Becoming What We Like & Secret Vices

We become like what we like and we get comfortable in secret vices

What are somethings we have covered so far?

Technology is the reordering of raw materials for human purposes

It modifies creation, pushes back the results of the fall, establishes human power, helps edify souls, empowers our bodies, gives voice to human autonomy, is Governed by God, and shapes every relationship.

We are addicted to the distraction

We ignore flesh & blood

We keep work away, we keep people away, we keep thoughts of eternity away.

We crave immediate approval

This morning we are going to cover two more important topics in the realm of technology. They each are so important we actually have plans to doing a whole block on each of these topics in the coming years.

I would argue as I have already in this class that technology is changing us in ways we don’t even think about. Our hearts & attitudes are being molded by influences that did not exist (at least in the readily available quantities) as what you are dealing with.

Some opening conversation starters for your table:

How do you decide what clothes you should buy (or ask to be bought for you)?

How do you decide what you want for your birthday or christmas?

How do you decide what music to listen to?

How do you decide what book/video game/movie to read/play/watch next?

Friends, family, internet

Is that wrong in and of itself? Is it wrong to look to advice of others in person of digitally?

No, it can be right and good.

But it can also be bad.

We are being digitally submersed by things.

We are impressionable people. Its actually how we are created—we are moldable. And we adapt or conform to those around us. Again, in and out itself thats not always wrong.

Think with me about a scanario. If I were to send you to Uganda for 5 years. I say come back to us in 5 years, no contact or connection in the mean time.

What might your life look like when they come back 5 years from now?

May be married, might have kids, might speak another language, etc.

Do you think you will have the same likes and interests you have now? Do you think you would have the same forms of entertainment? Would your daily life look the same as it does now?

No—why not? What has changed?

Your surroundings, those you are around.

Do you think your having many conversations about the Guardians lineup in the jungle of Uganda? Do you think your having watch parties for the new Madelorian? Are you comparing exhuast systems on your car with anyone there?

Your interests and likes change based on your circumstances, whats available and whats important.

My guess if your first amount of time in Africa would be figuring out life—how to survive. Where to get food, where to get clean water, how to life day to day life.

From there you fill your time with things that you find important and shared interests with those around you.

Social media has become the new PR firm for the brand of Self. We check out feeds compulsively and find it nearly impossible to turn away from looking at—and love—our “second self”.

Even when we are not posting, we are consuming, our brains are be wired into thinking what is good and right and cool.

Teenagers strive desperately to fit in, and we know that in search of this conformity, they try to stand out.

Thats one of the saddest things we do, as humans—we try so hard to fit in while standing out. Its a losing battle.

“We are not who we think we are; we are not even who others think we are; we are who we think other think we are.”

How we think other people view us shapes how we act, dress, speak and live.

This is why celebrities are even popular. We want to be like them because we want to fit in.

One of the most famous commericals in the world and one of the most successful ones was very simple. It was about gatorade.

Does anyone remember what it said?

“Like Mike, I want to be like Mike.”

Mike of course being the greatest basketball player of all time, Michael Jordan. It was just brutally honest about the human heart—we want to be like that.

You might be thinking I don’t want to be like Michael Jordan, or any athlete for that matter. But more than likely there is some sort of famous person, author, icon, etc that your mind is shaping your goals after.

With likes, shares, reposts, comments & interactions we are communicating what we love and subconsciously be shaped into those things if we don’t proactively fight it.

Here is the reality of it all: we either worship what is created (idols) or we worship the creator (Christ). Those are the only options and we can only pick one.

if we worship idols, we become like the idols. “Idolatry is the vain attempt to find ultimate meaning in the finite things that we can craft and hold in our hands.”

Romans 1:25 “25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.”

Psalm 115:4–8 “4 Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands. 5 They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see. 6 They have ears, but do not hear; noses, but do not smell. 7 They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk; and they do not make a sound in their throat. 8 Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them.”

Psalm 135:15–19 “15 The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of human hands. 16 They have mouths, but do not speak; they have eyes, but do not see; 17 they have ears, but do not hear, nor is there any breath in their mouths. 18 Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them. 19 O house of Israel, bless the Lord! O house of Aaron, bless the Lord!”

Don’t worship the creation, worship the creator!

“When we worship the glory of our celebrities, they become idols of our admiration and conformity, raised up for human “adoration, veneration, and beatification, in the expression of a properly religious sentiment.”

If we worship Christ, we become like Christ.

“Opposite our idols, to love and to worship Christ is to become like him, powerfully conforming to his beautiful image, the true image of God…The object of our worship is the object of our imitation. God designed this inseparable pattern. What we want to become, we worship. And what we worship shapes our becoming.”

But all of this doesn’t address the root issue: why do we exist?

You didn’t think talk of smart phones and doom scrolling and the like button would boil down to this did you. Why do we exist?

You are created by God to image God.

Genesis 1:27 “27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”

Anyone want to guess what the word image means?

In adventure Club I passed around a mirror—when you look into that mirror, what do you see? Yourself!

We are made to reflect the creator, God.

John Piper says, “You put up a statue of Stalin because you want people to look at Stalin and think about Stalin. You put up a statue of George Washington to be reminded of the founding fathers. Images are made to image.”

“In other words, we were created to stand in opposition to the techno-wordliness that inevitably makes God look irrelveant in the new world of techinque and device mastery.

KEY: God didn’t create you as an end in yourself. You are not the goal! It’s not about you.

He is the end, you are the means!

The best way to show that God is infinitely valuable is to be supremely happy in him.

We exist for two reasons:

to be satisfied in the infinite worth of the Creator

To show the world how precious and deeply satisfying he is.

Westminister Shorter Catechism Q1

Q. 1. What is the chief end of man?

A. Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever.

1 Corinthians 10:31 “31 So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”

Psalm 73:24–26 “24 You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory. 25 Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. 26 My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”

I like the way John Piper puts it: we glorify God by enjoying Him forever.

Taste & see that he is good!

And yet we have these devices that we bow down to.

In the digital age we idolize our phones when we lose the ability to ask if they help us (or hurt us) in reaching our spiritual goals.

There is no doubt we can do things faster with these. But the problem is we have sacrificed time for direction. We can do things better and quicker than we ever have and we have no idea where we are going.

How many of you ride a bike? There is no arguing that you can go faster if you put your head down and pedal as fast as you can. But whats the problem with that?

Was the extra speed worth it when you end up in the ditch? You maximized your energy and in the process sacrificed your guidance.

“We mistakenly submit human and spiritual goals to our technological possibilities.”

When we interact on social media, we are being trained to quickly and without thinking react to everything. Like, dislike, share, block, etc. Almost every single app you are on is designed for you to scratch the itch of perceived value and emotion. Its not enough to just see what someone is doing you have to react.

Our interactions have been boiled down to 140 characters, a comment, or even just an emoji.

When you don’t want to respond you don’t. When you don’t want to talk someone you ignore it.

And that has bled into our face to face interactions. We have relationship a mile wide and an inch deep and then we you gather together you have shallow conversation.

Why do adults ask about the weather, their work or their kids? Because its easy and doesn’t require them to be vulnerable.

Our interactions online have taken ahol do four emotions and sometimes can toss us too and fro. If you are not on guard and careful, you can be tossed around by the waves of popularity. It won’t surprise you to hear I am not on top of many of the latest trends of happenings. You know why? It consumes you—it takes time and energy. It can be exhausting trying to keep up and you keep spinning on this hamster wheel that never arrives.

Do you know what they are doing? They are living the Solomon model—they are trying anything and everything to find joy. This outfit, no this outfit, no this one.

This music is best, not this artist, no this.

This is the hip language, no this, now this.

You are get spiritual whiplash trying to keep up and at the end of it all you moved no where.

We are statues of wax being shaped and molded. And this pliability means we can be redeemed, remade, and restored by the sovereign grace of our image-sculpting Savior to do what we are made to do: magnify God.

God is most glorified in us when we are most satisified in Him.

Trends, clothing, music, lingo, food, water bottles, whatever, at the core of it as attempts to fit in and find joy in the creation rather than the creator.

As born again believers we can redeem all things. Its okay to have nice things and to wear nice clothes that perhaps are even trendy.

We all believe that, and I know that because none of you are wearing togas and sandals.

But when you are consumed by those items and attempting to find joy in them, you have missed the mark.

We Get Comfortable in Secret Vices

Quickly I want to cover another topic.

Technology has allowed our generation to sin in vile ways so easily—without ever leaving your house and without even spending a dime.

Consumerism is the idea that all of life can be converted into commodities, then controlled and monetized.

“Theres an app for that!”

How many things in our lives have we converted to technology. I am not being an old geezer saying phones are so bad.

But we don’t even think about these things.

Have we thought about perhaps what is best is to physically sit down with a physical bible and read God’s word.

Not to digress but studies are proving we are all collectively dumber because we don’t have to do things ourselves anymore. We don’t have to read on our own, we don’t have to find something on our own, we don’t have to do the math ourself, we don’t balance our budgets ourself. Technology does it for us.

We have sped up the process and don’t know where we are going.

This has drastic effects for our souls.

Look, I don’t know what you guys do on your devices. But I can make some pretty educated guesses.

The perceived anonymity on these devices makes us think we can do what we want and no one will know.

“Anonymity is where sin flourishes, and anonymity is the most pervasive lie of the digital age. The clicks of our fingertips reveal the dark motives of our hearts, and every sin—every double tap and every click—will be accounted for.”

“The walls of inconvenience that made vices difficult to act on in previous generations have been lowered or eliminated in the digital age.”

Smart phones make sexual sin more discreet, giving it space to fester behind a veil of privacy. Because of time I am not going to spend much time here, but it is so easy to connect with other people on here, if we don’t have a plan and don’t think, we are lead down paths that destroy marriages and families.

Second, smartphone make free pornography easier to find than the weather forecast. I want to try and stay someone general here but you need to know how dangerous this trap is. It destroys men. 50% of professing believing men willingly acknowledge ongoing porn use.

The author says this, “Free porn accessed on a smartphone represents a spiritual epidemic of unprecendented gravity in the history of the church, costing a whole generation of young Christians their joy in Christ and corroding young souls by the acid of unchecked lust.”

It will suck you in and never let you go without the grace of God, and it will sell you a bag of goods that useless, unsatisfying and not reality.

I would add its more than just sexual images—its improper view of love and relationships. You have been convinced that your soul mate will fulfill you, give you joy and complete you. And its not true.

Third, smartphones vices capitalize on our endless curiosities. There are so many things we can cover here but smartphones are actually destroying countries.

That sounds dramatic, but people are so enamored with the curiosities of the vices of these they are not going on dates, not marrying, not having kids. The world is a generational low for birth rate.

Lastly, if curiosity is the impulse driving us to find, watch, and read what is vivid on our phones, perhaps we are witnessing an ancient impulse play out in the digital world.

This doesn’t even get into sports, gambling, video games, etc.

We are addicted to this things and it destroys relationships. And more than likely we are trying to do them in secret so others wont know.

God sees it all

“One day, every sinner who lived in so-called anonymous” sin will stand before God. There is no such thing as anonymity. It is only a matter of time.”

Nothing you do on your phone, have every done on your phone, or ever will do on your phone is secret.

There is hope: before his omniscient eyes, our browsing history can be washed clean only with the blood of Christ.

We will close with this: Scripture is so clear about the unseen mattering.

Colossians 3:1–2 “1 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.”

2 Corinthians 4:18 “18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”

2 Corinthians 5:7 “7 for we walk by faith, not by sight.”

Hebrews 11:1 “1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

John 20:29 “29 Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.””

1 Peter 1:13 “13 Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

Abide in Christ, focus on the unseen, the eternal weight of glory. The things you do in private not only won’t provide joy, but that are seen by the father. Repent if needed and focus on the Lamb.

“The gospel of consumerism says: everything you could possibly imagine for your earthly happiness and comfort is available in a dozen options, sizes, colors, and price points.”

“The gospel of Jesus Christ says: everything you could possibly need for your supreme joy and eternal comfort is now invisible to the human eye.”

On the external front: are we safeguarding ourselves and practicing smartphone self-denial?

On the internal front: are we simultaneously seeking to satisfy our hearts with divine glory that is, for now, largely invisible?