Beyond - False Teachers

For this message we jump ahead to the letter of 2 Peter. The Apostle shares some STRONG words to protect us from "false teachers." A false teacher is anyone or anything that wishes to lead us away from true identity; who Jesus really is and who we now are as a result of the resurrection. False teachers are all around us and the sneaky thing is - they're often not obvious to see. So Peter gives us some essential ways in which we can be ON ALERT and discern what is a lie and what is true. 

For more info about RPYA check us out on Instagram @rpyoungadults or at our landing page on rockypeak.org

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

How's it going on RPY? If we haven't met before, my name is Carson. I am one of the newbies from over here that came in like about a month ago. And I'm super stoked to be here with you guys. So if we haven't met, I would love to meet you guys after service. I hope everybody's week was great. And uh before Dre comes up and teaches, uh I'm going to read through our passage that we're going to be going over today. So if you guys want to flip in your Bibles, turn on your apps. That's going to be from 2 Peter chapter 2. So, first couple weeks of this uh series, we've been in uh 1 Peter, so this is going to be in the second book. 2 Peter chapter 2. It's also going to be up on the screens. Alright, sounds like we got a good number of you guys there. So we're going to be starting in verse 1. We're only going to go to verse 9 today, but I'm going to start reading. But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who brought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves. Many will follow their depraved conduct and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. In their greed, these teachers will exploit you with fabricated stories. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping. For if God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment, and if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness and seven others, if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly, and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man who was distressed by the depraved conduct of the lawless, for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard. If this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment.

SPEAKER_01 2:06

Thank you. Hey, RPYA, it is good to be with you once again. And special welcome to those of you that are here for the very first time. If we haven't had a chance to meet yet, my name is Dre. I'm the young adult pastor here at the church at Rocky Peak. And I always like to take a few moments at the top to just kind of let you know what you've gotten yourself into. Welcome to Rocky Peak Young Adults, affectionately known as RPYA. We are a ministry for 18 to 25-year-olds that meets in this building every Sunday night because we believe that Jesus wants to unleash your generation to change not just the world around you, but to change generations to come. We exist because we believe that Jesus wants to unleash you to become passionate Christ followers that are going to quite literally change the world. And one of the most important ways that we feel that we can partner with Jesus in that is in these Sunday nights. We design these times from top to bottom to be a place for real people, and that's a key phrase, not idealized people, not classic Disney movie fantasy people, but for real people as they are to come and encounter a very real Jesus. And so for those of you that are here for the very first time, if we haven't had a chance to meet, I hope afterwards I get to say hi and get to welcome you for being here. For those of you that also walked into this room by yourself for the first time, can you know that you're my heroes? Because it's not easy to be able to come into a room when you don't know what's going on, don't know a lot of the people. They all seemingly look like they were born in here. But thank you for choosing the courage to be here. And I gotta tell you, just a special thing. Normally, this room is filled up, and tonight there's two things that are impacting us. One is Father's Day, which is funny because as a father, I completely forgot until people started wishing me a happy Father's Day. But secondly, our high school ministry is at Dirk Summer Camp right now, and there are a lot of our fellow YA'ers that are helping there. I was actually there last night. I still have some writings of a scripture from an exercise we did. Um, and just seeing what the Lord is doing. And so, for both of those reasons, I'm happy to see kind of a not as full room. And I mentioned this back in May when we were get together in Memorial Day weekend. Don't get me wrong, I love the chaos and I love the spectacle. And next week we'll go back to the noisiness that RPYA usually is, but I really love these intimate moments. I really love these breaths we get to take. And it's kind of a cool one we get to be a little bit smaller to look around and see who's actually in the room and to be able to build some connections. And so for those of you that are here tonight, it's special to me. And so I'm glad we get to do this together. And so you got a note sheet that you sat down on or are still sitting down on, if you didn't notice it. It's gonna be a great tool to help you follow along. I'm gonna go ahead and pray for us. And specifically, as I pray, would you do me a favor? Would you just go ahead and just open your hands just to your sides? Even when people are praying over us, prayer is still meant to be interactive. And there's a beautiful symbolism of opening our hands. Often the symbolism for me is we're letting go of whatever we brought in and we're ready to receive whatever Jesus has for us. And so whatever your week was, this is a symbol that we get to let it go. And we are saying, God, I'm ready to receive what you have for us. So keeping your hands open, would you go ahead and close your eyes? I'm gonna lead us. Jesus, we let go of our stress, we let go of our anxiety, we let go of our need to control, we let go of our fears, we let go of our worries, we give all of it, our anger, our hurt, our temptations, our failures, whatever this last week held, we let it go and give it back to you. And instead, we hold our hands out expectantly, knowing that we are ready to receive what you have for us this evening, which is your love, which is your presence, which is your goodness, which is your power, which is your forgiveness, which is your grace, your mercy, your direction, purpose, and identity, King Jesus. As I pray that, I also want to pray that over our high school students. I love that RPYA is not church amongst itself. It's meant to be part of a church. And our younger brothers and sisters in high school ministry, we get to be a part of church with them. And there's 160 of them right now in this moment hearing your word, worshiping just like we do. Would you break chains in their life? Would you bring healing in their life? Would they see that the gospel is real in more than a moment, that the gospel is something we get to live out together? And as somebody who was saved when I was 15 at the summer camp, may this be a turning point in their lives in which they're never the same. Thank you that we get to pray for them, even if we don't know them. But that's what church does is we pray for one another. It's in your name. We all said, Amen. Amen, RP Way. So for those of you that don't know me yet, I've mentioned often throughout the throughout our time together that I love music. I have a deep, deep passion for music, but I always want to make a very honest and integrous distinction. I have no musical ability whatsoever. The good Lord did not bless me with that, but I do have an appreciation for music. So most of my life is spent listening to songs in various ways throughout my house, in my car, in my headphones, what have you. And I think a lot of you would be able to relate with me that there are certain songs that come on, whether they are in my car, whether they're in our house, whether they're in my headphone, that as soon as they come on, I just have to turn up the volume. There are certain songs in which I have to stop everything, focus, and turn on the volume. Do you know what I'm talking about? So there is a lot of different songs in a lot of different genres, but one that I keep coming back to is a song from my teenage years. I'm 44 now. Let me take you back to the 90s when music was music. And there was this like emo ballad by a band called Bush called Glycerin. And it's one of my favorite songs that whenever it comes on, everybody has to stop. Everybody shut up and listen. Oh my gosh, it's so good, and it takes me back. Now, here's the truth. If you listen to the lyrics, they're utter nonsense. It makes no sense. But there's something about the time and place where I'm sitting there going, yes, this is epic. This is what angels would sing as it goes through. So a lot of you could probably relate and you have your own songs, right? So here's what I want you to do. I want you to take 10 seconds, turn to somebody around you. If you don't have somebody around you, find somebody around you. 10 seconds. What's one of those songs for you? What's one of those songs that if it comes on, you're like, everybody stop and let's turn up the volume. 10 seconds, go. Alright, I'm gonna jump back in. Thank you, Nick. Sadie, were you looking up a song? You were thinking really hard. Alright, as an older brother, let me see if I approve of the musical taste in this building. Somebody just shouted out. What was one of the songs for you? Lincoln Park, what I've done. I'm I'm good with that. I'm good with that going in. Somebody shout out. Um there's no hands here, it's not school. Somebody. What's that? Oh my goodness. Lance, I believe. God bless you. That is good. Well done. Somebody else. You're in the back, so you gotta be loud. I'm good. I'm good. Somebody had to say worship, it's church. I get it. Somebody, somebody had to be like the Sunday school. Jesus is the answer. Thanks, Arthur, for being that guy. Alright, somebody else.

unknown 9:42

Mimi's delivery service by good kid.

SPEAKER_01 9:44

Say that one more time. Mimi's delivery service by good kid? Now I don't even know what that is, but I'm glad that you're excited about that. That's a really good somebody else. Sean Mendes. You got a lot of approval in this action right here. That's really good. Megan hit me. What's one of yours? Angel baby? Are you making things up? What is Angel Baby? So now you're is this real? Is this an actual sock? Aretha Franklin. There you go. I got you. It's okay. We're a team. We're a team. It's my wife. That's why we're okay. So hey, but but when you think about those songs, it's not just because it's a really good song. A lot of times those songs that we're like pump up the volume, I want to focus and hear it, it's because of the way it makes you feel. And a lot of those times, that's those songs make us feel really, really good. And it makes us feel really, really good for a lot of different reasons. Often those songs are attached to a really good memory. I mentioned Bush because of a teenage years and memories. Sometimes we think of songs at like parties or celebrations or a summer in our lives or friends that we celebrate or that. Sometimes there are songs we love because they energize us. Do you ever get those like wake-up songs and you're just like, yeah, all right, now I'm ready? Sometimes there are songs because they make us feel really, really silly. We all have that, like we I call them the red light songs, that if it comes on and we're part, we're just gonna sing. Like there's no, like there's no there's songs that make us happy, and it's a really cool thing because it's again, it's not just because of how good the music is, it's because we want to turn the fun because it makes our hearts feel something. And maybe you can also relate with the opposite. There are a lot of songs that I encounter on my playlist or in my are on Spotify or whatever it is that don't make me feel good. And they don't make me feel good for a variety of reasons. Maybe they remind me of a hurt of a hurt in my life or a period in my life in which I was hurting. Maybe they remind me of a previous relationship, a broken relationship, a breakup or something. Maybe they're just not good songs. There is some wonderful music out there, and there is some terrible music out there. Maybe it's not good song, but whatever it, maybe it brings up some messy emotions in me. But there are songs that if I hear that, I don't like how it makes me feel. And so what am I gonna do? I'm gonna turn the volume down. And so think about that simple principle. If it's good and it makes me feel good, I will turn the volume up. If it's bad and it makes me feel bad, I will turn the volume down. That image, that simple principle, the reason why I introduce it to us this evening is that is absolutely essential for our spiritual growth. As growing Christ followers, one of the most important things that we're gonna learn to do in our everyday real life is to learn how to turn up the volume on God's truth in our life, and to learn how to turn down the volume on the enemy's lies. And it's not good enough for that to happen just when you're in an environment like this. It's not good enough for that to happen just at a life group once a week. For our hearts' sake, we want to be Christ followers that are learning how to turn up the volume on truth and turn down the volume on lives in our everyday, real lives. And that's what we get to unpack as we go through the scripture that Carson read for us. For those of you that are here for the first time, we're in week four of a series as you see on the screen called Beyond the Yearbook. And the premise behind this series is that if there were senior yearbook photos or senior awards when Jesus walked with the 12 disciples, Peter's would have probably been least likely to succeed. And the reason why I say that with confidence is just read Peter's life in the Gospels. He was brash, he thought he knew everything, he was arrogant, he was angry, he was insecure, and Jesus saw all of that, which was absolutely true, but Jesus also saw more. And Jesus invited Peter to live in a life of more, of what we call transformation. And the reason why that matters is because that's Jesus' same invitation to you and me tonight. That Jesus sees everything we are, all of our messiness, all of our failures, all of our limitations, but he invites us to live beyond this moment, beyond our yearbook photo, so to speak. So what we've been doing is we've been in near the end of our New Testament, the second half of our Bible, going through the letter of 1 Peter, written by an older, a wiser, and a much more humbled apostle, as he's leading us on a journey of what he's learned over the years of following Jesus well. And one of the things I love about Peter's writings is that Peter, it seems like he's writing not just to younger believers, but it almost seems like there's a sense that he's writing to the young man he once was. And he's saying, as an older brother, look at what I've learned and follow Jesus with me. Now, last week, there at the top of your note-sheet, Peter was talking about holiness. And that can be a confusing and a mysterious word. And often we think of behavior, but what we learn from Peter's writing is that holiness is identity, as you see on the top of your note sheet. It is who God is, and it is now our reborn identity. As Christ followers, we are meant to be a reflection of who God is. God is holy. And so now this is part of our identity. And again, Peter's interest is in teaching us and equipping us how to live real life, everyday life, and our life is meant to be lived in holiness. Now, because of that, we are making a detour, as you heard Carson read, into 2 Peter, because Peter actually has some really strong words about one of the most dangerous things that will lead us away from holiness, and that's false teachers. Did you notice, as Carson was reading, or you're following along in your Bibles or on the screens, did you notice there were some strong words in there? There was some theology of hell and wrath and condemnation in there, and it's aimed at false teachers. And there's actually a lot of beauty in this passage because what you're hearing is the heart of God as a protective father for his children. Because to start, there in your note sheet, we needed a working definition of what a false teacher is. And this is how I would define it a false teacher wants to lead you away from your true identity. And in fact, on your note sheet, it's indicated as our neon light statement. Every week we have a neon light statement. In essence, if you don't want remember anything else, remember this that a false teacher wants to lead you away from your true identity. And so this is the devil's aim. This is spiritual warfare. This is what the demonic wants to do. He wants the demonic wants to destroy what God loves, which is us and our beloved. And the primary tactic of the enemy is to lead us away from who we really are, to lead us away from God the Father, which then leads us away from our identity. That's the beautiful truth about identity. We don't start with us. We don't know who we are until we know who God is first. Because we are a reflection and overflow of who God is. And so this is the heart of God the Father as a protective father, speaking to those that would lead his children away from the truth. And it's stern and it's harsh, but it's also a warning to us to be on guard for false teachers. And so if you've got your Bibles open still, if you've got your apps, I want to take you back to that passage. Carson read nine verses for us. I'm actually only going to be focusing on the first two or three because there's a lot there. But there on your note sheet, you've got a section titled Three Truths About False Teachers. So through Peter, God the Father is saying, be alert, be on guard, because there are false teachers that want to lead you away from your true identity. And so there are three things that we learn in the passage. The first thing is we go to the first part of verse one. Notice that it says, but there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. And I wanted to draw your attention to the word will. There will be false teachers among you. And so Peter is not speaking in the hypothetical. Peter is not speaking in a sense that dealing with false teachers is an occasional or a once-in-a-while thing. Peter is saying that in the reality of spiritual warfare, this is some of our everyday. And so that leads to your first fill-in on your note sheet that false teachers are in our everyday reality. The Bible is interested in real life. The Bible is interested in equipping us to live in real life, to live in this world, the real world, until the time that Jesus calls us home. And so this is a reality for our everyday life. We are encountering false teachers or false teachings whose aim is to lead us away from true identity, who God is and who we are. We encounter that in the people we encounter, sometimes in our own circles, in our own friends, in our own families. A lot of it, as we'll talk about in a little bit, in the digital world, on our campuses, in our jobs. And so the solution that we see in Scripture is not to build a to build a fortified city and to run away from it. The solution is to be prepared for it. This is part of our everyday reality. And then he goes on in verse one. He says they will secretly introduce destructive heresies. Heresy sounds like this epic religious word, but it's basically the opposite of established belief. So for a Christian context, a heresy is the opposite of the gospel of Jesus. So they will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who brought them, bringing swift destruction on themselves. And catch this. They will secretly introduce. And so what now is Peter warning us about false teachers? That's the second fill on your note sheet, is that false teachers are often not obvious. False teachers are often not obvious. And I touched on this a little bit last week. I want to go back to something I said that one of the biggest mistakes that I make when it comes to spiritual warfare, false teachers, and I think a lot of you can relate with me on this, is that in pride or even naivety, I think I'm gonna be able to see the devil coming. That in my mind, I imagine he's gonna look obviously evil. He's gonna look obviously the devil. I always like to kind of illustrate it that in my mind, I think he's gonna look like an old melodrama villain. And so, like in an old melodrama, this is something I whipped up thanks to ChatGPT a little bit earlier. If you think of like an old melodrama villain, all you gotta do is take one look at this guy and be like, he's not the hero, is he? This is not. And the mistake in spiritual warfare and false teachers is that we think that's gonna be the devil, right? That's gonna be the lie. Somehow it's gonna be so obvious that I get to see it from a distance away, going, there he is, he's evil. I know not to go near. I know to say no when you want my firstborn or my soul or a blood sacrifice or something stupid like that. I know not to do. I can avoid you. And for a lot of us, our view of spiritual warfare, our view of dealing with false teachers is as long as I'm not dealing with that guy, I am completely safe. And lovingly, as a brother, can I tell you, you are absolutely not. Let's be clear about the devil. The devil is not God and on the level of God. The devil is not omnipresent, the devil does not have omnipotence. The devil has already been defeated. The tomb is empty. Let us be clear that we are not waiting for Jesus to come back in the hope that he will win. Jesus has already won and he comes back so we get to live in the fullness of his victory and his resurrection. Let us be absolutely clear about that. But while we remain on this world, if you imagine the devil being a rattlesnake, that the way you kill a rattlesnake is that you cut off its head. But even though that the head is dead and detached, there is still venom in its fanks. And you have to be careful because even though it's been defeated, if you step on a rattlesnake head, it's got enough venom that not only it could hurt you, but it could be deadly to you. So that is our relationship with the enemy in spiritual warfare. And so as long as we remain on this side of heaven, we have to be aware that the devil is not only active, but the devil is brilliant in one specific area, and that's deception. The devil has the greatest poker face in the history of creation. The devil is an incredible liar, and the devil is crafty. And so he knows that we're expecting the obvious. And so rather than sending the obvious after us, he is going to introduce false teaching in a way that we don't see coming. If you think about the very beginning of the Bible, the book of Genesis, the fall of Adam and Eve, God told them, you can eat of anything except for this one tree. Do you remember how the devil reiterated that? Did God really say you can't eat of any tree? How big of a change was that? Three degrees. And what did it lead to? If I was driving home, as I'm going to in a little bit on Santa Susanna Pass, my steering wheel going off three degrees doesn't seem like a whole lot, right? But if that doesn't get corrected, what's gonna happen? Three degrees can be deadly. And the devil knows that. And so what he's doing is he's often hiding false teaching that leads us away from true identity in our everyday life. And so Peter is writing as somebody who's a human being who has struggled and has fallen and has experienced this. Hey, we need God to open our eyes. We need God to wake us up because there is false teaching that we don't realize. And especially as an older saint, I've often seen that the devil introduces false teaching in three key ways. The first one is by making us think that it's the majority of what everybody else thinks group think. I heard it said once in a movie, I think it was Men in Black or something with Will Smith, but I remember that in a movie it talked about that a person is an intelligent and rational individual, but a group of people are idiots. And that's often how the devil often works is that he introduces false teachings by getting a majority to buy into it. The second way is through repetition. That he repeats it, but in different ways through different means, whether it's media, whether it's culture, whether it's through experience, but he first tries to make it a majority opinion. The second thing is that he's constantly repeating, because if you think about the science of it, if you constantly hear something over and over again, you're gonna start to believe it. And then the third thing is that he makes it compelling. Again, and as you hear this old colloquial phrase, if we give the devil his due, the devil's not boring. The devil is actually pretty compelling. The devil is, in a cosmic sense, the greatest. Come on, come on. Because when we think of those temptations in our lives and we all have different temptations, one of the reasons why they're temptations is because it's compelling. He's good at it. He's good at that. And so we need help. That's why we're talking about this tonight. But it's not just this one message. We need to be a people that are constantly praying, Jesus, would you open my eyes to see lies? Would you open my eyes to where I'm hearing or ingesting lives? And can I tell you, one of the most important ways to be able to discern not just what is lies and not just what is true, but to be equipped on turning down the volume on what's wrong, turning the volume on what's true is by getting plugged into church community. For those of you that call Rocky Peak home, one of the most important steps that you're gonna be able to take is to dig in further, not just by showing up to RPY, but by getting involved in intergenerational community. For those of you that Rocky Peak is not your church home, but you do have a church home, and we get to be a young adult community, dig into your home church. Dig into community, an intergenerational community. For those of you that have not yet chosen or dig or gone into a home church, can I invite you to come and be a part of what's happening here or what's happening at Shepherd, what's happening at Cornerstone, what's happening at Freedom? Because we need each other. For those of you that are gonna be moving soon, going to school, going somewhere in the fall, hear me as an older brother. One of the most important decisions you are gonna make is to immediately find yourself a home church, is to get involved in a community of believers because we need other people to be able to go, that's a lie. And here's what's true. And so that's the second thing. And then the third fill-in, the third truth about false teachers, is that false teachers lead to a malformed heart. And when the Bible talks about our hearts, the Bible isn't talking about it just solely in the level of emotions, like Disney teaches us to think of our hearts. The Bible is talking about our identity. You are the way you are because of your heart. The shape of your heart, the function of your heart, everything that makes you you. Throughout our lives, we've often thought, if not said it out loud in a snarky way, why are you the way that you are? That's an important question to ask ourselves. Why am I the way that I am? And the answer for all of us is our hearts. What has shaped and formed our hearts is why we are who we are. And false teaching, the enemy, is aimed, is to shape our hearts. We often think that false teaching is simply an academic exercise. It's not. False teaching is aimed at our identity, it wants to change our hearts, it wants to change who we are. Look at what he said in verse 2. Many will follow their depraved conduct and will bring the way of truth into disrespute. So think about that. For all of us, we are going to experience this conflict of false teaching in which the truth of Jesus, whether it's the gospel itself, whether it's things like purity, whether it's obedience, whether it's trust, whether it's loving our enemies, whether it's having courage in the face of fear, there are things that we felt and believed to be true. And then we come into an experience in life in which those truths get challenged, in which the enemy is compelling, in which the enemy is trying to lead us into something away from truth and away from identity. He's aiming for the heart, and the enemy's lie is the same lie from the garden. The enemy really has one lie that he tells over and over again in different ways, and that's that God is not enough for you. And he's compelling when he tells it. That loneliness that you feel, God's not gonna provide. This idea of waiting for a Christ follower to be somebody to date, or doing it in a sense of purity and righteousness? No. That's just gonna keep you alone. God's not enough. You're afraid of a job, you're afraid of school, you're afraid of what tomorrow's gonna look like, you're afraid of what if you don't, what if you don't follow through on the dreams you have? What if it doesn't work out? What if the job doesn't end up? What if you don't have the things? God's not really gonna lead you to that because God obviously wants you to live in poverty in a hut somewhere. God's not gonna follow through, he's not gonna be enough. Hey, you know those wounds from your childhood that you still have as an adult? You know how you've tried over and over again to move on and to heal? Well, clearly God doesn't want to do anything. Because he would have. God's not enough. You're gonna need to find another way. Hey, you know when you feel confused about who you are, when you used to be so sure, but now you feel lost. Now you feel like you don't know what step to take or the path to go. Well, God wasn't showing up. God's clearly not here. God doesn't want to answer that identity question. He's not enough. And we could go on and on and on. But think about how that lie shapes our hearts. Because then when we start believing it, we start offering parts of our hearts to idols, to other gods. We say, okay, to the idol of sex, the idol of money, the idol of pain, the idol of self-medication, the idol of entertainment, the idol of laziness, the idol of whatever it may be. But God is not enough. So I'm gonna turn to you to be my God. Let's breathe a little bit because that's a little heavy. But in essence, the lie of the enemy, how he wants to shape our hearts, he wants God to be a fad in our lives. Do you know what a fad is? A fad is when something is super popular and everybody is into it for a short amount of time, and then it ends and it goes away, and when you look back, you kind of feel silly to be like, why was that ever okay? Why was that ever normal? One of the key things that in which we see fads with the passage of time, in which you see it even at your age, is in how we used to dress, right? Have any of you ever looked back to like your elementary school photos or your junior high photos and been like, why did my parents let me leave the house? Like maybe they were in on the joke. Maybe they thought it was funny. As you said there's so when I think about that, I was a teenager in the 90s, and I'm pretty proud because most of that style is already coming back. But I was born in the 80s. Have you ever seen how people dressed in the 80s? Have you ever looked up not just how people dress in the 80s, but in particular, hairstyles in the 80s? The 80s were another world when it came to hairspray and holes in the ozone layer and things like that. So if you look at this, what's your initial emotional response when you look at this? You're like, can we just pray for these people? Hopefully they're doing better now and they've encountered Jesus. But here's when they were doing this, it was normal. Nobody in the 80s looked at that and be like, that's strange. Or maybe you shouldn't do that, or that's a lot of product in your hair. People looked at that and go, those people are stunning. That is that is amazing. But we look at it, I'm sure they look back on that and go, you know what? That wasn't worth it. The enemy through false teaching wants to make God a fad. There are a lot of people that are no longer walking with Jesus, but can look back on a time in their life in which they were. Those of you that have been around church, those of you that have gone through revolution, you remember faces. You remember names. You remember people that you love that were there with you. That now would say, No, that was a season in my life, but I I moved on from that. Some of us in this room, we've experienced seasons of that in our own lives, in which we were walking with God and for one reason or another, we walked in a different direction. But God brought us back. But that's what the enemy wants to do. And so that's the truth about false teaching is that it introduces this lie that God is not enough. And so, briefly, with the time that we have left, what I want to do is if we want to be a people that are on guard, that are on high alert of these lies of false teaching in our lives, we need to be a people that learn. And hear me, that's the key word. It's not that we automatically know how to do this, it's that we learn how to pause and examine what are these areas in my life teaching me about identity? How are they shaping me? How are they forming me? What's the volume level and what are they saying? And so, there in your note sheet, there are two key areas in which I want to invite us to just pause and start this process of reflecting. This moment is not going to be enough, but it at least starts this process. And so your first one is this the digital world. We're immersed in the digital world. The digital world is pretty much the life that not just your generation, but every generation is living on. Whether it's school, whether it's friendship and connection, whether it's our jobs, whether it's traveling. You know, this is no joke. For Christmas, Megan's brother bought her and I these like fancy pants toothbrushes, and they have an app that they connect to. And you're supposed to turn it on, and I don't out of protest, because it's the last thing I want. My washing machine has an app. I saw on Amazon you could have a smart toaster with a like digital screen on it. The digital world is everywhere. And for many of us, what we have to acknowledge is that we spend the majority of our time in the digital world. And so, what is the digital world teaching us about identity? And so, let me walk through three briefly real-world scenarios and real or excuse me, real world categories and ask honest questions about is the digital world leading me closer to the truth of Jesus, or is it turning up the volume on lies and a false narrative? So the first one is think about the realm of health and appearance. A huge aspect of the digital world is fitness, it's fitness influencers and going in. Now hear me, pursuing health. Being healthy in our bodies is a good and holy thing. We have been given these bodies and we want to be good stewards of our bodies, right? But one of the things, and but but being healthy is gonna look different depending on the person, depending on the body style, depending on how God created us. And that's one of the most important things that when it comes to our health and our appearance, is that our starting point is joy. So look at what is said in Psalm 139. I praise you because I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. I know that full well. This is how God sees us. This is how God sees us in this moment. Even if we look at ourselves in a very different way, this is how God sees us, and that is the starting point of being able to pursue a healthy life. But the enemy wants to introduce a false teaching because this is meant to reflect that God is a good creator, that God is a creative creator, that we're not meant to all have the same body style or to look alike. But when we look at the digital world, what's the message it's often given through fitness and appearance? There is something significantly wrong with you. There is something wrong with your weight, there is something wrong with your height, there is something wrong with your hair, you are not taking the right vitamins, you are not injecting the right things, you are not taking the right supplements, you're not doing the right things in the gym, you are not taking the right runs, you are not doing this, you are not doing that. And so instead of health coming from a foundation of joy, it's now coming from a foundation of fear. Instead of health being something that we pursue because God is good and I want a steward, what he's given me well, now we're afraid of what other people are gonna think, and we are upset with what we see in the mirror. And so that's one question we have to ask is what has the highest volume when it comes to that in the digital world? The second thing in the digital world is in sex. And this is the longer message for a longer time. But sex is a be is beautifully designed by God the Father to be within the commitment of marriage between one man and one woman. And as God designed it, he knows how it works best. And again, this is gonna be a longer topic, but one of the reasons why the Bible teaches us to live in sexual purity, as we see in 2 Corinthians, is because it affects our identity. We are the temple of the living God. And living in sexual immorality leads us away from identity. And so it's not just sex before marriage, it's pornography, it's anything that distorts God's view of it because it's meant to be a reflection, again, of a beautiful creator. And so the question is when you're dealing or encountering any type of sexual message in the digital world, is it leading you closer to God's identity and to God's will for you, or is it leading you away into a distortion of what God has created? And then a third area in the digital world is fear and anger. And these are conjoined twins. One doesn't live without the other. Joshua chapter one is an important verse for me as somebody who struggles with anxiety. Is the Lord saying to Joshua, do not be afraid, for the Lord God will be with you wherever you go. And what is he saying? He's actually not saying it's wrong if you ever feel fear. What God is inviting you to is saying you don't have to live in fear because I'm going to be with you. And how do we see this play out in the digital world? There's a lot of anger online, isn't there, about everything. There is a lot of anger about politics. There is a lot of anger about race. There is a lot of anger about faith. There is a lot of anger about movies. There is a lot of anger about sports. There is a lot of anger about socks. And I'm just kind of making that one up, but I'm pretty sure that there's some cynical YouTuber that has an angry sock rant that he does every time. And why are people so angry? Why do you get angry? Why do I get angry? Because we're scared. Can I ask you a rhetorical question? Has your anger made anything better? Has your anger lessened your fear? Has your anger solved anything? Did you stick it to that person through that angry post? And they went, you know what? You're right. That all caps message, yeah, that changed my life. With how angry people are everywhere on social media, has our world gotten better? Has our nation gotten better? Has our state gotten better? Have any of these areas gotten better? Do you know one of the most heartbreaking things for me is how angry people are in the name of Christ online? How angry people are when they fight and argue theology? How angry people are in going, if you are not in this spiritual camp, you're an idiot and you should not hold the name of Christ. In the name of Jesus, of course. Has it solved anything? No. But we're all tempted to be a part of that. And so ultimately, when it comes to your digital world, I'm giving you these three areas. But is there anything about your feed that the Lord is saying, hey, we need to turn the volume down? And I need you to turn the volume up on what's true. So that's a first real world example. The second one to pause and consider is your thought life. Now this is a broad, this is a broad area, and so let me ask you a rhetorical question. If your mind is wandering in this moment, where's it going? When your mind wanders, when you're not like actively trying to like keep your thoughts captive, where does it go? Because my guess is that wherever it goes, is something that God wants to talk to you about. Does your mind go to hurt? Does your mind go to confusion? Does your mind go to dinner? I mean, I don't know if God wants to have a big conversation about that, but it could be cool. Does your mind go to worry? If your mind's anything like mine, often when my mind when my mind uh wanders, it goes to insecurity. It goes to my struggles of feeling like I'm not shaping up. I'm not perfect. I'm letting the people in my life down. I'm letting you guys down because I don't have a flawless Record. And so what I find is that often instead of trying to hide that from God, I get to bring it to Him. And He gets to turn down the volume on that insecurity and speak truth into it. Two weeks ago I got an email. If we haven't really gotten to meet yet, not just am I the RPOA pastor, but I'm one of our teaching pastors for our weekend service. And so if you think about it, over three services at a church our size, that means that I speak to roughly 2,000, 2,200 people on a weekend. And that many people have a lot of opinions about you. And so two weeks ago, I got an email kind of out of the blue by a gentleman at the church that wanted me to know that he does not like me as a preacher. And to be fair, he was a lot nicer than some other emails I've gotten. And while I can say this is part of the job, it still stinks. It still hurt. And it still kind of had me focusing on insecurity. And for a good week, my mind kept wandering back to that. And again, I struggle with this idol of wanting to be perfect and achieve and earn love, so to speak. And so I kept thinking, well, how can I be better? How can I grow? How can I win them over? I kept wondering, well, I guess I'm just not good at this. Maybe after 20 somewhat years, I guess I should just pack it up and go home and not do this anymore. I guess I'm just wasting RPOA's time and wasting others' people's time. I kept thinking of like angry responses to be like, how dare you? Who do you think you are? I wanted to throw my shoe at him. I think of all of these things. I remember sitting in my driveway because I was like angrily driving home. And I was sitting in my driveway, still dwelling on it, and it was one of those moments where the Holy Spirit broke through. And I was like, oh. The answer is not me being reassured that I'm a good preacher. The answer is me focusing on the fact that I'm a son of God because of the grace and mercy of Jesus. The way I preach is irrelevant. That is the most important truth in my life. So, Jesus, would you remind me of that? I think there's a lot of you here that the reason why you're here is to hear that. That the most important thing about you is that you are a son or daughter of Jesus the King. And you didn't earn it, you don't work to maintain it. But that is the most important thing. And so sometimes the false teaching, the insecurity, the thought life is because we started believing a story somewhere along the lines that's not true. And we're gonna be incapable of turning the story off. But we get to go to the one that can and say, Jesus, these are the thoughts running through my head. This is the truth of what's going on here, the narrative that's being played. Speak into this. You know, last night I was at the high school camp, and I think this is reflective of how the Lord sees us. Last night I was at our high school camp, and after I taught, we went to a time of worship and I invited people to get prayed for by their life group leaders, me and Trent, a high school pastor, we stayed at the front and were like, if anybody wants us to pray over you, specifically to pray any scriptures over you, we're here to pray for you. So this young lady that came up to me, I don't know who she is. I'm gonna guess that she's maybe a sophomore or a junior. She asked if I would pray over her because she's just been struggling with how she views herself. And so as I pray, just again, that you are God's daughter, just teary-eyed after, she's like, Hey, hey, I'm just wrestled because my dad's not in my life. And and when he was, he said some really painful things that I still carry with me, and I feel lost at times. I really don't know what to believe. And so that's those times in which I'm grateful that I'm a dad. And so I remember I just kind of put my hands on her shoulder. I had her just look me in the eye and be like, hey, I'm gonna use my dad voice right now. You are precious in the sight of God. You are you because God made you that way, and I'm grateful that I can speak truth into your life. But I also know that me simply saying this isn't gonna make it all magically go away. And so let this be the first step of a journey of you listening to truth over and over and over again. And that's how we live in holiness away from false teaching. It's not that we hear one message and the switch goes on and now we go, woo, we're done. It's that we actually learn, okay, God, show me what's a lie and show me what's true.