Navigating Faith and Identity in the Digital Age

"Is technology good or bad? And in some sense it can depend on how you define technology. But if you if you were to ask me a decade or more ago, I probably would have said that technology is neutral. It just depends how you use it. You think of a wheel. If you have a wheel, you could use that wheel to take you to an Always Ready event, and that would be a good thing, and you're using that piece of technology in a good way. You could use that wheel to take you to an unwholesome place where perhaps you shouldn't be. Or you could just run over your brother or sister with that wheel. That would also be bad. And that's essentially a neutral understanding of technology, that it depends how you use it. You could use it for good; you could use it for bad." [00:56:24]

"But as time has gone on, we've begun to see that this technology is actually changing us. It's changing the way your brains actually work and function, and that the companies that are behind these platforms, social media platforms in particular, that they're not motivated by the highest good being human flourishing; their businesses, their corporations. Their motivation is for more money to go into their bank account, which is not bad in and of itself. You know, we believe that a man is worthy of his wages. And for a company to be seeking profit is not in and of itself a bad thing. But we need to remember that if Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok, Snapchat, I shouldn’t say 'if,' since these are free, it means that you actually are the product." [02:05:00]

"Many of them sell that data. They sell it for advertising, and that's how they make money. And they're in what is called 'the attention economy,' where their number one priority is to get your eyeballs in their app and not their competitor's app for as long as possible. So, they have various models that they've developed to be able to learn when it is that you might be getting disinterested in their app. You know that the news feed is now algorithm-based. It's always trying to put what's that next little bit of content that it thinks you will continue watching, consuming. And so, your version of Instagram, your version of Facebook is different than the person sitting next to you because they're tailoring it not for your good, but they're tailoring it for your attention." [03:13:00]

"The data from 2007 when the iPhone was released to today shows for your generation, or I should say, your age group, a continual increase in depression, anxiety, self-harm and even suicide. And the early results from a lot of these studies were showing a correlation, that as we began to use smartphones and technology more, and spent more of our time on these platforms and these apps, we saw anxiety and depression increasing, but we couldn't necessarily come to the point of saying, there's causation here, but there are many experts now that are very confident that there is causation. That is, you are using these devices. It is taking you away from community. It's taking you away from human face-to-face connection and human flourishing." [04:46:00]

"And so, it is this self-fulfilling prophecy. It's this circular thing where you have these feeds filled with the most beautiful people, wearing the most beautiful clothes, in the most beautiful, perfect poses with filters and all of those kinds of things. And so what does that do when I look at Instagram? It tells me I don't look like that. I don't have clothes like that. I don't look just right. And you know what I'm talking about. You look through and see your friends and what they're posting online. Perhaps you even see them out somewhere with friends and you weren't invited. And so, you have this feedback loop of negativity, because none of us can live up to the pixel perfect profile of the most successful accounts on Instagram." [07:21:00]

"If you do not understand that as a Christian your identity is found in Christ, that you are accepted by God the Father completely and totally because of the work of Christ, and that there is nothing you can do as a Christian to make God love you less. There's nothing you can do as a Christian to make God love you more, that your right standing before Him, the reason that you will go to heaven is entirely because of what Christ has done on your behalf. If you don't recognize that, then you will be chasing your identity like the world does in other things, whether it is in success in sports, whether it is your grades in school, or whether it's how many people follow you on Instagram or how much engagement you get when you post." [10:53:00]

"You do not need to live for affirmation from those in your youth group, from your siblings, from those in your school, or those strangers even online who might be interacting with you on social media because your affirmation comes because of the work of Christ on your behalf. You love God because He first loved you. It was God who chose you. It is God who elected you. And when you realize that you are accepted, as I said earlier, by God the Father, completely, completely because of the work of Christ. And you cannot add to Christ's merit, and you cannot take away from Christ's merit, it gives you so much freedom and liberty to be able to serve God, to be laughed at." [12:38:00]

"And if you don't understand that, and believe me, it's not just an academic exercise, you can hear what I have just said and say, 'Amen.' I know that to be true. To live that, and to believe that day to day, week to week, month to month, year to year is hard and we need to preach the gospel to ourselves. And I'm sure if you're active on social media, you might try and post and ghost where you just post it like, 'I don't care what people say about this. I'm not going to check the engagement.' But then you go back and you're like, 'But did people like it? How many people watched that reel? How many hearts did I get?' And you have to remind yourself and preach the gospel to yourself and say, 'My worth, and my value is not found in that interaction, that engagement. My worth is found in Christ.'" [14:35:00]

"Technology has opened up so many opportunities for Great Commission work, for the gospel to be proclaimed. I think of Ligonier Ministries. We are seeking to have active ministry in the world's top twenty languages. A lot of that footprint is digital. So, there is incredible work that is being done through the use of technology. I think even myself. Once I was a Christian, I was saved into the Pentecostal church, and I won't get into that entire story, but as I was looking for more truth and the Lord was sanctifying me and growing me in my understanding of Scripture. I discovered Ligonier Ministries and R.C. Sproul online and would listen to Renewing Your Mind, the podcast, from Australia fifteen years ago." [16:13:00]

"For the church to flourish in this digital age, especially with the changes that will come over the next decade: AI, deepfakes, Web 3.0. It's here already, but the technology of 2007 to 2017 will be vastly different to what we're seeing from 2024 to 2034. Like, we're just about to turn this corner into a radically different world. Gen Alpha coming behind you, the world that they grow up in will be very different to the world you grew up in. And for the church to flourish in the sea of all of this technological change, the area where I think there needs to be greater improvement is through generational conversation." [17:39:00]

"And it's true. We confess we may not be the best with the latest app, the latest tools, the latest technology, but your parents and your grandparents, if you're blessed to live in a Christian, have grown up in a Christian home. They have studied God's Word for decades and they have meditated upon God's Word. They have been in in church and heard sermons and reflected upon the truths of God's Word. And they have great wisdom. The gap is that they have the wisdom; they don't necessarily know how or what to apply it to in the world that you're living in. So, you see that. But the the truth is in reverse for you. You know how to use the technology. You're very, very quick, and your fingers are just dainty enough that you can tap all the things." [18:43:00]

"So, my exhortation to the church and where I think the church needs to improve is the conversation between generations. We need older folks, seasoned saints speaking to the younger saints in the church. And we need you as teenagers, being willing to talk to mom and dad or to your grandparents and actually let them know where are your challenges, if you're being bullied, or you just don't know how to respond to some of the conversation that you're observing online, go to an older saint. And even though they might not know how to send a DM, or post a reel, or get captions, or whatever the thing might be, they have great wisdom." [20:02:00]