Embracing Technology for God's Glory and Purpose

This is an amazing, amazing time to live. And this is an amazing, amazing time to be a Christian. And that's because every new technology brings us a great new opportunity. Every new technology that comes along brings a new opportunity to bring glory to God by carrying out God's will here on earth. And as Christians, we are responsible before God to take these new technologies and to put them to use for God's purposes. That's our privilege, and that's our responsibility. [00:04:36]

If you go all the way back to the beginning of our timeline, all the way back to the creation of humanity, you find just two people living in a garden. God has created them, and He's set them there in this garden. Adam and Eve, they are humanity, and God gives them their marching orders. He creates them, and He gives them their purpose. He says, "Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heaven and over every living thing that moves on the earth." [00:06:42]

The only way they were ever going to carry out God's command was to invent things. The only way they could honor God was to create new technologies. If they were going to build homes, they would need to cut down trees, and if they were going to cut down trees they would need to find a way, invent a way of cutting it down. To cross the rivers, to spread over the earth, they need to learn how to build bridges. [00:08:21]

God's people could only carry out God's commission if they took advantage of technology. Alright, God told them to take the gospel to the entire earth, which means they had to find ways of getting to the entire earth. They had to find ways of getting this message to the entire earth. So again God expected that His people, these Christians, would use new technology, maybe even invent new technologies. [00:09:33]

You know what's amazing? If you look back through human history, you look back through the history of technology, just look what Christians have done. Whenever a great new technology has come along, Christians have taken advantage. You go back to the day when the apostles lived. The Romans were in power, and you know they created this vast road system. This was amazing technology in their day. And these roads were meant to carry their soldiers, to carry on trade, but especially to carry the army. [00:10:25]

In the 1500s, Gutenberg invented the printing press. What happened? The Reformation happened, right? The Bible was printed. Books were printed. The Christian faith was printed and sent out all around the world. In the 1900s, radio came along. Soon Christians were broadcasting all across the world, broadcasting God's Word. The TV came along, and Christians were using that to broadcast God's Word. [00:11:10]

So here's the challenge again, especially for young people. You need to learn how to do the very best thing with these new technologies. You need to learn to use what already exists, and you need to learn to evaluate what will soon exist so these two can be used to carry the good news of the gospel. Maybe you'll even be involved in inventing new things, in creating new technologies specifically for this purpose of carrying out what God has called us to do. [00:12:16]

Technology can be used to do very, very good things. And technology can be used to do very, very evil things. So even while technology is a good gift through which we can carry out God's will, it's also a very, very dangerous thing. With our technologies, we can honor God and we can dishonor God. We can glorify God, or we can heap contempt on His name. We can do such good to other people, and we can do them such harm. [00:15:40]

You see, you might invent a gun to protect yourself but then maybe it's used to harm other people, to attack other people. Well, the printing press that was used to print the Bible also prints the Book of Mormon. Really, Gutenberg's press printed Bibles and it printed papal indulgences. It printed both. The radio that broadcasts the good news two hours later might be broadcasting heresy. But it's even more complicated than that. [00:17:33]

He also calls us to be wise. He calls us to be careful. He calls us to be discerning, and we're wise to acknowledge that our sinful human hearts will at times want to use good gifts in bad ways, want to take God's things, good things and use them for evil purposes. And that's true of technology. We'll want to use very good devices in very bad ways. So this means we need to be very careful in examining our technologies to understand how we may want to use them for evil. [00:18:46]

None of this is meant to scare you away from technology, not at all. It's just meant to help you use it wisely, with maturity, with discernment. Our work is too important. It's far too urgent to get distracted from this work that God has called us to do. One of my great concerns, as I look at Christians and the way we use our technologies and especially digital technologies, is how distracted we become by them. [00:19:42]

God has been so good to allow us to be involved in the salvation of souls, to use us, to allow us to be involved in His work. He doesn't need us. God doesn't need us, but He chooses to use us. God allows us to be part of the most important work in the entire world. The question is will you join Him in this work? How will you join Him in this work? How will you use the good gift of human ingenuity, the good gift of creativity, the good gift of technology? [00:21:49]