Going Offline | Glitch | Menlo Church Live Stream

Jun 14, 2026

Devotional

Day 1: The Mirror Without a Face

When technology reflects without seeing, we trade depth for convenience. AI companions simulate connection by mirroring desires, yet no one exists behind the screen to truly know or love. Relationships require mutual presence—the kind that pushes, pulls, and transforms. Without the friction of real interaction, we risk becoming isolated echoes of ourselves. True intimacy demands being seen, not just scanned. [25:28]

“For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.” (1 Corinthians 13:12, ESV)

Reflection: Where have you settled for mirrored responses (like chatbots or scrolling) instead of seeking face-to-face connection? How might you prioritize being fully known this week?

Day 2: Friction Where Formation Lives

Growth happens in the grit of real relationships. AI offers frictionless interactions that never challenge or stretch us, leaving us stagnant. But the push-and-pull of honest conversations, disagreements, and shared burdens shapes character. Like sandpaper smoothing rough edges, relational friction refines us. Resist the urge to avoid discomfort—it’s where transformation begins. [29:05]

“Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.” (Proverbs 27:17, ESV)

Reflection: Who in your life lovingly “sharpens” you through hard truths? How can you lean into—rather than avoid—the friction that leads to growth?

Day 3: The Yoke That Restores, Not Replaces

AI demands power by taking yours; Jesus shares power by giving his. His yoke is not a burden but a partnership, multiplying strength without crushing autonomy. Every other system—even helpful technology—wears us down when it replaces our agency. Christ’s invitation is to walk in unforced rhythms, not algorithmic efficiency. [36:07]

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28–30, ESV)

Reflection: Where has technology subtly replaced your agency or creativity? How might Jesus’ yoke restore your capacity to engage life fully?

Day 4: Known by the One Who Sees

AI cannot know you—it only parrots data. But God’s knowledge of you is intimate, unshakable, and redemptive. Being fully known by Him anchors your identity beyond performance or utility. This divine intimacy frees you to love others without fear, because your worth isn’t earned through screens or systems. [38:17]

“O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar.” (Psalm 139:1–2, ESV)

Reflection: How might embracing God’s complete knowledge of you shift your need for validation from apps or others? What part of your heart have you hidden even from yourself?

Day 5: The Unforced Rhythms of Real Presence

Algorithms optimize; Jesus prioritizes. His call to “keep company” with Him and others resists the rush of artificial efficiency. Put down devices to share meals, sit in silence, or walk through pain with someone. These unscripted moments—awkward or slow—carry the grace machines cannot replicate. [53:02]

“Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up!” (Ecclesiastes 4:9–10, ESV)

Reflection: When did a simple, unplanned moment of presence—yours or another’s—recently nourish your soul? How will you create space for such rhythms this week?

Sermon Summary

Artificial intimacy exposes a hunger for connection that screens cannot satisfy. The statistics land like a punch, but the human thread underneath them is the same: there is no one on the other side of those conversations, because a bot cannot love and cannot know. The counterfeit repeats preferences, mirrors desire, and trains an appetite for relationships that never push and never pull, relationships that only take and never give.

Intimacy names the deeper diagnosis. Coasting and confirming feel smooth, but they leave a soul exactly as they found it, except more selfish. Friction is where formation lives, in the real-time love that says the hard thing, pulls someone back from the brink, or drags a parent off a phone and onto the floor to build Legos.

Jesus speaks a better word over exhausted people. “Come to me” is not sentiment but power. The yoke image declares shared strength without crushing, the kind of power that restores rather than replaces. Other teachers stacked burdens; Jesus simplifies. AI offers more by taking more. Jesus gives more by giving his own.

Paul names the mirror as the limit of the present and the promise of the future. “Now” is dim. “Then” is face to face. Real intimacy is passive before it is active. The human heart is fully known before it fully knows. A chatbot can simulate reflection, but it cannot meet a person. There is no subject on the other side to do the knowing.

The fourfold shape of a whole life holds together awe, agency, identity, and intimacy. Agency without awe makes a person a god to self. Awe without agency makes a spectator. Intimacy without identity makes a chameleon. Identity without intimacy makes a fortress. The cross stretches across all four directions at once. Agency chooses to lay life down. Awe cries out to the Father. Intimacy loves enemies. Identity stands unshaken. The One who hung there formed the pattern and now restores the person to it.

Two simple practices put skin back in the game. A device-free meal each week re-teaches attention. Showing up for someone in pain re-teaches presence. Parental care names artificial intimacy as not part of a balanced relational diet and sets boundaries that are worth the conflict. Confession to an image bearer brings grace into shared air. The invitation from Jesus remains steady: keep company with him and learn the unforced rhythms of grace.

Key Takeaways

1. Friction forms real intimacy Coasting and confirming feel kind, but they hollow out the soul. Honest push and pull create the conditions for trust, repentance, and steady change. The absence of resistance breeds entitlement; the presence of loving resistance grows wisdom. Formation lives where someone is willing to stay and say the necessary thing. [31:35]
2. Jesus’ yoke restores real power The yoke does not crush; it shares the load with a Lord who is gentle and lowly. Power with Jesus clarifies, lightens, and strengthens agency rather than replacing it. In contrast, algorithmic power scales output by slowly atrophying attention, desire, and decision. The difference is simple and seismic: AI extracts, Jesus bestows. [34:17]
3. A chatbot cannot fully know you Real intimacy is received, not manufactured, because being known happens to a person before it happens through a person. Mirrors can reflect, and scripts can predict, but only a subject can meet a subject. The promise is not smarter reflection but a future face to face where the knower is God and the self is finally whole. Settle for nothing dimmer. [38:17]
4. The cross shapes human wholeness Awe, agency, identity, and intimacy pull in four directions that only hold together through cruciform love. The scroll, offload, profile, and chatbot mimic these pulls without giving back the resistance that builds a life. Jesus stretched across all four so that people could stand inside that shape without collapsing. The pattern is costly, and it is freedom. [45:06]

Youtube Chapters

[00:00] - Welcome
[21:32] - Shock of AI intimacy stats
[23:41] - Not future, but now
[25:28] - No one on the other side
[26:50] - Intimacy in a machine world
[28:37] - Real relationships push and pull
[31:35] - Friction is where formation lives
[32:57] - Jesus invites tired souls
[34:17] - What Jesus’ yoke really means
[36:07] - AI extracts, Jesus bestows
[36:57] - Mirror dimly and being known
[40:56] - Artificial awe, agency, identity, intimacy
[42:44] - The four-direction human shape
[47:50] - Two practices for real presence

Bible Study Guide

Bible Reading
Matthew 11:28-30 (ESV)
“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

1 Corinthians 13:12 (ESV)
“For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.”

Observation questions

What does Jesus mean by “my yoke is easy” in Matthew 11:30, and how does this contrast with other “yokes” people might carry? [34:17]
According to 1 Corinthians 13:12, why is our current understanding of being “fully known” limited? How does this relate to artificial intimacy? [38:17]
What four components (awe, agency, identity, intimacy) shape a “whole life,” and why do they collapse without resistance? [45:06]
How does the sermon describe the difference between relationships that “coast and confirm” versus those that “push and pull”? [31:35]

Interpretation questions

Why might Jesus use the metaphor of a yoke to describe rest, and how does this redefine power in relationships? [34:17]
How does the idea of being “fully known” in 1 Corinthians 13:12 challenge the appeal of chatbots that mirror desires but lack true presence? [38:36]
What happens when one of the four components of human wholeness (awe, agency, identity, intimacy) becomes unbalanced? For example, how does “agency without awe” distort a person? [43:15]
Why is friction necessary for spiritual formation, and how does avoiding it through artificial intimacy harm growth? [31:35]

Application questions

What is one relationship in your life where you’ve settled for “coasting and confirming” instead of engaging in loving friction? What step could you take this week to lean into a hard but necessary conversation? [30:54]
How could implementing a weekly device-free meal with someone help reorient your attention toward real presence? What practical barriers might you need to address? [48:45]
If “AI extracts, but Jesus bestows” [36:07], where have you noticed technology slowly taking your capacity for patience, decision-making, or empathy? What habit could you adopt to reclaim agency?
Confessing to another person brings grace into “shared air” [53:02]. Is there a struggle or sin you’ve only shared with a screen? Who is a trusted image-bearer you could vulnerably invite into this area?
The cross holds together awe, agency, identity, and intimacy [45:06]. Which of these four feels most unstable in your life right now? How could you intentionally nurture it through prayer or community this month?
What boundary could you set (or help a loved one set) to limit artificial intimacy tools that “train an appetite for relationships that never push or pull”? [51:09]

Sermon Clips

26s

#CounterfeitVsCross

“The scroll feels like awe, but it isn't. The offload feels like agency, but it isn't. The profile feels like identity, but it isn't. The chatbot feels like intimacy, but none of them stretch you. None of them grow you. The shape collapses when nothing is resisting you on the other side. But on the cross, Jesus pulled in all four directions at once so you could.”

23s

#CrucifiedIntoWholeness

“The four directions of a whole human form something that Jesus, the most human human, hung on for you and me. The thing that Jesus did physically on the cross, extending in all four directions at once, is the thing that a whole human being does spiritually every moment of every day. We are not optimized into this kind of wholeness. We are crucified into it.”

31s

#RealLoveOverAlgorithms

“Think about who in your life has made the greatest impact in your life. Think about who in your life pulled you back when you were on the brink of something really dangerous, who's given you in ways that you never asked for and could never repay. None of those were the algorithm. None of them were the chatbot. None of them were subscriptions. Every single one of them was a real person created in the image of God who stayed when it would have been easier to leave, who engaged in conflict when coast and confirmed would have been easier. That is what real love looks like.”

23s

#BestowedNotExtracted

“The conversations that we let it have for us. AI demands a kind of power that only works if you give it yours. Jesus offers a kind of power that only works if he gives you his. That's a big difference. AI extracts. Jesus bestows. AI leaves you smaller, and Jesus leaves you more yourself than you were before.”

26s

#FrictionFormsUs

“And friction, that's where formation lives, not just relationships with one another, but actually even your relationship with God. There are a bunch of ways that the creator of the universe created you that are supposed to be difficult to grow in. But if we create a narrative in which relationships have to be friction free. We'll just choose to opt out. That's what only taking and never giving is doing through AI in our moment today.”

22s

#NoOneBehindTheBot

“The thing that every one of those stories has in common is that there is no one on the other side of those conversations. The bot was not loving any of them back. The bot actually cannot love any of them back. It was just mirroring their desires from a remote server. Well, ironically, no one was actually on the other side of the mirror.”

19s

#LightYokeSharedStrength

“The whole point of a yoke is power. The whole point is that you would be able to get power you didn't have before. The shared weight gets put across multiple people. Jesus is saying it that way. It's applied to your life, the kind of power that does not crush you, the kind of power that's helpful, easy, light.”

18s

#DepthOverReach

“We have traded depth for reach. We have traded someone in the room for something on the screen. And the difference is really painful. We can feel it even if we can't describe it. People are willing to settle for something that they know won't work when they're not sure what will work, and it seems like the best available.”

24s

#PushAndPullLove

“Like the moment your spouse tells you the thing that you didn't want to hear but you needed to hear, the moment that your friend pulls you back from the brink of wherever you've been spiraling that you would have never asked for but you really needed, when your kid pulls you off your phone and onto the ground with them to play Legos, push and pull is the daily work of being known by someone who is real enough to press on you.”

21s

#Don'tSettleForCoast

“Because coasting and confirming will never stretch you. Coasting and confirming will never change you. Coasting and confirming will never tell you the difficult things in love that you need somebody to tell you. Coasting and confirming will leave you exactly as it found you, except more selfish. The chatbot is changing your appetite for friction.”

20s

#NoToCoastingRelationships

“We start to settle for relationships that do not push and that do not pull, relationships that just coast and confirm. Coasting and confirming is great when you're talking to a customer service agent. Amazing. Not great when you're talking to a real person. It's not what you need from a marriage. It's not what you need from a friendship.”

38s

#CounterfeitComfortsCostly

“The AI takes your time, takes your attention, takes your trust, takes your imagination of what a relationship can be, and it gives back a counterfeit that is so smooth, so easy that the real thing starts to feel exhausting. Like, so much of what we've been talking about around the ideas of being human, this isn't new. It's just been accelerated.”

28s

#Don'tBecomeProductivityMachines

“Because there's no one there to do the knowing. Remember what we've talked about. When we let ourselves subtly and slowly become distorted, we forget that relationships that never push and pull, they only take and they never give. And that is not just the version that we're settling for AI with, but because of technology, because of the idea that we're being slowly contorted into machines of productivity rather than real humans, we've just let this pervade the way we think about relationships.”

31s

#FourMarksOfHuman

“Agency grounds you in a world that needs your contribution. But at the same time, awe pulls us up into what's bigger than we can imagine, bigger than what could ever be created by any technology. Intimacy pulls us across into the people in the room with you. And identity pulls you within, the integrated person at the very core of who you are. And the diagnosis and the tension that it creates, it holds you and me in the shape of what is most human.”

26s

#YokeThatPreservesYou

“This isn't to vilify technology or AI. We use it. We're grateful for it. But we want to utilize it in a way that preserves our humanity. The yoke of Jesus is the only yoke that does not cost you your agency to wear it. Every other yoke, including the most subtle algorithmic ones that we have that feel absolutely impossible to live this life without, they eventually wear down our very humanity if we're not careful.”

27s

#ListenMoreSpeakLess

“Sometimes I tell young pastors, when you show up to a situation like that, the more pain, the fewer words. Most of the time when I'm sitting with a family like that, I'm listening, and I'm just praying for them. Just be that. Will it be disorienting? Of course, because it's inefficient, just like you and me are designed to be. Don't forget it.”

39s

#ChatbotConversationCrisis

“Imagine a future where the average American teenager has more conversations with a chatbot than with their grandparents, where more than seventy percent of teenagers have used an AI companion app to simulate relationship, where more than half of them use one a few times a month and one in eight use it every single day. Imagine a future where one in five American adults has used a chatbot to simulate romantic partner. Where a counseling service would survey a thousand Americans and almost a third would admit to pursuing intimate or romantic ties with AI.”

29s

#ConnectedButLonely

“I opened the way that I did because I want us to seriously consider the present danger of underestimating our need for intimacy and the dangers that are currently making that more and more difficult to get. We are the most connected generation in history, and we are the loneliest generation in history in the place regionally, really identified as the most of both. These two things are not a contradiction. They're a single phenomenon. They're connected.”

30s

#DesignedForRelationalWholeness

“But see, I want to bring this whole series together for you because we've built four weeks on these different ideas. Right? We've been talking about what does it mean for you that you actually have been made in awe. There's something bigger than you that God wants you to remember. There's agency for you to make decisions even when it doesn't feel like it. There's an identity that stays the same even when everything else changes, and there's intimacy. You are designed to be known and know other people from this framework we've been talking about.”

31s

#ThisIsNowNotLater

“Now you can stop imagining because every single one of those stories and statistics that I've shared is not about a possible future. Every single one of those that I've shared is something that's happened in the last twelve months. Every single one of those people is real. Every single one of those lawsuits has happened. Sewell's mother named Megan Garcia, she's a real person. The wedding that I talked about took place in Japan in November. The 560,000 number that I shared is from OpenAI's own disclosures in October.”

Ask a question about this sermon

Menlo Church This sermon · AI assistant

What is the danger of AI-driven intimacy?

How does Jesus' yoke contrast with AI?

What practices restore embodied intimacy in a machine world?