 A few years ago, I was spending time in North Africa, Northeast Africa, and Sudan, working in combat zones, trying to bring the gospel to unreached people. Because of the war that was raging at that time, there were people groups that became open to even allowing people come into their region. And we took advantage of that and went in very dangerous work I was doing at that time, very risky, almost foolhardy risky. And there were three times in this time I thought death is imminent. I'm going to die. I remember going while the circumstance was brewing, I thought, this is the day of my death. And my thoughts weren't so positive. I got scared. And I go, how did I do this to myself? We've got ourselves in a situation we can't get out of. All around me were swords in AK-47s. And we're going to die. This is it. Two times specifically, the third time it was actually an attempt to kill us. And on these long plane rides back to the States, often sick because in places we were going, didn't know the concept of sanitation. And you would always come back sick. And I remember in the plane going, Lord, what of this? What of this? I got scared. I went into this type of mission work partially because I was a single man. I had been in the military. I had a military experience for rough situations. And I thought, if I go there, I can deal with it. And if I don't come back, there's not a tremendous loss to a family or anything. I'll take advantage of this. And then I found out I get scared in those situations. And it continued on. But what of this, Lord? And I came to this conclusion or this question that I asked myself. And I like to ask young people. I was going to ask it this afternoon. So you young people, I'm asking you now. And that is a question that can be a good filter for your life. Is what you're living for worth dying for? Is what you're living for? What you spend your time doing? What you dream about? Where you put your mind, your body, your emotions, your money? Is it worth dying for? Because there's two great practical solutions that come out of it, applications to your life. First of all, if what you're doing is not worth dying for and you have this short little vapor of a life, it's so short. Yesterday I was 20. Yes, older people? Yes, yesterday I was 20. When I look in the mirror, I go, who's that old man? You know what I'm talking about. This little life, if I'm not living for things that are worth dying for, then why are you doing it? Your life's so short. Spend it to optimize your life. Yes? Make the most out of this little life that God has given you. And the second, if you get caught in a situation where now you may pay the price, you may have to give up your life, here and now you're about to die. You can go, oh, but I did my homework. Yes, I did my homework. I'm prepared for this now. I can die. My emotions right now are screaming, fear, all those things, but I can look back and say, no, when I was in my sane mind, my logical, spiritual through prayer, I made these decisions. I will do these things. And if I lose my life for this cause, the kingdom of God, I can die in peace, in joy. Amen? Here's a prayer. Listen to this prayer. I got it out of Martyr's mirror. I'm at almost 1100, page 1100 in Martyr's mirror. Prayer of Matthias, service of Cottengan. Lord, wait. A day or two before his death, his sure execution. Listen to this. Lord, here am I. What wilt thou have me to do? For I acknowledge that I owe it to serve thee and to do only thy will with all my ability, yay, with all my strength so that I am to withhold nothing in this earth, whatever it be, not even my life, nor to refuse in my thoughts to pay thee the willing debt of obedience, which I owe to thee and to give thee not because I expect a reward from thee, but only that I show thereby that I love thee so that we learn to hate all visible things for the lover's sake and that we may love him alone above all and may be also loved by him. What a prayer of a man who counted the cost in advance, a well-discipled man for the kingdom of God. Oh, I have a few more prayers. Now, these are some scriptures that I use in my morning devotions. Not every day, but I use them. I almost have them memorized. Ready? And so, let me know thy way so that I know thee and find grace in front of thy eyes and see, though, that this folk is thy folk. Who will stand? Who will stand? Good? Is that good? Good, ah? Dessen diener, ich geworden bin nach der Gave der Gnade Gottes, die mir nach seiner mächtigen Kraft gegeben ist. And the last. Und ihr werdet auch zeugen, den ihr Zeit verlangwang bei mir gewesen. And here's your übersetzung. Now, therefore, I pray, if I have found grace in thy sight, reveal thyself to me that I may see thee clearly and find grace in thy sight. And know that this great nation is thy people. Moses. Moses asking to see God. The next one. Paul. Where have I made a minister by the gift of the grace of God? Given unto me through the effectual working of his power. See, he considered himself. That was his, he realized his role. And the last one, and we'll use this later. And ye shall witness also. You shall be my witnesses. You shall witness also because you have been with me from the beginning. I'd like to take those and turn those into prayer. Oops, wait. We're supposed to see that yet. Turn to Revelation for a moment. I'm going to hit a few topics here this morning. Revelation chapter one. And I have spoken this before, so I will not belabor this. Some of you have heard it, so I'm not going to belabor it, but I'm going to try to get a mindset for us this morning. Revelation chapter two, to the angel of the church at Ephesus right. These things says he who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks in the midst of the seven golden lampstands. I know your works, your labor, your patience, that you cannot bear those who are evil. And you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not and have found them liars. And you have persevered and have patience and have labor for my name's sake and have not become weary. Oh, you've done so well. You've hated the works of darkness. You have. You've been doing very well. Your past is excellent. Verse four, nevertheless I have this against you that you have left your first love. What terrifying words. You have left your first love. Remember, therefore from where you have fallen, repent and do the first work. Go back, get back or else I will come quickly and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent. But this you have, I think this is more past tense here. You hate the deeds of the Nicollegians, which I hate also, you have that. You hated that stuff. You hated the movement of this false Christianity. That's what the Nicollegians were calling themselves Christians, apostles and weren't. You sexually immoral people calling themselves Christians. You've called it right, but you've fallen. What has happened to you? You've fallen. Your lampstand, I'll take your lamp, take your fire. You know, I was in the military and I was an artillery officer. And one thing we had to do was after we would be in operation, we would have extra propellant, gunpowder, if you wanna call it that, these bags of propellant and we had to burn them. We had to lay them in a line and light them on fire. And I don't exaggerate, it would make a column of fire. They burned so hot that it would cause an updraft that the fire would burn 15, 20 feet high and only about three feet in diameter of a pillar of fire. So hot that, of course, in the winter, the soldiers would all wanna be around it warm up and you couldn't get very close. It was so intense, so hot. This propellant, this fire, you could see it the miles and miles, this bright, blinding fire. What good was that when it was burning? Maybe a little heat, a little bit of attention. But you know, when that propellant is in a barrel, when it's in a barrel, gun barrel, artillery barrel, it's put in there, you put a projectile in there nice and tight and that propellant ignites all that power. It'll fire a 100-pound projectile, almost 20 miles. Amazing what it'd do. Bad barrel, we had a danger, it was called blow-by. Where that fire would come out and the projectile would sit there, then you're in danger because the projectile might go off. Now I look at that X, chapter one. Let's go to X, chapter one. Well, I'm sorry, I'm not gonna read that right now. I'm just gonna mention it. I'll come back as many scriptures I wanna get to. Let's do turn to the Great Commission in Matthew 28, and we'll come back to Luke, verse 18. And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, all authority is given unto me in heaven and earth. Go therefore, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I've commanded you in low. I am with you always, even to the end of the age. So we know the commission, I'm not going to belabor it, but I want to add one flavor to this disciple-making mission. Go make disciples, teach all nations. Go make disciples. I'm working with a student now who I'm teaching at a university and I had no indication of faith with this young man, talking with him and I've been working with him and he now is longing, asking to be discipled and I'm working with him, it's wonderful. Now, he says, go make disciples. If God would give you somebody, completely coming out of the world and said, comes to you and says, please, sir, man, make me a disciple. I want to live completely for Jesus. I count the cost, make me a disciple. Wouldn't that be great? Yes? And so now you have the blank sheet of paper. What am I going to write on this man or this woman's life? What is the goal in disciple? Well, I say we have it in the scripture, but imagine now, during our meetings here, now I'm going to be a little bit imaginative here, that one of the top three disciples, I would count these three the top. Peter, James and John, let's say one of them or two of them came in somehow into this present age, came in and sat down here or they're at the meetings. What would they be like? What would their proclivities be? What would they be talking about? What would they do and not do as opposed to what the world does? And when you talk to them, what about a conversation with this ultimate disciple be? Would it be, you can just talk about simple things? I don't know. I wonder if we are not aiming high enough in our discipleship. Our goal is not to hit minimum standards. Really, as disciples in anything we do, minimum standards, no, maximum achievement. What is the ultimate goal of this person, this young man or this young woman, even your children to be? What drills would you put them in? What disciplines would you put? Where would you take them? Do this now, get them with me. And I tell you, you have that person. That person is you to be that ultimate disciple. What are you doing to your own life? The disciple God has given you, yourself. How can you make other disciples if you're not making yourself? We know the scripture, if you would be my disciple, are you willing to give up everything? He tells you that. Good, I don't need to go through those scriptures. Now let's go to acts one, eight. One of the five great commissions, portions of the great commission, Acts chapter one, and he makes this statement. I'm going to come to media in just a minute, in verse seven. But it is not for you to know the times and the seasons which the Father has put into his own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Ghost has come upon you and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and even to the end of the world. You are going to be my witnesses. You are going to be my witnesses. How? In this verse, how are you going to be my witnesses? How? Somebody? By the power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is going to come upon you. Earlier, I had a verse that I recited out of John. John 15. He said, you are going to be my witnesses because you have been with me all this time. You are going to be my witnesses because you have been with me. What was Jesus doing to those men? He was discipling them. So they were discipled by Jesus himself, these ultimate disciples. They were shaped like that barrel, actually weapon of righteousness in Romans. They were shaped over time. He did his work. He discipled them, got them ready. And then the propellant came at Pentecost. The tongues of fire, I propose that the tongues of fire did not rest on their head. I propose that it landed on their head temporarily, went down into their hearts and became fire in them. And there was a propellant in them that they went out and were moving. It wasn't just the excitement of tongues of fire on their head. It was that well-shaped, disciple-live life that began to move when the propellant of the Holy Spirit, both are necessary. Without the discipling of the life, the Holy Spirit can be a nice flash, exciting, look good on YouTube, all those things. But when a life is well-disciplined, discipled and the Spirit comes, effective action comes out. That's what I want. What is that? All right, be filled with the Spirit. Be filled with the Spirit. Don't be drunk on wine, dissipation. Now let's get to the media business. Now I just, somebody don't know me. I just touched on my background just for a moment. Military guy became a believer in the military, not well-informed, then the military turned me into a techie. So I'm an information technology guy, did information technology for 20 years. Simulation development, pondering, how do we use technology to create false realities in the person's mind for training purposes? But that's what simulations do. They create a false reality in the mind. So I've been pondering this at the same time. I did 20 years of youth work. And 30 years ago, 25 years ago, I guess is what I really, really saw. My biggest opposition in trying to bring young people to Christ was media. I got it. That was clear as can be. And I started out then trying to expose to parents, mainly what your television back then was doing, blocking, unheard of. That it's like no one had heard that media has any effect. I was like a voice in the wilderness at that point. Of course, now it's a lot of discussion about it. 20 years ago, no discussion of it. And I talked about, because the title of this is Time for a Media Ethic. It's sort of interesting. I was gonna put this on the board for you to look at, fill in the blank. This is the sentence with the blanks. More doctors blank camels than any other blank. The two blanks. Anybody know what that is? Somebody you know. More doctors smoke camels than any other cigarette. In the 1950s, they were using doctors, dentists, nurses, all sorts of these people would make statements about the cigarettes because those cigarettes, the doctors are using them. Then those little question marks you have about smoking, your coughing, your irritation in your eyes, your whatever those problems you're having. No, no, it's okay. It's okay. It's all fine. The 1950s. You see, since then we've developed a smoking ethic. Smoking, wide range, for those of you in my age range, if you ever flew on a plane, you would be completely surrounded by smokers. On the airplane, left, right, front, back, the whole plane would be a cloud of smoke. That's how much America smoked. Unbelievable amount of smoking going on without a thought of the problems because the media, advertising, quelled it, it's all okay. Until we started realizing cancer is related to, okay, we developed this crazy, now the other direction, smoking. I agree, I'm not saying it's bad, but the emphasis joined from doctors say it's good, that our doctor smokes it too. Well, that's not the first one. We actually had a, we've gone through these ethic periods in our lives, in our culture, worldwide. Alcohol, alcohol. Alcohol was sort of common in society. I have a little booklet, it's a very interesting booklet. It's called, Drinking with Calvin and Luther. Okay, it is about their drinking habits. Sort of from the reform side of the house, saying, you know, why is this against drinking? Well, because alcohol was not developed like it was back in the 1800s. In the 1800s, they perfected distilling. Early 1800s, you could distill, distilling's not hard. In Sudan, I was offered a drink, I thought it was water, it was fire water, made from the grain there that they have, and they figured out these people who don't even have shoes figured out how to distill now. But in the 1800s, figured out distilling, turned into an industry, professional distilleries, alcohol, pervading the land, a sort of a difficult thing to get now. And then everywhere, and it took its effect because there was no alcohol ethic at the time. And of course, then we have the temperance movement starting in the early 1800s goes all the way through to, even to now. But we all have an alcohol ethic. Drug ethic, drug. Oh, I was gonna, there was one, there was one drug. There was a doctor, his name was, Dr. Pemberton, he was a Civil War doctor. Figured out how good cocaine was in medical uses. And he put together a medical potion and was, he found out people really liked it and was selling this potion. And to the public, public was drinking this potion. It became huge in the 1800s. And it wasn't until really, really what, I forgot the year. 1875 was the first time, no, I'm sorry, 1906. When the government started saying, we're not so sure about this drug thing about selling this drug to everybody. You've got this cocaine in the drink and everybody's drinking your cocaine. Are we not sure that's good? And then they needed taxes. So they started taxing this potion that the public was drinking like crazy. And it wasn't until 1929 that finally, they said, that's no longer the real content. It's not the main content anymore. It's still in there. They had all sorts of patent rights and they couldn't disclose their patent to the world. So they're not sure that it's still not even there. It might still be there. You know what I'm talking about? Yes, don't you? Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola, still made from coca leaves, which is where cocaine comes from. Still made, they say they've been processed so that the cocaine's not in there anymore. We can't tell you because it's the patent laws. We can't let you know that. But we have a drug ethic now. We didn't have a drug ethic back in the 1800s. Early 1900s, no drug ethic. Didn't have an alcohol ethic, got the alcohol ethic. Smoking ethic, I just talked about this now. We developed a smoking ethic. Now, we are now at the precipice of a new ethic coming in its media ethic. Should already be here among God's people, but it's not, it's not. I study, this is my area of research. I work in this. I'm amazed to see this very interesting situation where the researchers out there, scholastic, psychologist, sociologists are out there, and they're going, this media is doing something to us and it's not good. They're going, it's not good. And in my secular realm, I have a large secular content of peep friends and so on. There's a bit of a movement beginning out there because they're going, this media is ruining my children. This media is ruining our lives. We're not doing it anymore. We're getting rid of our television. My children are not allowed to have that. No, there's a movement out there. It's just the beginning. The research out there, it's a standard or it's an Oxford dictionary, Facebook depression, because they know the negative impacts, they're out there. Now, Facebook's not gonna tell you that, sorry. Just like television in the 1980s, there was a book called The Four Arguments for the, I forgot the banning of television and then there was amusing ourselves to death. I highly recommend amusing ourselves, ourselves to death. What television show is gonna say, hey, we've got something for you? No. And the media realm is not gonna tell you. You know the stories about Bill Gates hindering, keeping his children from media. Apple, no, not my children are not having media. There's a school in Silicon Valley for the technical developers and it's a technology-free school because they know what it does to their children. They don't want their children to be impacted. They don't care if you get impacted. Because what does that mean? Yes. And it's, to me, I see that. And I've been traveling around the Anabaptist churches and I see this passing each other where, wow, look at this. Look at this technology. Wow, we can just go right into it. That's great. Let's all get on it. I've heard all the arguments. I know all the arguments. And I can counter every one of them too. I will counter every one of them and do for being steeped in it. Because you don't know, just like they didn't know that smoking will give you lung cancer or alcohol will destroy your life and you'll get cirrhosis of the liver. My uncle died from cirrhosis of the liver. Pretty nasty thing. Where drugs will make you out of mind destroy your life. That this media technology that we are steeped with now is changing who you are. Now, when I go for weekends and speak, some of you, I've been to your churches, I spend the whole weekend trying to emphasize that this little device is changing who you are and you don't know it. I'm not talking about the content. I'm not talking about the bad pictures. I'm not talking about the bad stories, the content. The media device itself does something to it. Gives you what the, in the scholarly realm gives you media bias. Changes you, makes you like the media. Gives you values that are coming from the media itself, the device itself changes you. I don't have time now to go through it. There are certain things that I can't tell you now because I've learned if I don't lay a good biblical foundation, which I spend the entire first day trying to do, if I go right to the conclusions, people get mad, they get angry. I've been shouted at. I've touched the apple of their eye, but I delay the foundation. I don't have time today to lay down the foundations to explain to you how your media that's in most of your pockets is changing you. It's changing you. It changes you individually. It changes you sociologically, the way you interact with people. It changes institutions. Institutions are all completely changing now because of media and it changes society. And if you are unaware, you're going to get lung cancer. Oh, not lung cancer, something else. And you won't know it, you have changed. Now I understand I could ask to speak places on media and I find an attitude of how do we, they don't say these words, how do we slow down the impact? Yes, we're all going that direction. How do we slow it down? The world is down there and our youth, they're going, they're becoming like the world. And how do we sort of manage this decline? How do we manage the decline? How do we manage the decline into the world? What? You have been redeemed from this world. You have been rescued out of this world. Yes, the sinking ship going down furiously. This is not about going up a little bit on the deck as those people are drowning in front of us on the ship. Let's get up a little bit higher as, yeah. Higher, because you're going down. That's not the approach people of God, not manage the decline. Because if you say, if you're thinking, not cognitively making that statement, but that's what's going on, it's not manage the decline. What is it? It's aspire to godliness, to ultimate discipleship. Regardless of where the culture is going, I have answered to God. I don't answer to the culture. Who cares what they think of me? Let's flip there in Acts chapter four. Acts chapter four here. Oh, I don't even know what time I'm supposed to finish at. What time am I supposed to finish? Who's in charge of me? 9.15, okay. Okay, I'm just going to surmise this because I want to jump to a couple of things. Let me synopsize this. We have weight, the Holy Spirit's coming. Pentecost, Holy Spirit indwells those that have been discipled. That power goes out, they go and preach. Thousands, non-thousands coming to Christ. The authorities, they don't like it. They grab Peter and James. They say, what are you doing? What's this miracle, this guy who's healed? And they say it's because of Jesus who came. It is by Jesus' power that this is happening. These two well-discipled young men filled with the Holy Spirit, miracles, preaching, soul-saved, begins to happen. The birth of the church, the authorities. What is it? They give, it's not us, it's God, it's Jesus, who you killed, stop it. They threaten them, you stop it. You don't dare do this. They go back and the second half of Acts chapter four, I consider that the first biblical war council. You read it on your own. It's the first biblical war council. And they go, truly, it's a war against us. It's a war against God. We're in the middle of it, right? They understood that. Let's just get that. Sorry, I just love that. I'm sorry, I can't find that verse down, sorry, because I don't order here. Any case, the bottom line is when this group got together, and they understood now, it's war, count the cost, it's war. Now it's not war according to the world, worldly weapons and worldly violence. No, no, it's a war of the spirit of God in you, speaking truth. I dare say, women, ladies, young ladies, ladies, young ladies, your husbands, the man you're going to marry, there is a latent war in that man to be fought. Latent means it's sitting there, waiting to steer up into action. It's latent, it's not lit up. You can well, well-discipled know the right things, know I should be doing something, but I'm not. We need to. My point is, that was an example of two men. They had been with Jesus. That's what they said. These are uneducated men. What is this? Let's jump to a, because I'm out of time on some of this. I'm gonna do some slides here. Okay, I don't like letting PowerPoint be the leader, so I hold back. So we need to become people of the word and of oral communication again. Of all people, I think there is so much latent potential in this room, that if we got a grip of discipleship and we prayed earnestly for the spirit of God to come in and that propellant, I think the world would be shaken. It says there, and when they prayed, the place was shaken. I think there's a possibility of a shaking. Okay, all right, I got a shift to make it. I'm gonna get sort of technical. Okay, here's some, uh-oh, uh-oh. It's not coming back to life. Ah, all right. Here's what have we got now. You know what, discipleship is a two-way process. You're supposed to be discipling towards the kingdom and the world is trying to disciple you towards itself. That little thing in your pocket? Yep, it's working to disciple you. Which direction are you gonna be transformed? Worldly discipleship or kingdom discipleship? Here's just some ethics, some modes of ethics, many of which we address. The one that we're missing? We sort of know it needs to, we don't have it. Not yet. You know, it'd be sort of sad if the world came up with the ethic before we did. Wouldn't that be sad? Here's what's interesting. This is what the world out there is talking about now. We were becoming experts at digital technologies. This is what the developers. The developers can develop unbelievable technology every day, new things. And then, this is what the people are. People think they're technologically proficient, but they're not. They're really information communication capabilities. Sorry, that end dropped off there, but means you can use it. I can get on Facebook and I can drive and I can social media myself all over the place. You don't know anything that's underneath it. What's inside underneath it. Now, this is coming from non-Christian thinking out there saying, you know, that's for development. That's for development, use, consumption. The new word is presumption, meaning I can get on my social media and I can create all sorts of interesting fun things out there. So you're creating, but you're consuming. You're not really developing. What's missing? An ethical media effects based literacy. This isn't from me. This is from guys out there that are going, whoa, what we're doing here is impacting people. We're giving them these tools and it's changing them and damaging people. Non-believers out there, ah, what are we doing? They're beginning to have that conversation among themselves. Okay. This is a chart I put together. We've got two things. We're getting really good at functional media literacy. We know how to use it, broadcast, record. We're really good at that. Consume, consume. But we're not so good at the critical literacy. This is the consuming, presuming. I guess that's what, like I said, we move this direction. But that critical element that I look at media use critically, we're not too good at that. This is sort of a quadrant. There's these quadrants. Again, with this functional, meaning I'm good at it. I know how to play on the internet. I know how to play with my technology. The other one is my critical media literacy. Do I know what this does to me? Or does it to other people? Where am I going with this? What am I changing into? We're not so good at that. So we tend to be either here, naive, near non-users, or now we're oblivious, digital addicts. The other end. Always checking, not knowing what is this doing. The fact that I'm always doing this, pulling it out of my, having to look on it. It's changed you, it's got you. You're taking on this nature. Many, many aspects. I don't have time to go through them now. That we are so, we so believe in media values now. Efficiency. Efficiency is like the top value now in the media world. We think efficiency, so now we're gonna get the gospel out efficiently, not effectively, not effectively, efficiently. Effective, you know what effective disciple, to become an effective disciple, what do you need? Face to face, time, walking with them. But efficiency, I just send stuff out and they somehow will change because like an efficiently blasted everywhere. We're taking on the nature. Anyways, the goal is that we become effective. Effect, I'm not saying don't you media. I'm using it. But we need to become effective, cautious experts. This is just a projected media influence. I'm really, I'm writing up a little bit about this. Okay, this is borrowing off of the communication models. I don't wanna get too steeped in it. My point is that the media models out there that talk about communication and so on, how communication works in the mind, all those things. They miss this little R, the R factor, response filter, that's where the ethic is. That when media is coming out to me, do I have my antenna? I'm saying what is this doing to me? What am I becoming? That's the part we're not good at, okay? And projected media influence meaning when you communicate, you influence people. There's a statement out there, you can't not communicate. You're communicating and you can't not influence. You are influencing people all the time. And you are being influenced. Is your antenna up? Say, no, I'm not going there. I'm ultimate disciple. Okay, real quick. Now this is something that I did. I taught a class this summer to graduate students on media ethics. Mediatization theories, what I was working on. These are some notes I gave to my students. Idol training was not just a distraction to a non-god. Idols contained content narratives. The bronze, or the gold, or the statue. Yeah, it was just an object. They contained content, morals, values, visions of life, behaviors, as well as the channel logic bias, which I explained. The media use put the bias into you. You actually change just by the media use, not the content. They don't just lead astray, they lead to fruits of judgment and damnation for the entire value framework. This is what the idols did. Okay, that's my class. I showed them, I went through these. Here's a media ethic. I was trying to get them to develop their own media ethic, these students. Non-kingdom-oriented. They were Christian. Most of them were pastors. Mega church pastors. This is what I was trying to show them. This is what I do. These are my ethics. I'm trying to develop for myself. And I'm trying to talk about something I don't do. I'm trying to talk to you about something I do. Optimize self-conditioning. Optimize self-conditioning into a disciple. Become who you are. Take their nature. I know that is happening. The people I'm with are gonna change me. The tools I use change me. Optimize my relational calling. I didn't get into the relational aspect. My talks focus on that. As opposed to entertainment value, EV. The highest calling on our land now, the highest value is entertainment value. So my people are tattooing and all the things they're doing and putting themselves on YouTube. The highest, my joke is I do it parallel. We know the first and greatest commandment. Love the Lord God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind. Second one, liken to it. Love your neighbor as yourself. And I base my initial talks on that. The media is actually distracting you from those. But the first and great commandment in the culture is, that shall not be bored. And the second one liken to it, that shall not be boring. That's what the culture's doing. They're all trying to become exciting and imitate what they see in media. We can't be that. Who cares that they think we're boring? Actually, maybe it's a blessing they think we're boring. We show them something different. We don't belong to the culture. Optimize my worldview via core reality. I can't go into it, but my general thought is, the media you consume becomes your tool for interpreting reality. You watch a lot of media, a lot of movies. When you see real life events, you are interpreting it through your media. In your memory, you interpret reality through memory. You're populating your memory with false facts, false occurrences, then you're interpreting reality. It's a, we have this backward thing going on. I refuse to do that. I refuse to take in entertainment. I don't want it to turn, change my worldview. Optimize my mission, subdue all facets of media in support of what I'm doing. I subdue that media. Do I have to use it sometimes? Yes. I'm not letting it do that to me. Develop a plan and process, okay. Consider time being exposed to conditioning power of media all forms. When you're playing on media, it's conditioning you. Media is influenced on my relational proclivities. You're bored, you're lonely, play on media. Then you don't need people. Yes, that's what's happening to you. Even when you're, even your mediated relationships make you satisfied so you don't need to have real face-to-face relationships. Do you see that? I mentioned that already. Media is influenced on my cognitive skills. Yep, changes your way, the way your brain thinks. I don't have time to go through it. I can go through all that with you. Give me about 10 more hours. Media is influenced on my shallow impressionistic skimming versus deep cognitive concentration. Carol Leif talks about this. Practical applications. Don't let my relational needs be met via mediation. You're bored. Don't pick up the device. Go be with somebody. I'm lonely. Don't watch YouTube, television. Don't know. Your inner being is desiring human relationship or spiritual relationship. Don't falsely satisfy it. Avoid mediated relationships. And I can argue all day about my cousin in Africa who I need to Facebook. I can give you examples of how social media is damaging the mission field. First hand, I can give you examples. It's damaging the mission field. Because we can't be away. We can't now be on the mission field. We have to be here. Condition yourself by increasing a relationship with God via deep devotions and worship. We have lost deep devotions in our culture. We've lost it. No, I'm not trying to pat myself in the back, but I'm telling you, my most important part of my day, four to six in the morning. I'm not saying that to look at me while he does that. No, because some of you do that. But I'm telling you, if I'm in a time of period where I can't get those in, I spiritually drift. When I get it, a lot of these slides I've shown you came out of my, after my devotion time, I went, I must capture some of these things that the Lord was showing me. Increase face to face relationship with Godly people, with Godly people. Minimize intake from alternate realities. Meaning the entertainment, mainly entertainment. Okay, there you go. Entertainment, edited presentation, stage portrayals, they're false. Filled with false cause and effect. Maximize real experiences, grounded sources from grounded sources. Maximize the media's technical affordances. I'll do that. I'll maximize those. Information, coordination, great for those two. Data management, yes. Research, yes. Broadcast, yes. But not for relationship. Applied attentional states, I don't have time to go through that. Here's my vision. What's your vision? Playing people of the kingdom. Girling in spirit, truth, action, numbers, witnessing to the world what a nonconform, Godly, devoted, and disciple, people of Christ are. Anyways, all right, I'm gonna stop here at this point, but I wanna finish on one thing if I can get this to stop. Couple of minutes. Military guy was, didn't understand non-resistance and fully embrace it now. Fully embrace it as an essential to the faith. Just let you know that. It's not optional, essential, okay? But studying war can be helpful because we're in a war. Sometimes you'll see things, physical world, physical war, spiritual application. There was a war, one of the Greek wars, many Greek wars where the Athenians were attacking this other city, sieged this city for 10 years. This city had these walls, enormous walls. Some say, sometimes they'll say like 100 yards wide, they could drive chariots on enormous walls at the sea. Under siege for 10 years, couldn't break in to the city to take it down. Then, at that wall, the guards of the wall got up, looked out there, and all they saw was burned debris. Their siegers left, burned all of their equipment, their tents, got on their ships and left. So they ran out there and they captured this one guy named Sinon, he explained to it. We gave up, we left, couldn't win. What's that? What's that sculpture down by the water? There was a beautiful sculpture, a beautiful wooden, shiny, lacquered, artistic, beautiful horse. Yes. And what's that? That was an offering to Athena, your God. There's many variations of the story, but it was an offering to Athena, your God, or our God, we're not sure which one was, but we gave up. Some say it was too big to get in the gate. So they broke the gate open, bring that horse in, that beautiful statue. Yes. They brought it in, closed the gates. Yes, that night, Sinon gave signal fire to the ships on the horizon, out of sight. We're in, opened the gate. Yes. Ship came in, killed every man, woman, and child. Troy destroyed. 10 years. You know, again, this is what I'm gonna use in the youth, about two years ago, maybe three years ago, I stumbled on a copy of Antibaptist Vision. Yes, Antibaptist Vision, read it. I read that, I found it. I think it was under a bookcase. I was cleaning out the church office. What's this? Harold Bender, who's he? I don't know. I don't come from your, any Antibaptist or kingdom background. I read that, and I had this nostalgia of when I first became a believer, when I was in my mid-20s, and we said, we're gonna follow Jesus. And I was with these other young men, and we locked arms, we're gonna follow Jesus. Who cares about anything, follow Jesus. And over time, that involved in professional churches and that fire that we all had was sort of sprinkled with a little water. No, no, I read that Antibaptist Vision, those young men in the early 1500s. That's what they were. They were fired up to live for Jesus with all everything. And since that time, the Antibaptists, and I speak to a largely Antibaptist population, not completely, I understand, but we look, I look at the Antibaptists. I didn't even know they existed. Seven years ago, I didn't even know they existed. But they were gone. I'd passed through the church, and I didn't know that. And the defenses have been great. And for almost 500 years, almost 500 years kept out culture, worldly culture, not people, to a great degree. And you know the Watchmen verses in Ezekiel, chapter three and 33. Oh, Watchmen, you know that you don't, if you see the enemy coming, you don't do anything, you're in trouble. They're blood on your head. Well, Watchmen, you don't look out there anymore. You need to turn around. It's through the walls. Not a trojan horse, a shiny golden calf. It's in many of your pockets right now. And the things that it brings, one question is, do we just go on? Do we stay on the decline? Manage the decline. Oh, people of God, God forbid. God forbid that we not count the cost. And I'm not saying don't use it. I'm saying don't let it use you, and don't let it change you. Anything, don't just hinder the changing. But I look and I go, what is the ultimate disciple I could be? What is it? That when I go somewhere and people just interact with me for a few minutes, they go, there's something about him. There's something about her. She's got something from a well-discipled life, filled with the spirit of God. Like those ultimate Peter and James, and they say, these men, they're nothing except they're something we can't handle. Are you striving? Develop a media ethic. Get a media ethic and say this, I will use, and it will not go any further than that. If anything, a bit of a diminishing use of it. I'm well out of time here. Me, me pray for us. Father in heaven, I thank you for the content we get from Scripture. The examples, the history, the content, the commands that we have something to live for worth dying for. Oh, that we would live out that prayer I read at the beginning, that we would be willing to let go of anything in this world which hinders me in my ascent as a disciple and in growing as a disciple. Anything that pulls me towards the world, I subdue it. Lord, that your people here, your people here would take on a renewed calling, a renewed mission, a renewed determination to do war, not physical war, spiritual war, to prepare ourselves in our minds, in our hearts, in our abilities, that we would take opportunities as they come to us when we were ready. We're ready, always ready to be that ultimate disciple who gives that response that people are converted even by talking to us by your spirit in us. Oh, God help us to not slide into being a Troy, taken down, in Jesus' name we pray, amen.