Message preached on: February 5, 2012
Title: Do I Know You?
Text: 3 John 13-14
13I had many things to write, but I do not wish to write to you with pen and ink; 14but I hope to see you shortly, and we shall speak face to face.
Peace to you. Our friends greet you. Greet the friends by name.
Let’s begin with some definitions.
Social Networking Site – A “Social Networking Site” is a web site that provides a virtual community for people to share their daily activities with family and friends, to share their interest in a particular topic, or to increase their circle of acquaintances. There are dating sites, friendship sites, sites with a business purpose and hybrids that offer a combination of these. Facebook is the leading personal site, and LinkedIn is the leading business site. Globally, hundreds of millions of people have joined one or more “Social Networking Sites”.
E-mail – E-mail is, of course, short of electronic mail. E-mail is a system for sending messages from one individual to another via telecommunications links between computers or some kind of portable terminal. E-mails can be long or short.
Texting – Texting is the sending of typed messages or pictures via cell phones or other mobile devices. Texts can be as short as “ok” or “yes,” or it can be as long as, ““Im going to enter fido in the juming competion the dog show he jumps very high and has a goo chance of winning julie is picking me up well get subway first”
(And before you even ask, grammar, punctuation, capitalization and correct spelling are NOT considered important in texting.)
Twitter & Tweeting – Twitter is a microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based messages called “posts” from one electronic device to another. Whereas texting is usually between one or two people, Twitter sends messages to everybody on your list (could be 100s) all at once. The messages that are sent, commonly known as “tweets,” are usually sent using mobile electronic devices such as smart phones, PDAs, hand held computers, etc.
It’s interesting to note how these message services get used. The computer magazine PCWorld reports that as of March 15, 2011 Twitter averaged 140 million “tweets” a day. And it is predicted that in 2011 there would be a total of 7 trillion texts sent worldwide. http://www.abiresearch.com/press
A recent study found that young adults between the ages of 18 to 24 send on average 109.5 text messages per day. That’s approximately 3200 a month. Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project
Another research group estimated that worldwide in 2010 there were approximately 294 billion emails sent every day. The scary part is that around 90% of these millions and trillions of messages are spam and viruses. Radicati Group
Now let me throw this in as we continue. There is nothing wrong with any of these forms of communication. Many of us text and email; some of you may even tweet on twitter. Any and all of these things can be abused, but none of them is bad in and of themselves.
All these wonderful forms of communication are supposedly for the purpose of keeping us connected. But there was an interesting detail that came out of this research. It was found that 31 percent of Americans who text prefer texts over phone calls. And for those who send more than 50 texts a day, the number goes up to 55 percent who prefer a text over a phone call.
Now texts are convenient, I’ll admit that. But I have to wonder if the preference of texts over phone calls might not also have to do with the fact that some people don’t want to connect on a deeper level. It’s very easy to hide behind a text or an email or a tweet. Verbal conversations require our attention. They reveal our feelings and even our attitudes. Texting, tweeting, emailing is convenient but real communication takes place when I speak verbally, and preferably face to face, with another living, breathing person.
Though social networking sites, texting, emailing, and tweeting can reconnect us with long lost friends and even keep us connected with family that may be far removed my sense is that more than making connections these modern conveniences keep us safely apart. We can say we communicated and never hear each other’s voice or see each other’s face.
I believe that when taken to extremes (and maybe even not extremes) these “conveniences” actually damage our ability to communicate.
We come to the end of John’s third letter and he wraps things up by saying:
13I had many things to write, but I do not wish to write to you with pen and ink; 14but I hope to see you shortly, and we shall speak face to face.
John has written at least three letters and given lots of instruction. He has warned them, encouraged them, commended them and even challenged them but he feels he has written all that can be written. As he has said before in his second letter, verse 12, he wants now to come to see them and talk face to face.
We don’t know if John ever got to actually implement his plan to visit these churches. Roman government, distance, even health may have prevented him from actually making the visit. But John recognized the importance of face to face communication.
We must make the realization that it’s important to get together. Technology may help us connect but it often hinders connectedness. Instead of being a warm, living, breathing person technology makes us a number on our contact list or a group of letters on a screen or a name on a “friends” list.
There is a point when we’ve written all that we can write. There is a point where we need to either verbally speak with this person or actually visit them. I am so thankful for phones and the relative ease of travel these days. As you know my Mom lives in Montana but it is very simple and quite inexpensive to pick up a phone any time of the day or night and talk with her. Whether on a cell phone or from my Charter bundled land line, it’s easy to communicate. Emails, texts, tweets, even hand-written letters are fine, but should never be a permanent replacement for verbal communication if at all possible.
John said, “I’ve written enough, already, I’m going to come to you.” We need to say, “I’ve been praying for you, now I’m going to come to see you.”
And we have even greater precedence than John. We have a greater example of coming to speak personally than that of John. Hebrews 1:1-2 reads:
“1God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, 2has in these last days spoken to us by His Son,…” NKJV
Galatians 4:4 says:
4But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. NKJV
1 John 4:9 says:
9In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.
Philippians 2:5-9 says:
5Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, 6who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, 7but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. 8And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. NKJV
John 1:14 records:
14And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. NKJV
We have the Old & New Testaments. We have a rich record of the history of God’s working for us. We have the prophets and the writings; we have a wealth of rich written record of God and His promises to us. But God knew there needed to be more. It wasn’t enough that God wrote to us through His servants. It wasn’t enough that God spoke to us (and still speaks to us) through the text. Somewhere deep in the heart of God He said, “I need to be with them; I need to rub shoulders with them, cry with them, work with them and laugh with them.” And so He came to live among us. Jesus, God of very God, came to communicate God’s love in tangible ways.
And though the focus today is on Christ’s sacrifice for our sins let’s give attention to the fact that in order for Him to die He first had to come. He came and lived with us. He lived as we live, suffered what we suffer and was tempted as we are tempted (Hebrews 4:15). The Word, Jesus, became flesh and we beheld the glory of the only begotten of the Father. He spoke to us and He came to us He lived with us and He then humbled Himself and died for us.
There are many areas to be thankful for, one of the greatest being that God didn’t just send us a text, He sent us His Son.
Let’s close communion as John closed his letter.
“The blessing of peace be unto you. Mayest thou possess every requisite good, both of a spiritual and temporal kind. May all happiness attend you. Our friends greet you. Greet the friends by name.”
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[This last paragraph is a combination of thoughts taken from Clarke’s & Henry’s commentaries. See below for citations.
Clarke, Adam LL.D, F.S.A., etc. Adam Clarke’s Commentary on the New Testament. Parsons Technology, Inc. Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 1999. Electronic Edition STEP Files. This book is licensed for the exclusive use of the original purchaser for use on one computer only.
Henry, Matthew. Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary on the Whole Bible, Parsons Technology, Inc. Cedar Rapids, Iowa 1999. Electronic Edition STEP Files. This book is licensed for the exclusive use of the original purchaser for use on one computer only.]