercies of god to present your bodies as a living sacrifice

holy and acceptable to god which is your spiritual worship how do you love the lord with all your heart soul mind and strength that is to offer your life as a sacrifice a sacrifice has given up something you enjoy for something you love more a sacrifice implies there's a cost normally a sacrifice dies but in this case your life is a living sacrifice and when you give your whole life to god your heart your soul and your mind it is holy and acceptable holy means to be set apart it's acceptable that when you believe in jesus it changes everything he does not forgive you of some of your sins he forgives you of all of your sins and he counts you as righteous because you've believed in him and when you do that paul says something interesting your life now is worship

we use that word worship pretty flippantly in the church we imply that it's music that when you sing songs it's worship which can be true we call a service at a church a worship service that when you go to church it's worship but worship is attributing worth and what the author is implying here is that your whole life is worship to god now is it realistic that your life can be worshipped to god wherever you go at work at school at home at a restaurant at the movie theater can you really worship god because what i found in bend oregon is you can't even go to the river without being tempted by sin let alone trying to watch something on netflix or hulu or hbo i'm not sure there's a series without sin

whether it's pre-marital or extramarital sex or murders or some other evil it's everywhere so is it possible to to live this life today when rated r movies are nothing for the christian when most adults have become numb to nudity everywhere i go i hear adults curse more than even teenagers it just it just seems to be the norm that's today and i just want to tell you if it's norm does not mean you need to participate just because everyone else is doing it does not mean that you need to do it in fact if you do what everyone else is doing you'll get what they get and what i find in the people business that i'm in people are hurting they're empty they're hungry for

something that they can't fully even identify so what we want to say is i don't want to live a normal life i want to live the life that god has for me so if you're hungry jesus says this in matthew 5 6 jesus says blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satisfied you want to be satisfied you want to be blessed go after the things of god we're all hungry for something this is a metaphor to our lives you have something in you that wants more and what the devil wants to to do in your life is he's real he wants to distract you he wants to deceive you he wants to get your eyes off of god but when you get your eyes on the things of god you realize there's a deeper blessing do you all remember 2020

like two people do is that is the year that we deleted from our lives remember at the beginning of the pandemic the world was locked down and we couldn't go anywhere i remember on one particular night when we were all supposed to be locked down i went on a walk on a trail and this particular trail there are homes that but right up against the trail and it just happened to be on this particular night everyone's shades were open in their home so i had to peer into the homes not on purpose but okay it was on purpose but there the shades were open and as i looked at each home home after home had the television on for today the centerpiece of the house is a television in our home and you know what was on every single home as i walked by try to guess

the news do you remember when we were obsessed day after day in this pandemic and it was the same message day after day death disease division politically as if we're watching it every day to expect something different like an alien invasion like please lord just something a little different than death disease and political division that's like all we heard in 2020 and yet we were obsessed with this so much so that in our zoom staff meetings we started to talk about this and some of us made the commitment i'm gonna quit watching the news can the world survive if we don't watch the news will you know what happens if you don't watch the news but if you continue to watch the news you're going to continually get the same message because that's what you're hungry and thirsting after and you're going to hear this doomsday message now hear me loud and clear i'm not saying that the

news is wrong or that it's evil to watch the news i'm just saying that you probably won't be more blessed after watching it so so you decide this day what you're going to do with your time are you going to seize that opportunity do you want to be more blessed you want to go after the things of god now paul when he writes to a church in corinth which he challenged them this was a church that had infused the culture into the church so if the world was doing it the church did it as well and he writes to them and says we should be set apart we should live differently and he says in first corinthians 6 12 all things are lawful for me but not all things are helpful all things are lawful for me but i will not be dominated by anything to paraphrase just because you

could doesn't mean you should so just because i can doesn't mean i'm going to do this thing in my life i grew up in a home where i could do whatever i wanted as a child i watched inappropriate movies that kids shouldn't watch i could listen to any music i wanted to listen to and it wasn't until later in life that i discovered i i came to understand that what you put in your mind actually shapes how you think and later i became a youth pastor and i would try to convince teenagers that the music you listen to matters and and the typical answer of a kid is i don't listen to the lyrics what they would say in the days of old is i like the beat and adults today justify what they watch in the same way

oh i'm not watching the sex scenes these are really good actors this movie got some great awards it's a great storyline the director the producer you can begin to justify why you do what you do for what we do in our lives it doesn't matter if your child the teenager or what age you are as an adult we might not think the lyrics of the song shape us but they do they're still in your head you might not think what you look at in private will impact your life but it you may not think that a movie will impact your spiritual life but it does that's why paul writes to the romans he says offer your life not when you die not when you're at church but your whole life is a sacrifice it's a living

sacrifice so what does that look like he'll explain that to us in the next verse here's what a living sacrifice practically looks at so first we acknowledge the elephant we acknowledge the elephants in the room the christians look like everyone else but maybe we shouldn't and here's what he says in verse two do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing you may discern what is the will of god what is good acceptable and perfect so so here's the elephant in the room christians look like everyone else and here's the solution to that elephant is you evict the elephant you don't allow that elephant in your

life you evict the elephant and you recognize that just because i've done it before just because everyone else is doing it i'm not going to do it here's what i'm suggesting if you follow jesus you don't live like everyone else if you follow jesus you're not going to watch sex scenes in a movie or a television series if you follow jesus you're not going to waste your time on junk tv just to numb yourself from the stresses of life if you follow jesus you're not going to spend more time on social media than you do with your savior jesus see i recognize that some christians will hear a message like this and say this isn't for me because i do listen to christian music and i don't really watch inappropriate movies but i just say to that christian how much time do you spend

on social media it doesn't matter if you're sharing christian memes or or prayer see that that won't transform the renewal of our mind so how do you evict the elephant you've addressed it you evict it well paul tells us in romans 12 2 do not conform to this world do not be conformed to this world just because everyone suggests that a movie is incredible and that you need to see just because that movie even got awards just because it's it's on netflix and you've seen everything else there's nothing else to watch but that one last it doesn't matter what it is you do not need to do it years ago my wife and i went to a movie that everyone was talking about it was all the rage received all kinds of awards and people were talking about it at work it was just one of those movies like oh that was so deep it was

so incredible i was just immersed in the story it was one of those like everyone was talking about it and we don't go to the movies that often but we went to this one and it was when the theater was packed remember those days it was so packed it's kind of like on an airplane you don't want to share the arm rest and so you put your arm there first and you never leave it you know because you want that arm rest you don't want to bump into them so you leave it there and it was that kind of it was packed and the movie starts and right at the beginning of the movie somewhere near the beginning there was a rape scene and it was full full-on nudity and it was violent i just remember this awkward feeling i didn't want to look at the screen so i'm looking around this pack theater at other people and then i look at my wife and she looks at me nervously and i whispered to her do you want to leave and she's like yeah and we literally stood up and we walked

out of the theater and as a pastor and as a prophet i just literally wanted to yell to the whole theater hello are you guys okay with this this is not entertainment because even as i tell this story and prepared for this those images are still in my mind from years ago and if you can't recall those images they're there but you've become numb to it you've stored them you've stuffed them and and they're there and god gave us a mind not so that you could fill it with filth but that you'd be transformed by faith that you'd believe that god can do exceedingly and abundantly more than you could ask or think that something would be stimulated in your soul that you would say i want what god wants for my life so we start by saying i'm going to evict this elephant i'm not going to be conformed

to the patterns of this world i'm not going to live like the world i'm not going to do what the world does i'm not going to listen to what the world listens to i'm going to be changed and i've got to warn you evicting the elephant is not easy if you've ever been a landlord had to evict someone it's not easy there's a cost it takes time and sometimes it doesn't want to go an elephant can be pretty large sometimes i mean some of us think that these elephants are tiny right i'm just going to remove this elf from my life and tomorrow my day is going to be better but sometimes it can take days months and even years to recover from old habits the stress of evicting to elephant is real but is far greater than the suffering of living with the elephant it will cost you something and when you start rethinking about what you think

about what you allow in your mind it's going to how you think there's a new standard you've got to reset the standard of what's important in my life and when you do that paul says this you're transformed by the renewal of your mind it changes god designed you in such a way that your mind and your brain is actually changed and the only way to transform your mind is to change what you think about this is a true principle of life you see what you feed will grow what you starve will die you discover that when you have kids you've got to feed them no one gives you a handbook or a manual but they let you know i'm hungry they don't use those words but they let the whole world know

what you feed will grow but you what you starve will die when we moved into our home we've got a large amount of grass in our house and there were some dead spots and they're like these perfect rings as if somebody just like poured some you know poison right on the grass like at a ring and i thought here's what i've got to do i've got to pour more water on those dead spots and so i did everything i could to try to revive them but year after year they were the same so last year i did some research and have you ever noticed when you just like start to type something in the weirdest way it still gives you the right answer on google i mean it wasn't scientific or anything like dead rings in grass and it instantly pulled up the scientific answer that it's this fungus that creates these rings that if you don't care take care of this fungus it

spreads and that's what happened in my lawn there were these rings all over so i went to a local nursery i told them the problem they knew exactly what this fungus was and i said so what can you give me to take care of this i thought i'd put some medication on it and it would be okay and and but they told me the only way to get rid of this is to get rid of that part of the lung so you need to actually cut it out and replace it with either salt or seed i said that doesn't sound very good so i had to actually do that i bought a whole bunch of sod and i went around my whole yard and i cut it out and i replaced it with the sod and it looked worse than before because now i've got this fresh green sod it doesn't match the other color green and it's just abundantly clear that it's not the same and then the winter hit and the whole grass died it looked worse

than it's ever looked before i mean it was dead it was brown it was yellow and so come spring of 2021 i declared war that this lawn would be green so i thatched my yard for the first time i bought these special shoes i bought off amazon to aerate the yard i walked around the whole thing with spikes under my shoes i i watered this thing i put fertilizer on it i watered it some more i know we're in a drought that's because of me i wanted my yard green i'll tell you today you come to my front yard people think it's fake they say is this grass really this green but that took a lot of hard work i had to get rid of the old i had to evict the fungus but then i had to put something new in there but still it didn't seem right and then it was hard work i had to water

i had to fertilize i had to make sure that i didn't stop doing what needed to be done or else that fungus would come back or else it would stay looking weird but i'll tell you when you start changing your mind over time your mind's going to change but you've got to work hard at it paul this writer that wrote so many of the new testament books says from prison that you determine what you think about here's a guy from prison he writes to the church in philippi he says you can still have hope no matter where you are your circumstances do not define the hope that you have in your heart and he concludes the letter by telling us what you think about matters he says finally brothers whatever is true whatever's honorable whatever is just whatever's pure whatever is lovely whatever is commendable if there's any excellence if there's anything worthy of praise think about these things it's as if he was writing this in 2021

this was like before the internet this is before there was netflix or hulu or hbo he says think about good things he says what you have learned and received and had heard and seen in me practice these things and the god of peace will be with you some of you wonder where god is he hasn't left you he's not forsaking you james says if you draw near to god he'll draw near you he's there but you can't keep living the same way you want the god of peace you've got to get rid of that which is distracting you from what matters most you've got to be determined that i'm going to think about what's true honorable just pure lovely commendable excellent does any of those things something god would be okay with that's what i'm going to be okay with see hollywood has a double standard we can call them hypocrites but many of us are hypocrites as well

people say i don't want to go to church there's full hypocrites yeah you're welcome too we all have sin in our lives we all have areas of our lives that we struggle with and this is what hollywood does they give you a fictional fantasy of what sex is it's totally fake young people it's fake it's totally fake no one's telling you the truth see sex is meant between a husband and a wife and it's it's not as sexy and glamorous as you see on the television screen it's messy it's awkward it's weird and it's beautiful and designed by god it's good but the more you go outside of god's plan you'll be confused and you'll be hungry for something in this world that will never satisfy you but jesus said blessed are those who hunger and thirst righteousness i want what god wants for me and it's good it's always good whatever god does is good

always all the time the devil's a liar he's going to deceive you oh that's a boring life well i know today someone's sitting a preacher i came on wrong day you're just a prude i'm not even sure why did i even come to this church today like tell me what i shouldn't do i'll tell you this what paul says in this letter to the romans look at verse 2 again he says when you're changing your mind then by testing you may discern what is the will of god what is good acceptable and perfect see some of you may not realize this right now god has a perfect will for your life here's what the bible teaches us you are fearfully and wonderfully made you are a masterpiece in god's eyes you are made in his image

and sin separates us when you give your sin back to jesus then he starts remaking you what you were intended to be and it's a perfect will oh you think that it's oh it's going to be a boring life no it's abundant life it's it's good it's acceptable to it's pleasing this is what jesus said you actually find freedom in jesus very words he says if you abide in my word you're truly my disciples there are many people that call themselves christians yet they're not following the word of jesus jesus you want to call yourself a christian you have my name christ which means the chosen one the messiah the anointed one of god you do what i said and then he says this in verse 32 he says and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free one of the most perverted scriptures that are out there people have to twist this oh the truth will set you free

actually you know who said that jesus and the truth is his word and the truth is when you follow his word then you're free now what is this freedom i'll tell you this freedom it's the freedom from regret the freedom from shame the freedom from guilt it's freedom from rage and anger and resentfulness and bitterness jesus takes it he says that burden's too big for you i want to give you rest i want to give you joy i want to give you peace i want to give you life that's the freedom that's found in jesus christ the media will not tell you about that freedom the media would love for you just to be controlled in your mind by what they have to say because you'll keep coming back because you're hungry and thirsty for more that's what paul writes in galatians 5 1

for freedom christ has set us free stand firm therefore and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery don't keep going back to who you used to be you're born again you're a new creation but the devil wants to remind you here's what you used to think here's what you used to look at here's what you used to be and we go back to those things but you you reset the standard now when you start to get depressed you don't do what you used to do you don't turn to the screen to numb your emotions you go for a walk and you look at nature you breathe some fresh air you let that sunshine give you some natural vitamin d you don't let the world tell you how to live your life you go to god's word and it tells you how to live your life you reset the standard of what you're going to look at you reset the standard of what you're going to think about and you reset the standard of how you're going to think and what you're going to

spend time on and it's going to start looking a lot more like jesus when you have jesus change everything you say oh that's that's a boring life well who did jesus hang out with he loved to hang out with sinners and he never sinned the sinners were like i want to leave my life and be more like you i like that life that life gives me joy jesus warned us and he promised us in john 10 10 the thief comes only to steal kill and destroy but jesus says i came that they might have life and have it abundantly here's what jesus warns there is a real enemy and he wants to destroy your life he wants to steal the joy that god wants to give you he wants to rob you the reality of who you are and the devil is real and he's a liar and do you know how the devil goes after you your mind he does not want you to think you're a

child of god he wants you to think you're defined by what you did before but you're not you're defined by jesus christ and what is this life it's abundant life this jesus doesn't preserve our life he doesn't give you a little life he gives you the life to the fullest he wants you to experience all that he is so how can we be ready if we've addressed the elephant if we've evicted the elephant now what do we do if we hunger and thirst for a righteousness we've got to be intentional be careful peter in his wisdom after making many mistakes he learned from those mistakes that's wisdom it's okay to make mistakes just don't keep repeating them and so peter writes this out of his own experience he says therefore preparing your minds for action see

peter thought he would never mess up jesus i'll always defend you he denies jesus three times you see if you've been thinking the wrong way you're gonna live the wrong way so peter says prepare your mind for action being sober minded set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of jesus christ there's hope for everyone in jesus as obedient children do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance but as he who called you is holy you also be holy in your conducts since it is written you shall be holy for i am holy remember holy needs to be set apart so here's a goal be more like your maker our god is completely holy and when you choose to reset your stand and say i want to be more like god not everyone will understand not everyone will celebrate with you

some of your co-workers your friends your neighbors even your family may misunderstand you they may mock you they might make fun of you they may even disassociate with you for not living like you used to live but you remember who you are you're a child of god you've got jesus you've got everything you need holiness is way more important than happiness happiness is temporary it's based on what happens to you holiness is long term that's why jesus said you'll be blessed that means a deep happiness means no more fungus rings in your life you take the time and god's gonna refresh and restore you don't need to be mean about it as well that's why paul says in romans 12 9 that same chapter where he teaches us to

be living sacrifices which is worship he says let love be genuine we should be the best people exposing what love is people today say phrase love is love no it's not i can't love someone when when it's leading to a path of hell i can't love someone when it's not going to lead to life let love be genuine what does that love look like abhor what is evil and hold fast to what is good imagine this my hand is going to represent my brain that's about how big it is and if my my brain is holding on to evil i've got no room for good but if i have evil if i get rid of that which is evil and all of a sudden i hold fast this is my brain is holding fast to what

is good i've got no room for evil i've evicted the elephant now i've replaced it with righteousness i'm going to hold on to that which is good here's what that looks like for us because we've got to have some application we need guard reels in our lives guard reels protect us guard rails are there for your good you hit a guard rail it's going to do damage in your life but it's going to do way less damage than you going over the bridge andy stanley says guardrails direct us and they protect us it's better for you to hit the guard rail than going over the cliff we need guardrails in the wisdom of proverbs keep your heart with vigilance for from it flows the springs of life what you put in your heart dictates who you are how much life you have you put poison in there

it's going to kill areas of your life i like how the niv puts it above all else guard your heart put some guard rails up what do guard rails look like today it means this it means you do not need to look at everything maybe you need internet filters internet filters are okay in fact we all need them in our house we use what's called the circle it's a device where i can see what's on my kids phones i can have control over their apps what they download what they don't download how much time they spend on the app the screen time i can see what they see and i just want to encourage you parents you get to control that you brought your child into the world you don't need to let them look at everything you get to control right now so that later on they're not addicted to what they're looking at you know pornography used to be a reality that teenagers would be exposed to uh all of us at some point are exposed

to it in one way or another when i was a teenager it would be magazines and vhs tapes it would be a friend coming over saying hey check this out now today the schools hand our kids ipads and now it's no longer adolescence it's preteen it's ten eight six years old parents parents be intentional put up guardrails it's not just the internet maybe some of us should limit our screen time i want to encourage you to start your day off reading the bible when you start your day off reading the bible you're going to hear what god says you're going to hear his promises you're going to hear who he is memorize scripture when you meditate on scripture which means you chew on it after you've thought about it after you've heard it you're going to meditate on it reflect on what you think about

talk about it with others one of the biggest problems in the church is the elephant's there let's not ignore it let's talk about it what do you watch what do you don't watch and it's crazy over time how god's gonna change your mind what you thought used to be funny is gonna make you sick and what gives you joy now will be everlasting so here's some helpful tools let's just recap what we we talked about today number one address the elephant don't ignore it you can do something about it have a standard in your life here's the second thing evict the elephant don't just talk about it it no longer needs to be in your life if it's if it's wrong and we're going to get rid of it and we're now going to go after god here's the third thing we're going to do we're going to replace it if you don't replace something bad in your life with that which is good the

enemy would love to just come right back sometimes even worse than before so we're gonna remember what we feed grows we're gonna feed righteousness we're gonna go after god with all of our heart we're gonna say god what do you want from me i'm going to feed the good things in my life i'm going to write scriptures put them on my car dashboard i'm going to start thinking about these things differently and we're going to starve evil we're going to kill it we're going to get rid of it we're to crucify we're eradicate evil and god's going to do a transforming work in your mind my friends god has a great plan for your life he's got a perfect will for your life but at this point as i asked the band to come up is we're not finishing church this is the

point where we remind each other that we are the church so there's a time of response what will you do now that you've heard god's word the most important response is the person that has yet to receive jesus christ if you're here today maybe someone brought you maybe you had the courage to come to church maybe whoever you are today if you've not received jesus and you want him the scriptures teach us this today is the day of salvation which means it's not a better day there's not another day you don't have to go get your life right to be right with god you can come as you are before jesus and he accepts you as a child if that's you you can change your life forever right now

doesn't mean you'll have it all figured out but it does mean you have faith in the one that has it figured out so i'm going to pray with you in just a moment but then i want to speak to the christian too some of us are doing things we should not be doing you're miserable you're not content you have no peace remember what philippians 4 says you think about the right things and the peace of god will be with you today you need to make a commitment what do you need to get rid of what do you stop looking at i want you to make that commitment before god i want to be real and authentic this is your response to god would you close your eyes right where you are turn your attention to jesus if you want to receive jesus for the first time i want to pray with you right now i'm not even going to ask would you just slip up your hands like i pray with you if you want jesus i pray with you it's incredibly simple

if you're watching online you can receive jesus right where you are as well someone here today is it just be bold courageous right now i want to i want to give my life fully over to jesus thus you pray a prayer like this lord jesus come into my life forgive me of my sins today i choose you i want to follow you and when we pray we pray in jesus name in this posture of prayer if you're new to church and you're wondering what is prayer prayer is talking to god it doesn't need to stop at church it doesn't need to stop when you say amen it's listening to god and talking to god follower of jesus right now would you talk to him with open minds and open hearts would you receive his word

lord have your way in your church i pray today there would be transformation that starts now we know that it's not going to be over as we leave here but may this be the beginning of greater things still to come may your church live out your principles and your practices at god you have a great plan for our lives and it's not just so that we'd be forgiven it's not just so that we would be religious but god that we would fulfill your purpose and your will help us lord i pray for even the next generation that you would rise up a whole new generations of warriors that want to think about the right things give us the courage give us the boldness to believe that god the best is yet to come we receive you today in jesus mighty name and the church said amen amen i don't want you to rush out of here we want to conclude with a song so important that we sing to god we fill

our minds and our hearts with the right things see as we sing it's a prayer if you're able to would you stand to your feet as we just celebrate who god is what he's done in our lives today we say jesus break the strongholds of our past we say jesus you can have our hearts and our minds we say jesus we love you we say jesus forgive us for your faithful and just lord have your way we pray today [Music] amen [Music]

it's bigger than the sky [Music] i need a song [Music] is it took a chance

[Music] me [Music] nothing more [Music] us not for grace [Music] it's just

[Music] so i see you took a chance now this is [Music] food but i know

[Music] you still were on your throne when i was still a long way off you ran to bring me home [Music] you love me

[Music] you pull me [Music] is [Music] but i know