It’s a Small World, After All
What is your responsibility?
Returning to Your Small World
If I had to write a book right now, it would be called It’s a Small World, After All. Let me explain why with a question.
How much do you see and think about matters you don’t have any ability to impact?
Do you know more about drama with a political talking head or YouTuber than you do about your actual neighbor? How about what’s going on in Israel versus what’s going on with your church family? Drama is easy to find, it comes to you! Deep and immanent relationships are hard because they require much more from us. Our cell phones will pump us full of stress or adrenaline as we learn about what So and So did that YOU won’t bELiEvE! I see a world of people being swept away by manufactured, imaginary, or out of reach conflict all while those near suffer as a result. Bill is ten blocks away struggling with depression. Jenifer is experiencing dysfunction in her extended family that is bearing down on her soul. Zach is floundering because there are no godly older men fathering him. Our worlds are small, but we are tricked and trick ourselves into believing they’re much bigger than they are.
We are enticed and morally obliged to be responsible for and signal our participation in whatever new fad the masses are fed. If you don’t have an opinion on the latest digital epidemic then you are bad and you should feel bad.
Mankind has been given a perspective that only God can handle. We weren’t meant to bear the burden of the world. We have to fight to be aggressively local. We can’t buck our creatureliness, we are not transhumanists. Even if we are able to obtain a false omnipresence and omniscience by the fire hose of information and windows into other parts of the world, we are not God.
“and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.”
1 Thessalonians 4:11-12
We have all but forgotten or relegated our affairs for whatever we’re told online. Did you change your profile picture to show your support for the newest crisis? Have you done your part to ease racial tensions in America? What are your thoughts on the President’s latest tweets? What about immigration? Are Brad and Angelina getting back together? Why haven’t you solved world hunger yet? Are data centers evil?! You better figure it out!
Everything costs us something. It takes energy, peace, and focus to examine the revolving door of online global drama. Are you a better father or mother, husband or wife, church member, or neighbor, when you give 30% of your person to “high stakes” matters you can’t do anything about? Are you aspiring to live quietly and mind your own business?
Let me share a brief story. In May of this year, Al Mohler announced an amendment for the SBC to make it more difficult for churches in association to install, formally or otherwise, women into the office or function of elder. I thought this was a great idea. However, the internet (at least my corner of it) was a firestorm until the convention in June. It did get voted through, praise God. The point is, however, it was constant arguments online. Every day Facebook had dozens of new posts with people arguing in the comments. The churches send messengers, the messengers vote, the amendment gets pushed through to next year or it is killed. That’s the process. Yet, people flocked to argue online. Human nature I guess, drama gets clicks.
But this was exhausting for me personally. I was expending mental and emotional energy on things that had no immediate impact on me, nor could I do anything to contribute to it. Depending on how the vote went, it might warrant some of my time and energy. But, I wasn’t going to the convention. I wasn’t voting. I didn’t need to waste any more time on the matter. I had my mind made up, there was nothing to be gained by people drama-farming online.
Have a Bigger God
In a world of deformed and inflated responsibility, remember who your God is. The world spins in His hands. He has and will sovereignly work everything out according to His infinite wisdom. When our sense of ourselves grows, our sense of God diminishes. We are deceived into thinking if we don’t get involved then everything will fall apart. Is God that small? I don’t think so.
Nothing, not one thing, today is working outside of God’s authority and providential guidance. He works through means, but He is nevertheless the one responsible for keeping the world spinning. Because He is sovereign and He is good, we can rest in the midst of every mental flashbang trying to enlist us into their cause. Our world is small, our God is big. Do what He’s given you to do.
God is Glorified in the Mundane
I think someday we will find out that the small things we did mattered a lot more than we thought. Laundry, errands, catching up on the phone with a friend, making a bed, wiping a child’s nose. None of these things will win you a Nobel Peace Prize. You’re not gonna get famous this way, and as far as I know these things things won’t affect Middle East conflict or the heatwave in Europe.
The reality is that most of what the world wants to grab your attention with is either worthless or not your problem. If the world does get our eyes, it takes them off our God. We worry, we get reoriented towards the latest cause. We expend our energy into the wind, boxing with waves in the ocean.
“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.”
Colossians 3:23-24
We are so prone to legalism. We think if we’re not doing enough, not making a big enough impact, then God is not impressed with us. Combine that with our main character energy that our culture loves, and we have a real mess on our hands. I’ve got good news, and bad news. God is not impressed with you. Your labor is in vain unless the Lord comes behind and supports it (Ps. 127:1). But, God loves you! He delights in working through weak earthen vessels. Not so you can feel satisfied that you left a big enough legacy in this life. So you can glorify God in the mundane moments. The invisible moments that only God and you see. How beautiful are those moments, not fit for public eyes. Just you and God, cleaning up the kids toys for the hundredth time.
The Treacherous Landscape
Our internetted world exposes us to more than we were ever designed to handle. The world (spiritual and corporate) have leveraged this reality to appeal to, steer, and manipulate the masses. It’s doing a great job of it. What is the solution?
I’m not the monastic type. I think it’s disobedient to God’s Word. The Christian shouldn’t cloister, they should be in the world. However there does come a point where the cost far outweighs the gain. Say, for example, local politics or society became a real danger to my family, then I would flee to somewhere safer. Not because I’m afraid, but because I have a duty before God first to take care of my wife and children. I am inclined to think that for many of us this has been the internet and technology. It’s costs far outweigh any benefits it offers us. Should you snap your smartphone in half? Maybe. Should you guard your heart from being swept away by every wave of inciting incidents? Certainly.
We spend ourselves on worthless things. We mentally subscribe to causes that function as soul draining engines for ad revenue or voting power. We exchange the meaningful and real for the digital and LLM-powered.
What will you spend yourself on? For who will you die empty? Is it for God and for those He’s placed around you or something else?
Pastoral Immanence
When I consider the burden the world offers me for the world, I feel that weight. I wish I could help. I wish I could ease the suffering of others out there. However, God has put me here. In the exact X,Y coordinates I reside in this very moment (Acts17:26). God has given me people to shepherd. I have no immediate duty to those outside of the tangible spheres I embody. Furthermore, I believe God will judge my obedience to those I am near, the closer the greater the responsibility, the more serious the judgment.
I am called to serve the people God has brought into my life. To this, I am duty bound.
You too are duty bound to those God has put in your life. To varying degrees, you must witness to and care for them with the Gospel. Pray for those He has give to you. Do not spend yourself on strangers on the internet or causes you have nothing to do with.
Be local.
Do not apologize for being out of the loop.
Spend yourself on those God has given you.
Sunday Sermon
This is my final sermon at RBC and the last sermon in Habakkuk. I hope you’re encouraged by it. It’s been an absolute joy and privilege to serve this church with the Word of God.
Canvasing
We are officially in the end game. If things were crazy before, I trust there are levels of crazy yet known or explored by mankind. That means I need your help! On July 18th Coram Deo will be canvasing the Pioneer-Mohawk Window. That means knocking on doors and handing out flyers. I need as many people as I can muster so we can saturate the residential area.
We will meet at Trinity Baptist Church at 12pm. I will give a brief pep-talk, pray, and then we will disperse. The flyers will have information about the church as well as an invitation to join an open house where they will learn more about the church before our first Sunday, August 2nd.
Please reach out if you can help beat the street!
Resources
Here’s a great podcast from Room for Nuance that touches on some of what I’ve discussed above. I would encourage you to listen to it.
