Transcription
All right, everybody. Uh, good morning. If you don't know me, uh, my name is David and I'm also one of the pastors here. And today, uh, we are doing something in the starting of a new series that I can just promise you 20 years ago when I was in seminary, I had not a clue that we would be talking about in church on a Sunday morning.
Today, we're starting a series where we're going to talk about artificial intelligence and our lives and Christian faith. We're going to talk about AI. Um, and I I just want to be clear, we're in new territory here. Uh I've never preached a sermon series like this before. Uh I never again anticipated this. Uh we are all seeing things new in a new way in our world today. And um and there was no class in seminary that was like preparation for technological revolution, right? That wasn't there was no course there. There's no addendum to the book of Romans to do what happens when Terminator becomes reality. Like like it's this is just new territory for all of us. And um and and yet the reality is here we are, it's 2025 and AI is everywhere and AI is in front of our faces all the time and it is absolutely changing our world and it's happening at a break neck speed.
Just to give you guys a a point of reference that's personal and relevant to this community. In 2023, Christmas Eve, so basically 2024, I was preaching the the Christmas Eve message here at Redeemer. And um I was I had learned for a couple months at that point about Chat GPT and I was amazed and I was oh uh like wow this is crazy and I was like does anybody else know about this? And so on Christmas Eve that that night, I don't know even know how I got there, but I was like, "Does anybody heard of Chad GPT and Christmas Eve 2023, three hands rose of like 900 people that were there?" Three hands. Three. It is now 2025 September. Are there three people in the room right now that don't know what chat GPT is? Right? like that is the speed the in the the the the crazy movement of this in our lives and in our culture and um and again AI is just everywhere and and it's affecting things and so I got it in my heart and mind uh earlier this year really before that but ju that that on some level we got to step into this we got to talk about it I got to muster up the courage and and work through my ignorance to have some way that I can somehow talk to all of us so we can engage this as people of faith because it's in our world and it's in our lives. And so that's what we're doing. That's what this series is about today.
What we're going to do is kind of lay a foundation. I just want to kind of get us on the same page, help us understand some things. I want to speak to some scripture that I actually do think is very helpful for the moment in time that we're living in and for the things that may be happening in our hearts and minds as we're living in this time and look to the future. And then what we're going to do in the next four weeks after that is we're going to take a deeper dive into some of the topics that AI is bringing front and center. Um like what makes us truly unique as humans? It's a different kind of question in the world that we're living in now. What is the purpose and value of our work? It's a different kind of reality now that AI is challenging a lot of work. what what does it mean to actually um experience and love someone? It's a different reality now that people are having AI companions, right? All these things, these are the things we're going to talk about in in coming weeks. These are questions that that are underneath the surface of things happening in our culture. I really want to lift them up. I want to engage them well and um and that's what we're doing. So, today uh let's let's get going.
Today, the title of the message is the future is now. And uh we're going to open up to Luke 12. We're going to start in verse 54. If you want to grab your Bible, I'd highly encourage you to. We're going to study some words of Jesus in in just a little bit. But before we get into it, as we always do here at Redeemer, we always like to quiet our hearts and minds and take a second to pray and come before God. So, let's do that before we open up God's word.
God, we um are here and we're here before you as your people as so many of us who know you and trust you or those of us who who are trying to meet you and know who you are, that are learning, that are seeking. You're here before all of us in this moment. And God, we stand um at a time where we need your wisdom and we want your word and we we seek understanding. And so God, I just pray today as we come and we tackle a topic that seems so much bigger than me and us. And Lord, that um that just has so many facets and aspects to what it is and what it's doing. I pray that we can hone in and that my words could be helpful, that you could take them as they are and make them better than they are, Lord. Um and and that the the words of my mouth and the thoughts in all of our hearts and minds would be offered to you as pleasing and that we would be shaped and formed by your word and what we need to know. Lord, give us the faith and the wisdom and the courage for this for this conversation. And it's in your name, Jesus, our rock and our redeemer we pray. Amen. Amen.
All right. So there are a number of things that we as humans are consistently terrible at. Did you all know that? But one of the things that we are especially bad at is making predictions about the future. Making predictions about the future. We're just we're just not very good at it. We love to do it. We will tell you we love telling you what is going to happen in the future. And we'll give you three reasons why. But just consistently when you look at what we've said in the past and you compare it to what's actually happened into the future, we an embarrassingly high amount of the time get it wrong. We get it wildly wrong. And and one of the places where that is especially true is when it comes to the impacts about technology in the culture that we live in. And so I just wanted to begin by offering you guys uh as we're talking about AI some predictions that went terribly wrong by people who should have known better. Okay.
So this is 1946. I doubt you guys know who this is, but this is a guy Daryl Xanic who was a leader in 20th Century Fox. This is what he said. Television won't be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night. Now we're worried that people won't stop staring, right? Uh this is another one. 1957, a brilliant scientist named Lee Deforest says, "Man will never reach the moon regardless of all future scientific advances." 12 years later, Neil Armstrong is on the moon. Right? This is the guy that invented the vacuum tube. His invention partly enabled us to go to the moon. Um, okay. 1993, jump way ahead. Here's a man of us know, Bill Gates, speaking about the internet. Uh, Microsoft. Are we interested? The internet. We're not interested in it. Right? That didn't age well, right? Um, and then there is 2007. There's a guy named Steve Balmer who is Microsoft CEO at this time. Literally laughs at the iPhone when it comes out and what it's doing and says there's no chance the iPhone is getting going to get any significant market share. No chance. Steve Balmer is no longer the CEO at Microsoft and today the iPhone's like one of the most successful products in human history. Um, but it's just amazing when you look at this and you think about it, how people that are literally building the future can be so wrong about what's to come.
But, but here's where this gets interesting. Here's where this gets interesting. Not all predictions are the same. They're not all equal. It's not all the same kind of thing. We are terrible at predicting long-term outcomes. While we are terrible at looking far into the future, 5, 10, 15, 25 beyond years and knowing what's to come, what's actually very interesting is in the short term, when we're talking a month, two months, six months, even a year, two years, we can be a lot more accurate in what we anticipate is going to happen in the future. And this is largely because what we are doing in the shorter term is actually different than what we do when we look into the future in the long term. And the difference is in the long term while we might be um predicting the future in the short term what we actually are doing more of is interpreting the present. It's not so much about prophecy as it's about good perception. Okay?
And this is where I want to turn to the words of Jesus because Jesus here actually engages this very kind of thought and idea. This is Luke 12. We'll start here at verse 54. This is Jesus speaking to a crowd of people who have been watching and engaging with his ministry. He says this. He said to the crowd, "When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, 'It's going to rain.' And it does. And when the south wind blows, you say, 'It's going to be hot.' And it is. Hypocrites, you know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky. How is it that you don't know how to interpret this present time?"
Okay, so just to kind of give you context to understand what Jesus is saying in this moment of time, basically what's happening is Jesus is giving a gut check to the people who are observing his ministry and yet denying who he is and what he's doing and the kingdom of God coming in him right now. Right? He's calling them out for denying the obvious. God was doing something in him that they could see. It was before their eyes. The lame were walking. The blind were seeing. The poor were hearing the good news. Isaiah's prophecy was being fulfilled. He unrolled the scroll. And the synagogue and said it himself. And Jesus wasn't teaching in a way that was overly abstract or clandestine. He was teaching with uh in a way that everyone could understand and with an authority that nobody could deny. And so when he was saying the kingdom of God is here, God is doing a new thing in me. For the people to say that they weren't seeing the signs was to ignore the reality that was right in front of them. And this is why he says, "You hypocrites, you are not interpreting this present time that you can see with your own eyes because you don't want to see it." And and that's that's what he's he's getting at.
But then he makes a very interesting point here that's relevant for us about weather forecasting. And I find this especially interesting for our world here in Houston because we all know weather forecasting in this area is um at best iffy. Um, like we all know that a 80% chance after 3 weeks of drought when you especially need rain on your yard is about a 20% chance, right? And we all know that uh that that there's just a forecast that can be made, but the reality is we won't see it until we see it. But here's the other thing that we know in Houston, and this is what Jesus is saying about the winds blowing and the clouds rising, right? There's certain things that that even though they're in the future, when we see signs in the present, we need to recognize it and respond to it. So, so in Houston, if it's late August and the weatherman tells us there's a category 4 hurricane out in the Gulf, right, you better prepare. We also all know that if we don't prepare in that moment, we're fools, right? Because that thing is coming and it doesn't matter how beautiful or sunny or or nice it seems outside, right? And the reason is is because that's not predicting the future. That's just recognizing the present reality. So sometimes the question isn't can we predict the future. Sometimes the question is are we willing to acknowledge the present? Right? Do we have the courage to admit what's here? If this is where things are, how are we going to respond to where things are?
And this, y'all, is where I want to turn to our conversation about where we are in this present moment in our world, in our culture with artificial intelligence. I want to make a prediction. Okay? So, take that for what it's worth. But also hear me say I think less and less this is a prediction and I think more and more what we're actually starting to do is interpret the science. Um here it is. Artificial intelligence is going to transform our existence. I believe artificial intelligence is absolutely going to transform our lives, every single one of them and the world around us in the years and the decades to come profoundly, enormously, right? I think in ways that we can't anticipate right now and probably in ways that we can't even perceive right now. And and I'm not just talking about like your Google search switching over to Chad GPT and it's awesome and more impressive and helpful. I'm not talking about your iPhone with some more powerful ways to take photos, right? What what I'm talking about is that this technology that's broken through is is I believe in many people that this is going to bring something more akin to a technological revolution and and that it's going to change the fabric of our society in our everyday life.
To put it in the language of uh a guy named Andy Crouch who's a Christian leader who has really spoken well into some of the technological space, works at a think tank of Christians called Prais. This is this is what he said. He said AI could be as consequential as the internet, but maybe it could even be as consequential as electricity. Or maybe it'll be even as big as the agricultural revolution. Those are those are not small shifts in our society. Wherever that lands and to then tell you I think wherever it lands. Bob Dylan had some words that were really helpful for us in this moment. The times y'all they are a changing right.
So this is where we are and a lot of us know AI and we play with AI and let's just acknowledge um AI is it's pretty awesome at times right some of what AI can do is absolutely brilliant and helpful like just out of curiosity how many of you guys have experienced something way easier because of AI right yeah see hey that's a lot you guys that have your hands down what are you doing right? Like like um but uh but man, if you don't know this, if you have never toyed around with it, uh do you know that you could ask chat GPT today to give you like core concepts of quantum physics to explain to you core concepts in quantum physics in the lyrics of Taylor Swift and it would do a darn good job of it. Right. That is insane. That is incredible. That that is brilliant. And have you guys seen some of the videos that are coming out that are AI derivative generated where um like Google VO3 where there is like a full cinematic thing happening with characters talking with real looking people from different angles doing all kinds of incredible things with people in the background that are extras. It's all AI generated and it's like that just looked as good as Gladiator 2, right? Like it's incredible what can happen and and and it's incredible what has already happened not just in novel things but in in really good things for our world and our society. Like for example, this was actually a couple years ago. Google's deep mind AI was able to solve a 50-year-old conundrum for scientists, mathematicians on how proteins fold. And so biochemically they like AI just figured it out very quickly. And and it's now enabling us to to recreate how this works in all kinds of different proteins and it's leading to breakthroughs in drug treatment, in pharmaceutics, in how we do medicine. It's going to help do personalized work with cancer. Like, it's incredible. It's amazing. It's so helpful some of the powerful things that it's able to do. And I want to tell you, this is a drop in the bucket, what I just said, of what is being tried and will continue to be enabled as this technology advances, right? And so, let I mean, I just I love AI in many ways. It's awesome. Um, yay Google, right? Yay.
But I but but here's the thing. Here's the thing. I think what all of us also know is that um the thunder goes right after I said yay Google, right? Uh what a a lot of us a lot of us also know is that uh AI while it has the potential to bring a lot of good, it also has the capacity for great evil. And this is things that we're not as excited about, right? Um I would just want to point out revolution has the same root word as revolt. And and so anytime there's a big change, there's big resistance. And there's reasons for resistance, right? Because a lot of people, for example, are concerned that AI is going to lead to the elimination of many, many jobs. Many jobs. And not just like things will be modified because of AI's capacity or your job will get easier. There's a lot of us that are worried that what we do actually AI is always going to be able to do way better. So why keep me if I can just get it automated, right? That's real then. Right, here's another thing I'll just bring up. We'll address this. How do you guys feel about people having AI companions like your own R2-D2? Mark Zuckerberg just said he wants this for every single person, right? Um, okay. Maybe I have a better conversation with Siri, right? Um but but it's more than that, right? Like if you look at the news and the headlines, there's people that are beginning to have for all kinds of reasons. Um but like like romantic relationships with with AI, like they'll give Chad GPT a persona and it'll talk back in a human voice and then they'll just enjoy interacting with it, right? and um and it becomes so enjoyable and seductive that people don't even care that it's AI. What do we think about that? Right.
Here's here's another one. What about AI surveillance systems that can track your every movement, that can see everything that you purchase, that monitor your heartbeat, that can read your facial expressions? Or what about autonomous weapon systems powered by AI technology that are just released in warfare, right? Or what about AIdriven technology that gets combined with human biology? So, so this is a conversation where melding together is man and machine. Terminator is is there Right? Like like um y'all what I want to say is this is less and less science fiction. Uh some of these things are being tried, some are being developed today. And absolutely everything that we can think of, people are going to be trying in the future. And while we don't know what the future will hold, less and less do these things seem like distant possibilities. More and more it seems like we are reading the signs and it's time to recognize that there's a technological hurricane coming our way and and and I think one of the things that's interesting and and actually affirms this is it's not just like regular people like like me and you some of you actually know a lot about this in this room which is very intimidating for me as a preacher but um but but there's there's leading people who who are saying like the same thing. There's great possibilities, there's great concerns.
And just to share some of that with you, this is a guy named Jeffrey Hinton who is referred to as the godfather of AI. And he's a computer scientist who won the touring award, which is like the Nobel Peace Prize for programmers. And um and he uh laid the foundation his work in computer science laid the foundation for like the neural networks that have given rise to the large language models that we are experiencing and have been blown away by today. And he worked at Google for a decade uh recently and then stepped away not too long ago because he uh felt like his work was done and also it gave him the opportunity to speak open and freely about what he saw and what he saw coming. And um this is what he said in a BBC interview not long after he left Google. "I can't see a path that guarantees safety. We're entering a period of great uncertainty where we're dealing with things larger than ourselves. And when we're dealing with things larger than ourselves, we normally normally rely on survival of the fittest, but we're no longer the fittest. We're going to be the second most intelligent species on the planet." Whether or not that's true doesn't give you the warm fuzzies, does it? Right.
Here's another one. Dario Armodi is another prominent person. He's the CEO of a um AI company called Anthropic that actually broke away from the industryleading OpenAI chatbt because he and others were were not excited about the direction OpenAI was going. And so they broke off, formed their own company. And Armodi has been leading in helping talk about how to do this safely and ethically. And this is what he said in a Senate committee a couple years back. "Advanced AI systems could in the wrong hands enable unprecedented destructive potential. From tailored cyber attacks to accelerating the development of dangerous pathogens without protective safeguards, we're gambling with humanity's future." Great, right? Um Sam Alman is probably the person that is most in the media, most known. He's the CNO CEO of Open AI. Uh someone who our Modi definitely uh whose leadership he was um criticizing, but he himself has expressed concerns. He's consistently called for more regulation. I don't have a quote, but you can go look this up. He wants more gradual AI implementation. He wants more government involvement. He wants more global cooperation to prevent what he calls an AI race to the bottom. Like who can get to the strongest form of AI fastest and then control everybody else, right? And while that is good and is worth and absolutely worth pursuing, what's intention here is that Sam Alman and OpenAI continues to release faster and faster models and and more powerful a AI products. Um and then when they said who should regulate these AI companies, uh Sam Alman and others suggested that they the AI company should do it themselves, right? Um it's kind of reminiscent of when the tobacco companies were like we'll we'll regulate ourselves. Doesn't exactly breed ethical um confidence and and so all of this is very unsettling, right? There's a lot we're not sure of.
And and and in fact, what I want to point out is what what is not being talked about enough is what I think are actually some of the other things that are going to be equally challenging if there is truly a social revolution and people's worlds are upended and jobs are lost and things are uncertain for people. I think what's actually going to come to the four are existential questions about who we are and why we exist in a way that we've never seen them before. In a way that will leave people very disoriented if there are no answers. And what I'm talking about here is like what does it mean to be human? This is why we titled the message series who am AI. AI is going to force us to answer the question of our humanity in a way that we haven't before. are so examples like are things like consciousness, creativity and love uniquely human or or is the human brain actually more just like a computer and all these things are more like complex algorithms that we haven't fully decoded yet? There's worldviews that are going to take it in that direction, right? Um what what what are we giving birth to? Are we just carbon-based life forms now passing the torch to siliconbased life forms who are going to evolve past us? There is a lot of worldview out there that is actually seeing what's happening in those terms. Is is the average person going to be okay with that, right? Are they going to have answers? Right?
And then probably for most of us, it's these questions that are just more everyday in our lives like what does this mean for me and and my family? Right? Will AI take my job? This is probably the most pressing question for so many people. It's probably the scariest thing, right? And and I want to point out it's not it's not just paranoia, right? Um already we're seeing impacts in job markets for entry-level jobs. And it's highly unlikely that any job that is pattern recognition or routine decisionmaking or information synthesis or any sort of repetitive task is not going to be challenged and changed by what AI is able to do better. Um what about our kids? Anybody worried about your kids? Right. What do I what what degree do I tell them to get? Right. That's what I've wondered. What? What? How do we raise children that can think for themselves when AI can do their homework in an instant? When you walk in and they're doing their homework and open on the screen is Google's AI summary, right? Anybody have that experience with that? Me this week with one of my sons. Okay? Like, how do I teach them resilience and and and help them learn creativity when AI is going to make things so easy? What do we do when our kids are continuing to take their deepest questions to chat GPT instead of us? Who programs chat GPT to give an answer, right? And then how do we teach kids the value of in-person humanto human relationships when virtual relationships feel that much easier and to them it's like this is fine. This is fine, right? And then and then I think related to our families, our kids, our lives, what is our society going to look like, right? Like how is this going to have an effect if all these people lose their jobs? What does that mean? Like like what does that mean for for the society that we're living in and where people are going to be at and how people are sustained, right? And and um and then are we now about to create like a tech aristocracy? Is Silicon Valley going to come up and rule the world because they'll have power and control of all these super important things that that are at the heart of everything that's happening? Right? Are we creating a dystopian nightmare? There's a lot of movies about this. There's tons of movies about AI. They don't end well, right? Is and and then yeah, there's just a lot of things. How do we prepare for this? What do we think about it? Like this is all in the hearts and the minds of so many people today as we look at our news feeds and it's again and again new articles, new things that are happening. Like what are we going to do? How do we prepare?
And this is where I want to step back and just take a moment and take a deep breath. Maybe for me more than you, right? And let me ask you all a question. Where are you with AI right now hearing all this what you've seen? Where are you? What are you thinking? What are you feeling? Right? I bet there's a lot of us in different places, right? Actually, I know some of you uh are excited. You're just mostly more than anything else, you're just excited about a you're pumped about the possibilities. It's making your life easier, right? You're going to go home and try things that you heard today that were like, "That sounds cool. Let's see what I can do with Taylor Swift lyrics, right?" Like, um, it's novel. It's interesting, right? Like there's there's a lot of us that are there. not super worried. Others of us are on the other side. We're super concerned. Like we're disoriented, right? We're decentered. We got a feeling in our gut. We don't trust Silicon Valley. We're concerned about this stuff. We've seen iRoot, right? We've there there's other things that that are happening here and we're just we are concerned and um and that's just where we are, right? Others of us uh honestly I bet there's some of us here um that are just avoiding this conversation alto together right that um that you know AI is here and you can tell that it's real and it's affecting things but you don't want to think about it too much right you're like it'll be fine it'll be fine um or you're like you're a little older in age and you're like I'm not going to be here in 10 years you figure it out right um or maybe Maybe you're somebody who works in tech and you're kind of tired of all the media and all the headlines. You're tired of people demonizing AI. You're tired of people romanticizing AI and you're concerned about people talking about things they don't understand. You're deeply uncertain whether or not this pastor dude up here actually has a clue what he's talking about. And I just want you to know I have the same concern um on some level, right? Uh but wherever we are, there's lots of places we can be right now. But I think it's important for us to recognize where we are to to again look and and see the signs and then say, "Okay, if this is where I'm at, what do I need to do about it?" Right? What what is the thing that I need to do right now to respond to where I'm at emotionally, mentally, and then think about into the future? And that's a lot of what we're going to do the next four weeks.
But today I want to offer you two thoughts um that I think are helpful. This is the first one I want to say that is so important. One, whatever this is, whatever this is, now is an opportunity for the gospel. Y'all, now is an opportunity for the gospel. I think actually this is kind of what excites me the most. Um, I think that AI is truly going to disorient people in a way that we're going to be open to things we haven't been open to before. That we're going to be asking questions that maybe we thought we had answered. And I think these people are in our lives that it's going to be our friends, our family members. I think everybody's life is going to be touched by this. And so I see in this time of revolution an opportunity for the gospel to step forward and for us to tell the story of Jesus and who is a savior and a leader through things that we don't understand and cannot see. Right? And and I want to encourage you, please have eyes to see that like like who are the people who need to have hope and need to see a better narrative than the one that is going to be in front of them that's true in Jesus Christ. Right? And and I just want to point out Christianity has the answers that are going to be raised by people for today. The time is now for us to step forward and offer a worldview that speaks into this vacuum that's going to be there because guess what? We know that we are more than flesh and blood and we are created in the image of God. And that's something that can never be taken from man and given to machine. Right? That's going to be the next couple of weeks. We're really going to dig in on that. Right? We also know that we have a purpose and a value and a dignity beyond whatever we do daytoday for work. Right? We we have a vocation, a purpose in the world that that has depth and meaning and can carry us no matter what our job or lack of job looks like. Right? And and we actually also know that that there's a God who is love, who has created us to love and who has shown us and helped us understand what that love looks like so that we can discern what is a cheap artificial imitation of it and lead people to the real thing that gives life. And and so the time is now for Christian faith to step forward. And I hope you're willing to listen, to learn, and to step into this place is God's going to have people in your life that need to hear these things.
Okay, here's the second thing. Whatever happens, whatever comes in the days to come, here's what I want you to know. Christ has died. Christ is risen, and Christ will come again. Um, I I really do believe that we're going to in the days to come, I think there's going to be some challenging, disorienting times. I think we're going to wake up or we're going to turn on the TV or open up our phone and because of this technology, there's going to be headlines that are disturbing, that are disorienting, that are hard. Like, and what that looks like, I don't know like what exactly the future is. five, 10 years. I'm telling you, I'm we're terrible at predicting these things. But, but there are signs that say there's going to be things and and there's going to be moments probably for all of us and for people we love where we feel disoriented and uncertain. And what we need to know in those moments is is that Christ has died and Christ is risen and Christ has come again. Jesus is still on the throne and he's over it all.
And just to really briefly, I I wanted to share one more scripture with you guys, one more time in biblical history where this is relevant. It's from the book of Daniel. It's when Daniel and all these other Jews were taken by war to Babylon. Actually, weeks ago, we talked about this and and disoriented. Their lives were upended. And the king of Babylon, this huge powerful empire is named his name was King Nebuchadnezzar. And he has a dream. And in this dream, he sees this statue of made out of different metals. uh there's gold on the top and silver and and bronze and iron and he and he senses that this dream is very significant and very important but he doesn't understand it. He has no clue what it's about. Um and so he says to everyone in Babylon, his adviserss, "Somebody tell me what my dream was and interpret it for me." And nobody can do it. And so he threatens to kill all his adviserss and nobody can do it. And then Daniel uh God reveals it to to Daniel. Um and uh the God who gave Nebuchadnezzar the dream gives Daniel an understanding of what it was. And so Daniel thanks God. He praises God. He says, "You are the God who raises up empires and brings them down." And and he and he then goes with courage to Nebuchadnezzar and says, "Here's what this dream is about. It's about the succession of world empires. It's about you, King Nebuchadnezzar." And he says, "One day your Babylon will come down. It's represented in the top metal. And it'll be succeeded by the Meo Persian Empire. And then the Meal Persian Empire after it rises will then fall and be succeeded by the Greeks. And then the Greeks will rise and fall and be succeeded by the Romans. And each of those metals represents a different type. I won't get into all of it. Uh but I just want to also say and note this is one of the most incredible prophecies in the Bible. Exactly as Daniel saw it hundreds of years before it happened. This is exactly what happens in history.
And so Daniel um uh goes to the king and he says at the end of this dream, the king saw a rock that's cut out of a mountain, but it's not cut by human hands. It's just there. And this rock goes to the statue and it hits it and it crushes it. It falls to pieces. And Daniel says, "I want to talk to you, King Nebuchadnezzar, about that rock, the rock not cut by human hands." A and he says this, "In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever." This is the meaning of the vision of the rock cut out of the mountain, but not by human hands. And that rock is eventually revealed actually the time of the Romans, right? As the Messiah, Jesus come. He was the sign that God's kingdom had come. the king that would rule forever. And so what God was doing in this dream is he wasn't just showing the future even though he knew it. God was revealing his power and sovereignty over all. God was telling this great king at the height of his power, your power is temporary and every empire that comes after you will have a temporary power as well. I am over it all. Right? And then finally to Daniel and all these other Jews whose lives were disoriented and uncertain and they were were not sure what was going to happen and they were very weak and could not control their future. God was saying to them, right? I am still in control, right? You can still trust me. And I just want to say like that is the thing, friends, that whatever today is and whatever tomorrow brings, we have to get into our hearts and minds. That has to get into this the the center of who we are. That God loves me. He's in control of this world. That Christ has died, Christ is risen, and Christ will come again. And and I I just encourage you guys, find that out in your heart of hearts. Anchor your life in that truth, right? Because whether this is big or small, man, Jesus is still on the throne. And and we need him to be in in whatever's to come. Amen.
Let's pray. God, we give you so much thanks for your goodness, for your power, for your grace, for you sending us your son, Roy, the the stone cut out of the mountain, but not by human hands. And so Jesus, I just pray um that we would lean into you in this moment. That you would speak to us where we are. That we could trust your Holy Spirit's in us and working in our lives and working in this world. That we could see the opportunity that's ahead of us for the gospel to help people know eternal life and a power that is that is beyond any power of this world, Lord. And I just I just pray that that right now in our hearts we would be anchored in you and we could trust you into the future. And God um we give you so much thanks in all these things for who you are. And it's in your name that we pray, Jesus. Amen.