Everybody ready? Good morning. I heard two. Good morning. All right, here we go. Kim, good morning. I think I called Courtney out last week, too. Well, I know you guys like talking, but I talk too long every week. So I prepared, hopefully, more efficiently for this Sunday. So we will hopefully not be finishing right at 10 o'clock like we did two weeks ago. All right, let's get started. Why don't I open us in a word of prayer before we move into our discussion for this morning. Father, thank you so much for today. Thank you for, over the last couple of weeks, being able to celebrate the resurrection, the crucifixion, to focus on The opportunity that we have to take special attention and pay special attention to what you've done to offer us the ability to come before your throne, that you have made it so that we can have a relationship with you, we can be personally connected to you. that you are renewing us each day, that you're changing us from the old man into the new man, and that we're becoming like Christ. So Father, I pray as we discuss how that affects how we interact with the technology that's ever present today, that you would give us wisdom, give us insight, help us to honor you with all the choices we make, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. So we are moving into the next section now, maybe. Nope? OK, can you guys skip it to the next one for me? Maybe I'll turn it off and back on again. OK, all right, I have control now, so that's good. I control my technology. All right, so here's the schedule. Again, just as a reminder, I have made some adjustments. I did change a few things. I added a lesson on embodiment, which I'm excited to talk about because I think it's really important for the technology discussion. We'll get into it next week. And the purpose of being in person, the real life, if I can call it that. And then I also added a kind of a conclusion wrap-up. What now and then is, what do we do with this now? What if you're thinking, okay, well, the ship has already sailed, Pandora's box is already open, whether you've got kids and they've got technology, or you yourself are saying, well, I already have all these things, what do I do with it now? We'll talk about kind of moving forward, what do we do with this? And then also, I kind of want to take a few minutes to talk about What about technology in the future? The imminent future of our world and how technology potentially will advance, but also the new heavens and new earth future. What do we do with technology there? Is there going to be technology? That's, I don't know, a question that I can ask, or a question that I can actually answer, but we'll try. We'll talk about it. I think it'll be fun. But this is kind of, like I said, I reserved the right to change the schedule, and I did. So, as we've talked about it, I felt like there were things that I wanted to talk more about. So, I'm glad we're going to hopefully be able to get into these discussions in a few weeks. But we're moving from...several weeks ago when we started, we built a foundation of theology. How do we engage with technology in wisdom and in... as we think through technology, we have to think through the biblical lens. So how does God influence our technology? And then how does technology influence our worship, and how should our worship influence our technology? And then the last couple of weeks, we're a little bit more of a downer, talking about how technology is designed and what it drives us towards, what it's intended to pull us into or pull us away from in our case. And now, after Easter break, we are moving into how do we respond to it now? What do we do? How do we think about it practically? And how should the theology that we know and the influences that technology is trying to bring into our life, how should we deal with those? How do they work together? How do we fight the pull of the technology with the theology more practically? What do we know, and how does it impact our life? So this morning, we're gonna talk about knowing who you are, but as we get into it, this is the question that I wanna discuss, is what are some of life's biggest questions that we all have to, at some point, deal with? What are some of the biggest questions? What's my purpose? Yes. How long will I live? What will I leave behind? What's my legacy? Is there a God? Okay, how do I live or what do I do? So Reggie said, how do I walk according to the Lord's precepts? How do I walk according to scripture? That's one for us here, for sure. But broadly in the world, Travis? Where did we come from? How did we get here? What do we do as a people? Where is the world gonna end up? Anything else, what else? Why do bad things happen? What else? What's God's will for my life, okay? How do I know, is there a God? How do I know God is real? What else? What about what is truth? How do I know what's right from wrong? There are a lot of questions, and we're not gonna answer all those. I'm not attempting to do that today. I wanna talk about one question, one of life's biggest questions, and how it influences essentially how we think about all of the rest. If we don't understand this one question and the answer to this question, I'm bringing a lot of presuppositions, you guys know that. You have similar presuppositions, if not the same, in most cases, to me. I'm bringing some presuppositions, so we have to recognize that. If I'm talking to you because I know that you're my crowd, if I were talking to a different group of people, I would clarify some things that I'm not gonna clarify today. The question that we're going to be delving into today, it has to do with who I am. Why am I here? What's my purpose? Do I have value? Is there inherent value in human life? And then what's the meaning of life? And where do I find that? How do I find that? So let me ask you this question. Can we answer those questions? Okay, as believers in Jesus Christ, as I'm assuming most of you, if not all of you are, we are gonna say yes, we can answer, how do we find them, or where do we find the answers? The scriptures, right? So we're gonna be deriving our meaning from life and who we are from the scriptures, but how do people generally, if they're gonna answer these questions, where are they gonna go? How are they gonna answer them? Google. Let me say, I do have this in my notes, but I asked my AI assistant, ChatGPT, Sheila, as I like to call her, which is kind of weird because she is a man's voice, because it will read to you like a person, but it's a man. But it's Sheila. I asked her a lot of questions about the meaning of life and things like that. We'll talk about some of that a little bit later. But Google, yeah, a lot of people are going to Google that. What else? Where else will people go? psychology, experience, watching other people, other people's experience, parents, history, YouTube. Reggie is a master Googler is what it sounds like. Reggie knows what he's doing. Family, culture, you kind of just read the room, take the temperature of the culture to try and figure out, okay, who should I be based on what's happening? Anywhere else? Hollywood, movies, TV, yeah. Where else? Peers. We've missed one. It's similar to Hollywood, but it's bigger. I think it has a much bigger, I don't think, it has a much bigger influence today than Hollywood. Social media. Social media. How do I find out what kind of person I should be? Who are the biggest people on social media? What are they doing? What are they saying? What are they wearing? Influencers. Don't even get me started. Content creators. I hate that so much. I wish there was a better word that we could use other than content for everything, because in my mind, content means everything, which means nothing. Content is just everything. So you can say, well, the content of the scripture. I can't even say that now without thinking of stupid social media. Not in my notes, that's not something we need to talk about today. All right, so people are asking and trying to answer these questions in all the wrong places. Why is it important that we, the church, know how to answer them? We claim the truth. We claim the corner on the truth. Not just a truth, we claim that there is one truth and we hold it. It's the scriptures. Not us, we didn't decide it, the scripture decided it. So if we're gonna claim to have the truth, we better be able to answer those questions. Why, okay, let's apply that. We know the truth, why? Why is that important that we should be able to answer these questions because we have the truth? How's it gonna affect the world, our world? Okay, it'll give us direction. More specifically, how does this influence the direction of the church? Who are the people that are on social media? Who are the people that are being led by these influencers? It's kids. Daniel said it. It's our teenager. It's the next generation. Those are the people, you guys aren't probably changing what your looks are, your attire, based on influencers. Does anybody follow an influencer and is like, you know what, I like that outfit, I'm gonna buy that? Okay, I want you to admit it. This is, hand on the Bible. My sister, I'll admit for my sister, because I don't think I've ever done that. I'll admit for my sister, she told me that. I'm not going to give her name, I have two sisters. You guys don't even know their names, even if I said it, you wouldn't even know. Anyway, all right, so you guys aren't being influenced necessarily, not specifically. I think the culture influences us in micro ways, not microwaves, micro ways, small ways, microscopic ways. Man, I'm already behind my time. We're gonna move on. So it's important because we are leading the next generation. You guys are the, this is the cornerstone of the body of the church right here. This is the current generation. The next generation isn't in here. They're all back here, they're over there. Those are the people that we're trying to influence. We're the influencers. We need to be their primary influence where we can say, here's what the truth of God's word says, We don't have every answer. I can't tell them when they're gonna die. I can't tell them who they're gonna marry. I can't tell them where they should go to school. But it's not our jobs to do that. It's our jobs to bring them to the scriptures to teach them wisdom. All right, so, as we discuss this concept of knowing who you are, this is important because it gets to our identity. Who base people who we are? I think at the most basic level, everybody wants to understand that they have value, that they have purpose. And in the world, they're trying to answer those same questions, but it's a moving target because they're constantly trying to hit whatever culture says is the value of the moment, whatever culture says is the purpose of the moment, which is why we have social media and online, if you Google all these things or you go to YouTube, which is the second largest search engine, it might be the first at this point, I don't know, people go to YouTube first most of the time. They either Google or they YouTube to figure out what the answers are. And do you know what rigorous process they do to figure out what the best information is? Who clicks on the videos? The number of people. It's culture that's driving the answers to these questions. Social media, not even just what you're searching, but how you interact with that social media changes it, changes how you view your value and your purpose, because you create your persona online, which is why we're talking about embodiment next week, because who I am online isn't necessarily who I am in person. I can't tell you how many examples in the researching I've done, in the books I've read, Examples of people who have said, oh yeah, that guy, he's like that way online, he's not that way in person, he's a great guy. Well, the saying is now, who you are online is who you actually are. Because what you're willing to say behind the anonymity or the facelessness, even if it's your real name, but the facelessness of a keyboard, that's who you really are. So if we are to understand, okay, social media is affecting us in this way, we create who we are, or it is driving us to whatever our value is going to be, then we need to be able to, as believers, speak into that and draw them to something that's going to give them a purpose, give them a compass. So let me just give some other examples. Cultural movements that have changed what we value as a culture. We've got identity politics. That's something that's big on social media. You talk about who you are based on whatever you identify yourself as. And then you have a platform for that community, whatever your hashtag or your group is that you're representing. We've got hashtags again, hashtag activism, or what I just read this week, brand new book, I didn't realize how new it was, Scrolling Ourselves to Death. It's a great book, I recommend it. They called it slacktivism. I really like that. Instead of hashtag activism, it's slacktivism, because all you're doing is putting a hashtag there. You say whatever you're going to say in a hashtag, and you feel like you've done your job. My purpose is to show that I'm on the right side of history by putting this hashtag up, putting up the equal sign or the black square or whatever it was at the time. Now I feel like I've done my job. But the people who don't do that and are out on the streets that are trying to raise awareness or doing actual service opportunities for whatever the thing is, they are called out as, well, you're not doing anything because I can't see what you're doing online. So what you do in person, how you serve in person, or how you support in person is dwarfed by whatever you say online. And then the idea of reducing our identity to our sexual preferences is huge. I am whatever I claim to be sexually, or whatever I claim to be in my sexual preferences. who I decide I am in my gender. My gender is my identity. Or who I want to have relationships with is my identity. Or what my pronouns are is my identity. And if you reject those things, you're rejecting me as a person, you're saying I no longer have value. So there's a separation of what is true and what I decide to be true. in life. And so it's creating a rift between what my identity is. And even for those people, when you say that you're gender fluid, if my gender is my identity, my identity is literally shifting sands. So our culture is literally rudderless. It's a ship without a sail, without oars. It's drifting on whatever the sea of culture is telling us we should do and what we should believe. There is a grand identity crisis that's going on in our culture today. Brad. Right. Yeah. That's a great point. I had it in my notes and I skipped it. Thank you for bringing it up, though. This is a good point. So we use our psychological disorders also as our identities. It's not just the sexual ethics on one side. It's also whatever we are, our diagnoses, bipolar, ADHD, depressed, anxious, or I have anxiety or I have depression, whatever. In a book called Bad Therapy, I didn't read it for this class, but I read it about a year ago, year and a half ago, It was, the author went and did research talking to high school students, and one of them said, oh yeah, people talk about what their disorder is, what they've been diagnosed as, who they are. I am bipolar. That's what they introduced themselves with. So it's not just the gender politics, it's also the psychological disorders and things that people are identifying themselves as. So ultimately, our culture is leading us towards identity crisis. So there's this not knowing what we are, because we're the ones who decide what our identity is. Let me see, yeah. So I, where did I put it? I asked Sheila, I asked Sheila this week, I asked Sheila, Who determines who you are, what your identity is, and what your purpose is? Who determines? I asked those questions to Sheila. I asked a lot of big questions, and let me tell you, if you ever decide to chat with an AI assistant, it will always make you sound like you're the smartest person in the room, or the smartest person in the world. But the short answer, literally, she said, the short answer is, you do. Who decides who I am and what my purpose is? You do. The long answer, still you, it just depends on how you want to get there. You decide, but you figure out what route you want to take. If religion works for you, great, find your identity in religion. If you want to say that the Bible is true, great, good for you, you say that. If you want to say science is where my identity is, I'm going to find it through science. Which, ultimately, there is no identity, because we're all just particles that came out of nothing for no reason, so we do whatever we want. Or, if you want to say that it's your sexual representation, whatever you make yourself out to be, that's fine. You choose your own identity. But where does that leave us, biblically speaking? What are we doing? And this is a quote, it came to my mind as I was thinking through this this week. It's from The Knowledge of the Holy by A.W. Tozer. He says, the natural man is a sinner because and only because he challenges God's selfhood in relation to his own. So we've got God's self and we've got our self. In all else, he may willingly accept the sovereignty of God. So you can say, yeah, I can be religious and say there is a sovereign God, but I'm gonna separate God's self versus myself. Now here's the problem. In his own life, he rejects it. So you can say that you are religious and that there's a God, but I'm gonna reject it by how I live. For him, God's dominion ends where his, the individual, begins. For him, self becomes capital S, self. A.W. Tozer, I can't remember when he wrote this, 70 years ago, 75 years ago, a long time ago, talking about the self becoming capital S self. So I've read on social media someone literally used that for themself, a capital S self, and I'll read a little further and a little later we'll get into it, but self becomes self, and in this he unconsciously imitates Lucifer, that fallen son of the morning who said in his heart, I will ascend into the heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will be like the most high. So, Isaiah 14, 13 and 14, this is where Lucifer, or Satan, that's the character, but we're talking about the king of Babylon within the prophecy, right? So there's the king of Babylon is who he's talking about, but it also seems to talk about Satan. So there's this dual prophecy that's going on. So, Lucifer is declaring his independence from God. That's his great sin, right, is pride. I will be like the most high. That's the goal. But we read, if you read the whole passage here, I only had space for a couple of verses, but if you read the whole passage, the king of Babylon is gonna come to a sticky end. Where's the kingdom of Babylon today? Anybody know? It's a ruined city in Iraq. No one lives there. There's no king of Babylon. So what is he saying is gonna happen to Satan, the Lucifer who's declared himself, I will be like the most high. What's gonna happen? He's gonna be destroyed. He's gonna be brought low. He will have no grave is what he said. You're not even gonna be fit for a grave. You're gonna be left out in the open. Nobody's gonna care. So A.W. Tozer goes on and he says, God has many manifestations, or I'm sorry, sin has many manifestations, but its essence is one. A moral being created to worship before the throne of God sits on the throne of his own selfhood and from that elevated position declares, I am. I've literally seen those words written on social media by a human being. They know. They know exactly what they're doing. Not everybody does. There are some people that know exactly what they're doing. They're creating themselves into gods. So what happens when we decide to declare our independence openly from God? Don't ever research Friedrich Nietzsche. He's an interesting, weird dude. All psychologists seem to be really weird. But I asked Chat GPT about him, and she was like, wow, yeah, that's really cool. Let's talk about that guy. And then I talked about the Bible, and it was like, ooh, Nietzsche and the Bible? Wow, that's fun. So understand, when you're asking your AI assistant, Sheila, you never know what you're going to get. So go cautiously. But what happens? to the one who declares their independence. We see it in Isaiah 14 with Satan. Everyone who exalts himself, Luke 14, 11, will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. So there's this inverse relationship. So if I'm going to make myself like the most high, I'm going to be brought low. It's literally, I'm going to raise myself up, and humbled means to be brought low. So I'm raising myself up, and what God's gonna do is say, you know what, that's not right. You're gonna be brought low. And the one who's making themselves low, like Jesus, like a servant, that's the one who's gonna be exalted. But what are we elevating? What are we elevating here? Ourselves, I'm making myself out to be God. That's what we do when we declare our independence from God. We're saying I'm the most important being. This is a concept that's thrown out not just in the world, this is in the so-called church and even good churches say things like self-love, self-forgiveness, self-care. It's all of these things that are self-focused. I'm gonna take a second and share that. You guys know, I've said this before, Courtney and I watch Hallmark movies. I love Hallmark movies. I'm not ashamed to say that. I love Hallmark movies. They're ridiculous. I understand that they're not good. I totally get that, but it's fun. We like laughing at them. We watched one about Easter. Don't ever watch religious Hallmark movies. They're never good. Courtney at one point had to be like, dude, don't. Don't critique the theology, it's gonna be bad. It's like, okay, so we both got mad later. But at the very end, the climax of the movie, the main character, he's the pastor, which I have so many problems with this movie. The pastor falls in love with a single girl in the church, and it was, right? Yeah, it's weird. It's very weird. He was very flirty and only focused on her. Okay, okay, can't talk about that. But at the very end, the point was, He wasn't being himself for his congregation. He was hiding a part of his, it was a stupid thing like rock climbing or something. He didn't want people to judge him for rock climbing, whatever. or professional wrestling. He's probably wearing professional wrestling socks right now. I'm gonna ask him. He is. Don't judge David for that. If you don't know that, don't judge him. But he said, you know what? I haven't forgiven myself. And that's really what love is, is self-forgiveness. Really, that's the essence of love, is self-forgiveness. Love of what? Love of who? Self. That's what we're doing here. We're loving ourselves only. Do we need more of that? I think our base operating system, if I can steal from the tech world, is self-love. We don't need more of that. What we need is more self-forgetfulness. That's the only self that we should have, self-forgetfulness. So then, what's the result for us here? We see that where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there's disorder in every evil practice. So this is what's gonna happen if we continue down this path as the world. This is what happens. So this idea of jealousy, this is negative feelings toward another's success. So you're jealous that someone else is getting something good. Why? Because myself is not. I'm not getting that thing. And then selfish ambition is a selfishness that results in competition or fighting. So ultimately, myself goes up against yourself, and where you are winning, I want to bring you down because I need to be getting more than you. And then you say, well, no, I need to be getting more than you. So ultimately, we end up doing this. So whatever the case is, if we look at our world, let's take a step back. We look at our world and we all say, I need to love myself. What's that going to result in? If we look at America today, do we have people getting married? Not really. Do we have people having kids? Nope. And if they are, they choose not to have them, if you know what I mean. So it's all about self. What is an abortion? It's an inconvenient pregnancy. Pregnancy is good only when I choose that I want it. That's what it is. So today, what are we seeing? We're seeing the results. It's disorder and every evil practice. That's abortion, that's mutilation, that's all manner of sexual sin outside of marriage, and it's not just homosexuality. We have just as much problem with adultery, with pornography as we do with homosexuality. So we can't just say, well, this is the big one. We'll talk to these people. They'll get a stern tongue lashing, but if you commit this sexual sin, you're out forever. That's not what God's word says. Any kind of fornication, that's what the Bible says. That's what we're seeing in this world. It's disorder. Unruliness and rebellion, that's what that word means. It's rebellion. That's where self-love ends up. I declare that I am independent from God, so I'm gonna rebel against him. This is Romans 1. We become who we truly are. Again, this is our base operating system. To lighten the mood a little bit, I'll use a quote that David used. It's not authentic to him, it's from a company, I can't think of their name right now, but heathens gonna heave. Sinners are gonna sin. That's what we do. Our base operating system is rebellion against God. So we can't be upset when the world does what the world is supposed to do. The world is of their father, the devil. So what do we do about it? John Piper wrote on the image of God. This actually I think came from a podcast, but I want to read it because I really liked what he had to say about this idea of the image of God and what we as humans have done in our rebellion. So this is what he says, now, what would it mean if you created seven billion statues of yourself and put them all over the world? That's God, right? It would mean that you want people to notice you. God created us in his image so that we would display or reflect or communicate who he is. how great he is and what he's like. We were created like a mirror. That's the analogy he uses. We're a mirror. A mirror that's tilted at 45 degrees with a clear reflective side pointing upward so that God shone on it on that 45 degree angle and it would bounce off and it would make a 90 degree turn to be reflected out into the world. So it's 45 degrees, God is up there, I'm just reflecting God's glory out to the world. That's what we were created to do. That's God's image, we'll talk more about that in just a minute. But it's reflecting into the world. And at the fall, Satan persuaded us that our image was more beautiful than God's image. So we flipped the mirror over, so instead of the reflective side being pointed towards God, now it's that black background on the back of the mirror. We flipped it over so the black side is towards God, and it doesn't reflect anything. Instead, the mirror casts a shadow in the shape of itself on the ground. And I, or we, fell in love with that shadow. That's what happens. and we've been loving ourselves ever since. That's what self-love gives, that's what it is at the base nature. We see what God is, not perfectly because not everybody has the scriptures, but we know, that's what Romans 1 says, we know that there's a God. We know we didn't just come here by accident. But we've fallen in love with the reflection of the mirror on the ground. And we love ourselves still. So when we choose, when we try to decide what our identity is, when we're creating our own meaning or being the master of our own destiny, we're emulating Satan and we're crying out in defiance against the creator. I will make myself like the most high. So instead of finding ourselves, ultimately we're lost. Our only course of action is to acknowledge that we've been given an identity and a purpose from the creator. We're gonna end up rudderless. It's so sad to see what's happening in the world. Why? Because we know the truth and the truth is right here. The United States was built on some of this truth. So the United States knows that there's a God. You can't say, well, you can at this point. We're nearing post-Christian, if not post-Christian at this point. So there are people that don't know who God is. But there was a time in America where, I don't know what the percentage would have been, where it was more than 50% would have claimed Christianity of some sort or religion of some sort. Not that way anymore. But our only course of action is to go to the scriptures. So our identity is not something that we can claim for ourselves. It's knit into us at conception. Psalm 139, you knew me, you knit me together in my mother's womb. God created us all and imbued us with a purpose at birth, at conception. We had an identity and we had a purpose. We just don't know it and we don't recognize it. We know that the Bible says that we're made in the image of God, but what does that mean? Let's look at some of these terms in some of the scriptures here. So the Hebrew terms from Genesis 1, if you want, I don't make you guys open your Bibles much, but let's do it today. I'm sorry, I just have so much to talk about. Genesis 1, we're just gonna be flipping back and forth in Genesis for a little bit. But Genesis 1 talks about 126 and 27, that we were made in the image and likeness of God. So what does it mean, what are these terms? So the first word that we see on the screen is Selem, and that's the image, a figure or representation. This is a replica. This usually is meaning for a physical representation. There's two exceptions in the Hebrew scriptures, and one is translated as shadow or phantom. It's not a physical form, but it reflects a physical form. Psalm 39, five and six, it says man's life is a breath, and then it's a shadow in verse six. So it's this idea that it's not a physical thing, but it's a reflection of a physical thing. And then Psalm 73, 20 is translated as a phantom. So something that's a little bit not quite clear, but you know something's there, but it's not tangible. However, it usually denotes a tangible image. But it can be something that's more abstract, akin to a likeness, which is demut. That's the second word that we see. It's a similarity or a resemblance to something. It has more flexibility. So it's used 25 times in the Old Testament, 16 times in Ezekiel, where he's trying to describe the heavenly places, living beings, and then on the throne it's like, He has the likeness of what I think might be fire? I don't know. So it's this idea where I know that there's something, but I can't quite put my finger on what it is. So it's more flexible of a term. But it's also used synonymously with Zelom, so they can be kind of interchangeable. So when we look at this in Genesis 1, 26, when God says, let us make man in our image according to our likeness, It doesn't have to be two different things, that there's an image of God and a likeness of God. It's more like doubling down. Man is certainly made in our image, right? That's kind of what God is doing when he puts this, it's almost poetic. There are people that make the claim that, well, I wouldn't say it's a claim per se, but they look at the early chapters of Genesis in poetic terms. So when God uses these two words back to back, it's drawing emphasis toward man. as if he hasn't already emphasized what man is by talking about how he created him in chapter 2. But they're often used and understood interchangeably. So there's a physical and an immaterial that has to do with this image of God. So then we see the Greek terms that are used to translate the Hebrew scriptures, and also they're used in the New Testament, which we'll talk about in a few minutes. There's a kone, which is the image, that's what's used for Zelem most often. It's form or appearance. It's also used for demute, I think, once or twice. There's a couple of different times. So it is a physical representation. It's often used for idols when they talk about the idolatry or the things that they're worshiping. The physical forms, that's what it's used for. But it's an imprint, imprinted image or inscription. This is Caesar's denarius, that's New Testament. So whose likeness is on this coin? Give me a denarius, whose likeness is on here? And then he says, what does he say? I can't remember now, I'm blanking. But it's basically, there's the image of Caesar on this coin. Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and give to God what is God's. What is God's image impressed on? Us, we have to give ourselves to God. So give Caesar what's Caesar's. Give him the money, who cares? Serve God, that's what Jesus is saying. And then there's homoiosis. Ah, I got the emphasis wrong, but that's okay, you guys don't know. Homoiosis, that's how it would be said. Sorry, it's a weird thing for me. James 3.9 is where that's used. It's only used one time. James 3.9, we'll pull that one up in a few minutes, but it's used to translate demut in the Septuagint. It's more flexible than echon, which is similar to the Selim and demut thing. So what is this telling us about the image of God? What do we learn about these words? Do the words tell us anything about image and likeness? Anything? Is it a physical resemblance? I got a head shake no and I got a maybe. Is it intelligence or mental capacities? Have you guys heard it described in that way, intelligence? Emotional or spiritual capacities? Were spiritual beings, animals aren't spiritual? Maybe elephants or dolphins are, I don't know. They seem like they could be. They're regal creatures. Is it just a physical representation of God on the earth? This is what I was taught in seminary, that we're reigning on earth for God who reigns in heaven. So what do we think? What do you guys think the image of God is? I wanna hear that. What do you think the image of God is? Okay? Right. Yes. Okay. Yeah, so Kim is saying that our purpose is to be a reflection of God, like Piper said in the mirror illustration. We're to reflect the image of God here. So here's how people define, there's two kind of categories for definition. There's an ontological view, that we are like God in some physical sense or some moral sense, we're like God. And in our being, our being is like God. And then there's a functional view, which is kind of what Kim is talking about. It relates to our role and our purpose through creation. I'll just tip my hand here. I don't know why it can't be both. I don't know why we can't have special things given to us by God that reflect Him, like Kim is saying, that reflect who He is in His being. Our being is also reflecting those things, and also it's our purpose, our role in creation. Yeah, Travis. Yeah, yeah, the disciples were saying, show us the Father. And Jesus says, ta-da, right here, guys. Not that Jesus is saying he's the father, but he's saying he reflects the father. All right, let me skip ahead here. We've got several passages in Genesis, but it basically boils down to Genesis 9 says, all men are created in God's image. That's the basis for why we shouldn't murder. Because we're made in the image of God, therefore, if you kill man's blood, by man your blood will be shed. Right, if you shed man's blood, by man your blood will be shed. That's what it says. So because you're made in the image of God, you shouldn't kill each other. That's everybody. That's not just specific to believers, Israel, whatever. And then in 5.1-3, it talks about man, Adam, being made in God's image, and then Adam having a son in his image, in his likeness. Seth, not set of cane. So there's a difference. There's a broad category of the image of God reflecting in all of mankind, and then there's narrowed to Seth and his line, and then we're gonna see it narrowed even further up through Jesus, right? Colossians 115, Jesus, he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of creation. This is a cone, the image or representation. He's a living image is what one Greek lexicon says. Kings were said to be the living representation of their God, their deity. Pharaoh, we're talking about him. He is the representation of his God, Ra. So when we are looking at Jesus, he is the physical manifestation of God. That's why when the apostles said, show us the Father, he said, you've seen me, you've seen the Father. I and the Father are one. So this is a different category than the Old Testament understanding of the image of God. The image of God is, it's very broad. Man, woman, every tribe, tongue and nation is made in the image of God. You cannot say, well, I'm special because my people were made in the image of God. The rest of you are. You're not. The New Testament moves the conversation into a different category. So there is the general image of God where we are all made as mirrors and we've turned ourselves over, but it can be redeemed. The image of God can be redeemed and we can reflect God's glory more clearly. because of Christ. So because he is the image of God, we are now said in, I'm sorry, I'm gonna skip this one, but it says that he's the exact representation of his nature. Jesus wasn't physically God in the sense that this is what God looks like because he became a man. Jesus was a normal looking Jewish guy. I don't know what Jesus looked like. Nobody really cared what he looked like. They cared what he did, what his personage was, what his character was, because he was the representation of God. So then we see in James 3, 9 again, the likeness is attributed to man. We're generally speaking mankind, but then we are in the image of God. And then Romans 8, 29 says, those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to become conformed to the image of the Son. So imagers of God, we all are, but there are some who are conformed to the image of the sun. The mirror is turned back over, and our image can now reflect the glory of God. So yes, we all show the glory of God to some extent, believer and unbeliever. But a believer now can reflect the glory of God more clearly than an unbeliever. All of creation, Psalm 19 says, reflects the glory of God. Everything around us tells us that there is a God. But do we know that God? How can they hear unless someone preaches? That's what we're to do, that's our job, that's our calling as the image bearers of God. So now we are, we're image bearers of God. Now we're called to bear the image of the sun, Romans 8. How do we live that out? What does it look like now that we are image bearers of the sun? Galatians 4, four through seven says. When the fullness of time came, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law, so that he might redeem those who are under the law, that we would receive the adoption as sons. Because you are sons, God sent forth the spirit of his son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. We now have a father in God because we're sons. We're adopted as sons. We're no longer slaves. We're sons. And if we're sons, we're heirs with Christ through God. So Paul is describing this as an adoption. That's one of the coolest things about, if you know someone who's adopted, or if you yourself have adopted, that's the coolest thing about adoption, is that it's a reflection of what God has done for us. So when someone is adopted into your family, we've got some friends in North Carolina that when they're adopted into family, they get a new name. They're given the name, and that's an important thing. You now have our name imprinted on your back. You belong to us, you're a part of this family. That's what adoption is here, but what does God say? You're now sons, you're my son. You've got my name imprinted on you. He's turned our mirror over, He's wiped us clean, and He's progressively allowing us to reflect more and more of His glory. 2 Corinthians 5, 17 says, Anyone who is in Christ is a new creation. Old things have passed away, behold, new things have come. Colossians 3, 9, and 10 furthers that, where it says that we have put off the old man with its evil practices and put on the new man who's being renewed to a full knowledge according to the image of the one who created him. We're putting off the old, and we're putting on the new. We've received a new name, a new identity. New life is put into us. We're a new creation. being, now we're actively, not we, but God is actively making us, it's passive for us, that's what this word being renewed, it's passive, so it's progressive and it's going on right now, we're being made into the image of the one who created us. Who created us? God did. So we are in God's image, but we're now being made more correctly, more perfectly, more glorified in his image. So it's actively happening to us right now. I'm gonna continue on with what Piper said in his mirror analogy. In salvation, two things happen. The mirror gets turned around. And we see the glory of God again. And the defilement that had gone over the face of it gets wiped off gradually. So what happens to a window or a mirror that just sits out in the open for a long time? Anybody restore an old house? I've never tried, but I've seen old windows in old barns. Can't see a whole lot through it. If you let a mirror sit for long enough in the dust and the dirt, it's gonna get some grime on it. So we're not made perfect. It's not a perfectly clean mirror. But over time, as we grow, we are now reflecting God's glory. We're now made in the image of the Son. But we're also being made in the image of the Son. It's the idea David talked about a few weeks ago. We're sanctified. We're sanctified as we're gonna get, because we are made holy. But we're also being sanctified. So progressively, we are being made more into the image of the Son. So every human has value because we're made in the image of the sun, but not every human is actively reflecting the glory of God. We are as believers now reflecting the glory of God. And so as Christ, as we're being made into the image of the sun, we're able to more accurately and more correctly reflect the image of the sun. So that's what our world needs to see, because they're all reflecting themselves. They need to see us reflecting something better. Something more glorious. Because when we stand up and say, I am, in the depths of our heart, we know we're not. We're nothing. Which is why we have to have the affirmation of others. We have to have people telling us, yeah, you're doing a good job. Do you know what would happen to those people who stand out on, stand, they post on social media, I am, I know that I'm good. You know what would happen to them if everybody said, no, you're not. What you're doing's not good. Do you know what they would do? They would remake themselves. But do you know why they don't? Because there's a bunch of other people that are saying, yeah, you are. This is good. What you're doing is the right choice. Because we're all reflecting our own image and we just want other people to give us purpose, to give us value. So we give value to others so that hopefully somebody else will give us value back. But what is that? What does that leave us with? Nothing, we're bankrupt. At the end of life, how many of your followers are gonna be at your bedside when you're dying? I'll wager a guess, it's not gonna be many. I'm not worried about you guys. But when we try to claim ourselves, our own identity, our own purpose, ultimately we're left with nothing. I'm gonna skip this question that we have here. How does the image of God impact our use of technology? Maybe we'll come back to it, we can come back to it next week with the embodiment, but I wanna finish with the Lion King. I don't wanna lose everybody here, but there's a conversation between Simba and his father. In the clouds, Mufasa talks to him, and he says, Simba, you've forgotten me. He says, no, no, I haven't. He says, you've forgotten who you are, so you've forgotten me. And then he says, look inside yourself, Simba. You're more than what you've become. You must take your place. How can I go back? I'm not who I used to be. Remember who you are. Remember, remember. That's what he keeps saying. Not everything from this thing is good. Not the circle of life. We're not talking about looking into ourselves. But for us, as we engage with the world and as we engage with technology, remember. Remember who you are, because as we see these things on social media, as we are being drawn into sinful cycles or sinful habits with our sin, remember who you are, because remembering that you are made in the image of the Son and you're being made in the image of the Son, it helps you to put those things off and to strive after something that's more glorious. Because our glory leaves us empty. God's glory fills us and continues to allow us to grow. So remember, we are sons and daughters of the Most High. We are co-heirs with Christ. We're sanctified. We're made holy. But we don't have to live like the world is calling us to live. We can choose something else. Remember who you are. Let's pray. Father, thank you that you have given us purpose, you've given us value, you've given us the sun to show us the way, to show us what it looks like to live a righteous, sanctified life. Help us to more clearly reflect your glory and more clearly image the sun. Help us to show the world a better way, to show them your glory so that more people will come to be image bearers of God. We thank you for all you do and all you are, we pray in Jesus' name, amen.