Truth in the Age of Deception: 2 Timothy 3:14—4:8, 16-18 - 11th Sunday after Pentecost

I’m often asked if I use artificial intelligence in my work. The answer is occasionally.

While I see it as unconscionable to use A.I. to write a sermon, I sometimes use A.I. to seek and summarize information. For example, when we began the sermon series on Paul’s letters to Timothy, I asked A.I. to make me a chart listing all the persecutions he suffered. Granted, all this information is in the Bible, and I know where to find it, but I love charts, and what would take me up to an hour to create on my own, A.I. can produce in seconds.

Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay

Another time I used it was when we were creating our policies and procedures manual. I asked A.I. to help draft a church credit card usage policy.

Essentially, I use artificial intelligence (and the internet) to gather information—not to think for me. That’s the problem with the modern era: there are very powerful people who want to control how you think. Consider this: I’m your pastor, and I have twenty minutes to share the Gospel with you. But TV, social media, and A.I. are available 24/7. That gives these people incredible power to shape how you see reality and understand the world around you. That is extremely dangerous.

Nearly two thousand years ago, Paul wrote, “the time is coming when people will not put up with sound teaching, but, having their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths.” I’m not one to say that we’re living in the end times, but modern times have handed Satan has so many tools to deceive you, and all deceptions begin with someone telling you exactly what you want to hear.

We need daily bread. We want to feel safe and secure. We want acceptance and belonging. We want to feel good about ourselves, and ultimately, to achieve our aspirations for a comfortable and meaningful life.

Satan’s temptations provide quick and easy ways to satisfy those needs. Anymore, you will have no trouble finding teachers, preachers, TV personalities, journalists, or “experts” who “tell it like it is,” who talk about “the way things out to be,” who know all the secrets to success. Hop aboard their train and they will lead you to the promised land. 

One of the things that draws us to false teachers is how much they talk about how “those people” are immoral and evil: those other churches, denominations, political parties, races, nations, and people who live in ways you find objectionable. They are the ones who need repentance, not you. 

Satan’s end goal is for your pride and ego to determine right from wrong and truth from falsehood. The easiest way to deal with the sting of the Gospel is to take it off yourself and apply it to someone else. This is also extremely dangerous. 

The prophet Jeremiah said, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.” Biblical truth will always pierce the sin inside your heart. That’s why you should never think of the Gospel as a feel-good message. It isn’t congratulations for believing in the one true God. It is truth, and the truth will break you before it sets you free. All Scripture is “inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that the person of God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.” 

A child of God needs all these things, and you will remain a child for as long as you live. The more you learn, the more questions you will have, and that’s a good thing. As you grow, you will find that some of your most deeply held beliefs were wrong. The Gospel will constantly expose and convict you of sins you never knew, both pushing and pulling you until you repent. It will discipline you by challenging you, pushing you out of your comfort zone, pushing and pulling you to do hard things and bear the high costs of discipleship. It’s going to spoil your fun, wreck your plans, and frustrate your dreams. It will afflict you before it comforts you. In sum, it crucifies you with Christ so that Christ can rise in you. Paul is living proof of this. But you are, too. 

In the same way that God provided for Jesus in his life, God will provide for you in yours. God knows your needs even more than you do. God will take care of you. God’s Word is your daily bread.

You don’t need security, acceptance, esteem, self-actualization, or even daily bread, as much as you need the righteousness God imparts to you through his Word. Baptism is when new life begins. The cross is where repentance begins. The empty tomb is where hope begins. Loving God and your neighbor is where righteousness begins. 

If I speak truth, if you believe truth, if you live truth, it’s not because you’re smarter or wiser than other people. It’s because the Holy Spirit has imparted truth to us through the Gospel. Truth is not about employing God’s means to satisfy your own ends. It’s not about winning over your detractors or exercising power over others. To live in truth is to surrender give yourself away as Jesus gave himself away, including all that you have, all that you are, and all that you want, so that God can form, reform, and transform you into the person you were created to be: a person through whom Christ lives, speaks, and loves.

2 Timothy 3:14—4:8, 16-18

¹⁴ But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it ¹⁵ and how from childhood you have known sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. ¹⁶ All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, ¹⁷ so that the person of God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.

4 In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I solemnly urge you: ² proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage with the utmost patience in teaching. ³ For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound teaching, but, having their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires ⁴ and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths. ⁵ As for you, be sober in everything, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, carry out your ministry fully.

⁶ As for me, I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come. ⁷ I have fought the good fight; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith. ⁸ From now on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have longed for his appearing.

¹⁶ At my first defense no one came to my support, but all deserted me. May it not be counted against them! ¹⁷ But the Lord stood by me and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion’s mouth.¹⁸ The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and save me for his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.