Drunk with Alertness

Maybe you, like so many, are drunk with “alertness.”

Let me explain...

I am a bi-vocational pastor.

We planted East River Church in December 2020 during the pandemic, and at the time, I was working in business development for my company.

A large part of that work involved attending trade shows, setting up our booth, and meeting with current or potential clients.

During 2020, many trade shows were canceled, but by early 2021, they started picking up again.

I flew down to Miami for a renewables trade show, checked into my hotel room, and then walked over to the conference hall. I scoped out where our booth would be, grabbed some coffee, shook a few hands, and even stopped by the pool to check it out. There were iguanas all around the pool, which, as a Midwesterner, I thought was pretty cool.

With all my preliminary setup complete, I returned to my hotel room and turned on the TV. It was set to MSNBC, and a news alert came on about the deadly Delta variant and how it was ravaging everything.

Besides that, there was a ticker at the bottom of the screen with a bunch of other alerts about terrible things supposedly happening in the world.

At this point in my life, I hadn’t watched a news broadcast in maybe a decade, probably longer. As soon as I moved out on my own, I pulled the plug on cable and never looked back.

The entire broadcast seemed cartoonish, like something out of a bad apocalyptic movie, where the people behaved like actors playing roles, not like real people. Everything they were describing about how bad things were, how crazy it was out there, contradicted everything I had just seen—smiling people, things returning to normal, iguanas around the swimming pool.

Why did these people want me on alert? There didn’t used to be all these alerts. It makes sense to have warnings when there’s a potential tornado outside. Like every responsible man, I tell my wife and kids to go down to the basement while I stand on the porch, hoping to spot the tornado. My wife hates when I do that, but I’m not stopping.

Those warnings serve a purpose—they’re meant to keep you wide awake, with your eyes on the sky, protecting you from actual harm. You turn on the radio, grab your flashlight, and pause your normal life until the danger passes. But these days, there’s always a news alert. There’s always something we’re being warned about—stock market crashes, war in Ukraine, murder hornets (remember those?), and TicTac UFOs on the verge of invading this fine land.

There’s always something to be spun up about, always something to worry about, always a justification for a general state of anxiety. There’s this wild cognitive dissonance between the world outside and the world being pitched by the news.

Why? Why do they do this?

Because they want you to stay tuned in, they sell your attention and focus to advertisers. Just as you keep the radio on or your eyes on the sky during a tornado warning, if they can create or highlight some other danger, they can keep your eyes glued to them. They want you to always be on alert about something.

Which brings me to 1 Peter 5.

In v. 8, Peter gives two interrelated commands: “Be of sober spirit, be on the alert.”

So, we, especially we pastors, are to always be on the alert, but it’s a particular type of alertness that is tied to a state of mindset and has a specific sort of danger in mind.

Peter says, “We are to be of a sober spirit.” If you have an ESV, it reads, “Be sober-minded.”

We need to be on the alert but from a sober spirit.

What does “sober spirit” mean?

In this context, it refers to having the presence of mind that enables someone to have their wits about them. It’s the opposite of being irrational.

This command flows right out of v. 7, which calls us to “cast all your anxiety on Christ.”

This is why one commentator said this sort of sober mindset is the one free from the “care or anxiety which intoxicates the soul.”

Now, the “alerts” on newscasts or those trending on social media are designed to intoxicate the soul with strong emotions such as anger and worry.

Being sober-minded doesn’t mean having your head buried in the sand. We must remain alert, as we have a spiritual enemy. In the second half of verse 8, Peter warns, “Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.”

The irony is that these news alerts often make you less aware of real dangers.

Neil Postman observed that “most of our daily news is inert, consisting of information that gives us something to talk about but cannot lead to any meaningful action.”

A good rule of thumb for determining whether news or trends matter is to ask: “Does this information require me to take some action today, this month, or this year?

If it’s just something to talk about, there’s a good chance it’s spiritual propaganda from our adversary. Like big cats, lions prowl just out of sight, waiting for distracted prey to pounce on. You could be in great spiritual danger simply because you’re in-the-know about the wrong things.

So, what are you alert to, brethren?

Are you mindful of the pressing needs within your own household? If someone asked you about the spiritual weaknesses of each member and what you are doing to address them, could you answer that question?

What about the needs of your extended family, local church, or community? Are you attentive to the place where God has put you? Are your eyes on the perimeter where immediate dangers lurk, or are they fixed on distant distractions?

If you’re staying watchful, praise God. Proverbs 27:23 says, “Know well the condition of your flocks, and give attention to your herds.” If you have fulfilled your first responsibility, then by all means, expand your watch.