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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Scotty Mayer: Media Weekend

Scott Mayer

Mesmerized by Media

I am actually from California, born and raised.

And I lived in Los Angeles for about 10 years.

I got involved in the film and television industry, went through film school in my college years, and ended up in Los Angeles, and fell in love with my wife, who was going to school here at Loma Linda.

So when I come back here, it's like, ah, this is where I found my mate.

And it's always kind of a joy for me to come back and remember.

So I'm getting used to bugs and humidity.

It's a little different than what we have here, but it's a joy to talk with you guys tonight.

If you guys are here for the first time and have never heard of our ministry before, Little Light Studios, we have a passion for young people.

Generally, high school, college age range, we like to tackle topics that specifically young people are dealing with.

And so it's kind of a passion of our ministry, media obviously being a huge portion of what young people deal with.

And so often, most often, our ministry is invited places to speak on the topic of media.

I'm going to give you a little bit of a media talk tonight, but there will be 3 very different presentations.

If you come to Advent Hope for Sabbath tomorrow, you'll hear something that's very different, and then Sabbath afternoon, we're going to talk a little bit about social media.

And so I encourage you guys to come out to to all of them because you'll kind of get a big picture of of what God is really wanting to do inside of us and specifically inside of our church.

So my goal here tonight is not to share with you a ton of movie examples, but to more or less just kind of teach you a principle that deals with with media and movies and why we're influenced by what we see and what we hear.

I titled this presentation called Mesmerized by the Media.

And when you think of the word mesmerized, you think of what?

Have you ever looked at the definition of what it means to be mesmerized?

I'm gonna show you guys what the actual definition here is.

This is just coming from a regular dictionary.

It's to hold the attention of someone to the exclusion of all else so as to transfix them.

I'd like to submit to you tonight that really what God and what the devil are both trying to do is almost the same thing.

They're trying to literally transfix your attention so that you do not see anything else.

That's what God is wanting us to do, to put our eyes on Him and Him only, right?

And the devil's got his tools to literally keep you distracted so that you don't see anything else than what his message that he wants you to be.

It gives you a little background on the message tonight.

I'm going to read to you a couple of verses that are pretty interesting, and over the weekend we will unpack these in greater depth here.

Matthew 6, 22 through 24 says, "'The light of the body is the eye.

"'If therefore the eye be single, "'the whole body shall be full of light.

"'But if the eye be evil, "'the whole body shall be full of light.

But if the eye be evil, the whole body shall be full of darkness.

If therefore the light that is in thee is darkness, how great is that darkness.

No man can serve 2 masters, for he will either hate the 1 and love the other, or else he will hold to the 1 and despise the other.

You cannot serve God in mammon." So I believe that this verse can be applied in a few different ways.

The media is often portraying 1 type of a worldview and Christianity is often portraying a different worldview.

And sometimes, even in the church, we say, I know the truth, I sit in church all the time, I read my Bible, but we ingest and digest evil things from the world.

And so I kind of wanted to give you a little background on that.

Psalms 101.3 says, I will set no wicked thing before my eyes.

I hate the work of them that turn aside, it shall not cleave unto me." And what the psalmist is saying is like, I don't want to put anything in front of my eyes that literally is going to turn me away from my path, my path being in the ways of God.

And so we would do well if we took this type of advice in our own lives as well.

Proverbs 23 7 says, as a man thinks in his heart so is he.

Really, realistically, what you are is literally what you have brought into your mind, your thoughts, your feelings, that makes up who you are.

So we wanna be careful what kinds of things affect our thoughts and feelings, right?

Romans 12, 2 says, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

In fact, that's exactly what 2 Corinthians 10, 5 says, casting down imaginations every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God and brings into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.

This is a picture of where God wants to bring us in our walk with him.

He wants to bring your mind into the captivity of Christ so that literally every 1 of your thoughts is in the obedience of God.

That's a picture of where he wants to bring us as a people.

I'm going to show you a little bit of a graph because this will make a little bit of sense when we start talking about people's media habits and media use.

Time magazine did a little article on what people actually do with their time.

And if you look at this graph, this is about how much people sleep.

People generally work 5.7 hours out of the day, which I thought was rather low, and this says leisure time spent playing sports, playing with social media, or watching TV is about 3 or 4 hours out of the day, and I want you to notice this little pink line right here.

.21 hours out of the day is generally how much time people spend in religious activities.

If you are spending 4 hours out of the day digesting movies and media from the world and only spending 20 minutes a day reading your Bible, what do you think has more weight in your mind?

Very simple to kind of understand whatever has your attention is generally going to shape us.

Now, have you ever filled out those Nielsen rating cards?

Do you know what a Nielsen ratings card is?

So In the olden days, they used to actually send a piece of, like a survey to people, and you would fill out how much time you watch TV, what you watch TV, like what kind of shows do you watch.

This was how the movie industry actually got the information of who's watching what and for how much time.

Now there's a lot of digital ways that they can do this, but look at this, this article came out very recently in 2018 and I want to show you the impact that media has in our world.

They are saying that nearly all adults are spending almost 11 hours out of the day in front of media devices.

Now, this is not I'm watching television for 11 hours out of the day.

This is playing with your phone, playing with your computer.

We are literally seeing an average of time spent in front of a screen of 11 hours out of the day.

So it matters what you are actually watching and paying attention to.

Now I'm very interested in psychology, human psychology, and as I've gone around and studied what does the TV do to your brain and I've traveled around and interviewed neurologists and scientists and doctors about how much this media is actually really impacting us or how much does it really impact us.

There are these things called social conformity.

Have you ever heard of these experiments?

If everybody gets into an elevator, generally you walk into an elevator and you turn around and you face the door.

So they were studying would people not do that if everybody would face the back wall?

It's very unnatural for you to face the back wall.

And they found time and time again, if everyone is facing the back wall, people would get into the elevator and all of a sudden they'd turn around and face the back wall.

So here is an example of social conformity.

Everybody in the room is aware of what is going on except for 1 person that comes into the room.

Take a look at this crowd of waiting rooms.

These people may appear to be waiting for the IOPT, but they're actually waiting for the first test subject in our hidden camera experiment.

And here she is, right on time for her 12 o'clock appointment.

Glow in the Dark Christians

Dear gracious Heavenly Father, I have nothing to say to these people, but you do, Lord.

Use me to speak your words, and may we see what a beautiful picture of an amazing God you are this morning.

I titled this sermon, Glow in the Dark Christians, And I hope by the end of this, all of you will want to glow in the dark.

Because it is an interesting thing when we think about the great mystery Christ in us.

What does that mean for Him to actually be in us?

I've really pondered this question and more importantly, if Christ is in us, how are we to be found in Him?

This is kind of an interesting thing that I hope to unpack for you this morning.

I know I kind of like to ask a few questions, right?

He feels a supreme love for 1 who is never seen, talks familiar every day to someone he cannot see, expects to go to heaven on the virtue of another, empties himself in order to be full, admits that he's wrong so that he can be declared right, goes down in order to go up, is strong when he's the weakest, richest when he's the poorest, happiest when he feels the worst, he dies so that he can live, forsakes in order to have, gives away so that he can keep, sees the invisible, hears the inaudible, and knows that which passes knowledge." Brothers and sisters, if you feel weird this morning, great!

Because we aren't understood by the world.

And I'll tell you, when I was flying into the airport, I called my wife as soon as I landed, and I got there really early in the morning.

So I rented a car and I ended up driving through where I lived in Hollywood.

And I went by 1 of my apartments and I just kind of sat there and I just stared at it.

And I just went, like, I can't believe that I'm in this different space and that at 1 point in my life, I was so different.

And I was sitting there thinking like, wow God what an amazing God you are because I now live in Chattanooga where if you go 10 miles outside of the city people don't really speak English.

I'm born and raised in California, but I absolutely love the country, and my heart is in such a different space.

I recently had someone call our ministry a couple of weeks ago, and he was a new evangelical, or coming out of the evangelical world into Adventism, and he had seen something that we had created, and he wanted to just ask some questions, and he said, Scott, what's the end goal?

And I said, what do you mean, what's the end goal?

What is the end goal of this Christianity?

And I'll tell you what, I really sat down and I pondered it and I said, do we really know what the end goal is that God wants for you and me?

A mystery, something that's hard to understand.

What is the reason of being a Christian if there's no real change, right?

If you don't have a real true heart change, what's the point of this?

And so that's kind of 1 thing that I really want to unpack.

1st Corinthians 2 14 through 16 says, But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him.

Neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

But he that knoweth spiritual, he that is spiritual judgeth all things, and he himself is judgeth of no man.

For who hath known the man of the Lord that he may instruct him, but we have the mind of Christ.

You see, when Paul wrote this, it was a bit of an oddity in his day, even to understand what is this thing about Christianity?

You see, to the Greeks and the Romans, the ego was the biggest thing that they could wrap their head around.

It was all about how I could exalt myself.

And here comes this thing called Christianity that comes along and says, you know what, it's not about me.

I need to die so that someone else can be glorified." And they didn't understand that.

To them, God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory." If this is the hope that we all share as Christians, to have Christ in us, it is an amazing thing when you read a text like this and you say, you know what, the real, really only reason that you even understand some of these things is because God has revealed it to you.

In fact, he says in Luke 10 22, all things were delivered to me, my Father, and no man knoweth the Son, who the Son is, but the Father, and who the Father is, but the Son, to whom the Son will reveal it." The only way that you possibly have any kind of understanding about Jesus, literally, is because Jesus has revealed it to you, and the Holy Spirit has revealed it to you.

That's the only reason that we even understand all of this.

And I want you to ponder a couple things as we go over a couple of these verses.

And when you read these verses, like Colossians 119, For it pleased the Father that in Him should all the fullness dwell.

John 3.35 through 36 says, "'The Father loveth the Son "'and hath given all things into his hand, "'that he that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life, "'and he that believeth not on the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him." Everything is given to Jesus, so if all of these things are given to Jesus and you have Jesus in you, What does that mean for you?

You see, when you kind of follow this, Ephesians 1, 3 says, blessed be the God of our Father, of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.

If all these things are given to Jesus and literally we are called to have Jesus abiding in us, you now have access to all the blessings that were given to him.

This is what it means to have Christ in us.

Listen to what Desire of Ages says, All things Christ received from God, but he took to give.

So in the heavenly courts, in his ministry for all created beings, through the beloved son, the father's life flows out to all.

Through the son it returns, and in praise and joyous service, a tide of love to the great service of all and thus through Christ the circuit of beneficence is complete, representing the character of the great giver, the law of life." What a beautiful thing.

God gave literally everything to Jesus but literally gave it to him so that he could give it to you.

It's the great law of the giving God that we all serve.

And I think it's a beautiful way to look at things.

And I'm always really shocked at how many truths there are in the simple little things, Like a bee needs to work with a flower to be able to take its pollen to spread it around.

There's this symbiotic relationship with all of God's creation.

The trees that pull down the carbon dioxide and give you oxygen to be able to breathe.

So there's this symbiotic relationship between all of God's creation because that's just the way that all of this works.

Colossians 2 8 through 10 says, Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit.

After the tradition of men and after the rudiments of the world and not after Christ, for in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily and ye are complete in him which is the head of all principality and power.

You know, when we feel kind of broken, and we feel incomplete, and we feel like there's just things that are gone awry in our lives, I think it's beautiful that the Bible tells us, listen, you have the opportunity to be complete in Him, in Christ.

Matthew 28 18 says, Jesus came and spoke into them saying, all power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

And if all this power was given to Christ, What was his mission?

I have this kind of ongoing conversation with the media and different stories that kind of take Christian parallels and Superman being 1 of them.

And there's a lot of young people that always come and say, ah, yes, but I like this particular story because it's telling the story of Christ or whatever the particular film is.

And I always ask the question, yes, but what was the mission of Christ?

His purpose was to make reconciliation for iniquity and to bring about everlasting righteousness.

Yes, there's something that's coming that's trying to destroy us, but his purpose really is to bring reconciliation of the iniquity that we all have gotten ourselves into.

Now I don't see that in in the storyline, so it's it's not possible for me to draw a parallel in that way.

And so if all power was given to Christ and this is his mission to make that reconciliation and Matthew 121 says, Jesus shall bring forth a son and thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins." This is the mission of why Jesus came down here.

All power under heaven which was given to the Son, now all we have to do is invite Him in.

I wanted to talk about this because I've had a half of an eye on pop culture a lot recently, and I see something that's coming out in Hollywood movies or even the music industry.

Maybe perhaps some of you have seen this, but in the olden days there was this thing that was known as possession.

And when possession was talked about, it was always talked about as an evil spirit that was possessing you as a negative or a bad thing.

I'm starting to see them talk about it in a positive light.

If you've seen trailers for like the new superhero movie called Venom, that he's completely possessed, but instead of it being a bad thing, you know what?

#Selfie

Dear gracious Heavenly Father, as we open up this topic, we pray for your presence here, we pray for your words, we thank you for the rain, and we hope that everyone makes it here safely and makes it home safely as well.

So hashtag selfie, we live in a world that it is unrealistic probably to avoid it 100%.

And I say that because I can't stand personally social media.

I like literally like don't like to post things and I just have a real slow time at doing that but I use social media for our ministry's sake because it is a absolute beautiful tool for us to reach people in other countries, in other churches, and to be really honest, I am literally surviving because of social media.

So I want to kind of as well preference this with that.

There's a good use and a bad use of things, and I hope this is what you guys learned from this presentation today.

As you guys probably are aware of, social media is a lot of me, me, me.

Look at the cool vacation I just went on.

A lot of times people post and use social media in a very self-reflected way.

Not everybody, but it seems to be how the general population uses social media.

Now Ecclesiastes 1.9 says, the thing that has been and that which shall be and that which is done is that which shall be done and there is no new thing under the sun.

Now if you could look back in the wake of time and you could see what every single culture has struggled with, what they've dealt with, you will find a very common denominator between all of the history of humanity and all of the ways that the devil has gotten us tripped up throughout the history.

If you can kind of see what tools he's used, it's like he uses the exact same things, but he changes the technology and how he gives it to us.

And so I believe that us struggling with some selfish means is not anything new.

People have struggled with the old ancient self since the beginning of time.

So how do we deal with this whole social media?

I'm going to just give you a kind of some statistics here in the beginning to just give you a ballpark of how grand this really is.

I go to a lot of high schools, academies, and I'll tell you what, you start talking to youth, it is a rarity when I meet teenage or college age people that don't use it whatsoever.

Everyone seems to be engaged in some sort of social media platform.

Out of the 3.7 billion users, there's about, or internet users, there's about 2.3 billion active social media users.

91% of US retail brands use social media, 2 or more sites.

The internet has an average of about 6 social media accounts.

68% of Americans use Facebook, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp.

I mean, it's just a staggering amount of people that engage with these kind of pieces of technology.

And so with that, we're starting to see some very interesting trends.

This report came from CNN that said They have found now that there is a mind-blowing report that teenagers are using social media for upwards of 9 hours a day.

Now if you contemplate that and you think about that, they're checking it when they wake up.

They're looking at it all through school.

They're checking it all in the afternoon.

I mean just think about what you could actually accomplish if you spent 9 hours a day.

No, I'm just kidding because you guys spend 18 hours a day, I'm sure.

So here's a little news clip that they're talking about this.

Of attention to music, playing video games, reading, scrolling around the internet.

So it's all of that, but it is 9 hours a day.

And for teens, it's about 6 and a half hours of their time on screens.

So really, what this report shows, Common Sense Media's foundation, it's like the digital transformation of childhood and adolescence is complete.

They are now using screens and using media so much more than maybe what we were kids.

When I'm doing my homework that maybe I'm a little bored of the topic, I have to listen to music to get more things to do it.

So kids of my generation have to do stuff like that.

And I know that I play video games with my friends So that's an incredible amount of time.

So I'm going to play a little funny video for you here.

Maybe you guys will see some humor in this.

But this is generally how people use social media.

Maybe you guys have some friends that use it in this way.

Would you just like more posts about my uncle, my office, better?

Why do you keep scrambling over my house?

I don't want to leave the country and I don't want to enjoy this stuff.

Series

Scotty Mayer: Media Weekend

Glow in the Dark Christians

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Attachments

Ignite Your Spiritual Experience!

No Limits! Thriving in Relationships

1h 8m

Unlocking the Mysteries of the Sanctuary

08 The Daily Today

58m

Being True to Our Trust

What the Law Could Not Do

50m

How Should We Live?

1h 5m

Breakout Session #2

Following Christ Through the Crisis

1h 20m

Walk Humbly

49m

2019: Evening and Sabbath Meetings

When God’s Not Around

38m

Only

59m

The Way of Love

The Way of Love- Part 7

31m

Meeting the Master Gardener

First the Blade, then the Ear

1h 2m

The Day of Atonement

03 When You Don’t Understand

1h 4m

Dee Casper's Weekend

03 The Hour of His Judgment has Come

1h 13m

Sound Doctrine