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Christians who love the Bible see the blessing in technological progress. Animal hides, parchment, printing press & phone apps of today are a blessing to each respective period of Christians.
The episodes are the weekly sermons from 922 Ministries campus in Appleton, WI. St. Peter is in the north part of Appleton. The CORE is our downtown Appleton campus.
Screens & Souls
Week 1 - The CORE
Pastor Mike Novotny
Good morning, welcome to week number one of Screens and Souls. Before we jump in, real quick…did you know our church leadership was kind of panicking when we pushed the button to start the second morning service because like we have some amazing volunteers but we didn't have enough volunteers and we thought we need new Usher's. New greeters new people at the cafe Core kids, technology, sound, lights and we don't know if we can pull it off and so what, six or seven weeks ago, we had this big call to action in a sermon. And I'm not sure you've heard of what's happened since then. But today, just today, at the CORE, not St Peter, but just this Sunday at the CORE we have 17 brand new people who are serving with a "you first" tee shirt on. So yeah, we need to thank them. So let us such a huge gift to our church, to our leaders, to our volunteers. And a last week, we had 12 people who are serving new week for that double digit people who are serving news.
That's really made this possible and we are so grateful for it. I'm so grateful for that last song though that just like thump me, right in the heart of a so beautiful that I told Jordan after last service, like you can't do that to me before I preach like I'm I'm in his head space getting ready and then just the goodness of God to think about his Mercy for us. So we're gonna celebrate that today. As we kick off this, brand new sermon series called screens and souls. 6:00 a.m. My old school, alarm clock rings right next to my head and without opening my eyes, I slammed the snooze bar and I go back to sleep, 60, 9 a.m. the same, alarm clock rings. My eyes also don't open. My hand knows exactly where to go. Get this news for a second. Time 6:18 a.m. the alarm clock rings. It wins again and I Stumble out of bed. I shuffle my way with bare feet over to the bathroom. And that's where as I grab my toothbrush with my right hand, I grab This was my left first time, my hands touch a screen and it will definitely not be the last. What my brain and thumbs are able to do in the next. 90 seconds is either incredibly impressive or the verge of addiction because I can check my email, my calendar, the weather soccer scores, like all good. Christians to the local news and everything just to do my brain can process. I can look, I can scroll up with the phone down for a second on a good day. I change into my running clothes to hit the streets for a few miles. And I strapped this to my arm where I will pump some of my
Running music or a podcast running at double speed. It might be the Biebs. It might be Metallica, could be Foo Fighters or the astronomers whatever I'm feeling like on that very day. I will try to run as fast as this old body can until I get back and jump in the shower where the phone will. Then stream through the Bluetooth speaker pumps of my favorite music or podcasts. I listen to sermons while I shave. I listen to sermons on this device while I eat breakfast. I listen to sermons on my way to church, and then for the first time since I've woken up, I will put this phone in a drawer. And open another screen on my laptop where I'll work, and I'll study and alright and I'll edit until about 9:00 9:05 nature will call and I'll go to the bathroom.
Because I'm a good modern American, I will not go to the bathroom alone, I will bring my screen my thumb's repeat the exact same thing. They did about three hours earlier. I'll check my work email even though I was just on my work email, which is confusing to me. I'll check the weather. Again just in case the storm has rolled in. I'll check the news in case. Something is breaking and I get back to the office. Phone goes back in the drawer. I keep working until noon comes. I can't just eat my lunch by myself. Of course, I have to bring this so I listen to podcasts while I'm eating lunch. My wife will text me on her lunch break so send me a gift.
Officer when those cute bitmoji is of us together. It's pretty sweet. I'll text her back, something funny, a crazy meme and it'll be back to the office. And then for the rest of the day, pretty much. The same thing will happen. Whether I'm in my office or the bathroom, whether I'm at home or at work, whether I'm running on the streets or on the streets in my car, this device will not be far away, I will use it to talk, I'll use it to text occasional actually use it as a phone did you know that can do that and make some calls? But my life is lived in almost constant connection to this device and here's the crazy thing.
Statistically, I am way less connected to it than most of you.
I check the data on my screen time, I currently use my phone apart from my work laptop, about 2 hours every day. It's on. Not disturb 24/7 which means it never rings. It never dings you never pings. And that is not the normal American. According to a 2022 study by the New York Times. The average eight to twelve year old apart from school is looking at a screen for 5.5 hours a day.
Jump to the teenage years. The number skyrockets, We're not talking School laptop, the average teenager in America, now is staring at a screen for 8.5 hours a day. That's cool. That's, I don't even know how you find enough time for that, eight and a half hours every single day is the average. And some of, you know, it's not just the kids these days. Grandma gets lost in Facebook, your Society or not. He had right now on the Facebook. Middle-aged men keep clicking the recommended. YouTube videos, middle-aged, women tend to love Instagram, my kids find themselves on Tik-Tok and Snapchat. You might have a smart TV, a smart device, and Alexa and Amazon. Some of us talk to Siri and Google more than we do. Our own children right there. Your preferred platform might be different, but it's rare, that any of us in this room are Amish. All right. We are connected constantly who can go a church service family meal, without the ding of the paying for the ring. We live in a digital age and it doesn't look like there's any going back. And so, here's the big question. Is that a blessing? Or is that a bad thing?
Like you think about life, think about family, you think about friends, you think about faith are the constant connections, the TVs. And the tablets is that a blessing or is that a bad thing? Let's take a quick vote but on your pens, your programs best blessing ever, the worst curse upon humanity. I'm not sure pretty good, pretty bad on the count of three. Let's all vote. Ready, 1, 2, 3, go. I see one thumbs up, but she's seven, a lot of, a lot of this. Let me put it another way if Jesus appeared on the stage. And he with his Divine fingers, snapped and created a time machine. And he set it to the year 5, To ad. Which Step Inside. No online bullying. No gaming addiction, no families fighting to stay focused on each other. If you could go back 1500 years, would you step inside
I don't know. I like to shower air conditioning and so we feel torn. Don't we? We live in this Modern Age or somebody beautiful things about it. There's so many things that break our hearts. Don't you pick up your pen down? Write this down. Because here's what I've come to realize that technology is attention.
Someone wants to say, are these phones a good thing? Yeah? Are they a bad thing? Yeah, they're both of the things. All this technology is attention, I bet you felt it before. Our families feel this, tension all the time, my two daughters only have two total cousins. They live a few states away but instead of just those one or two times a year, when we can physically be in the same place for the gift of FaceTime and streaming video. They can share jokes, they can stay connected. They love their cousins. Probably more than I ever loved my cousins who live so much closer, a generation ago.
Aunt and families feel that tension when the family is all in the same room and yet we're lost in our digital spaces, when short bathroom breaks, take way longer than they should. Where did so-and-so go? I'll give you one guess.
Friends feel this tension. And you can do amazing things to stay connected to your friends when you're on the same thread, sometimes when you're apart it keeps you connected. And yeah, it's a group of friends, all around the table at the restaurant that they're physically in the same place, and yet their spirits aren't there?
I think parents feel this. I mean parents with young children when you can put a tablet in the hands of a toddler that makes the long drive to Grandma's house is slightly less traumatic experience. And yet, when those same little hands grip the tablet because their brain is so used to constant stimulation. What parent doesn't wander
Drivers, feel this. I mean you want to go back to 1980s? Driving do any of you remember paper maps? You thought Joel had it bad, I'm gonna try to hit a ball to band member stopping at a pay phone, punch in the calling card number, like that. I don't know where it's so great to have the navigation, it makes life so much easier. Reroutes you before you hit that accident, that you never would have seen in the old world and yet, And yeah, you seen that person not just at the stoplight but flying past at 80. Like, worse than drunk driving and yet we can't seem to put it down. It's a tension. And it's a tension for a Christian to the Modern Age and Christian people are constantly connected, churches, like ours. Have a screen here and there a huge booth back there with technology and a giant screen that's behind me. We have digital lights. We had speakers. We have tiny microphones. All this Technologies is this good for us, spiritually.
The goal is to believe the right things, that Jesus taught and behave in the loving ways that Jesus wanted. Do you think that you and I today, the average Christian is closer to that ideal than our ancestors were
If we avoided the lies of the internet and discovered the truth in it, Have we used our devices to love better? Do they make us more patient, kind and gentle or are we a step away from how Jesus would want us to live because of of all of this?
That's attention.
And based on the almost silence in the space right now, I'm guessing you've felt the tension too. And that's why I'm so glad that you're here. Because for the next few weeks, we're going to talk about these screens and your souls. I want to talk about the blessings and we're going to talk candidly about the bad things, and we're going to talk about the boundaries. Are, We're not gonna have a bonfire where we all throw in our devices. Those instruments of the devil. There's a case last week after he saw, like the preview for the sermon series. Pastor, my mom's going to take away my phone, we're going to talk about the good things, the blessings. We're trying to leverage as much as we can, for, to be honest about the bad things. We can minimize that as we can, and to get there, when you talk about the boundaries that our brain and my heart, both desperately need the blessings, the bad things, the boundaries, that's where we're going for screen see souls. So let's start on a positive note and I'll pray that you'll come back. I'll let you know when next week is going to be the blessings. How do we maximize the blessings of modern technology for the sake of your soul? Well, you might seem like the Bible doesn't have much to say about that. The Bible is an old school paper book, Apple and Google didn't exist when the Old and New Testament were written, but let's just remember that even though they didn't have modern technology, do they have inventions and advances?
For sure. Did you know that the book the book was at one time, a technological advance to take multiple sheets of paper and bind them together. Do you know what the Greek word for book is? Bible. Is that same dude, speaks Spanish up biblioteca a library, where the books are, right, bibliography is simply meant book. And when they put all these pages together, what should we call this thing?
The book, right? So the scripture is when they were written. Yeah, that's a digital hologram. But this was an invention before there were screens, there were Scrolls before there were DM'S, there were scribes with pens before there was 5G, internet to take a message from here to there, the Romans built advanced roads, so the horses could run faster and the carts could carry people further than I had ever done before the Bible itself, was a technological advance. And here's what we know. We know that the early Christians leveraged it for the good people spiritual lives.
Even though every technology had its dangers, the early Christians and say, whoa, that could go bad. Instead they leaned in and they leverage the latest technology for the good of the church, Let me give you one example today. The book of Romans, In the year, 57 AD, the Apostle Paul is the guy that wrote about half of the New Testament, was in the Greek city of Corinth and he was about 750 miles away from Rome, he never been there before. There were a bunch of people who didn't really know the basics about God and Humanity about Sin and salvation. He desperately wanted to get to Italy, but he couldn't, at least not yet. You see in the exact opposite direction way over in Jerusalem, there were a bunch of early fans, who are hungry and starving, because of the first century famine, Paul had gone from church to church to collect money, to help them and feed them, and he needed to bring that offering to them, but he couldn't go this way and that way at the same time. So, do you know what he did?
Technology. Paul couldn't get to Rome and be there physically. So he used the technology of his day. He used Papyrus Scrolls. He used scribes and ink. He used those fast-moving, Roman roads. And he sent those Christians that he had never met face-to-face, a letter, and it's brilliantly called Romans, have you ever thought of that? The book of Romans this epic New Testamen depiction of Christianity was a technological advance. It was like an ancient email a YouTube video that the Apostle Paul could upload and someone could watch it even if they had never seen him face to face.
And just so you don't miss this. I'm not sure if you've ever read Romans, but it is an epic letter that teaches us so many essential things about God. You like a 5 point quick overview of what the Apostle Paul covered in this book. He said in his letter that he wrote Romans 3:20. To these Christians had never met. He said, hey no one will be declared righteous in God's sight by The Works of the law. That's a fancy way of saying if you want to be righteous or right with God, if you don't want to be far away from if you want to get to heaven, be part of his family. Guess what? No one is good enough to do enough, good things to get to God.
So if you thought that being a decent human, being nice helping little old ladies across the street donating, it to nonprofits, all good things. Do you think that makes you good enough to get to the presence of God himself? Paul says, no, no, no one will be declared righteous by doing good works. The fact is if you haven't done all the good things, you can't reach high enough to a God who is all together good. In fact, Paul would say you and I and all Humanity has a huge problem. He went on to write in Romans chapter 6. For the wages of sin is death. Have you said? I've been unkind if you lashed out, have you lost your cool? Have you not been gentle? Have you looked at something on your screen you shouldn't have. If you had one too many, you know what, you get. If you do that death, separation from a God who is love and light and life. That's what you earn, that's what you deserve. That's what your wages are. The Romans might not have guessed that based on their Pagan religion. Paul said, God is so good. He's so amazing. He's so holy that if you sin just once what you deserve is to not be with him.
But, Paul said in that same verse but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ. Jesus, our Lord. No, you don't deserve to be with God. None of us are good enough to climb our way up to heaven. That's why God decided to give you a gift. His only son Jesus Christ. And if you trust in Jesus, if you come to him and just say I can't go back, I can't fix it. If you believe in what he did at the cross, you don't die instead. You get the gift of God is eternal life in Christ. Jesus, our Lord, the Romans would have guessed that Paul had to teach it. And then Paul said something that I love in fact, if you see the Bible that's in my office that I've had for, about 20 years, there's one page that is more worn out than all the others. It's the one where Paul wrote this. Romans 7, verse 15. I do not understand what I do. What I want to do. I do not do, but what I hate. I do. Paul said, hey Romans, you might believe in Jesus have the gift of eternal life, but guess what? I bet you're still going to do things. You don't want to do. You're gonna know that I should put God first. I should be patient. I should just forgive my parents that I should be. Okay, just let it go at work and it's going to be moments when you don't when you slip you, screw up your sin. Paul said me too. But before the Romans could panic a paragraph or two later, he said this in 8 verse 1. But there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Like Jesus, didn't just forgive you and give you the gift of the start and then you had to earn it afterwards. No from the start to the Finish. It's all Jesus. There's no condemnation. If you have Jesus, you mess up for the millionth time you come back to Jesus and you get more. Jesus, forgiveness, mercy and love. There is no condemnation for every single Christian.
Before the chapter is over, then Paul said this. And we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him. All the things like life and roll might be hard. Maybe your parents relationship is a mess, maybe you lost a job, maybe they found a lump, maybe you're battling stuff in your own brain. Maybe you're anxious and depressed. Maybe your brother took his own life, whatever you're going through. Paul says in all the things that God who sent his Son for you is sending his Spirit to remind you. He he still has good plans for you. Don't panic, don't give in. Don't give up.
And all of that, that I just shared. Those are five of the 433 verses that Paul wrote to the Romans.
Paul use that old-school Papyrus and those smooth Roman roads. He used ancient technology to bring this Timeless message of sin and salvation, our struggle God's patience, his plans. That give us so much peace.
If I had to summarize it I have your pen. I would say that through all these verses and in all these chapters Paul, accomplish three big things. First of all, he helped the ancient Romans to group.
Right. This is like a mass email that Paul sent. They would all read this letter in their church at the same time and as he would do it, they would start to do life together. In fact the phrase one another I teach one another love one another that shows up nine times in the Book of Romans, this letter is technology would be Paul's way of bringing the church together. Second through that same letter he would help them grow. So maybe the Romans didn't know, maybe they thought, I thought I had to be a good person to get to heaven. They would grow in their understanding, maybe they thought I'm struggling so badly. God's never going to accept, he's going to condemn me. Nope, they grow in their knowledge of salvation. What about conversion election? Baptism, you want to know what baptism means? Romans 6, verse 4. You want about the struggle that Christians have in their hearts. Romans 7. Do I know how to get through pain in this broken World? Romans chapter 8, don't know what to do. If a government's all jacked up Romans chapter 13. I don't know if the culture is all jacked up. Romans chapter 12, what of Christians disagree on things that are in the Bible, Romans chapter, 14 and 15. What, how should people interact with each other? When we believe different things, Romans 16, like in this letter, he's gonna help him grow. In really practical, Christian Living,.
Then finally, number three. Go.
So while the Apostle Paul was going over to Jerusalem, his words and his faith, could go all the way over to Rome, 750 miles, and share the most important message in all of human history. So in summary, Paul used ancient technology to help early Christians group and grow and to grow in their faith.
And it would not be the last time.
Fast forward about 1,500 years from the days of the Apostle Paul. And you get to a university Professor / priest /, monk named Martin Luther. Martin Luther had grown up in the church. He'd actually taken his vows to serve in the ministry of the church, but it wasn't until he was lecturing through the book of Romans as a university professor that Martin Luther really understood who Jesus was. Using the very first chapter of this ancient letter from Paul and he stumbled across these words and 1:17.
For, in the gospel. The righteousness of God is revealed our righteousness. That is by faith. From first to last.
What was it thought about? Those words? Wait, righteousness is like getting right with God. And it's revealed in a gospel. Like what Jesus did at the cross. That's how I get. It's not in the law, the Works that I do. And all that righteousness is just by faith. It's by believing in Jesus, not by doing things for Jesus. From first to last, like the whole thing of Salvation getting to Heaven is 100% Jesus, and 0%. He had no idea. If you know his story Martin Luther used to starve himself and whip himself when he had sinned, he tried so hard to be good enough to God and he still did the things he hated and he always wondered am I ever going to get there? So when he discovered, Romans 1 verse 17, he said the scales fell from his eyes, the weight of guilt, and shame was lifted off his shoulders and he got it for the first time in his whole life, he got it. So guess what he did. He used the ancient internet of his day to tell the world about it.
I'll show you a picture just before Martin Luther was born. The printing press was brought to Europe. Ever heard of Johannes Gutenberg or a Gutenberg Bible? Before Gutenberg's invention, monks and scribes used to copy verse by verse, chapter by chapter, the whole Bible, take them years to make one copy but after the printing press came to Europe it was like There's like the office right? Like running copy after copy. Your Bibles are being spit out and Martin Luther lean into that hard but year 1519 Martin Luther was the most published author in all of Europe. It is discovery about righteousness that you despite all of your sins can be right with God not 10 years from now if you try hard, but right now, simply through trust in Jesus, that set the world on fire and a change. The change the course of human history. In fact, our church today might not be here. If it wasn't for what happened then if Luther had discovered it and had to hand, write it to everyone, who knows what would have happened instead? He put it in the ancient copy machine in the world, heard about it and was turned upside down. It's all about you today. Are you and I are living in 57 AD.
When the Romans was written, nor is this 1519 and the printing press in our basements, we live in a world of Pinterest and Instagram posts. What do you suppose to take away? What's the blessing of being a Christian in a digital age?
All right, let me warn you. What I'm about to do is get out my sermon fire hose, I'm gonna blast, you like, twenty two separate ideas that you could do to lean into being a digital Christian. I don't expect you to do all of them or most of them are some of them. My goal is when you walk out of here just to take one of them if you wanted to group better or to grow in your faith, better, or to go and share your faith more. What's one thing that you can do? That's your goal, ready?
Let's talk about group. So, if God doesn't want you to be this solo spiritual Christian, just you and your relationship with Jesus. If he cares about one another, how could you use this to do that?
But I do have a group of friends that know me. Love me and I know and love them right back. And when I'm going through something in life, something good, something bad, but I'm tempted when I'm struggling, I text. Am I in a funk? Was my wife. Are we fighting and we're both in our corners ready for round two. I grab my phone, guys. I need you right now. I'm acting a fool and I just want to win this. I want to be right? I don't care if I'm righteous. Right. I've had friends who are traveling for work. Going to be in a hotel room alone for a while. It's tempting for me. Pray. What I have friends are celebrating something big, a spiritual Victory. They text like, we don't have to wait until the next time. We're physically together in the same room. We can make a pre-emptive confessions. We can escape guilt and shame. After we've messed up these little devices, keep us connected not just to each other but to each others face. We can make fun of each other often frequently. We can send dumb memes, we can bond and make jokes together. There's so many things we can do to be closer like this because of this, So, how could you?
You might have a group of eight to 10 friends, like I do. You might just have one close buddy, you might be still looking for that person but how could you keep the Christians in your life closely connected? So you don't have to wait until the next time. You're at the same service in the same room your faith and go further and faster to this device.
Or second thing about grow. When I talk about grow, I'm talking about the day-to-day connection. You have with the Bible. I'm talking about your prayer life, I'm talking about Christian music, I just forgive me if you're watching this on TV, I'm not sure if they're going to leave this part out. I think if the Apostle Paul would see the opportunities you have to connect to the Bible, he would pee his own pants. Did they have pants in the first century? That sure, that, yeah, the opportunities you and I have, like, back in the day when people had a Bible like, for our grandparents, and, you know, they were going through something, they were angry, they couldn't forgive someone, they loved, you know, it most of them did who weren't schooled in the Bible. Never done that before. Like God, I need help. I don't know. Do you know what you can do today? Just Google it Bible passage on fill-in-the-blank their whole Bible apps. You can type in anxiety, forgiveness, salvation Jesus. And it would sort through this book for you in less than a nanosecond and give you every single thing. You're having me father has ever said about that. Like you don't have to guess, you don't have to stumble your way through it. Technology, makes it so easy. I think the amazing songs. We sing in church. We just saying one before the sermon. I don't have to wait for the next time. I'm at the service when the band plays that song, I'm going to go home, put it up on YouTube, and I'm going to worship Jesus through it all week long. Like there are so many ways that you and I can my my mom and my mother-in-law and my wife and my daughter's. All did a Bible plan together on the Bible app literally three generations, passing the Christian faith of Jesus because they're not the same room. They're different schedules different times. They probably couldn't make a Bible study work every day every week but through the app they can. Oh my goodness honestly. There are so many things that you can do, whatever you want to do, to grow in your faith, as a couple as a parent. It's a person whatever you're struggling with anger, mental health, whatever it is. There there's never been a better time to be a Christian but now We're in 5 seconds. We can find the most powerful things that God has ever said. Grow and finally go. So I am 41. And 51, 50 seconds year old.
That's my shameless way of telling you it's my birthday on Friday. All right, and even though I've been a Christian for almost all of that, I have honestly found it very difficult. To share my faith with other people.
Because I don't know like the things to say but you just never know how someone's going to react, right? We start talking about Jesus, you move to a spiritual spot for some people feels pushy. It feels like pressure that's has been a complicated thing for me as a Christian. And I bet the people that, you know, that don't go to church, they feel that barrier to You talk about politics or religion. Get tense or you invite them to church and they're thinking, I bet it's a called. Like I bet they're going to say a bunch of stuff about God and open a book. And then they're going to ask me for a bunch of money, right? This all these, this all these reasons it's hard for us, and maybe it's hard for them, but you know what I've seen.
The device makes it so much easier when you're sitting here in church and you're thinking, oh man, if my friend, he needs this so bad. In 30 seconds. You can pull up the live stream link. Send it to him and say I thought of you.
And that friend, who's may be too intimidated by organized religion to show up on his own time. It's like I'm out of town with the kids like whenever he has time he can sit down who won't be curious enough to say. I wonder, I wonder what he was thinking about. But sometimes we think we have to bring our loved ones to the church, to get to Jesus. But what if device has allowed us to bring the Jesus of the church to them?
But what's what's simple way? Could you take the things, you learn like a, my brother needs this? And my friends are going through something. They needed that last sermon series is so easy. As a Christian, to be an evangelist with a few clicks, the awkwardness of the face to face you. And I can lean into that like Paul did with his letter to the Romans. So fire hose off. So my big question today is, what do you do if you want to be closer like this in a group? What could you do?
I want the Bible to be just a Sunday thing, but a day-to-day thing, what could you do? If you're thinking of someone right now that you love, it doesn't have a connection to the god of love. What could you do? How can we group? How can we grow? How can we go as we live in this blessed digital age? Because it really works.
Some of you know that about five years ago, our church was posed with a, pretty big question that involved me and involved you and involved us. There's a media Ministry, called time of Grace that uses technology screens books, social media devices to share Jesus with people. And they asked if we wanted to partner with them, and if I would be the lead speaker for that Ministry, Which was attention.
Time of Grace is pretty amazing. We currently connect people to God about 5 million times a month. In an average month, someone in 192 different countries will hear about Jesus, Through Time of Grace, amazing, amazing blessing. But the more I make TV shows and social media posts. The less I get to be here with you.
Before that big decision, I reached out to a bunch of people I respected and I said, what do you think this is good for us? Is this bad for us and really amazing people? They told me the pros and the cons and the good and the bad, whether it was all for a win and overall loss. I got some really good advice that led me to make that decision. But there's one conversation. I remember because my friend said something that seemed so right in the moment, But turned out to be so wrong.
The guy's brilliant amazing. I respect him a ton. He said, Mike, to be honest with you, I think if you're really going to help people Souls.
You're going to snatch them from the jaws of the enemy, who's lying to their hearts.
I honestly think you got to be on their couch to see their face.
And I get why I said that. You've ever done a long-distance relationship before it's a huge difference between a screen and face to there's just something better about it, but I got to tell you ever since our church said yes to that opportunity. We found out that he has been so wrong. There been so many people who come here to this place that started on a screen. How many of you here? I'm just curious before you came live on a screen on YouTube, on Facebook, on the television set dozens and dozens of people, I've had people send me emails of the most amazing life change that started with we've never met, but That night, I was going to take my life and then you guys came up in the TV. I thought after what I did after my addiction, my adultery, my sexual sin, that I was never going to make it to heaven. And then you told me righteousness is by faith From First to Last, I was done with church, I was done with religion, what I had as a kid and then I found this and there's something different about her, something good. Because it was all about Jesus. People's Souls literally have been saved through a screen. Some of you who are watching, maybe right now, this very program, you're thinking, I don't even know how to get to Heaven until ten minutes ago and as proof by the grace of God.
My friend is so smart, but in this point he was so, so wrong. Screens can be a bad thing. Screens need boundaries for screens to be a blessing. By the grace and mercy of God yes heart stopped. And amen.