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Promo: Making Time
You have the same 24 hours in your day as the most accomplished people in the world. So why doesn't it feel that way? Follow along on this special 6 episode series as we take a look at how to make more time. By following biblical principles and taking a look at what you really want, Making Time shares the secret to having all the time you need... with a little help from some friends.
Learn more and download group guides at https://lumivoz.com/making-time/
For questions, comments, or sharing your tips on how to make more time, reach out to makingtime@lumivoz.com
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You have the same 24 hours in your day as the most accomplished people in the world. So why doesn't it feel that way? Follow along on this special 6 episode series as we take a look at how to make more time. By following biblical principles and taking a look at what you really want, Making Time shares the secret to having all the time you need... with a little help from some friends.
Learn more and download group guides at https://lumivoz.com/making-time/
For questions, comments, or sharing your tips on how to make more time, reach out to makingtime@lumivoz.com
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Sadie Robertson Huff, who we watched grow up on her family's reality show, Duck Dynasty, is here with her new study, Who Are You Following? which deals with finding our real identity in following Jesus.
Study Gateway is a streaming video Bible study service that gives instant access to video studies taught by hundreds of the world's most influential Christian authors, teachers and pastors, published HarperChristian Resources. Subscriptions plans are available for personal use, for small groups, and for whole churches. Learn more at StudyGateway.com.
Today’s episode features a new young author who practically grew up in front of all of America on her family’s reality show, Duck Dynasty. Sadie Robertson Huff’s new study, Who Are You Following? is a timely look at the impact of who we follow on social media. I wish this study had been around when I was leading a high school life group – Sadie would have been much better than me at getting through to my girls that our real identity is found in following Jesus. And once you hear all the stats on our phone use, you’ll realize how much us old people need her message too. Let’s join Sadie for Session One called Know Where You’re Headed.
Who Are You Following? is a video Bible study by Sadie Robertson, published by HarperChristian Resources and streaming on Study Gateway. Here at Study Gateway you can find your favorite authors, pastors and Bible teachers, all in one place. We’re the only streaming video subscription service that offers a small group-sized plan, AND has user-based pricing for churches, no matter what the size. And don’t forget, you can use the promo code FIRST to get a 20% savings on a small group plan. What does 20% mean to your pocketbook? It means you’re going to save $4/month, so instead of $19.99/month, you’ll pay only 15.99/month for your entire small group of up to 20 people, which works out to only 80 cents per person per month!
Today’s episode features a new young author who practically grew up in front of all of America on her family’s reality show, Duck Dynasty. Sadie Robertson Huff’s new study, Who Are You Following? is a timely look at the impact of who we follow on social media. I wish this study had been around when I was leading a high school life group – Sadie would have been much better than me at getting through to my girls that our real identity is found in following Jesus. And once you hear all the stats on our phone use, you’ll realize how much us old people need her message too. Let’s join Sadie for Session One called Know Where You’re Headed.
Who Are You Following? is a video Bible study by Sadie Robertson, published by HarperChristian Resources and streaming on Study Gateway. Here at Study Gateway you can find your favorite authors, pastors and Bible teachers, all in one place. We’re the only streaming video subscription service that offers a small group-sized plan, AND has user-based pricing for churches, no matter what the size. And don’t forget, you can use the promo code FIRST to get a 20% savings on a small group plan. What does 20% mean to your pocketbook? It means you’re going to save $4/month, so instead of $19.99/month, you’ll pay only 15.99/month for your entire small group of up to 20 people, which works out to only 80 cents per person per month!
With Study Gateway, you also get a direct link to our store, where you get publisher-direct pricing on the essential Bible study guide for Who Are You Following:; a study guide designed to help you remember what you’ve learned in the videos, guide your discussion of your insights with others, dig deeper into what the Bible says about this topic, and apply what you’re learning to your life. Is Who Are You Following going to be the next study you do for yourself, or that you do with the teenagers and young adults in your life? Get started right now by going to studygateway.com, click start free trial, choose the monthly small group plan, and use the promo code FIRST.
Make sure you rate and review this podcast so other people can find this show too. We’re so glad you’re here. Be sure to join us next time on Study Gateway’s First Listens.
Creators & Guests
What is Study Gateway First Listens?
Study Gateway's First Listens: Find your next Bible study! Join host Shelley Leith as she curates first sessions of Bible studies on various themes each season, taught by some of the world’s most influential Christian authors, teachers, and pastors. To learn more, visit https://StudyGateway.com.
First Listens Season 1: Episode 4
Who Are You Following?
By Sadie Robertson Huff
Hi there! It’s Shelley Leith here, host of Study Gateway’s First Listens, where you get first listens to first sessions so you can find your next video Bible study.
[Music starts, fade out]
This season of First Listens is called New & Popular, where we’re listening to the audio only of the first sessions of the newest and most popular video Bible studies from HarperChristian Resources that are streaming on Study Gateway. In this season you’ll hear sessions by Louie Giglio, Jennie Allen, Michael Todd, Sadie Robertson Huff, Lysa TerKeurst, Anne Graham Lotz, and Sarah Jakes Roberts, and with these new and popular first listens, you’re going to get some great ideas for choosing your next Bible study!
Today’s episode features a new young author who practically grew up in front of all of America on her family’s reality show, Duck Dynasty. Sadie Robertson Huff’s new study, Who Are You Following? is a timely look at the impact of who we follow on social media. I wish this study had been around when I was leading a high school life group – Sadie would have been much better than me at getting through to my girls that our real identity is found in following Jesus. And once you hear all the stats on our phone use, you’ll realize how much us old people need her message too. Let’s join Sadie for Session One called Know Where You’re Headed.
[play Session One]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
SADIE ROBERTSON HUFF: What's up, friends? It's Sadie Rob here, and I am so excited that you have decided to do the Who Are You Following? study with me. This is going to be so awesome. I believe that it will impact your personal life, your walk with Christ, and just who you are and who you're becoming. I'm so glad that you chose to be here. Let's just dive right in because we have five sessions to get through, and I want to get us started.
Y'all, I'll never forget whenever I turned 16 and got my driver's license. All of you, just imagine the moment. You know how it feels. When you get your license, there is a certain amount of coolness and confidence that comes with that little driver's license. And for me, I got it at just the perfect time, right before football season.
And so I'm thinking, y'all, I'm going to be the coolest kid in school because honestly, not many had their license yet. I was one of the first in my grades, and I thought, I'm going to be able to drive all my friends to the football game. So here's my opportunity, one of the first football games of the season, and it's an hour outside of town. And I'm like, even better. I totally got this.
I'm going to get to drive my friends for an hour. And so one brave friend decided to come with me, and we were going to make this drive to the football game. And like I said, we were feeling so cool. We get in that car. We crank up the music. We're ready to get a little dance on, talk about probably who we had a crush on, all the things, and drive to this football game.
Well, of course I put it in the Maps on my phone to make sure I know where I'm going. And I also turned that up loud so I make sure I get to where I'm going. Well, of course I get there. We have a great game. Everything's great. And then we decided to leave the game and go back home.
And as we left, me feeling super confident and cool, the 16-year-old with her license, I'm like, you know what? Who needs the GPS? I got this. That was such a simple drive. All I had to do was make, like, one turn and then just drive a while, and then I was here. So on the way back, I'll just make one turn, drive a while, and I'll end up home.
Well, friends, let me just tell you. The one turn I had to make, I made the wrong turn. But I didn't realize I made the wrong turn as I'm driving for about 45 minutes.
And what's crazy is I literally thought I was recognizing the sights I was seeing. I was like, oh yeah, I remember that house. Oh yeah, I remember that. We must be getting close to home.
Well, about an hour goes by, and I'm like, you know, we should actually be seeing our house right now. I'm thinking, this is starting to not really look like what I thought we were going to end up at as we've driven an hour. So I look to my left, and I'll never forget.
There is a post office, and it said Eudora, Arkansas. Y'all. I live in Louisiana, not Arkansas. I was literally in the wrong state.
And I'm just going to tell you. All of my coolness and all of my confidence went out the window in that moment. I'm sitting there, and I'm not only feeling uncool and unconfident, I'm also feeling very afraid, very insecure, a little bit embarrassed. And I'm sitting here. And what really came into the reality of my mind at this moment is, I'm lost.
And friends, that is a terrible feeling, to feel lost. It is one that will make you feel afraid. It is one that will make you feel embarrassed. It is one that will make you feel hopeless at times.
And I think in a spiritual sense, many of you feel the same way. You took a wrong turn in life. You took a turn that you didn't really mean to take, and you've gone down this road for so long that you don't recognize anything around you. You don't recognize who you've become, and you're sitting here, and the fear is starting to rise up, the anxiety is starting to rise up. You're feeling a little hopeless, and you just simply feel lost.
And what I came to terms with in that moment is not only am I lost, but also, I don't know how to get back home. And maybe you feel the same way. Not only am I lost, but I don't even know how to get back home. Now, here's the thing that I realized in that moment.
I have a GPS. I can just type it back in, and there will be a voice that will guide me back home. And for you, I want to give you the encouragement that it's the same way. The voice of the Lord is here to guide you back home, to get you back to who you know you've always been called to be, who he called you to be in your mother's womb. That voice is going to guide you back home.
But we need to look at a few things to get there, friends, and that's what we're going to do in these next few sessions. Here's the thing. If you're anything like me, I know you might be a person who needs a plan. And so I'm going to give you a general plan for our time as we dive into this study together.
We're going to talk about who we're following and where all this following is leading us. We're going to get honest about if we're really happy about where it's led us so far. We're going to talk about where we actually want to end up, if all of this following is leading us somewhere that we actually want to go. It's actually a really important question that we could ask ourselves.
We're going to talk about what it will cost us to stay focused on the path we want to be on and to quit taking spiritually equivalent trips to Arkansas. So that sound like a plan? All right. Let's roll.
Now, I'm just going to go ahead and call this out. If you're currently flipping back and forth between this video and your Instagram, I just want to go ahead and ask that you put that away, get rid of the distractions, and give this study your full attention. You might be wondering how I knew you were multitasking, how I knew that your eyes were darting back and forth from this session to social media. And honestly, guys, the reason I knew that is because if you're a human being alive on the planet in the 21st century, then you're most likely always on your phone. And hey, to be honest, I would be too.
But literally, we're always on our phone. You want proof? Because I got some. Here's the facts. How about this. A group of researchers recently studied our digital device usage trends and found that half of us take our phones into public restrooms and use them while we're taking care of business.
And I'm not even going to lie to y'all. I'm a part of that half, OK? Don't even lie. You know you are too. Y'all, we are addicted.
The same group of researchers also studied how often we clean our phones. Any guesses? If you guess never, you win. I mean, I don't clean my phone. And you know what? That is so gross. But does that stop us? No.
We're walking down a city street, we're scrolling our phone. We're stopped at a traffic light, we scroll our phone. We're waiting to board a plane, we scroll our phone. And even sometimes, we're out on a nice date with someone we really actually love and are very interested in, but yeah, you guessed it. We scroll our phone.
Surely we stop scrolling our phone when we sleep, right? Wrong. Nearly 7 in 10 people admit to scrolling their social media feeds until the moment that they drift their eyes to sleep. Many even fall asleep while they are scrolling, their phones suspended in mid-air, their thumbs pressing their screen and their eyes totally shut. 7 and 1/2 hours a day. And that's how much time people 13 to 18 years old spend on social media each day.
And for the rest of us, the average is between 2 and 6 hours per day, and that's not exactly something to brag about. Every second, nearly 1,000 photos are uploaded to Instagram. Every day, more than 8 billion videos are viewed on Facebook. Every year, Snapchat closes in on complete target market control. Currently, the app's reach in the US equates to 90% of all 13 to 24-year-olds. That is a lot of snaps.
And I want to say, before we keep going, and please hear me when I say this very clearly, I am not against social media. I actually love social media. Social media helps us stay connected to people that we don't see often, and that's such a gift, especially in the times that we've seen lately. It opens our eyes to learning from people who are a little different than us.
If you're anywhere near my age, you have literally grown up with social media being a very normal and common part of your life. You don't know any other reality than the one that seems to be revolving around a 24/7 social mediaverse, if you will. You can't even conceive of a life lived apart from constant posting, constant comments, and constant likes. [8:35]
[music fades in]
Well, I’m not near Sadie’s age, but I’m with her on how normal and common it has become to have life kind of overtaken by social media. I’m so glad you’re with me for Study Gateway’s First Listens, and I hope you’re enjoying the first session of Sadie Robertson’s Who Are You Following?, published by HarperChristian Resources and streaming on Study Gateway. Study Gateway is a streaming video service, and we’re the only one that has a subscription plan especially for small groups. For our First Listens listeners, we are offering an exclusive rate on our small group plan. When you use the promo code FIRST at studygateway.com, you’ll get a small group plan for up to 20 people for only $15.99/month, a 20% savings. And, for a complete experience with Who Are You Following?, take advantage of our publisher-direct pricing on the essential Bible study guide designed to be used with the videos. You’ll get the group discussion questions and leader materials, the Scripture text and key ideas, and personal Bible study and discipleship activities to do between sessions. Get all the details at Studygateway.com.
And now, back to Sadie Robertson.
[music fades out]
But here's the thing. What is also true is you can't imagine what it would be like to live in a world where there is no depression, no loneliness, no anxiety, no comparison game, no rampant suicide. When you and I devote an average of five hours of every single day to following people who may or may not know where they're going themselves, it is no wonder that we're ending up lost.
You are becoming who you're following, friend, and I'm becoming who I'm following too. One of the greatest joys of my job is I get to meet people every year. Mostly, they come up to me after a speaking event, and they'll give me a hug. They'll introduce themself, maybe even take a little selfie. But what always strikes me is when people go so deep so fast. I mean, they'll tell me about a relational struggle that they're wrestling with or dreams that they watch unexpectedly die, maybe even loved ones that they just had pass.
They'll tell me about a heartache that they're having to deal with, a terrible diagnosis, a debilitating addiction, maybe even a paralyzing fear they're walking through or several unanswered prayers that they're wrestling with those thoughts of God, where are you? And what shocks me is not what these people are saying because I know we all go through hard things, we all have these hard thoughts and these big questions that we have to ask ourselves, but it shocks me that without even knowing me, only by social media, they'll tell me these big things in their life.
And to be honest, it is an honor that they would ask me to pray with them, that they would tell me these things, that they would trust me enough to carry their burdens. But something I see in that is that people are so desperate for someone to carry their load with them. They're carrying so much. They're so desperate for a friend, so desperate to be heard, desperate to know that they're still loved after what they've done, desperate to keep going.
And you know, that's a very natural thing to desire. But what I want people to realize is that no one with a following on social media or any following they could ever gain from social media can ease their pain and walk with them like Jesus can walk with them. And the same is true for you. You might be carrying all this stuff, and you just think, oh, if I just had someone. If I just had a following. If I just had this person, then all of my problems would go away.
But really, friend, it's if you just have Jesus. Jesus really can carry your burdens. He really does walk with you in the unfiltered moments. When you follow people, your life can be inspired, motivated, and encouraged. But when you follow Jesus, your life can truly change.
Over and over again, just say the name Jesus. The Bible says that he is the name above every other name. And you know why it says that? It's because it is true. He is over all things in your life.
It is by Jesus that we are rescued from whatever is scarce in our life. It is through Jesus that we can actually find fulfillment. What you're looking for underneath all the things you think you want, it's actually Jesus that you're trying to find. You can't follow anything that's more worthy of your follow than Jesus Christ.
When you're frustrated or desperate or annoyed or empty, addicted, afraid, when you're feeling entitled or forgotten or abandoned or misunderstood or left out, when we get in this moment, we just go, you know, wander around, following this person, following that person trying to numb the pain, watch Netflix, do something to just distract ourselves from the place in life that we are.
But it's actually in that time that we need the truth more than ever. In the New Testament, the apostle Paul calls the various evidences of God's activity in the world the fruit of the Spirit. This fruit can show up in nine different ways. Galatians 5:22 through 23 says including love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
And here's the thing. It's a pretty obvious difference than the things that we're typically struggling with in our day, like jealousy, envy, gossip, addiction, lust, depression, you name it, anxiety, whatever it is. When you look at the fruit of who God is, and when you look at the fruit of the world, they are two completely different things.
There have definitely been times in my life where I've looked a little bit more like the world's ways and the fruit of the world than the fruit of Jesus. When I wanted to stay cool, when I wanted to stay relevant, when my priorities were to be trendy and all those things, of course I looked more like the world. But my priorities shifted whenever I actually wanted to look more like Jesus, when I actually wanted to love people well.
When you root yourself in the world, your fruit looks like the world. But when you root yourself in the Lord, your fruit looks like the Spirit. In the Gospel of Matthew, we are told to seek first his kingdom-- we are talking about the kingdom of God here-- and his righteousness, and all of these things will be given to you. So here's the question. How do we seek the kingdom of God?
We can't see God's kingdom and the world's kingdom at the same time. We can only go one way at a time. I'm heading wherever Jesus is going. Wherever Jesus is leading, that's where I'm going.
My great-grandma used to always say-- and it was almost awkward whenever she said it because she would say it about everything. She would say, Lord willing. If you said, I'm going to the grocery store, she'd say, Lord willing. I'm going to this place tomorrow. Lord willing.
And it was always just kind of funny. But what a good reminder that I'm only going if the Lord's willing. I'm only going if that's where Jesus is leading me. You see, those people that I respect most in life, they are obsessive followers of him. They actually love him.
They love to serve him. They know him. They even like him. They can't get enough of Christ. They get that if things like love and joy and patience and self-control are the things that they're in need of, then who better to go to than the one who possesses these things for help?
If we lack the fruit of the Spirit in our lives, and if we want the fruit of the Spirit in our lives, then we have to head straight to the source. Don't overthink it. Don't say, what is his will for me? Where am I going? Where is he leading? Just simply love him. Just simply seek him, and he will guide you, friend.
[Music fades in]
You have just enjoyed a first listen to the first session of Who Are You Following?, a video Bible study by Sadie Robertson, published by HarperChristian Resources and streaming on Study Gateway. Here at Study Gateway you can find your favorite authors, pastors and Bible teachers, all in one place. We’re the only streaming video subscription service that offers a small group-sized plan, AND has user-based pricing for churches, no matter what the size. And don’t forget, you can use the promo code FIRST to get a 20% savings on a small group plan. What does 20% mean to your pocketbook? It means you’re going to save $4/month, so instead of $19.99/month, you’ll pay only 15.99/month for your entire small group of up to 20 people, which works out to only 80 cents per person per month!
With Study Gateway, you also get a direct link to our store, where you get publisher-direct pricing on the essential Bible study guide for Who Are You Following:; a study guide designed to help you remember what you’ve learned in the videos, guide your discussion of your insights with others, dig deeper into what the Bible says about this topic, and apply what you’re learning to your life. Is Who Are You Following going to be the next study you do for yourself, or that you do with the teenagers and young adults in your life? Get started right now by going to studygateway.com, click start free trial, choose the monthly small group plan, and use the promo code FIRST.
Make sure you rate and review this podcast so other people can find this show too. We’re so glad you’re here. Be sure to join us next time on Study Gateway’s First Listens.
[Music fades out]