Latest / Madison Church of Christ Bible Studies / Analog Faith in Digital Babylon | Jason Helton | Week 02 How Technology Shapes Us

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Analog Faith in Digital Babylon | Jason Helton | Week 02 How Technology Shapes Us · Madison Church of Christ Bible Studies

0:00
Hey, thanks so much for listening to this message. My name is Jason and I'm one of the ministers here at the Madison Church of Christ. It's our hope and prayer that the teaching you hear today will bless your life and draw you closer to God. If you're ever in the Madison area, we'd love for you to stop by and study the Bible with us on Sundays at 5pm or Wednesdays at 7pm if you have questions about the Bible or want to know more about the Madison Church, you can find us online@madisonchurch.org be sure to subscribe to this podcast as well as our Sermons podcast, Madison Church of Christ Sermons. Thanks again for stopping by. I hope this study is a blessing to you.
0:37
If you weren't with us Last week we began our study on Analog faith in Digital Babylon and we looked at generations. We looked at the silence, the Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, Gen Z, and a little bit of Gen Alpha there at the end. As always, we've saved a few of our VIP seats right up front for those of you that would like to partake.
0:57
And in doing so, we uncovered some interesting trends and some things that I think are kind of eye opening help us to realize that where we are today didn't happen overnight. We got here through time, through a lot of different thoughts, through a lot of different philosophies. There's two spots there and we could get two more here and two in the front as well.
1:17
So to kind of summarize some of the things that we looked at, let's take a look at this slide. Emerging generations, particularly where our attention will be shifting moving forward quite a bit, will be younger generations. But as we mentioned last week, we all live in the digital age, and so we are all a part of this study, this discussion, and this way of life. But some interesting trends that we have noted is that emerging generations are maturing later in life.
1:42
Their emotional toolbox and their actual toolbox in many cases is very different than generations before them. For years now we have said work smarter, not harder. And we did that as we moved into the digital age, where we have these tools now that allow us to work real smart without having to work real hard physically the way we have in years past. They're also working later in life. We showed how we've moved into a thinking economy and thinking, a knowledge economy and a tech economy takes longer to prepare for. You stay in school longer, which means you generally get married later, which means you generally have kids later in life. So this is a a big Trend among emerging generations.
2:22
They're working later in life, they're drinking alcohol later in life. In fact, some of the alcohol companies this last year came out with their reports of money they've made and they're losing money because millennials is kind of where it peaked. The college experience, when it comes to alcohol consumption is very much a millennial experience. Quite different, at least on scale from Gen Z.
2:44
They're marrying and later, excuse me, marrying and having children later in life, as we mentioned, and also driving later in life. There are a lot of teenagers, we teenagers that I know of that aren't getting their license till 17 or 18 or ever, really. They don't feel like they need to, depending on where they end up. They live in a big city through ride share and public transportation. There's just not a big desire for it. For most of us in this room, getting your car keys was a milestone. It was the threshold to freedom, Right? Once you had a car, you felt like you were truly free, a true adult. But that, that sort of stage of life transition now has changed from one generation to the next. Ultimately, they're less equipped emotionally and more equipped technologically, more connected online and less connected offline than any generation prior to them.
3:30
Many, many years ago, like few hundreds of years ago, monasteries began doing life a little different.
3:38
Monks wanted to have a pattern to their prayer life. And we read in scripture of the third hour, the ninth hour, things like that. So timekeeping was at scale, bigger than the way it is today. We keep time on a real minutia level. We measure time in seconds and minutes, and that's how we think. And maybe hours, they would think hours as in chunks of hours or days prior to the timepiece, prior to the clock, excuse me, the timepiece that humanity had was the sundial.
4:07
This is an innovation that oftentimes gets overlooked or not considered at all as changing the landscape. And this, tonight is kind of the heart of where we're going in this class, is that technology transforms how we live. Growing up, I had the opportunity to go on several mission trips. And a lot of times you go to a third world country and you do some things that were really impactful. You'd see a way of life maybe that you didn't see as often stateside. You come back and somebody would always say, man, this trip changed my life.
4:37
And as a youth minister, that's encouraging to hear, but I got to where, I don't know if it's because I got snarkier as I got older, but I got to where I would ask them, man, I'm really excited to hear that, that this changed your life. But I'm going to come back in about three weeks and I'm going to ask you, how has your living changed?
4:54
Because that's what that statement means. It changed my life, it changed how I live. It changes how I saw things. And usually when we go on those trips, it does for maybe a couple of weeks or so. But very quickly, we drift back into the pace of life here. We drift back into the materialism that we experience here. We drift back into our quote, unquote normalcy.
5:14
Normal is not necessarily a good or bad thing. Normal refers to frequency abuse in the home. Verbal, physical, sexual. That can be normal. That does not mean it's good. It just means that it occurs with regularity. Right? And so if we, we return to normal, normal is really something we get to have. We get to have agency in that. We get to define what normal is going to be in our families, in our households, in our lives.
5:38
That's the point of all of this. There's a community, and you'll probably hear me say this multiple times throughout this study, there's a community about an hour and a half north of here. It has largely, in their words, shunned technology.
5:51
I'm not advocating that we all need to move to an Amish paradise.
5:55
Yes, Weird Al reference. But I am saying that we could, if we wanted to, we could get rid of WI fi, we could get rid of our cell phone, we could get rid of our cars. Although in Huntsville, that's a really dangerous proposition to just be a pedestrian or a bike rider. Good luck.
6:11
But my point is we can do life differently, but there is this pressure because of where we live. Specifically in this tech driven economy, you take away missile defense, you take away government contracts, you take away basically Huntsville, right? We are tech driven in so many ways. So that means that we think first technology. The clock kind of does that too. The clock caused humanity to think on a smaller scale.
6:35
The pace of life ironically started to pick up from that point forward. This is my main man, Tom Edison, and roughly 1879 ish is when we now give him credit for introducing the incandescent light bulb. I apologize to all of the Tesla fans in the audience. He also did some great stuff. There's an AC DC, not the band battle in the late 1800s, and Edison was a much better marketer. And so Edison is really the direction we went with his incandescent light bulb that changed humanity, that changed our lives. What Are some ways that the light bulb changed the way Americans in particular live, work longer hours. Why is that?
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Now you can see. That's right. What else?
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More nighttime activity. Why is that?
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Because now you can see. That's right. At night. What else? So work.
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Nighttime activity.
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Sleep. What happened to sleep? Sleep for shorter. That's right. Free light bulb. We had the gas light and then before that, just the candle. Right. Fire.
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So when it came time to go to bed, Earth kind of determined that we got up when the sun came up. We went to bed when the sun went down because it got dark. Because you couldn't then go and do the same things in the darkness that you can in light. But now man has created light.
7:51
There's this undercurrent that I've discovered in this study, that technology. And we'll talk a lot more about this when we get to AI in particular, technology has this. This power to. If we allow it to cultivate something in the heart of man that I think desires to be godlike instead of godly.
8:10
We can now make light. God spoke it into existence. We do, too. Alexa, turn on the lights.
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When it comes to making weather, I just turned the thermostat down about an hour ago. We can change the weather in our environment.
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We can now travel from point A to point B. We can fly, for crying out loud.
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There is this undercurrent that again, when we allow it, we begin to think that we are in control of all of our environments. We begin to think that we are what we desire, what we want. What we think is right is law.
8:42
And that's a very dangerous thing. We'll get to Genesis, chapter 11, where we see the people that created the Tower of Babel and the beginning of the kingdom of Babylon.
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That was the rebellion that took place. There was a pride in what they did. God told them to spread out. Where they moved wasn't the sinful part. It was their reaction to that and where their attention went. And likely next week we will spend a lot of time talking about attention. What changed? What with old Henry Ford, Hank, if you know him, the Model T, that was the car in particular. That particular model kind of changed everything. What changed? With the invention of the car. Introduction of the car manufacturing. What happened in manufacturing?
9:25
Did you say streamline?
9:27
Did you? Assembly line. Assembly line. I thought you guys said the same thing. I was going to jinx and you both owe me a coat. But yeah, it streamlined work with the assembly line.
9:36
But what about transportation? What changed in transportation?
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Communities could spread out more. What Was the other one more affordable? More affordable. I see what you did there. Ford affordable. Well played, Ken. Always the jokester. What's that?
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Mobility. Mobility, yeah. We were able to spread out.
9:55
So you see kind of an interesting change in society throughout, particularly the industrial revolution. And the vehicle is a big part of that because you have big industrial urban centers where everybody flocks to the factories. Once the industrial revolution gets underway, well, the car allows everybody to kind of move out of town. And you see the rise of the suburbs directly impacted particularly by the Model T, which was affordable for the more common person to have. So then more people start driving. That means we also have what improvements?
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Roads. Right, Roads now, roadway systems.
10:28
What was the negative impact of the car?
10:32
Traffic? Yeah, yeah, thanks a lot, Huntsville. I mean, you had a heads up. That was a long time ago. What else?
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Accidents.
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The very first car accident happened after the car. Right. We didn't really have car stats. There's not really a destination there. The other part of that is the horse and buggy industry plummeted and they fought it.
10:54
They didn't like it. It's got into their profits. With every new innovation we see what I would say is kind of this equal and opposite reaction. There's some am goodness and excitement and new innovation, new, new creativity, new comfort, convenience. But then there's also depending on who you are and how that industry impacts you, there's some negative involved as well.
11:14
We've got the computer. And I wish Ms. Joanne was in here because back in the 1980s she worked for Apple Computer. She was the personal assistant to the man, the myth, the sweatshirt or the I almost missed it. Sweatshirt. What is it? Turtleneck. That's it. Steve Jobs. Should have just said his name. She worked for Steve Jobs. She was employee like seven or something at Apple. Pretty crazy. Changed the world, right? With the advent of the computer to the personal computer, to the world Wide web. Now to high speed Internet. What has changed since the computer and the Internet?
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You picked it up. You picked it up. If we weren't related, I would stop there, but. All right, we'll keep going.
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Everything changed, right?
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Everything changed. Now we're in the age of artificial intelligence. And you may have seen this headline recently. MIT conducted a study a month or two ago and they examined, they did some brain scans of three different control groups. One group that took an essay or wrote essay strictly with their own brain power. Another group was assisted with, I believe Google. And the other one was assisted with ChatGPT.
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And what they found after doing three of the same test and then swapping to give them different experiences is that those who relied exclusively on ChatGPT had significantly less brain function afterwards. Now, it doesn't mean that they became like zombies. It meant that those muscles that we use cognitively to pick up heavy things, and by pick up heavy things I mean to reason and to articulate, they had lost some muscle there. They had lost the, the ability to. Because they didn't use it, they leaned on the technology to do the thinking for them.
12:53
There's a real danger with every new innovation. I am not here to convince you to throw your phone in the river. I am not here to convince you to get the latest and greatest iPhone, Mac or PC, however you choose to live your life.
13:06
But I am here to encourage us to think deeper, to think in terms of gospel. First and really exclusively gospel. Not even first gospel, only everything. All of our deep motives in life now, now that we are Christians, post resurrection, have to go through Jesus as the filter. There's no option.
13:30
We have died to self. There is now new creation. There's a new man, a new woe man that is alive that carries your same name. But it's a vastly different way of life. And we live in the digital age. So we have to learn to discern, which means to think deeply and not just identify good and bad. That's easy.
13:48
We have to identify between good, comfortable, convenient and spiritually valuable.
13:53
Those are not easy decisions. Those are not always the same thing. In fact, generally they're not the same thing. A couple other illustrations of how things have changed when it comes to technology after the year 2012. That was the first year in which the majority, more than 50% of teenagers in America had a smartphone and access to all the app stores and social media began to boom. You see in this chart, the top line there is blue. It represents the youngest among us. Those ages aged 18 to 25 years old. If you go down to the bottom, those are people that are 50 years and older.
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This graph represents percentages of reports of anxiety. And this is not I was feeling anxious today. This is. I felt so anxious I went to a licensed professional. This was a documented case.
14:39
That is a drastic difference. What's interesting to me is that the rise of anxiety among the youngest was way before COVID But it begins right around that 2012, 2013 period of time in 2013, I think is when Facebook bought out Instagram. It's when the rear facing camera became, I think, selfie culture became a deal.
15:00
And it all charts right there together. And as you get Older, you see, the emotional impact of is very different. In fact, after Covid, Those that are 50 and older emotionally, their reports of anxiety dipped down. They. They thrived during COVID emotionally.
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But the youngest among us were devastated emotionally. The youngest were at a much smaller risk on the. The physical side of the virus. And the older folks were killing. Well, not killing it, but they, you know, they did really well. They did really good. Sorry, I use that joke every time, and it still makes me giggle.
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This is an interesting statement that I want you guys to think about for just a second. The medium is the message. In the 1960s, a fellow by the name of Marshall McLuhan wrote a book. And in that, the big statement that came out is the medium is the message. Now, in the 60s, is when television is moving from black and white to color. It's when radio broadcasts are also in danger that are angry and upset about this TV thing that has really taken off and has now gone global.
16:04
In his understanding media, the extensions of man, he says the medium is the message. I've read this. If you do any kind of communication studies or read any of the books that I've read, this guy gets quoted all the time. And the first time I read, I thought, well, that's interesting. But it's taken me now months to really chew on exactly what he was getting at. And there's a guy by the name of Nicholas Carr. He wrote a big book in, not big, but a powerful book in 2010, re released in 2020, called the what the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. He explained it like this. He said McLuhan understood that whenever a new medium comes out, whenever it comes out along, people naturally get caught up in the information or the content that it carries. They care about the news in the newspaper, music on the radio, the shows on the tv, the words spoken by the person on the far end of the phone line.
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The technology of the medium, the device itself, however astonishing it may be, disappears behind whatever flows through it.
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Facts, entertainment, instruction, conversation. It's the content that we find ourselves kind of wrestling with.
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But in the long run, a medium's content matters less than the medium itself in influencing how we think and how we act.
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So let's apply that for just a moment to the car.
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For the car, people would kind of argue over maybe how the car was designed, but the car itself, personal transportation, changed how I saw the world. If I were alive during that time. It's the same way I saw a car when I turned 16. It was my gateway to the world to freedom, more autonomy, more individualism. I don't have to rely on public communal transportation. I don't have to rely on other people. I myself am in control. I can go where I want, when I want.
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You see how just the concept of the vehicle changed mentality. It changed perception. It changed reality for everybody that was impacted by it.
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Now think in terms of tv.
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I'm not necessarily from TV to Internet. I don't have to rely on Walter Cronkite to translate the news to me.
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I can now go out and find as many sources as I want.
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What we also see in these innovations, even beginning with the clock, is there's an intense individualization that's taking place, particularly in our country and our culture.
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And we're talking. It's perfect timing because on Sundays we're talking about the church, particularly the first century church. There is a vast difference in us and them, in our mere existence as a society.
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When you read about Jerusalem, the Church of Jerusalem, people had other Jews in their homes because they flooded Jerusalem for feasts, for celebrations.
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We are very individual. We have family in our homes. Rarely do any of us have a stranger on our property, let alone in our home. If they're on our property, it's because there's a job we need them to do.
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We go to work and we go home to our single family homes.
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Most of the environment in the first century had three, maybe even four generations.
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Multiple generations were under one dwelling, and that was commonplace. So when we look at the first century church and we look at the 21st century church, there are some baseline differences and we have to kind of wrestle with is that right or wrong? What is scripture telling us for our life here today? What is the gospel lived out in the 21st century, in the midst of this technology, in the midst of the way our life functions? Derek Sherman also had a very interesting book about faith and technology. He said research into brain plasticity has revealed that our brain changes in response to what we do. Technological activities sculpt and shape our brains in certain ways. The digital revolution has plunged us into a continuous state of partial attention. And again next week, we'll get more into the idea of attention. In this state, people no longer have time to reflect, contemplate, or make thoughtful decisions. Technology is neutral. Excuse me, is not neutral. It profoundly shapes us in unexpected ways.
20:09
Another phrase we've said a lot in this class is technology is a tool.
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And we think of a shovel as being a very neutral device because on its own, it just lays there.
20:24
A tool is oftentimes either a negative or a positive based on how someone uses it. But what's interesting, particularly about the technology we have today, is in order to use it, we oftentimes are the object being used.
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It shapes how we think. It shapes how we see the world. It shapes how we see each other. It's not just a means to talk to someone.
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It actually shapes how we communicate.
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So this is a study that's getting us to try and think deeper and deeper and deeper on how we view technology and the place of prominence that we allow it to have in our life. If technology shapes how we live, how important then is it that we think deeply about how we use it? It's critical, it's vital. It's whatever other superlative you have that's a synonym there. It's very, very important that we think about what we think about, but we think about the devices and the things that we put in our life that change how we think and shape how we think. Turn with me to First John, Chapter two.
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This is going to be where we end up spending a good bit of our time tonight. First John, chapter two, verses 15 through 17 have become some of the most, some of the most challenging and really intimidating verses in all of Scripture for me.
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And I hope that together we'll get kind of to the bottom of some of that. So let's read together. First John, chapter two, verse 15. Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride and possessions, is not from the Father, but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires. But whoever does the will of God abides forever.
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This may be a verse that we don't talk about nearly enough.
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How do we know that something is of the world?
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Easy to amen. Do not love the world.
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It's easy to amen the things of the world.
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Kind of hard sometimes to discern what is of the world. So how do we. How do we do that? How do we identify the things of the world? I think Galatians 5 sums it up.
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Galatians 5. Because at the first, you know, I think it starts with verse 18.
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See it around 20, 21. It's things of the world 22 and down. So 22, maybe 23.
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Really, you bring it all the way down to 25, though, because 25 sums it up then. If you walk by the Spirit or if you live by the Spirit. You walk by the Spirit. Okay, so in verse 18. But if you're led by the Spirit, you're not under the law. Now, the works of the flesh are evident. This is where you're going. The works of the flesh are evident. Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery. Those all kind of grouped together. Probably reference specifically to temple worship that they would have had a lot of access to. Enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warned you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God, but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control. Against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Let us not become conceited. Provoking one another, envying one another. Anything that comes between us and God and our relationship with God. Okay, priorities. Like. Like, if you're putting other things above your spouse or your family, well, obviously God as well.
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But there's a law of priority there. Okay, Priorities in life, particularly. And not honoring the relationships of husband, spouse, parents, child. Yep.
24:10
What else tries to influence the way we think or morals that can be from the TV shows we watch or the entertainment that we try to go see, or even the things we buy.
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Okay. Anything that I'm trying to repeat for folks at home. Make sure they can hear anything that influences how we think and how we act. From entertainment. Things that entertain us, things that we buy. Excellent. Yes, sir. Philippians 2 and 3, verses 3 and 4. You want to read that in verses 3 and 4? Do nothing from selfish or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regarding one another as more important than yourselves. Do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.
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Okay.
24:58
How does that help us identify things of the world?
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Usually, if we're selfish in our motivation, that's a good key to know that we're not focused on God and on loving others.
25:11
So it's something that we're doing because we want, you know, that's something that we need to evaluate as to whether we're doing it for worldly reasons or for godly reasons. Reasons. Okay. All right. So evaluate my desires. Are they in line with God's will? Are they taking me away from God's will?
25:29
Anybody else? Colossians 2. 1. Go ahead. Colossians said, Paul says to set your mind on things that are above, not on things of the earth. These are excellent. Yes, sir. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you.
25:40
And you asked Gemini. I know you're a big Gemini guy. To me, Gemini was a gladiator. So you know Saber and all the others. American gladiator, not the other one. Just to clarify, when it comes to living in the digital age, and I can. I think somebody. Siri accidentally started reading a verse when we said it earlier. When we can accidentally turn Alexa on just by somebody saying Alexa.
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I think it's really hard to do all of those things.
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I think it's actually been hard in every age, but I think we have.
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When you feel like you live in heaven on Earth, it's real hard to feel like you need another heaven. Right.
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And there's a tendency to create our kingdoms, our mansions here. Right. Even though you may not have a four story house, that's not the definition of a mansion. To live comfortably.
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That's not really promised in scripture.
26:37
And yet that is very much what is generally referred to as the American dream, or at least a portion of that picture.
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I'm not anti where I live by any means. I just don't want to be tied here.
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I don't want my allegiance to be in anything earthly. Like my true deep allegiance is exclusively to Jesus, my king.
27:02
And I think where we live, that's not a default setting because we're kind of anti monarchy. You know, remember that whole 1776 thing? Like we don't like kings, we don't like to have lordship over us.
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And technology empowers us to kind of be our own Lord, our own master. Right. If I can open and close my garage door from anywhere that I have WI FI connection, I am a powerful being, you know, like.
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But I'm not.
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And so this is the challenge.
27:39
Do not love the world. Got it. I don't. I love God or the things in the world. Okay. That's also a good thing.
27:46
But I love to stream entertainment all the time.
27:52
I can hardly sit through a stoplight and not glance at my phone when the WI FI goes out, which it did the other day.
28:01
It was a long 30 minutes. Ellen was gone. It was. It was a dangerous time, but we made it.
28:07
Actually, something pretty remarkable happened. I just started reading a book to my boys and they became very docile creatures. I've not experienced that before because they couldn't.
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Our little one. Dad, I want to watch tv. Sorry, friend.
28:22
Dad's not the bad guy here. I mean, sort of, because I could have turned the WI fi back on, but I didn't. And it was actually pretty great.
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2011.
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Quick show of hands, if you lived in the Tennessee Valley in 2011, okay, so good portion of the room for folks at home. Just trust me, a good portion of the room in 2011. In April of 2011 specifically, we had some big weather that came through here.
28:45
Some massive tornadoes, destroyed entire grids.
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And for, I think in our neighborhood, it was either six or eight days we were without power or said another way for about a week.
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Every night we had a neighborhood block party.
29:01
I got real lucky because it was just me and my brother where we live, not exactly like five star chefs, but my neighbor had a bunch of meat next door in his freezer that obviously he had to get rid of. And so we were there to help with that. And that was great.
29:16
I had more conversations with strangers in the course of that week than I have in a long time.
29:23
Actually got really good sleep because when the sun was up, we worked all day long. We cut trees, we cleared trees, we moved stuff, we delivered random things as much as we could. Clothes, tubs.
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And we were tired, and so we ate dinner together and then we would go to sleep when the sun went down.
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So that circadian rhythm that God given design kind of sinked back up there for a little while.
29:45
There were some crazy things that happened, but there were some crazy good things as well.
29:49
When the comforts, quote, unquote, and the innovation of our day was taken away from us, we didn't voluntarily give that up. And that is the next challenge.
29:59
Do you ever say no to an innovation just because you can?
30:05
For me, it's generally the opposite.
30:09
It's generally the opposite to say yes to something new and innovative just because I can.
30:15
There's a guy by the name of Neil Postman, and he's written several books. Again, he wrote in the 80s. And his big push in the 80s was TV is really dangerous.
30:27
He said that TV was going to destroy rhetoric, the ability to talk and reason, because television is inherently visual.
30:35
When it comes to visual, it's an attention game.
30:38
And in television, attention is generally going to lean more towards entertainment than it does information by nature. Because we as people generally gravitate towards entertainment more so than information.
30:53
Our news outlets that are on these platforms have to lean towards entertainment on some level in order to keep attention.
31:03
I don't want to go too far into that because next week we're going to do a deeper dive into attention. But there's a difference in grabbing attention, giving attention and keeping attention.
31:13
And he wrote this in the 80s.
31:16
It's aged really well.
31:18
There's always been a moral panic with every new innovation. Even Johann with Gutenberg Press came under fire.
31:25
Socrates said that once people could write things down. This is actually pre Gutenberg, of course. He said if people could write things down, they're going to stop remembering things.
31:34
Socrates hated on writing. That just seems weird to us today. But in the same way that people think AI is going to automate everything and they're right, we're going to lose some things if we tend to automate everything in our life.
31:48
But as a whole, humanity will adapt and the riverbed will kind of turn. I won't say correct itself. It'll change.
31:55
Every moral panic that's come out with every new innovation has been both probably blown out of proportion and exactly right because the TV has brought in some really bad things into our lives.
32:06
Used to the fireplace was the most central feature in the living room of a home.
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What is it now?
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Minimum 50 inch TV, right?
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Whatever fits on the wall.
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Things that come into our life don't have to stay in our life.
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We as Christians have to learn to identify what is of the world and what is of God. Now if we keep reading in verse 16, it says all that is in this world the desires of the flesh, desires of the eye and the pride and possessions.
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Somebody tell me how modern technology has a tendency to.
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To manipulate the desires of the flesh.
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What are some ways that modern technology cultivates those desires of the flesh?
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Commercials looking at you, Carl's Jr. And Hardee's. Right. What else or how? So sorry, let me catch up. How does it cultivate the desires of the flesh? Speaking of the food, I mean, you know, you're not even hungry, but man, you know, burger sure would be good right now. Yeah, that's right. How about that? That's crazy. Rarely do they have balding, bearded glasses people. But that's fine, whatever, you know, we're a forgotten demographic.
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I shared with the Empty Nesters a few weeks ago. I was. I stayed with the Brodies when I was an intern here several summers ago. And they. We were watching, I think a Braves game and the commercial came on. It was for Sonic and it was this beautiful, delicious, amazing banana splits. They had them on sale and so we went, we all three were like, yes. And this is like nine at night. So we go to Sonic and we get them. And I mean, it's like, I kid you not like that much. It's like we all had a whole banana together. If we put them all together, barely.
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But on a 50 inch plasma, it looks pretty great.
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It entices us. Right, that's a great example. What else? Desires of the flesh.
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Pornography. Absolutely.
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Also the desires of the eyes. Right.
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I think there's some nuance in those. And I should have probably spent a little bit more time kind of parsing those two out. But Paul uses that word flesh a lot. Of course, Paul's not here in First John, but in Paul's letters he uses flesh. He uses carnal and the earthly man. And when he talks about that, that's not always specifically in the sexual temptation. It's something that is not of the Spirit.
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We just spent a whole quarter talking about Galatians. Now we're talking about the church. And we're going to have, in September we're having Justin Rogers from Freed Hardeman to come and to do a special Sunday study on the Holy Spirit.
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Because there's a war going on and for us to think like Christ involves the Holy Spirit of God, to be an active participant in that.
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And then there's this other side of the battle that is earthly, carnal, fleshly.
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I'm afraid that our technology, because it's so powerful and now because it's so normal again, not necessarily good, but frequent, because it's so immersive in our world where we live and in our jobs and the things that we do for entertainment, that the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eye, and particularly pride and possessions are constantly being cultivated in our hearts. There's like this constant morphine drip almost.
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Somebody mentioned pornography when it comes to lust.
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Man, watching super bowl ads as a youth minister, you gotta have a Super bowl party, but you gotta find a way to not watch the commercials, right. You gotta do something different. Because there's always going to be something sexually provocative. Well, in our phones now, because of social media in particular, it doesn't even have to be pornography in that it's not sexual acts.
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But the idea of cultivating lust is everywhere.
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And we live in this immersive society that is always trying to entice.
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And if it's not trying to entice our sexual urges, it's very simply trying to distract us from thinking in accordance with Christ. I think distraction is one of the greatest tools that Satan has really refined, particularly in the digital age. Yes, sir. Yeah, or, I don't know, American Eagle jeans or something like that, you know. Yeah, exactly. You name it, you name the product. And there's going to be some element of temptation on some level. So when it comes to do not love the world or the things in the world, we have to develop a deep discernment to identify whether this is helpful or harmful. Whether this draws me closer to Christ, makes me more like Christ, helps me to think like Jesus, or makes me think more like the world. And the most dangerous truth is the one that looks really similar to the truth but is not.
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And as Christians, it is not our job to rely on a priest to define that for us.
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We are the priests. We are a royal priesthood. It is our job as individual members of the body of Christ is to rightly identify that in our life and to live in a way and to make sure that our gatherings here and our relationships to the body of Christ as the church, as a congregation make it easy for people to trust the other person that sits here in worship when they say, hey, I noticed something in your behavior. I noticed something. I've seen some tendencies. I just want to see what's going on in your world. What can I pray about with you? Or when necessary, to be a little bit more aggressive.
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Eric Gray did a great job several weeks ago during summer series talking about what it means to exhort someone.
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Sometimes there's an aggressiveness there, but we exhort. We employ people. Not employ, we implore. We sometimes employ, but implore people because we know that there's two options in this life. That wide gate, that's easy. It requires zero confrontation.
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It requires zero discernment.
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It requires full automation.
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It's effortless, but it leads to destruction.
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We're not settling for that. Romans 8. 5 says, for those who live according to the flesh, set their minds on the things of the flesh. But those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. If our devices and our technologies impact how we think, what are we setting our minds on and how do we know the difference?
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And if we want to stop thinking like the world, what is the only other response is to then think like Christ. Well, how do we do that? We spend time in his word. We spend time. We spend time with his people. We spend time with God in prayer.
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There's a reason multiple times in the Gospels we see Jesus removing himself and going to a desolate place.
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In Psalm 119, it says, Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things and give me life in your ways. Distraction has been around from the beginning. In fact, you can make a strong case that's what happened in the garden With Adam and Eve, they were distracted away from the words of God. And what did he do? What does Satan do?
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The desires of the eyes. The Bible says that Eve looked at the fruit and saw what it was good. It looked like a sonic banana split. Right. That same way we looked at that banana split on the commercial. Perhaps that's the way she looked at that fruit. And she partook of it because she believed a lie, because she was distracted, because she was looking at the fruit. She wasn't listening and thinking of the words of God. The same thing happened to Peter when he's walking out of the boat in the middle of a storm. That's counterintuitive. I'm not an aquatic animal. I would never get out of the boat, especially in the middle of a storm. But he did. And the man walked on water.
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Outside of Jesus, I think he's the only one. But when he took his eyes off of Jesus and he saw the storms.
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When we see the things that are around us that Satan wants us to see, we take our eyes off the one thing he doesn't want us to look at. The one thing that actually gives us life.
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How might our devices prevent us from keeping our minds on the things of the spirit?
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We mentioned a bunch already. Yes, ma', am.
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I think. Not really mentioned thus far, but modern term rage baiting is like a huge thing on the Internet as well.
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That kind of in my mind draws me away from God because it's like God tells us to not act in anger. It's everything on the Internet that is. Rage baiting is like trying to get you to act in anger. Absolutely.
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So that's kind of where my mind goes. That's excellent. Excellent rage baiting. Yep. Because that. That sells clicks. Right. That's a lot more interesting than reconciliation. How many headlines do you see of celebrities getting divorced or cheating on one another versus celebrities getting back together?
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One gets a lot more clicks than the other. What else? That's great. How might our devices prevent us from keeping our minds on the things of the spirit?
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Yes, sir.
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Looks like taking sports media or something. Something that's more of a cultural concern than a spiritual concern. Absolutely.
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Yeah. Just getting us to think about things that are not spiritual in nature. Absolutely. Yes, sir. Just distraction in general. They're very addictive.
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You know, it's easy to get caught up thinking, oh, I'm gonna look at this for a minute, and then, you know, look up and the clock is past an hour. Yep. I was working on this lesson at the library, and after about 25 minutes, looked up and realized I had been on Facebook, on YouTube and Instagram, without getting back to the book that I was reading and getting back to the scripture that I was reading to talk about distraction in a Bible class.
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This is my repentance here, Johnny. And then we'll go there. Yes, Work, work. We can access emails non stop. Now you have ammonia.
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And so it takes discipline to leave work access to others and others access to us. Yes, sir. I was gonna say literally the exact same. There you go. Look at that. Twinsies. Y' all should hang out sometime. That's good. Good thoughts. Yes, sir. Yes, ma'. Am. Sorry, sorry. Still looking at Johnny. Sorry.
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Words are hard. I'm sorry.
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Everything is urgent. That is well said. And we're gonna come back to that later in this class. But remember that one. Romans 13:14. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ and don't make plans to gratify the desires of the flesh. Today I think that lives out and putting your phone on silent, do not disturb, putting in boundaries, putting in parameters. Where we say this time is dedicated to exclusively thinking, praying, studying God.
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It's as imperative as it's ever been. Because more and more people and things have access to us than they ever have devices and platforms, they facilitate communication, but relationships are what actually cultivate a community.
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And when it comes to the church. So this is your homework for this coming Sunday. When it comes to studying about the church, what cultivated that sense of relationship and togetherness? We have devices that help us to network and communicate. But you think about something like Twitter. How did it change how we communicate?
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64 characters or less.
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That's not really ideal.
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That's not an ideal environment to talk about deep things. Is it the last verse that we'll end with almost every class, which was just up there. I hope you got it. Romans, chapter 12, verse 2. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.
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So that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. You want to understand the will of God in your life?
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Start praying for discernment.
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Start looking and making decisions that reflect the gospel and not just your desires or your desire to be comfortable.
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This is the struggle that we have that is foremost, I think, in the church of the 21st century. Let's pray and we'll be dismissed. Father, we thank you for allowing us to gather in your name tonight. We ask for your help. We pray that your spirit would guide us to truth, that you would help remove distractions from our lives. Give us the courage to say no to things, to people, to opportunities, to those things that take us away from becoming more like Christ. Help us to have single minded devotion and to filter our lives exclusively through the lens of the Gospel. Thank you for offering the invitation of the Gospel to us. Help us to live in a way that glorifies you. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.
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Love you guys very much. Have a great week.