Don Mackintosh

Weimar University

Your Truth, My Truth, or the Present Truth - Thoughts on 2 Peter 1:12

Father in Heaven, bless us tonight as we open your Word and talk about truth.

We ask your blessing to be with us, to challenge us, to comfort us, to confront us, to revive us in Christ's name.

So our text for tonight, For this reason, why don't you read it with me?

For this reason, I will not be negligent to remind you always of these things, though you know and are established in the present truth." So this text is our study tonight.

I was reading an article that came out February 18, 2024 at 8 a.m.

Campus religious groups report greater interest from students trying to find meaning in a crumbling culture.

And this particular article was looking at about 2, 000 different college campuses and they are trying to find meaning in the midst of this culture.

Hollywood, the media, universities, typically all come from the same secular perspective, the author wrote, and given America's younger generation, Gen Z and millennials in particular, the understanding that everything is about you.

Look to the person next to you and say, everything is about you.

That's better than saying about me, okay?

If you had said everything's actually about me, I'm really worried about you.

Raise your hand if you're born after 1996.

Hopefully they're not going to give us some Z's of going to sleep.

What about millennials born in 1981 to 1996?

Not so many, not so many of those still around.

Generation Z is largely unaffiliated in terms of religious picture.

They don't want to associate with any particular organized religion.

And attending religious services, the least of anybody of all these generations.

And so as people have written about Generation Z, They say they really bought into this.

My truth, your truth, the generation which tells America's youth they can decide what you think is right and wrong, you are the 1 who decides what's right and wrong.

And what we're watching happen right now is people have been living this out.

They say this is the truth, my truth, your truth.

Now, even at our universities, there was a president who was recently pressured to resign.

And when she was giving her reasons for saying what she had said, notice what she said, I got caught up in what had become at that point an extended combative exchange about policies and procedures.

What I should have had the presence of mind to do in that moment was return to my guiding truth.

Not the truth, not your truth, but my guiding truth, which is what calls for violence against our Jewish community, threats to our Jewish citizens, has no place at Harvard and will never go unchallenged.

Substantively, I failed to convey what is my truth.

So this idea that I have the truth, I make the truth, your truth is your truth, Jake, my truth is my truth.

So I would probably go with Jake's truth.

But my truth, your truth, there's this whole idea of the truth.

Gen Z was brought up with it and they�re hitting a wall now and they�re realizing this is from Gen Z folks themselves.

The truth is that this truth was an untruth.

This lie that you're the God of self and you get to decide everything, it's not true.

And Gen Z is saying, why did you tell us this?

Not only is it not true, it's leading us to dangerous places.

And they begin to describe the dangerous places.

What do you think the dangerous places were?

Skyrocketing depression, skyrocketing anxiety, skyrocketing suicide, which is giving them a clue that it's not working.

That's 1 of the reasons they're saying, it's not true.

Okay, they get themselves in a situation and they can't get out of it, but they were deceived to going into it.

Because they said, you know, someone says, well don't argue with your truth that comes from we don't know where but you just came up with it and then when they follow that it's not working out.

We're watching young people hit the wall and say, what is there?

You've been telling me that I'm my own God.

The suicide rate, the opioid addiction rate, all these things that are happening.

Of course, the COVID was thrown in to make it even worse.

They're questioning more and more what is going on and what is true.

This is a huge opportunity for people of any age, but especially your age.

And the statistics in this article were broad that that entire generation, just stereotypically speaking, is wide open to revival and reformation.

What if we could find a campus that was studying revival and reformation, but not just studying it, but actually having revival and reformation?

What if we could find a campus like that?

My present truth isn't true, they're saying.

David Shin

Unraveling the Social Media-Dopamine Connection

This message was recorded on the campus of Weimar University.

For more information visit our website weimar.edu.

Father in heaven we thank you for this afternoon we can spend together in reflection on heavenly themes and we pray for your Holy Spirit to inspire, to instruct, to guide our thoughts.

When I was pastoring a number of years ago, I got the call to Alaska and it became very clear that the Lord was leading there.

I'll be honest, I thought the Lord had made a mistake sending me to Siberia.

And so 1 of the ways that we looked on the bright side of things, we decided that we would start taking photos of our experience there in Alaska and we started this thing called Shinaska.

I know it's cheesy but that's what we did.

And this was before kids so we started taking these photos and I started getting into photography and so forth and posting them on my social media accounts like Instagram and Facebook and so forth.

And you don't have to be a good photographer in Alaska.

So these are some of the photos that we were able to take.

And 1 of the things that I found was when I started posting these photos on Instagram and Facebook, my likes went for me, like, through the roof.

It was like, like, like, like, comment, whoa, whoa.

And I was like, and every like and every comment was like a dopamine hit.

And so I started to invest more in photography and got better cameras and better equipment.

And 1 of the lenses that I bought while I was in Alaska was the 50 millimeters back in the day.

50 millimeter 1.2 aperture cost me like $1, 000.

But it was worth it because all I wanted was a dopamine hit from the photos.

I was gonna take with this new lens And This lens was amazing It blows out the background 1.2 aperture.

You know, I'm talking about just oh Blows out the background.

And then, this is my mea culpa here, I'm just being vulnerable.

I went on this time in my life for about 6 years where I went through cameras like they were just I don't know, but this is over a 6 year period.

The number of lenses and cameras I went through, I know, Lord help us.

I took a screenshot, I still had it, of an Excel file I had of these.

Now I didn't have them all at the same time, but I would buy them and sell them on eBay.

And my poor wife, my wife's a saint, because I'd come to a new camera and I'd say, honey, I promise you, this is the last 1.

I promise you if I get this camera, it will be the last 1 ever and this lens, I promise, she said, you promise, right?

And she's, so I get it for a little bit, and then another review would come out with a better picture, supposedly, of a better camera and so forth.

And I went through this 14 times, and finally, probation closed on me.

So what I'm about to talk about this afternoon, I'm not here to cast stones at anybody.

You're talking about a person that's got issues, all right?

A recovering dopamine addict from social media.

All right, so let's have the conversation.

Now, I want to put it out there because I believe that Emily Martin's going to be talking about the benefits of social media, and look, We know the benefits.

Look at all these ministries that have social media accounts.

Weimar, heal the hurting world, it is written, amazing facts, 3ABN, and look, I'm even on there.

I wish they would have took a better thing on that.

And so look, it has wonderful benefits and ministries.

But social media also has another side of it.

So I'm not here to say that social media doesn't have its place, it could be used for ministry and the gospel, but there's another side, a very personal side, that I think it's good for us to have this conversation on.

Now this is a former Facebook exec in his mea culpa saying that he feels tremendous guilt for what he helped make.

He says, the short-term dopamine-driven feedback loops that we have created are destroying how society works.

He talks about a time, I think in 2008 or 2009, that Facebook was stuck at only 90 million users.

And their user base was actually in a stagnation.

So this brother and Mark Zuckerberg got together and had this meeting and they decided to grow their user base.

And they studied human psychology and they spent a lot of money on this and these are 3 out of the 4 dopamine pathways and the related cognitive processes and they say that most of your dopamine is generated deep in the midbrain.

Now 1 of the things that the algorithms does is what is called an unexpected reward learning.

See if you get an unexpected reward It's basically the equivalent of what we call the slot machine effect.

And they use these algorithms in this way.

This is from the Harvard Business Review.

It says Instagram's notification algorithms will sometimes withhold likes on your photos to deliver them in larger bursts.

So when you make your post, you may be disappointed to find less responses than you expected, only to receive them in a larger bunch later on.

Your dopamine centers have been primed by those initial negative outcomes to respond robustly to the sudden influx of social appraisal.

Let me make this very, very illustrative and practical This is a photo I took, Anchorage, Alaska Posted it on Instagram and Facebook I actually went through this, alright?

So let's say you post These are my 2 golden retrievers And you always get likes and comments on puppy photos, right?

And so I spent a lot of time on this photo.

I hiked all the way up to this place with my 2 dogs, got in the right angle, made sure the lighting was just right, all with the motivation of getting my dopamine fixed for that day.

And so I took this photo, and let's say I post it on Instagram and Facebook, and I keep checking and checking and checking and checking and checking, and I'm like, man, there's not enough likes like I got before.

And I keep going back and going back and going back and going back and then suddenly out of the blue at 1 a.m Because I'm on there There's an influx of 50 comments and 50 likes and loves and hearts and amazing and I'm like That's what these guys do and you're hooked Harvard Business Review if you've ever in this place your phone you may have experienced a mild state of panic until it's found.

About 73% of people claim to experience this unique flavor of anxiety, which makes sense when you consider that adults in the US spend an average of 2-5 hours per day tapping, typing, and swiping their devices.

Thoughts on 2 Peter

You Can Be Sure - Thoughts on 2 Peter 1:10-11

Thank you for that wonderful anthem today.

That was written by a 16 year old when he came to know the Lord.

And he wrote a poem about accepting God into his life.

And his aunt saw that poem and said, man, that's a beautiful poem.

And it was made into a song That's changed many, many lives.

Those Peter was writing to at the time of our text we just heard were living in a great time of uncertainty.

Uncertainty because of the calls of the culture and the promises of the culture.

The promises of the culture were for sensual pleasure and success, entering into the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah, the lust of the flesh, and liberty, and there were promises that went with that, and the culture was completely filled with this throughout the Greek culture and the Roman culture.

And so the calls within the culture were totally different than the calls of the gospel, and there was persecution as a result for God's people in Cappadocia and Turkey and all the places where this letter was written to.

Not only that, the uncertainty that would come from the calls of culture and the pressure of culture that we see in 1 Peter, then had an additional problem that was mentioned in 2 Peter, and that was confusion in the church.

False prophets, false promises, the heaping up of teachers who would say what the culture said instead of what God's Word said.

And so there was uncertainty that came from outside, and there was uncertainty that came from within.

Uncertainty that came from the culture, should I follow the culture, and uncertainty that came from within, do I listen to the apostasy and the heresy within the church?

Sounds somewhat similar to what we face in our day, doesn't it?

And it's in the midst of that uncertainty.

It's with that uncertainty in mind that the text we just heard read was penned by Peter.

Therefore brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure.

For if you do these things, you will never stumble.

What a powerful text of confidence, of certainty, of hope.

Look at that person next to you and say, you are called.

So how is it that we can have such confidence?

Our text began with a word, therefore, brethren.

Because there was something before the therefore.

And Looking back in 2 Peter, we see why it is that there's such confidence in these verses.

So turn with me there in your Bible to 2 Peter 1 And look back at verse 3 or verse 2 and 3.

Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ our Lord.

And as His divine power has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of Him who did what?

So we are called and we are called through the knowledge of God.

In 2 Thessalonians 2, verse 14, turn with me there, we can see that this idea of being called is related to the gospel itself.

He called you by our gospel for the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And so the call of the gospel is what was coming to the land of Turkey and the other lands where this epistle was written.

To come under the spell of God, God's spell, the gospel.

The whole world was held under the spell of the wicked 1, it says in 1 John 5.

But there was a new call, a clarion call of the gospel that you could escape the corruption that's in the world through lust.

That you could become a partaker of the divine nature.

And this call, according to Matthew chapter 24, this gospel of the kingdom would be preached to all the world as a witness.

So this call of the gospel would go everywhere.

In fact, in Titus chapter 1 and verse 11 it says, the grace of God has appeared to all men.

And of course in Hebrews we're told that that gospel went out even in the Old Testament, not just the New.

So no matter who you are or when you lived, there was the call of God that came in some way to you.

Everyone, whoever lived, has been called, in some sense, by the gospel.

And though all are called, they are not all that choose to follow the gospel.

Well, you know, there's different texts that we could look at, but 1 of the texts is, And I want to show you something as we look at these texts.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but come to but have everlasting life.

And as you look at the calls throughout the scripture or the promises, you have these metaphors that are used.

John 10, 14 for instance, I'm the good shepherd.

I know my sheep and my sheep are known by my own.

As the Father knows me, even so I know the Father and I lay down my life for the sheep.

My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me.

So there is the call of the gospel that comes and it's a call for belief in Christ.

So when we see the message of Christ, when we hear the call, we still have to make a decision to follow that call.

As many as therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him.

So we receive the call and then we have a choice to make about whether or not to respond to that call.

So 1 response showing that we respond to the call of God, is to put our faith and trust in God.

Have you put your faith and trust in God?

How many of you think you could have an increased faith and trust in God?

To each is given a measure of faith, it says in Romans chapter 3.

And then it can be increased as it's exercised.

Another way to respond to the call of God is found in Acts 17.

Truly these times of ignorance God overlooked.

Now commands all men everywhere to do what?

To repent, which means they change their mind.

Because he has appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he has ordained.

And he's given assurance of this by raising him from the dead.

So another way to respond to the call is not just to believe, but to do what?

Another way to respond is found in Romans chapter 10.

Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts and Romans 10.

Let's look there briefly as we look at how to respond to this call.

"'If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus "'and believe in your heart that God has raised Him "'from the dead, you will be saved.

For with the heart 1 believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

So believing, and then having your mind change, but then actually openly confessing your belief in God audibly.

Thoughts on 2 Peter 1:1-4

Today we have a moment to spend in your Word.

We ask that your Spirit would be with us to guide and lead us.

Have a message individually for each of us in our lives.

If you were about to die, who would you want to talk to and what would you want to communicate?

2 Peter 1, verse 13 and 15 tells us that this was actually what Peter was talking about as he was writing the second book of Peter.

We've gone through 1 Peter 1 and we've discovered how to live as aliens in a world that does not follow Christ And now in 2 Peter we're beginning our journey through 2 Peter.

And as Peter starts this second section of his book, he says there in 2 Peter chapter 1, verse 13 through 15, yes, I think it is right as long as I am in this tent to stir you up by reminding you, knowing that shortly I must put off my tent, just as our Lord Jesus Christ showed me.

Moreover, I'll be careful to ensure that you always have a reminder of these things after my decease." So what is Peter saying?

This tent, this body is about to give out.

And I want to talk to you and communicate some things that hopefully you'll remember.

And with that in mind, let's look at chapter 1 and verse 1.

First of all, Peter says, I want you to remember my journey.

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