Zach Reed: well if you have your bibles why don’t we turn to the ephesians well-known passage when we were talking through the different workshops that we were going to be doing here for the youth summit i was talking through this one i kind of helped lay out some of the ones that we are doing and i wasn’t sure if i would do one or not but then as we talked about it

it was like the lord was kind of speaking in my own heart this was a topic that i needed for my life and this is something that i was wanting to work on here so title of is it buyback eternity principles for using technology and we’re looking at Ephesians chapter 5 here. We’re going to look at verses 15 and 16. How many of you have a smartphone?

Just ask. How many of you have a smartphone? Okay, so that’s most everyone in here.

I have one. I’ve had one for a few years now. And I don’t know about you, but how many of you have, probably because you’re in here, there’s a reason why, but how many of you have found yourself spending way too much time on this device okay i’m in that same boat uh if you have an iphone you probably can you can look at the stats on the iphone you can see how many times have you picked

it up you can see how many notifications that you get um i think the average uh times that people pick up their cell phone is like 4.3 uh minutes a day is the people you know again everybody’s different. There’s multiple people that have phones. But it’s a lot. We use our phones quite

often. This week, especially these couple days, I’m using my phone. It feels like non-stop and just getting texts as we are working on the Youth Summit. But here’s something I’ve been

burned about. I’m a millennial. Most of you probably a Gen Z.

Some of you, the iPhone came out 2007. I was just graduating from high school at that point. Some of you, was any of you born after 2007?

So some of you have been, all you’ve known is smartphones. You’ve grown up with it. I don’t feel like I’m dad dated, but I do remember dial-up.

I remember some of the things that were, you know, took time. You had to wait a while for even the computer to get connected to the internet. And now we have it, you know, if it doesn’t, if it doesn’t, if you’re trying to search something and it doesn’t pop up in like seconds, you’re like, man, what’s wrong with my phone?

I need a new one. We’re so we want stuff instantly. And I have just seen in my own life.

I got a smartphone in 2016. It was the first time I got a smartphone. Up to that point, I just had a flip phone or whatever it was at that point. But as I’ve looked back over the last bit and I’ve looked back at my life, I’ve seen in my own personal growth, my spiritual journey,

that I have not had extended times of revival in my own life after I got one of these. And so it’s been convicting to look at that. I had extended times of revival in my own life of seeking after the Lord before I got this.

Once I got this, now the stage of life changed. I got married. Then kids came along.

But there’s something about this device that has been dulling in my own life. And so as I’ve been thinking about, okay, we have time. It’s up to this generation to figure it out.

We’ve grown up with this. We have these. They’re not going away unless we take a massive turn back in society.

But as far as we know, they’re not going away. We’re going to have these devices. So how do we use them in a way that they’re a tool rather than an addiction?

Because I would say most people that have them would have to identify the fact that it’s an addiction in our lives. And as I’ve been preparing for this workshop, doing different reading on things, I have realized I’ve gotten convicted time and time again. Why did I pick my phone up at that moment?

So this has been good for me. So I hope this will be good for you all. I am challenging us, and we’re going to look at these verses, try to go quickly because we need to be done at 1125. But I’m going to go through this, and I want us to look at this and then walk away with some principles,

and then I’m going to give some practical suggestions. These are not the suggestions I have. They’re rooted in Bible truth, but these are not Bible. I’m not trying to say this is what you must do, but I’m trying to give you suggestions, practical tools,

because you need to figure it out for your own life. But we need societally to figure it out as a generation. There was a generation before, I don’t fully remember it, but when we had landlines, we didn’t have cell phones. You got a call between five and six, dinner time-ish time,

And people were, what in the world? Why are you calling? Nobody calls during dinner.

Now you go to the restaurant. I’m sure we’ve all experienced that. I was at a restaurant recently and I saw a family of three or four and every single one of them were on their phone while they’re eating.

I don’t think I saw them look at each other the whole time they’re eating. That’s where we’re at societally. And it’s a problem.

It’s killing society, but it’s killing us as Christians. So we need to figure out. We are the ones that respond to most of all because we’re told in this passage, we must redeem the time. And so we need to take charge of this as Christians, but especially as a younger generation,

let’s not wait for somebody else to figure it out. Let’s not wait for even secular society to try to figure it out because we’re getting there trying to figure it out. We should take the bull by the horns and figure it out ourselves.

So let’s look at this passage. Ephesians chapter five, verse 15 and 16 says, See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil. So he says there, see then.

What is he talking about before that? So we jump back there and Paul is talking there in the beginning of chapter 5. He says, be therefore followers of God as dear children. Going down a little bit more, he says there in verse 8,

For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord. Walk as children of the light. So I don’t have time to go through the whole passage, but this is the flow of what Paul is challenging us.

You were sometimes darkness. You were sometimes lost. Now you are light.

That’s who you are. You’re light. But that doesn’t mean that’s how you walk.

It doesn’t mean how you live. Sometimes you walk in darkness. That’s not the way we’re supposed to be.

We’re children of light. So we are called walk as children of light. So out of that, see then that you walk circumspectly, carefully.

We have a call. We have a commission. Each one of us in here has been called to be a disciple of Jesus, a follower of Jesus.

And we have been commissioned to make disciples of Jesus. Each one. I don’t care if you become a pastor or a missionary or whatever. you can become a car mechanic for the rest of your life,

you are still called to make disciples of Jesus. That was the call to every single one of us. I’m bivocational.

I work part-time at church and I landscape part-time. No matter where I’m at, if I’m not working at church, if I’m landscaping, I’m called to make disciples. So if I’m talking to a customer, I’m looking for an opportunity, not because I’ve trained for the ministry.

It’s because I am a child of God. I’m a disciple of Jesus. I am looking for. If I went full-time landscaping,

It would not change the mindset that I have that I’m looking to make disciples. It shouldn’t change us. I think sometimes because we come to a place where there’s a Bible college, you can think and be resistant of like, I don’t want to be in full-time ministry.

I was at that place at one point. But that’s not the call. If God calls you into that, great.

As in the sense of that’s your vocation. But we are all called full-time to serve Jesus and called to make disciples of Jesus no matter what vocation you live in. My dad has been a pastor.

He’s not a pastor now, but he works full time. He has a psalm that cuts logs, but he is in the business of making disciples. Every Monday night, they have a group of teen boys from the local high school that come in for a Bible study.

They have ranged anywhere from 10 to 20 kids coming every Monday night for a Bible study. They’re in the business of making disciples. Some of those boys have worked with him, but that’s his life.

He’s about making disciples no matter what vocation he lives in. That’s the same call for each one of us. So in that, you’re called as children of light.

You are called to make disciples, to be a disciple of Jesus. So therefore, we need to walk circumspectly. We need to walk accurately is what it’s saying.

As a kid growing up, I was notorious for finding landmines that dogs left behind. I don’t know why, but it seemed like I’d go and play and I’d come back and I’d always had that telltale smell. and I’m looking at my shoes and oh man I got to the point finally where wherever I went I walked circumspectly I looked you know if I knew where it was a dog I walked I walked where I was going

because I didn’t want to step in anything I walked accurately I was walking carefully that’s what we’re called to do we’re called we are living in the end of verse 16 there it says the days are evil we are living in evil days the world, your flesh, Satan wants to bring you down so walk accurately, walk carefully look where you’re going don’t just go into life and just live it we’re told to live it intentionally walking with Jesus

so walk accurately, be sober, be vigilant so your adversary the devil walketh about seeking whom he may devour we’re told to walk in the spirit and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh you are in a battle for your soul as a saved child of God Satan can’t take your eternal soul but he sure can cloud it he can enchain it and he’s going to do everything he can to take you down and keep you from being a light

we have the light of the glorious gospel inside of us that is desperately wanting to shine forth but we can live in such a way through this device and through other things that clouds us, darkens us, and chains us so that we are not the light that we are to be. He goes on again, that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise. I don’t think any of us want to be a fool.

I don’t want to even raise hands because who would want to be a fool? You want to be known as a wise person, right? But we all can be foolish.

I have little boys. I’m constantly having to correct them. Let’s not be foolish.

There’s a stage of life where that is foolishness is kind of the thing. And I’m constantly having to stay on top of them. Let’s not be foolish.

Let’s be wise. I’m challenging them. But as adults and young people, we can be fools.

We can live foolishly. Fools do not care about eternity. Fools live for the here and now.

Wise people recognize wisdom is seeing life from God’s perspective. Foolishness or fools see life only from a human perspective. Human perspectives are very short-sighted. Yes, we have visionaries that can think beyond,

but they only think maybe 100 years, maybe 200 years at best. It’s rare that a human would see vision that long. God’s eternal.

His picture is bigger than what we can see. We live life now. We don’t know why we go through things. Sometimes things happen in our lives and we go,

I don’t know why that happened. We’re commanding in everything give thanks. So we walk in victory, maybe in that bad circumstance that happened, except God gave this to me.

And sometimes God lets us see it. On the other end of it, he lets us see. Maybe it was a soul saved or maybe God did something miraculous for us.

But there are times we never see the end of why we went through something. But only eternity shows us that. So fools live what satisfies me right now.

What feels good to me right now and things very temporally does not look beyond. The reason why I challenge my sons, don’t be foolish, is because there’s the ball and they just kick it. A fool doesn’t think what could happen.

The fool just kicks it and it goes and smashes and breaks the thing. Fool doesn’t see. So the days are evil.

We must walk as wise people. And wisdom only can come from God. God gives us a perspective on life.

keep on going. He says, then, redeeming the time. It’s a very interesting word picture here.

Redeeming the time. Redeeming is to buy something back. But typically, how do you buy time back? How do you buy something, purchase something that in the moment,

you live it now and then it’s gone? How do you buy that back? I believe the principle is here is seize every moment that’s in front of you for eternity right now you have an opportunity to seize the moment we’re in a workshop you could check out you could daydream that’s not seizing the moment now I’m doing everything I can to deliver something that is good for you to hear and listen to but we can

And the reality is you can only seize this moment, this stage of life. I’m in a stage of life. I have four kids, seven, two twin boys that are seven, a five-year-old and a three-year-old.

I’m in a busy stage of life. Sometimes it can be chaotic and go, man, what’s going on? But I have a season of life that will only last year.

When I go and put my kids down to bed at night, sometimes it’s like, especially my little three-year-old girl, I only have her for a period. You guys aren’t parents, so you don’t understand this yet. Someday I hope that you all have children.

But there’s a point, like, you probably remember when you were hugged as a little kid. Now you’re 16, 17, 18, 20 something. There’s coming a day when my three-year-old girl is going to be your age.

I won’t have that opportunity to pick her up and cuddle my arms. Seize the moment now. It’s easy for me to just kind of, ah, just try to get through my day.

No, seize the present moment, the present reality. Time is a gift from God. God’s not bound by time.

I know you know this, but he’s not bound by time. He lives outside of time. He steps into the time and dwells with us.

But he’s not bound by time. He’s eternal. He has no beginning, no ending.

And so time is something that he gives each one of us. We don’t know how long we have. You might have 80 years.

My grandfather just passed away recently. He was 94. You might have that long, 100 years.

I don’t know. That’s a long life. But in eternity, that’s a drop in the bucket.

That’s a speck. That time is a gift from God. Every one of you has the same amount of time. it doesn’t matter your intellect doesn’t matter how much money you have what status you have what family you were born in everyone here has the same amount of time and God’s telling each one of us redeem it buy that back seize the moment let me use you it doesn’t matter the results of oh I’ve gone to all these countries

and I’ve preached all these it doesn’t matter that is the results that matter it matters more did you seize it Do you allow God to use you in wherever he has you? Because in the end, that’s a person that he can say, well done, thou good and faithful servant. Did you let me use you?

All right. Let me just say this last thing. There is a battle for your time.

I think each one of us recognize it. There, because the days are evil. Satan wants it.

Your flesh wants it. There is a battle for that time. Are you going to seize it or are you just going to let it piddle away?

What are you going to do with your time? It’s a gift. I have to say, you know, if I was to give my testimony, I look back at a lot of years of my life, especially my teen years, because I was living it for myself, that much of it is just wasted.

Did I learn things? Yes. Do I have things?

I mean, those are the years I first started my learning landscaping. So my business now is based out of those years. So it’s not like it was a total waste.

But for God, it was a waste. I lived it for myself. I get to the end of it and I realize, man, I wish I had lived that differently.

I look back at things I’ve done. I went to India when I was in 2009. I spent a long time for almost two and a half months there.

I look back at that. Were there good things? Yes.

But I was still living it for myself. I look at things like, I’ll never go back there again. I’ll never have that opportunity to go back into that.

I don’t want to waste. I don’t want you to waste your time. Because it’s God’s gift to you.

We have to walk into it remembering there is a battle. If a fool does not recognize the battle, a fool just walks in. But a wise person recognizes there is a battle today.

Right now. Your flesh is battling. if the Spirit of God is convicting you your flesh is battling against it what are you going to do?

Are you going to listen? Are you going to allow the Spirit of God to speak to you? And this device here many times is the thing that tries to take and drain that from you that vibration I always keep my phone on vibration I never have the notifications on but I’ll be standing talking to somebody and I’ll feel that vibration and there’s a And the temptation is to pull it out and look at it.

Because I’m curious. You get that dopamine hit. But that’s not.

What is the most important? So here’s some principles I’d just like to leave us with. For the time that we have left.

The person in front of you is the most important reality. I know there’s nuances to this. But the person in front of you is the most important person.

I was listening. I wish I had time, but I don’t. I listened to a clip from a professor at Harvard, and he was in his talk about, and this is one of the practical suggestions, but he said, don’t bring your phone to dinner.

Put it down. The most important people are the people in front of you, not the people that aren’t here. I don’t know how many times, I’m sure you’ve had it, where you’ve been talking to somebody, and they got a text, and while you’re talking to them, they pulled it up, and they’re texting while you’re talking.

How many of you have had that happen to you? Okay? it annoys me to no end when somebody does that to me. I’ve had it where I’ve been pouring out my heart trying to tell them about things and the text came in

thinking, really? Can I have that phone? I was like, this is the most important thing.

But we do that. We do it to each other. So the person in front of you is the most important person.

God has called us to make disciples. So everyone in front of us we’re all challenging each other to follow Jesus. That’s making disciples.

So why is it? Don’t let this thing be the thing that distracts you. You must fight it.

So the person in front of you is the most important reality. Again, I understand I have a wife that sometimes needs me. So I’m trying to set up protocols that call me twice.

If you call me twice in succession, that means you need me and I’ll answer it. But if you call me once, I’m not going to answer it right away if I’m in a conversation with somebody. Because that’s the important thing.

But that’s my responsibility. So if she really needs me because so-and-so needs daddy’s attention, then call me twice. So anyways, that’s a principle though.

The person in front of you is the most important reality. Protect yourself from evil. I’m not going to go into a ton of this.

But he says, we are children of light. Walk in the light. Transparency and honesty.

All right? I don’t need to get into pornography and all those things. I think you all can know where that can go.

But not even just that. How many times have you been looking at your phone and it was totally something fine, but somebody else, like your mom or somebody else, came into the room and you went out of it? There was nothing wrong with what you were looking at, but you shouldn’t have been doing it in that moment.

You were wasting time. And out of conviction, you just kind of went to something else. Transparency, honesty.

Your phone, young people, your parents should be able to pick up your phone at any point and look at it. Okay? I remember the first time, I don’t know if I never thought I couldn’t do that, but I remember not long after we were married, my wife picked up my phone and started looking at it.

And the first feeling inside of me was like, what are you doing? That’s my phone. But we’re one.

But I was possessive of it. I had to work through that and realize, no, there’s nothing. I don’t have anything to hide or I shouldn’t have anything to hide.

That’s okay. So we have a, she knows my code. She knows my passwords, everything.

It’s sometimes I’ll come out and I’ll see her just on my phone going through my text. And I’m like, what are you doing? Just reading your text.

Your life’s more exciting than mine. Okay. Or she’s like, you never tell me things.

I was like, oh, sorry. So that’s how she finds out what’s going on in staff. She just looks at my text.

But I have an open policy. She can open my phone up at any point and look at it. That’s okay.

Your parents should have the same thing. If we’re walking in light, it shouldn’t matter. So I would encourage you to have an open policy with your parents.

They can look at your phone anytime you want. Anytime they want, they can pick it up and look at it. don’t have a resistant spirit.

Live transparent. But you need to walk in transparency and honesty with that device. That device is so personal. I don’t have a screen protector,

but I was noticing some people have screen protectors. You know, you’re just holding a slight angle. I can’t even see what’s on that phone. I’m not saying it’s wrong to have that,

but you can look at so much on this device and nobody knows. and it’s it people are left in bondage for life because of things that they find on this not saying you can’t get out of it you can god is able to deliver us and free us from anything morally um and not just pornography gaming let me just challenge you on this gaming can actually be

one of the most addictive things i’m working with a guy right now that is both pornography and gaming and honestly the gaming side of things has been more challenging to get him free from than the pornography so i’m just challenging you on that um i’m not saying you can’t play a game or not but i personally i’m a competitive person i don’t game i’ve gamed some before not much at all

but i have before and it’s addicting i found myself going after every single level wanting that I did something over Christmas where I was looking for something. I got a little simple game and I’m like, wow, this is addicting. I had to delete it.

I don’t normally do it, but I did it. And I was like, I can’t. So I’m just challenging you.

Be careful with it. But walk in transparency and honesty. All right, just a couple minutes.

Be still and know your God. Start and end your day with extended times of no technology. My phone shuts down at 930 at night and it doesn’t start till seven in the morning.

Why? Because I know my own self and my own flesh and my addiction, my tendency is to pick this up and look at stuff. When I get up in the morning, I’m trying to discipline myself.

Even text, I don’t answer. I don’t look at emails. I don’t look at anything until 7 o’clock.

Because I need to have my devotions before. I need to have my time with God. This thing dulls me.

When I start looking at stuff, I don’t have an appetite for God. So I’m setting principles up. I can’t do this.

I’m 36 years old. I know this, guys. I know it just as much as you do.

This thing will take your appetite away from God. So you have to set up things in your life so that you don’t go to this, don’t run to this. I say start and end your day.

All right. I’ve had to do things, put principles in place on how I end my day, because how I end my day is a really good indication how I’m going to start my day. What I’m thinking about. If I’m looking at the sports scores, whether good or bad,

if my team lost, I’m like, my team’s been losing. So, you know, I can have this down in the dumps feel because my team didn’t win. I don’t need that before bed.

Because you know how I’m going to wake up? Probably thinking about that. Well, that’s not helpful for my spiritual life.

That’s not helpful for me to walk with God. So, starting in your day with extended times of no technology. I didn’t play the video, but the one thing the guy said is, be okay with being bored.

He said, it’s good to be bored. Bored? Really? He said, it’s when you’re bored, that’s the time in life that you start, your brain switches and starts thinking about things like

meaning, purpose of life. And we don’t like thinking about that, so we escape. We go to something else, so we don’t have to think about that.

But it’s good to be bored. So be intentional. Here’s the golden questions.

This is not original with me. Someone else says, what should I be doing right now? All right.

There’s probably a lot of people that are homeschooled here. I was homeschooled. So let me just speak to you really quick on this.

I found a lot of with technology and different things where I wasted time. I escaped the things I was supposed to be doing. In today’s day, we use technology for our schooling.

But there are ways because you’ve grown up on it. You know how to get around things and you find yourself wasting time. I’m challenging you.

I’m not anti-homeschooling at all. I’m just telling you, you have to be careful. you have to be careful your parents don’t always know what you’re doing all right that’s where some of the bondage for my life came from and it was not even bad things it was books but i learned how to escape and get around and i learned to to escape to something so when a technology came in that’s where i just i already

built that into my life and i just escaped and i and so i’m challenging you on this be careful so be intentional golden question what should i be doing right now what homework should i be doing is there some something in that house i should be doing it’s probably not this that i should be doing right this moment all right two minutes practical suggestions uh no phone at dinner time your parents

might maybe have already done this but no phone at dinner time please i would just challenge you It’s the people in front of you that’s most important. Don’t take your phone to bed. I’m now putting my phone across the room and I’m charging over there.

I set my alarm over there. If you can’t even have it in your room, some people do that. I don’t know what your parents have suggested, but if they haven’t put any boundaries on you, you lead out and you do it for your own life.

Put your phone in a different room. Get an old-fashioned alarm clock and use that. Leave it in the kitchen.

set up a charging port, whatever it might be. Put it there. Take regular fasts and cleanses from your phone, social media, just phone use. One thing that in the wake of Charlie Kirk that

was interesting was that he took a regular fast of his phone. Friday night through Saturday night, he put his phone in his drawer, closed it and did not look at it. Now, for a guy that is as busy as he was, it’s impressive that he did that. He’d get it and have like six, 900 texts on his phone,

but he purposed that he was going to take it and disconnect. I said this already, be bored. Drive without music, podcasts, audio books, or the radio if you listen to that.

Drive without it. Be able to be in silence. I do that now.

I just don’t even listen to something. I used to always be listening to something. Then I dropped my earbud out as I was mulling.

I pulled my earmuffs off. My earbud dropped out, went into the mower and melted. I was like, well, I guess I’m not using that anymore.

So I’ve been like two months now without listening to anything. And it’s actually been good for me. I’m able to think and pray.

And so it’s been good. Here’s another suggestion. Maybe set times to respond to texts.

One guy did it where he did nine o’clock in the morning and five o’clock in the afternoon. those were the times he would respond to texts. Personally, when I come home, I am setting my phone aside. When I come home, it’s anywhere between five and six, depending on where I’m

working. I’m setting my phone aside and I don’t go to it till the kids are in bed at eight o’clock. And then I’m only giving myself from eight to nine o’clock to respond or do anything on my phone.

And then after that, it’s gone because my wife needs me. So set those things up. I probably need to be done.

I’m hearing people. Let me just say this. Turn off notifications.

End and start your day with no technology. Utilize screen time or other lockdown features. Turn your phone to grayscale.

Somebody just told me about this. It’s disgusting. But you take it and everything on your screen is gray. It’s helped to minimize your desire to pick

up your phone. I looked at it and I thought, yeah, I would not want to look at my phone. That’s gross.

I don’t know if I can do that. Put your phone on do not disturb during times of focus. And the other thing is suggested is no recreational internet viewing except for a given set time. So instead of just always whipping out, looking up different things, maybe say only on Friday night

or only at this time can I look at it. Share those things with your parents. Share it with other friends.

Allow people to be accountability partners in this. So I hope that was helpful. I need to let you go.

But again, time is a gift from God. We are children of light. We need to walk in it. So buy back, seize the moments that God has given us,

and may we walk redeeming the time. All right, thank you.