GYC 2025: Seeing the Invisible

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Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

The War for Your Mind

Scott Mayer

01 The Real Cost of Social Media

02 How to Avoid Deception

03 Digital Evangelism

04 Hollywood’s War on God

05 The Trouble with Al

We're going to talk about social media this morning.

As you can see on the board out there, there's some different topics.

Some of them, I kind of gave them that list about 6 months ago, so a couple of those might shift just a little bit, just in case you want to be aware.

The next 1 will be about sort of how to avoid deception.

The next 1 will be about Hollywood and the attack that they are doing against God.

And then there'll be 1 on how to use this technology for evangelism and what can we do, how can we be inspired, because I really truly believe that technology in and of itself is not evil.

And so we'll talk a little bit about that.

But as people are still coming in, just so you can make sure you're in the right room if you wanted to be in this room at this time, we're going to talk about social media on this topic.

I'm sure people will start to be filtering in.

So we'll kind of get started here, because I have a lot of information to share with you guys.

And at the end, if you guys think of something that you'd have a question on, obviously, this topic is very large.

And I kind of chose some parts of this that hopefully will be the most beneficial to you.

So if I didn't cover something and you have a question about that I do want to leave a little bit of time at the end And our ministry is called Little Light Studios.

If you haven't heard of us, and this is your first time being exposed to our ministry, we have a YouTube channel.

I think there's nearly 800 videos on our YouTube channel, so probably more than you can even watch.

There's a lot that are not on media topics, but please feel free to check out our ministry.

You can come talk to us, but I'll try to leave some time to talk with you guys.

But before we get started into this, let's bow our heads for a word of prayer.

Dear gracious heavenly Father Lord, I just thank you for this opportunity that we're all gathered here together and that we can openly worship you and talk about these things because we know that there's a time coming that that may not be so easy, so I pray Lord that these words be clear, that they may be words that you want me to speak.

And Lord, just fill this room with your presence.

We love you and thank you in Jesus' name, amen.

All right, I'm gonna play a little clip for you that hopefully will kind of set the stage here with social media and the use of it, you might find yourself in this video.

You know, if you actually saw an animal sitting in the corner with a device in his hand, like a monkey, let's say, and it was sitting there looking at something like this for hours.

You would think there was something wrong with that monkey, would you not?

But yet we sit there for hours on end doing that doom scroll, And I think there's a really good reason for that.

If you are aware of how the technology is designed, how it's made, hopefully that can help you make wise decisions about it.

And I don't want you to actually misunderstand what I'm trying to say here.

There's a good use of the media and a bad use of the media.

I just want to be crystal clear with that.

Don't walk out of here going, oh, no, I need to just throw stuff away and not touch it at all.

I think that there's some really good things, and I hope that comes out of this conversation.

Here in the United States, this is actually some very real statistics.

There are approximately 346 million people in our country, but 411 million cell phones.

That's quite interesting, that we have more cell phones in our country than we actually have people.

There is some pretty interesting data, too, in the world, where there's 600 million more people that own a mobile phone than those who own a toothbrush.

We care more about the technology than we do our dental hygiene.

Isn't that interesting, that our world is obsessed with this technology?

There's also a thing that we have termed nomophobia.

Now how many of you have ever had that fear?

I'm gonna ask the same question with you about this.

How many of you have lost this and had that fear that you did not have this?

Does that set it into the stage of going, what's important to us?

I believe that there is a time that we need to understand.

Now listen to this beautiful quote from Gospel Workers, page 185.

In the work of many ministers, there's too much sermonizing and too little real heart-to-heart work.

There's need of more personal labor for souls, and in Christlike sympathy, the minister should come close to men individually and seek to awaken the interest in the great things of eternal life.

Their hearts may be as hard as the beaten highway, and apparently it may be a useless effort to present the Savior to them, but while logic may fail to move an argument powerless to convince, the love of Christ revealed in personal ministries may soften the stony heart that the seed of truth might take root." We need each other, and we need to prepare the ground to be able to share the gospel.

And in fact, the best way to share the ground is to draw close to people personally.

Sharing information is great, but you need to prepare that soil.

That's where you're going to see the real work of God that does not compute inside of our minds, and you will see many souls turn to Jesus because of it.

The silent witness of a true, unselfish, godly life carries an almost irresistible influence.

By revealing in our own life the character of Christ, we can cooperate with him in the work of saving souls.

It is by revealing in our life his character that we can cooperate with him in the wider the sphere of influence, the more good we may do.

When those who profess to serve God follow Christ's example, practicing the principles of the law in their daily lives, when every act bears witness of the love that they love God supremely and their neighbor as themselves, then the church will have power to move the world." Isn't that beautiful?

And this is the recipe of why we should be using social media.

But you're going to see 2 different ways to use the social media.

1 is, let me show you all about me and my life and my things that I'm doing.

Look at the vacation I just went on, look at all the things that I'm doing in my life.

Or you can say, hey, I'm at the GYC, and I just heard this really great sermon.

That's the same use of the technology, but in 2 polar opposite ways.

So let's learn to use the social media as a positive tool.

Now let's talk about time for a second here, because time is very important.

I saw this on a TED Talk 1 time and it absolutely blew my mind.

We're all accountable at some level, and if you think that God has given you, and I can vouch for this, God has given every single 1 of us a talent.

Every single 1 in this room has a talent, and that talent can be the simple talent of time.

If you were to actually break it down 18 years old to 90, if you live to 90 In months, this is what you would do with your time.

You'll sleep 288 months out of your life.

Some of you might spend a little bit more time in that area.

This is what you have in your free time to do whatever it is that you want.

Now, if you are like the average person, average person, and you use social media, that the average is telling you you use it 345 hours out of the day.

And right now, I mean, some of the statistics are higher than that.

That's how much time you will use in front of a screen.

Series

The War for Your Mind

01 The Real Cost of Social Media

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Faith Heroes Persevered as Though They Saw the Invisible

Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah and the Prophets

56m

Morning Devotional: It's War Time

It’s Wartime - Part 6: The Perfect Battle

54m

The Wheel of Faith

5. The Battle of Titans

54m

The Sanctuary, God's Answer to the Sin Problem

The Good News of the Judgment

53m

God's Invisible Plan

05 God’s Invisible Plan, I’ll Serve Him Forever

59m

GYC 2013 Seminar: The Gay Puzzle: Loving Gays to Christ

03-Loving All God’s Children

54m

Never Enough

50m

ASI 2014 Plenary Sessions

Facing Fire

58m

Unlocking the Mysteries of the Sanctuary

21 The Final Phase of the Judgment

49m

Plenary

Come Back

1h 45m

The War for Your Mind

02 How to Avoid Deception

47m

Plenary Meetings

Why Can’t We Forgive

1h 12m

Sound Doctrine