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Don’t Give the Algorithm Your Heart — 3/19/2026 10:00 AM
In today's chapel, Dr. Trevin Wax urges us to guard our hearts and minds from negative cultural influences, and to give attention to the truth from God's Word. His text is Proverbs 4:20-27. Dr. Trevin Wax serves as Vice President of Research and Development with the North American Mission Board.
Notes
Our phones have caused us to begin losing the battle when it comes to attention. It’s so easy to keep scrolling online. Everywhere we turn, someone is trying to claim our attention, shape our outlook, and capture our affections. As our attention scatters, it becomes harder to pray without restlessness, to look up to the Lord in worship, and to look around to others in love. Even if you think you have a handle on your online habits, they are forming your heart. If you don’t guard your heart, your heart will be invaded.
Give Your Heart (Proverbs 4:20–22)
Rather than fighting this by getting rid of our phones or deleting all our social media, we need to start with something positive. Where will you devote your attention? Who will you give your heart to?
Your heart is your innermost self, the source of your humanity. All your actions flow from it. Your life will be steered by the things your heart is paying attention to.
If we are spiritually dry and lacking in wisdom, it’s because what social media offers has no nutrition. It’s empty calories. Only when you fill your heart with God’s Word will you have something of substance to offer others. We don’t resist junk food by starving but by feeding on something better. Taste and see that the Lord is good!
Guard Your Heart (v. 23)
Your heart is like a citadel — once it falls, the city is overrun, and everything is lost. All throughout church history, we hear voice after voice warning us to guard our inner selves and keep our hearts with all watchfulness. If we allow spiritual contaminants into it, it cannot remain clean.
Guide Your Heart (vv. 24–27)
Guiding your heart begins with watching your mouth. Proverbs 10:19a says, “When words are many, transgression is not lacking.” Online, we are urged to express ourselves and say many words, but this will surely lead to sin.
When we don’t look at the path we’re walking on, we can easily end up caught in thorn bushes. We’re not really paying attention to where we’re walking, so we aren’t seeing the snares. We’re scrolling our lives away. We don’t have to walk like that.
Starve the algorithm by limiting its access to you. Your phone should serve you, not summon you. If scrolling is always leading you into temptation, cut it off! Fill your heart with God’s Word daily, and find friends who will walk with you. The algorithm wants to isolate you, but if you’ve been ensnared by online sins, you need people to help you get on the right path.
The only way to pull your heart away from cheap beauty is to fill it with better beauty: Scripture, Christ’s people, nature, art, old books, and worship are examples. Stop swimming in the polluted shallows and drink deeply from the living water of Jesus!