AI, Tech, and Faith

Okay, so where are you with that? Now that was Arthur C. Clarke, he wrote Space Odyssey 2001, predicted a lot of things in the 50s and 60s that he was correct about. Not all of them, he admitted that. But where are you when it comes to the future? Do you imagine it to be absolutely fantastic? I mean, when we start talking about artificial intelligence, where are we with all of this? Some of you here at Mid Rivers, Fenton Grants Trail, those of you joining us online, some of you are at this point maybe just going, well, why are we talking about that in church? You should be telling us a story about Hezekiah or preaching on sanctification. Well, listen, I love those topics and we'll get to them, but I'm telling you here, we are trying to follow Jesus into the real world. Now we taught on this about three years ago, some things have changed. We're going to come back to some of those things, but there were these men of Issachar, I'm talking about 1000 BC, who were helping King David, and it was said of them that they understood the times and knew what to do next. We want to be those people who begin to think through a biblical grid in the real world, and the only chance we have is to follow God and to honor Him and to build our lives in such a way that Jesus is forming us and changing us. It gets us right back to Hebrews 6, which is the foundational verse for this series. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. In very strange seas, we have an anchor. Were any of y'all here last weekend? Because man, I thought Pastor Dave, I mean, he just brought the goods, it was so good, but I was sitting right there and I'm watching Dave teach and I'm like, oh man, that is a really cool anchor that he has. How come he got that anchor? Now that I think about it, where's my anchor? No, if you remember, where he was, he was talking about this image of a rope attached to an anchor and there was a powerful moment where he cut the rope.

If you were here, you remember that? It is a fatal mistake when we try to separate from the anchor. We need something, we need someone who can hold us firm and secure. We need somebody who doesn't change. Now later, the writer of Hebrews in chapter 13 says, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. So I want to just be real clear before we get started. When we talk about hope around here, our hope being an anchor, we don't hope just for the sake of hoping. This isn't like, hey, y'all just think good thoughts. No, our hope is in him. I can't do this without Jesus. But with Jesus, I have a chance to live fully even in these changing and strange waters that we are in. You see, I do believe that ultimately the future, at the end of the end, is absolutely fantastic. But it's not because of any of our accomplishments. It's not because of anything that we can imagine. It's Jesus, always Jesus. Let's pray. Father, we come before you now. It's going to be a little bit of a different day for some folks, Lord. I pray that you will help us to learn, but more than anything, that you will help us to hear your voice above the fray. Father, may we end our time together the way we began it, worshiping you who are worthy. We pray all of this in the name of Jesus our Lord, amen. So I'm going to ask you, if you would, to turn to Genesis chapter 11. If you have your Bibles, that's where we're going. It served as the foundational passage the last time we taught on this. It doesn't surprise me that when the Pope released his encyclical on AI this past week,

that this particular passage was the foundation for it. It just helps. It doesn't surprise me. I mean, the Pope watches us, so I get it. Not true. Not true. I don't think. Is it? I mean, you let me know. No, no, no. No. Here it is. Here it is. You know this story. Let's just jump in, and you'll understand what this is. Come, let us build ourselves a city with a tower that reaches to the heavens so that we may make a name for ourselves. Now, this is, of course, the story of Babel, the Tower of Babel, and it happened in what we might call the distant past. But I believe this really happened, partly because archaeological excavations keep showing that these names and these places are real. But if you read just before this, God has instructed people, we're early in the story now, to be fruitful and then spread out. Make planet Earth your home. But they refuse to do that. They stay clumped together. So there's a conscious disobeying of God. Now I know what some of you are thinking. So what? Big deal.

So they're actually building a city and they're building something together. They're using their tools and their technology. What's the big deal with that, Greg? Remember that God sees the hearts of men and women. First Chronicles 28 says that the Lord searches every heart and understands every motive behind the heart. If you look at just those couple of verses in chapter 11, they don't mention God once, but they mention themselves I think three times, let us, we, we. You see, this wasn't about God. This wasn't about giving glory to God. This wasn't about obeying God. This was building a monument to them. Now, the next verse. Now, it says the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. This is ironic humor. I want you to see this now. The writer here is God, the eternal God who created all of this, doesn't need to go anywhere to see what's happening, right? He knows what's going on, but what the writer is saying is this eternal God comes down out of heaven to see this really big project that's gonna reach to the heavens. Well, God has to come down and see what these guys are doing. So what is going on here? This is the foolishness of pride. What we see here is that God is now,

he's not threatened by humanity. He's never threatened by humans. But what God is doing here is he's protecting his story. He had made a promise to make things right. And he's not going to allow them to implode here. Listen to me, power without the acknowledgement of God that reaches across humanity is always destructive. And what God says right here is you're not gonna hijack the story. And so the end of the story is essentially he spreads them out, he scatters them. Now just remember the story. We'll come back to it in just a second. But I want you to hear the point of today is not boo technology. It is not, it's not like an old guy, you know, just standing on his lawn yelling at everybody as they drive past. It's not, ah, it's not that at all. I'm now not going to tell you to break up with Siri. Or to delete all your apps. Or to move to the hills and wear sackcloth and eat dirt. That's not the point of following Jesus into this world. Now listen to me, in the coming moments I've already had conversations with people young and not so young after a previous service. People where God is nudging them to maybe do something counter-cultural. Now that'll be between the two of you. But I want to just level reset here

so that we all understand what we're talking about at a basic level. And let's just say this more than once, I'm not the expert, okay? Y'all, I'm not the expert. I'm trying to learn as best I can and I'm gonna try to learn from people that we know and trust and see if we can do this together. But let's just talk about it. Artificial intelligence. Now some of you, first of all, are gonna be like you're doom and gloomers. Like, you know, the world's gonna end a week from Thursday. And some of you are, it's utopia, it's gonna be the end of all bad things and we're just gonna live happily ever after. Most of us are some place in between, right? Here's the thing, artificial. Let's just break it down. You know what artificial is. It's things that do not occur naturally. Artificial sweetener, artificial grass, artificial food coloring. Is it too early to have the argument about artificial Christmas trees? We know about artificial, right? That's not occurring naturally. Intelligence, it's thinking, it's learning, it's understanding.

Long time ago, this is 1950s, 1960s, computer scientists started to wonder, could we get computers to, here it is, to mimic human intelligence? Now you remember that word mimic. Could we get it to actually start to think like we think? Now, some pretty amazing things have been happening and some pretty, like even in the last three years since we talked about this. I mean, we are rolling. The momentum is there. And some of you who are in the field, some of you who are way smarter than me wanna talk about neural networks and deep learning and agentic AI. That's a big thing these days. We're not gonna talk about any of that, okay? Sorry. It's all AI and I'll go you one further. We're all using it. Don't be, brother. Well, let me ask you a question. Do you have a spam filter on your email? Some of you are going, what's email? Well, then maybe you don't use AI. But if you have a spam filter, you're using AI. If you had an auto-correct on your text, that's AI. If you asked Alexa to give you something on Netflix to watch and it was kind of a. Pretty good suggestion, that's AI.

Let's just do this, it's the old joke, but let's just do this. How many of you remember, before there were smartphones, and you had to learn where to go, but there was an internet, what did you do? MapQuest, you went on your computer, and you dialed in, and there was that, sound, remember? And you dialed in MapQuest, and you got a destination, and then what did you do? You printed it out! And you took a printed, I'm not kidding you kids, you took a printed copy of a map with you, and you walked to your car and said, look at me, I'm so futuristic, I'm Captain Kirk, and you were doing it! Now some of you are old enough to remember before MapQuest, there were these things just called maps. Yeah, right, and so now you're just trying to, and you're folding it, and yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, here's the thing, here's the thing. When you use a navigational app right now, and it begins to adjust because you hit traffic, and your arrival time is now three minutes later, that's AI, now it is what we would call, we'll come back to this, a kind of narrow form of AI, it's focused on a specific task. I just want you to know that this stuff is happening, and that we're all using it,

but something is beginning to grow. My friend, our friend, Andy Crouch, I just, can I just say this out loud? I said it last night, but I'm so grateful for people, friends, do you have friends that are just like, wow, you're way smarter than me, and you just get to learn from them? I'm so grateful for people like that who also love Jesus. Andy kind of puts all of this together, and tries to help some of us to understand that there was a moment, not a long time ago, just a moment, where instead of telling computers what to do, we began to figure out, we, like I was in the room, we're helping computers to learn. Now, this has to do with vector mathematics, whatever that means, but what it really does come down to is now, these AIs were able to gobble up huge amounts of data, and to look for patterns, and to learn, and we're allowing them to learn on their own. ChatGPT, just a few years ago, gobbled up the entire public internet, think about it, and now, it's looking for patterns, and the other thing that AI is doing is it's learning how to use language. It's mimicking our language, so when you go to whichever one that you go to, if you go to one of these large language models, part of it is, it has learned language, so it sounds like a person.

It sounds like that's gonna be your really smart friend, because it's learned language, it's anticipating what you're gonna say, it's even filling in the blanks before you can finish the word, right? Listen to me, remember this, it's not a person. Well, then, what is a person? Oh, I'm glad you asked, next verse. Genesis, chapter one, verse 27. So, God created mankind in his own image. In the image of God, he created them. Male and female, he created them. Y'all, this is just gonna be so important for us. Now, we bear the image of God. We bear the image of the creator. We're not gods, but we have been given agency, we have been given capacity to choose, to love him, to approach him, to honor him, to reflect his glory in this world. We long for him, we have a spiritual component to us, like no other creature. We are image bearers, that's what it means to be human. But guess what, we also have flesh and blood. Like, we're real, we're tangible, which is why there was a moment when God, who loved the world so much, sends his son into the world in physical, tangible form to make a way. That's the song that filled our rooms a minute ago. He is the way maker, and part of your identity is you are loved that much by the God of all things.

Now, you remember that, but this God speaks through his word, and in Isaiah, it is God who says, there's no one like me. I make known the end from the beginning from ancient times, what is still to come. God is not bound by time. He says, my purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please. So now, as we go forward, hang on to two things. There is a sovereign, absolutely in-charge God who loves these humans that he has made in his image and that he has a plan for. Hang on to that, because as you move into the discussion, there's a big thing going on right now. This is the last part of the nerdiness, and then we're done, okay? So just stay with me. me, but watch how this builds on itself. All AI that you use now is what's called artificial narrow intelligence. So it has a specific task, hey, do this, do that, do this. They call that ANI. The next big leap, and we're not there yet, there's a big debate about how we will know that we get there, the next big leap is AGI, which is artificial general intelligence. The best, simplest way to think about this is it's the way a human thinks. So it's across platforms, it's different contexts. Now you've got something that is almost a, like it's really human intelligence, right? But the theoretical leap beyond that is what's called artificial super intelligence. This is a kind of intelligence that we have never seen before, that knows more and can create more and can imagine more than any could ever even ever think of. And there's a feedback loop where it keeps improving upon itself and realizes it is a self, and that's the stuff of science fiction movies. That's where you get some people like saying certain things. But I want you to know, you could say that, well, you see how this kind of builds on itself, right? Why am I telling you this? Because

that's the goal for the big developers. They're pouring billions of dollars into this. I'll give you their words, not mine. Sam Altman of OpenAI and ChatGPT has a vision for what he calls, his words, a magic intelligence in the sky. Elon Musk years ago said that the founder of Google told him that AGI is the goal. And Musk said what he described was essentially a digital God. He thinks it's a threat to human existence. Zuckerberg, you know, Facebook, Instagram, that guy, Zuckerberg says many in this space think they are creating God or something, never mind that he's a part of it and he's chasing after it too. One more time. Then they said, come, let us build ourselves a city with a tower that reaches to the heavens so that we may make a name for ourselves. This ancient, ancient story hits differently, doesn't it? A few years ago in Silicon Valley, there was an author who coined the term tech solutionism, which is the assumption that technology will solve everything. It's just a solution. Now let's just take it out of tech for a second. Anybody here familiar with the Heimlich maneuver? Right. Some of you have maybe had to perform it on someone. Maybe someone performed it on you, but you know the Heimlich maneuver, right? Interesting guy. The Heimlich maneuver was invented by a doctor named, no, Jones was his name. I was looking for, no, no, no, no, no. It's Heimlich. See, this is why you don't trust me with these questions. Heimlich, Henry Heimlich and right. Cool thing, right? But then he began to think, well, if it works here, I'll bet it'll work for other things. And he kind of got into a big debate with, I think it was the American red cross because he started saying things like, well, it doesn't just help with choking. The Heimlich maneuver can help when people are drowning. The Heimlich maneuver can help people with asthma. The Heimlich maneuver can help people with a heart attack. The Heimlich maneuver can help people with athlete's foot and dandruff. No, that last part, not true. But he began to say, well, it worked in one thing. I think it can work in all sorts of other things. And people said, no, it's really good here, but you can't, you can't, you can't say it's a solution for everything. You see what's going on here is that these tech leaders are assuming, Hey, we can do one thing really, really well. So it must be the answer for everything. Never mind the predictions, whether they're overstated or not. The pride of Babel is seeping in. It can't fix everything. And it brings with solutions. It brings interesting scenarios. You see, some people will tell you that it will fix our energy problems. We'll have new

forms of energy. We won't have to worry or rely, and there will be no more crises about this or that or the other. It will help us with this. But in the meantime, the demand for data centers and the cost of electricity infrastructure and water consumption where you're cooling these massive servers is real. There are people that say that it's going to make communication even faster and even better and even more amazing. But already there's a destabilizing effect of deep fakes. And now we don't know what is real and what we can trust in the world. And mark my words, this is going to be an issue in the upcoming election. There's a promise of amazing medical solutions and cures for diseases that are destroying the physical body. I'm telling you, there are law enforcement and legal experts who are right now having to wrestle with how do we address the unspeakable evil of AI-generated child pornography that is destroying the soul. Cybersecurity could one day be unbelievably exponentially better, but right now governments and financial institutions are scrambling to protect themselves from hackers who have access to tools that could wreak havoc. Some are predicting new jobs and entire new economies because of what is going to come. But I am telling you, there is a reality of people who are losing their jobs right now. I just had a conversation with somebody minutes ago about this. This is not theory, it's real. By the way, if that is you, come talk to us. Do not go through this alone. Let's pray, let's brainstorm, let's network together. My point is as we go through this, there are gonna be amazing things and there are gonna be promises of even more amazing things

but there will be other things, destructive things, that show up or lurk in the future. So what are we to do? Well, most of us aren't computer scientists. So what do we do? Will you hand me a water down there, Jude? Getting too excited here, people. Thank you. Well, I would say this. Let's keep the conversation going about guardrails. Let's keep the conversation going about holding each other and holding institutions and governments and developers accountable to human values. If you're in the industry, and many of you are because you come up and you talk to me, you be the salt and light in that industry that reminds people, let's build safeguards to where these things refuse harmful requests. Let me tell you one thing we're not gonna do. We're not gonna ignore it. We're not gonna look away in fear. Oh, and we're not gonna live in fear. Second Timothy 2, seven says, he did not give us, now he's talking to Christ followers, he did not give us a spirit of fear. That word fear in the Greek describes somebody who runs away from the battlefield. If you are a child of God, he is not calling you to run away from the battlefield. You see, we've been given a spirit of self-control,

of power, of love, so a mark of the Holy Spirit in your life is that you face these things and you wrestle with these things and you ask God for wisdom and discernment. Because why, because we bear the image of the sovereign God. Now that's our level reset. I want us to get real and practical here for the time that's remaining, which means you all need to talk to each other. Here's the question, let's just put it up here, we're gonna give you a chance to talk about it, but how often do you use AI and then what ways do you use it? Go ahead and talk to each other, see if you can answer those questions. You're running it. All right. Okay. Interesting discussion. By the way, you parents of teenagers, man, oh, man, oh, man, are we about to get into something that is absolutely for you. If for no other reason, that's the reason God called you here, because you're gonna have a conversation with your kids afterwards, okay? So there's that, but there are lots of ways that we can talk about this. Just promise me that we're not gonna look down on each other because the person next to you uses AI too much or not enough, okay? Let's not let this divide us. But we do have different approaches to this, and I wanna see if we can talk about biblical thoughts and principles

that can help us now, okay? And I'm just gonna say straight up, I am grateful for Andy. I'm grateful for a philosopher at Pepperdine University named Garrett Pendergrast. Kevin Kelly, who's one of the founding, he is the founding editor of Wired Magazine. Oh, yeah, and loves Jesus. All of these really smart, wonderful people. And then, guys, by the. The name of, I don't know, Paul, Isaiah, David, Moses, all of those are gonna help us now. But let's go back to this idea that technology is a tool. It's a tool. And tools can be used for good or not good. A hammer can be used to make something or to break into somebody's house. Those bricks in the Babel stories can be used to build a house or to build an idol. It's weird for us to think this way, but roads are technology. There didn't used to be roads. Paul used the Roman road system to proclaim the gospel throughout the empire. Those same roads were used by the Roman armies to destroy people. The internet, the technology of sharing sound and video and images, we're using it right now to connect a church and to proclaim the gospel. We're doing this right now. But that same technology, it's being used right now to bully somebody, probably sitting in one of our rooms. You see, technology is one of those things

that's a package deal, and we need to be aware of that. But I would also suggest to you that the more we use a tool, the more we use technology, it sort of changes us. It's kind of a cost to using tools. I won't go into the big, long history of this, but I'll just say that when people started writing in other technology, their memories shortened. People were actually worried about that, because in oral cultures, where nobody knows how to read and write, you can sit for hours and tell the stories through generations of your people, because you're using that part of your brain. Now, it's shrinking. You see, we don't think about how to navigate through a space, we just let a disembodied voice tell us to turn left. How about this one? How many of you, quick show of hands, if she's still with us, how many of you could call your mom right now? How many of you could call her if I gave you my phone? Now, think it through. That means you have to know mom's phone number. Prove to the person next to you that you know your mom's phone number, and you know your kid's phone numbers. Go ahead, just tell them, real quickly, just tell them. Okay. I hope, I hope you told the truth, because you're in church.

Here's my point. The more we use technology, the more certain things change in us. Does that mean that we shouldn't use technology? No, I think we have to figure out how to use this. People are trying to navigate, when and when do I not? I'm telling you, a Pew Research Council recently, like this is in March, said that students, teenagers, are trying to figure this out. It said that roughly 2 1⁄3 of US teens use an AI chatbot. Now, that number's a little bit low for me, and I'm wondering if kids were just not even gonna tell the truth on that, but what they did say a little bit more about was a six in 10 said that using chatbots to cheat on schoolwork is common at their school. Now, listen to me, listen to me. These are the conversations that you need to have with each other, and don't you go jumping down some student's throat now, because they're trying to figure this out. Like, where's the line? Do you use it for spell check but not grammar check? Do you want them to know I before E except after C? But you want them to know, well, how does that work? And for your students who are actually trying to do this the right way, and they're writing their papers, they have to now think about, well, I can't put some of those triggers in that it might appear that it was AI, but it was really me.

Who doesn't love a good em dash? Some of you writers know what I'm talking about, but that is a trigger for AI to go up, up. Humans don't use that. Well, I do. I can't imagine how complicated it is to be a student these days. Parents, we just have the loving conversation of, hey, how are we gonna do this together? Pray for educators. These are times. But it's not just them, it's all of us. Workers are trying to figure out, how do I do what I do? Can I use AI to help me in this area so that I can go do more important things? Listen to me. I get that, but what we don't want to do, and this is a principle, don't give up your humanity. Now, the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania talks about cognitive surrender. What it means is you don't even check the work on the AI. You just take it, and you take it in, and you move on, and you bypass this slower part of your brain that reflects on things. I would say, if we are fearfully and wonderfully made, let's not give up our Imago Dei. Let's not give up the image of God. Let's use these things. Let's not give up our humanity. Well, Greg, do you use them?

I do. Not all of them. And I don't use them in all ways. I don't, I don't, I certainly am not going to give any AI model all of my personal information just so that it can manage my life more efficiently. Some shortcuts aren't worth taking. Now, some of this, quite honestly, is being informed by our, here at The Crossing, our AI policy that experts have been forming for us, for our staff, because we want to be really good stewards of resources, of information, all of those things. But I'm telling you that when we use these things, they change us. And the more we push the easy button, the more shortcuts that we take, the more certain parts of our brains, they change. So, I'm asking myself these days, like, not what I can do, but what should I do? Like, are there certain parts of my life, certain parts of my job, that God gave me gifts, that God gave me and created me a calling, if you want to call it, something sacred? God called me to do this. I'm not going to give that to AI. Now, you're going to come to different conclusions, various perspectives on yourself. I'm just saying, can you keep asking thoughtful questions? Y'all remember the advent, many of you, we're kidding about it, about the internet. Do you remember the advent of social media? Do you remember the advent of the smartphone? Because I'm going to tell you what, nobody thought about these things. Everybody just jumped into the deep end of the pool. I'm asking you to think these things through. And here's a question, am I doing anything that is eroding my mental muscle?

Silly, silly, silly, but everybody knows what a forklift is, right? It's a tool, it's technology. You get to lift heavy things. We get stuff done with forklifts, right? I mean, we know what a forklift is. Can you imagine taking a forklift and busting through the wall of your gym, and now you go and tell the, you know, the guys next to you, dude, I want to go heavy today, so stack the bar. Bzz, bzz, bzz, bzz, bzz, I'm maxing out. It's ridiculous, right? Why? Because growth requires friction and effort. It's what keeps us sharp. Listen to me, sometimes the point is the work. Sometimes the point is to think. Bobby Grunewald, Robin and I were with he and some other leaders three months ago. And Bobby is the one who developed a little thing called the Bible app. Anybody heard of that? Over a billion downloads. I'm so grateful to be with people who, again, who are really smart. And Bobby says, you got to remember, these things don't know how to discern right from wrong. That's not what they're designed to do. If you ask a question, what it's going to do is instantaneously scrub billions of bits of data and give you its best guess. And if it misreads you, if it goes to the wrong thing on the internet, guess what? It's wrong. But it's not going to sound wrong, it's going to come at you so confident. And in some cases, it is flat out bluffing. But it sounds like us, and so we trust it.

Just because something sounds like us and is immediate doesn't make it an expert, and it doesn't make it a spiritual authority. You see, the next big thing is that, and we won't go into any more eggheady stuff, but Barna says that people are looking to chatbots for spiritual guidance and even spiritual authority. And one of their studies showed that a lot of practicing Christians are saying that they trust a chatbot more than they do a pastor. I get it. The erosion of trust in this office, I get it. Some of you are still trying to figure out if you trust me or you trust us. And because of your story, I understand why you're going slow. But I don't even think it's just that. I think it's because it's immediate. I can get to it at 3 in the morning. I don't have to make an appointment. I don't have, boom, it's there. James 1 says, anyone who lacks wisdom, ask for it. Proverbs 1 says, let the wise listen. Let those who are really smart, let them ask for guidance. This is what we do, and we ask each other. Now, let me show you what it's like in real time. Could an AI chatbot, could you go to one and say, hey, develop a reading plan for me for this summer because I want to get through the Gospels. And I'd even like to read different Gospels throughout, but I want to get through all four Gospels this summer. Could a chatbot do that? that for you, yes, but you have to do the reading. Oh, and watch this. When you get to a passage where Jesus is saying something that you don't understand, wait.

Just wait and wrestle and go look at another passage. Or how about this? Jesus, what were you saying here? If you don't believe him yet, it's Jesus, are you real? Come reveal yourself to me. Now, you could go to Perplexity, you could go to Claude, you could go to Gemini, and they'll give you their best guess in that moment. But you want Holy Spirit-fueled wisdom, so we ask each other on this. This is what we do. If you're gonna walk with Jesus, it's gonna require friction. It's gonna require some effort. Like, you're gonna have to learn and grow and risk and ask and stumble and sin and confess and be forgiven and worship and learn and grow and ask and stumble and risk. Listen, I run through that cycle at least once before lunchtime every day. This is what it is like doing life with the God of the universe as someone who bears his image and your whole life is now crackling with possibilities. Well, Greg, what do I do if I have, like if I'm lonely, can I use a chat bot? I need to say this out loud. I can't even imagine the aches that some of you have. It's so important to us that we're devoting next weekend to this. But we were created to do this together.

1 Thessalonians 5 says encourage each other, build each other up. Galatians 5 says bear each other's burdens. Ecclesiastes 4 says two is better than one. This is how we were made. Kurt Thompson puts it like this. We are born into this world looking for the face, looking for us. And I'm not sure that ever changes. So come back next week as we go down that road. I'll just say this for now. You and I were not created for disembodied voices to fill the gap. You want somebody with skin on. I know the other is really fast and it's been trained to say things that you wanted to say, but you were made for more. Let's keep learning this together. Let's keep figuring this out together. Let's keep figuring out how to connect people. This is that important. You and I are flesh and blood. You and I were created for life with God and we were created for life with each other. How about this? We were created to move through time and space. We are spiritual, but we're physical, which is why you weren't expecting this. That's why baptism is such a big deal. There's a spiritual moment where you yield

to the God of the universe. Jesus, you are Lord, I trust you. But there is a physical act that, I can't describe it for you if you haven't had it yet, because it's a moment. The water is dripping off of you. The sun is in your face. You feel the air. You can breathe again. The tears are real. The laughter is real. Hugging people, high-fiving, it's all real. The worship is real, which is why I struggle with Solomon Ray. Anybody here know Solomon Ray? ♪ I'm tired from all this stressing ♪ Sounds pretty good, doesn't it? ♪ Too weak to carry nothing ♪ I have huge struggles with Solomon Ray. ♪ Ain't got time for window dressing ♪ He's described, Spotify says, Solomon Ray is a soul singer, Mississippi-born revivalist. Hit number one on iTunes Christian and Gospel Chart. Number one or two on Billboard's Gospel Digital Chart. More than seven million streams across platforms. More than Brandon Lake, Elevation Worship, and Forrest Frank. So what's my beef? Listen to it. ♪ Don't grow weary in wealth ♪

He's not real. That is an AI-generated artist. All right, so stop. I know I'm gonna sound like the old guy screaming at clouds now. Baa! Nope, I love technology. I love the way it can help us in so many different ways. I'm just telling you, when I'm listening, and particularly when I'm singing worship songs, I want it to be fueled and inspired by the same Holy Spirit that lives in me. Now, listen, listen. It's not about engineered performances and chord progressions that we know will always work. It's not about lyrics that are generated by some algorithm. Worship is like, it's the embodied voices and gathering together of image bearers lifting praise to God. Now, let's go a different route here, Kenny. You and I have talked about jazz before. You can play a lot of different chords, but when you add a seven in there, some form of a seven, we get to jazz, don't we? So just show us what that's like when you add a seven. I don't care if diminished, I don't care what. But so. So this is jazz, and the cool thing about jazz is you can improvise and you can go a bunch of different ways.

And some of you are going, could you just shut up? I wanna hear him play. How about this? How about this? Mmm, like butter. Okay, I'm going to ask you this time, just improv something in jazz that is like a cloudy, melancholy day. ♪ So I can hear all sorts of things that I read into that, right? There's sadness, maybe foreboding. He had no idea that's what I was going to ask him, right? Now, let's flip it. The clouds part, it's a sunny day, and you're watching those beautiful boys of yours playing in the yard together. Jazz. What are you feeling? ♪ So I'm getting like gratitude, I'm getting joy. I don't know what he's getting, but here it is. This is not a chat bot that I'm giving prompts to. I'm talking to a brother in Christ, and he's reaching down to memories that he has, and he's connecting it to his own heart, and then God-given gifts, and you get real music. Do you see the difference? So when we worship here, we're going to worship with songs that were written by Christ followers. When you see video in just a second, it will be video that was not AI-generated. It's like one of our guys walking through the woods,

the real woods that God created. In just a second, Elena and Mel are going to come out here, and we want to end with worship. Thank you. Here's what I would say. Technology, yeah, go ahead, man. ♪ Technology is promising a lot of stuff these days, and I appreciate you going on this ride with us. It's, we don't know if it's going to live up to the hype or not. We don't know if it's going to live up to the fear or not, probably someplace in between. But I'll just tell you this. My hope is not in that technology. My hope is in the eternal God. His death and resurrection changes everything. Are there strong forces in this world? Yes, amen. Are there powerful forces? Yes. Should we, as Christ followers, be in this space, being salt and light? Should we be inviting people to be, like, fully human and then take it a step further and say, no, you need to know the God who created you because that's where life really takes off? Yes. Could we probably use some of these tools along the way wisely and carefully? Yeah.

But we're going to keep our eyes on Jesus because it's Jesus who changes everything. And then watch this. Because it's Jesus alive in you because he has given you the very Spirit of God. Watch how in your everyday lives, your incarnational, everyday life, how the Spirit, like, he's dripping off of the words that you say, of that little intervention at work where you said, hey, I think we should do this differently. It's an idea that you had that nobody else had. It's the notes that you're playing. It's the class that you just taught. It's the prayers with a teenager. It's that time that you held a really old, withered hand and just listened. It's those moments where we dream of things that nobody else even thought of. It's the garden that you tilled. It's the furniture that you built. It's the carburetor that you rebuilt. It's the homework that you really did. It's the free throws that you practiced for the big game. It's that meal that you prepared that then filled the house with wonder and love. I'm telling you, I could go on, but every one of those, to the glory of God, could be an example of what it is to be an image-bearer in this world.

And you will tell the world that you were created to accomplish things. You were created to create beauty, to care for each other, for this creation. And get this, for the church that he loved so much that he died for it. Come on, this is what we were made for. And get this, get this. There is a generation longing for what is real and what is true. And you have the answer. It's not us. They get to go through this life, and they're not alone. So now I will read from this word one last time. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, did you hear that? Nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. He is worthy of our worship. If the... The rocks cry out, if the heavens declare His glory, how can we not? Jesus Christ, Son of God, Lord of all, He is our anchor. And because of His victory, because of His faithfulness, because of His love, I really do believe that the end of the end of the end of the story is absolutely fantastic. So how about we use our God-given instruments

to worship this God who is with us right now.