Being the Image of God in an Image of Machine World
I had the privelege and responsibility of giving the 2025 Commencement speech at Marion Academy. I'm posting my speech here for others to read, since I believe, it touched on something others have been feeling. I pray it encourages you to be more truly human.
Good evening, Marion Academy faculty, staff, board members, parents, grandparents, siblings, cousins, pets, aunts twice removed (if that’s even a thing) and, of course, Laura Beth…
When Laura Beth asked me to speak at her graduation, I first felt excitement. I have known LB for the past 11 years and have watched her blossom into one of the most remarkable young ladies I’ve ever had the pleasure to know. To be asked to speak at one of the most important moments of her life up to this point is truly an honor and a blessing. But then I felt intimidation. I mean, she’s just asked me to speak at one of the most important moments of her life up to this point!
What in the world do you say at a time like this? Well, since I’m a preacher, the question I ask myself more often is what do I NOT say? I could say a lot. An earlier draft of this speech covered every topic I decided to NOT speak about. I cut it. Because I decided to not tell you about what I didn’t want to talk to you about…
But eventually I settled on something I believe is one of the greatest spiritual challenges your generation will face. And that something is captured in the title of this speech:
“Being the Image of God in an Image of Machine World.”
We are living in an age where machines shape us rather than serve us. The smartphone in your pocket is not just a tool; it’s a teacher. Every swipe, every scroll, every click isn’t just collecting data, it’s forming a soul. It’s not just that we use machines. If we’re not careful, we become like them: efficient, productive, optimized… but not loving, not patient, not human.
We are being shaped into products of efficiency who are just as empty as the machines themselves.
So I want to offer six ways technology is quietly, slowly, but powerfully, shaping us into its image. And six ways we can resist. Six ways we can fight to remain truly human. Six ways we can reflect the image of our Maker in a world that wants to remake us.
1. We value speed over patience.
“I am speed.” Who said it?
That’s Lightning McQueen’s mantra. But it might as well be Silicon Valley’s slogan.
Everything today is built to be faster: fast food, fast delivery, fast replies. If it takes more than 5 seconds to load, we’re already annoyed. And if Amazon takes more than two days to bring me my new book, I’m calling Frank, “Hey man, where you at?”
But God… is not in a hurry.
Peter tells us, “With the Lord, a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day.” The Lord is not slow… He is patient.
He waited thousands of years before sending His Son. Jesus decided to come at a time when a horse was as fast as you could travel. Jesus didn’t begin preaching until He was 30. And He told us He was coming “soon”... 2,000 years ago.
To be human is to slow down. To wait on the Lord. To move at the pace of love. You cannot microwave sanctification. In a machine world, patience feels like weakness. But in God’s kingdom, patience is strength.
Choose holy slowness. Practice patience with people, with prayers, with plans, with yourself. Because speed may get you ahead but patience will make you like Christ.
2. We value efficiency over love.
Machines exist to be efficient. If a toaster breaks, we toss it. If a phone slows down, we upgrade. No hard feelings. Just utility.
And slowly, we begin to treat people the same way. When a relationship becomes inconvenient, inefficient, or emotionally costly, we ghost, block, unfollow.
We say things like “I don’t have the bandwidth for this.” Like people are apps to be deleted off the cluttered homescreen of your life.
But love isn’t efficient.
Jesus did not come to earth because it was easy. He came because He loves. And He stayed. Through betrayal, misunderstanding, beatings, and death. Jesus did not die efficiently. He died sacrificially.
Love lingers. It listens. It weeps. It makes mistakes. It costs.
He did not heal crowds by waving a wand from afar. He stopped. He touched. He called people by name.
If you want to be the image of God in this machine world, love even when it doesn’t make sense. Love the difficult. Love your enemy.
3. We value applause over authenticity.
Social media is not just a window into our lives, it’s a mirror we decorate. We curate, we filter, we perform. Only the best angles, the wittiest words, the happiest highlights.
The fig leaves of Eden have become Instagram filters in our pockets. God saw through them then and he sees through them now. We hide from God and everyone because we’re terrified that if they truly knew us, they wouldn’t love us.
But God doesn’t love your curated, filtered image. He loves you—the real you. The one you hide.
And He proved it: “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
The algorithm calls us to go viral. Jesus calls us to be vulnerable.
So be real with yourself, others, and God, even if it’s raw. The truth will set you free, not the algorithm.
4. We value consumption over creation.
Machines have trained us to consume. Every tv show, social media site, and device has been acutely designed to keep your attention for the longest possible time.
We binge-watch, scroll endlessly, consume content like calories. We live on a steady diet of distraction.
But your God is a Creator. And to bear His image is to make. The very first thing God tells humans to do in Genesis is “Be fruitful and multiply… fill the earth and subdue it.” Create! Build! Compose! Restore!
J.R.R. Tolkien called us “sub-creators,” invited to participate in the creative glory of God.
You were not made to just watch. You were made to work. To shape. To imagine. You bear the image of the Creator. So get your hands dirty. Leave something behind that didn’t exist before you showed up.
5. We value escape over incarnation.
Technology promises connection but often delivers isolation. We escape into screens, games, videos, distractions. We avoid conflict. We hide from pain.
But Jesus didn’t escape.
He entered.
He took on flesh. He moved into the neighborhood, to quote Eugene Peterson. He sat at tables with sinners. He touched lepers. He wept at graves. He didn’t run from suffering; He ran straight into it.
And so must we. No app will hug a hurting friend. No screen will wipe away real tears. Be present. Be interruptible. Be local. Be human.
To be human is to be present. Embodied. Accountable. Don’t run from the mess. Run into it. Whether it is yours or someone else’s.
6. We value information over wisdom.
We live in the Information Age. The total sum of human knowledge is in your pocket (plus cat videos). Any time one of your kids asks you what slug eggs look like, you can find out in less than ten seconds. You can Google anything. AI can write your papers. But none of it makes you wise.
Even most educational systems focus primarily on information transfer rather than wisdom cultivation. This is to our detriment. Information forms in us the world’s values. Christ transforms us into wise bearers of God’s image.
Proverbs tells us, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”
You can know a thousand facts and still wreck your life.
You can master every subject and still lose your soul.
True godly wisdom cannot be downloaded, it must be formed. Slowly.
It’s Scripture. Prayer. Silence. Suffering. Obedience. Sharing. Waiting.
So if you want to be wise, learn from Jesus. Follow Him. Listen to Him more than the noise of the world.
Conclusion
Laura Beth, Class of 2025… the world you are entering is fast, efficient, optimized, digitized, sanitized, and mechanized.
But you were made in the image of a God who weeps, waits, laughs, lingers, breathes, bleeds, and creates.
This is your mission: to live as the Image of God in an Image of Machine World.
To be slow in a world of speed.
To be loving in a world of utility.
To be real in a world of performance.
To be creative in a world of consumption.
To be incarnational in a world of escape.
To be wise in a world of mere information.
This is not an easy life. But it is full of truth, beauty, and goodness.
So don’t become a machine. Become more human than ever—because you’ve been united to the truest human who ever lived: Jesus Christ, the image of the invisible God.
Now go and shine.
Not like a screen.
But like the light of the world.
(Photo Credit: Tamara Brewer)
Good evening, Marion Academy faculty, staff, board members, parents, grandparents, siblings, cousins, pets, aunts twice removed (if that’s even a thing) and, of course, Laura Beth…
When Laura Beth asked me to speak at her graduation, I first felt excitement. I have known LB for the past 11 years and have watched her blossom into one of the most remarkable young ladies I’ve ever had the pleasure to know. To be asked to speak at one of the most important moments of her life up to this point is truly an honor and a blessing. But then I felt intimidation. I mean, she’s just asked me to speak at one of the most important moments of her life up to this point!
What in the world do you say at a time like this? Well, since I’m a preacher, the question I ask myself more often is what do I NOT say? I could say a lot. An earlier draft of this speech covered every topic I decided to NOT speak about. I cut it. Because I decided to not tell you about what I didn’t want to talk to you about…
But eventually I settled on something I believe is one of the greatest spiritual challenges your generation will face. And that something is captured in the title of this speech:
“Being the Image of God in an Image of Machine World.”
We are living in an age where machines shape us rather than serve us. The smartphone in your pocket is not just a tool; it’s a teacher. Every swipe, every scroll, every click isn’t just collecting data, it’s forming a soul. It’s not just that we use machines. If we’re not careful, we become like them: efficient, productive, optimized… but not loving, not patient, not human.
We are being shaped into products of efficiency who are just as empty as the machines themselves.
So I want to offer six ways technology is quietly, slowly, but powerfully, shaping us into its image. And six ways we can resist. Six ways we can fight to remain truly human. Six ways we can reflect the image of our Maker in a world that wants to remake us.
1. We value speed over patience.
“I am speed.” Who said it?
That’s Lightning McQueen’s mantra. But it might as well be Silicon Valley’s slogan.
Everything today is built to be faster: fast food, fast delivery, fast replies. If it takes more than 5 seconds to load, we’re already annoyed. And if Amazon takes more than two days to bring me my new book, I’m calling Frank, “Hey man, where you at?”
But God… is not in a hurry.
Peter tells us, “With the Lord, a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day.” The Lord is not slow… He is patient.
He waited thousands of years before sending His Son. Jesus decided to come at a time when a horse was as fast as you could travel. Jesus didn’t begin preaching until He was 30. And He told us He was coming “soon”... 2,000 years ago.
To be human is to slow down. To wait on the Lord. To move at the pace of love. You cannot microwave sanctification. In a machine world, patience feels like weakness. But in God’s kingdom, patience is strength.
Choose holy slowness. Practice patience with people, with prayers, with plans, with yourself. Because speed may get you ahead but patience will make you like Christ.
2. We value efficiency over love.
Machines exist to be efficient. If a toaster breaks, we toss it. If a phone slows down, we upgrade. No hard feelings. Just utility.
And slowly, we begin to treat people the same way. When a relationship becomes inconvenient, inefficient, or emotionally costly, we ghost, block, unfollow.
We say things like “I don’t have the bandwidth for this.” Like people are apps to be deleted off the cluttered homescreen of your life.
But love isn’t efficient.
Jesus did not come to earth because it was easy. He came because He loves. And He stayed. Through betrayal, misunderstanding, beatings, and death. Jesus did not die efficiently. He died sacrificially.
Love lingers. It listens. It weeps. It makes mistakes. It costs.
He did not heal crowds by waving a wand from afar. He stopped. He touched. He called people by name.
If you want to be the image of God in this machine world, love even when it doesn’t make sense. Love the difficult. Love your enemy.
3. We value applause over authenticity.
Social media is not just a window into our lives, it’s a mirror we decorate. We curate, we filter, we perform. Only the best angles, the wittiest words, the happiest highlights.
The fig leaves of Eden have become Instagram filters in our pockets. God saw through them then and he sees through them now. We hide from God and everyone because we’re terrified that if they truly knew us, they wouldn’t love us.
But God doesn’t love your curated, filtered image. He loves you—the real you. The one you hide.
And He proved it: “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
The algorithm calls us to go viral. Jesus calls us to be vulnerable.
So be real with yourself, others, and God, even if it’s raw. The truth will set you free, not the algorithm.
4. We value consumption over creation.
Machines have trained us to consume. Every tv show, social media site, and device has been acutely designed to keep your attention for the longest possible time.
We binge-watch, scroll endlessly, consume content like calories. We live on a steady diet of distraction.
But your God is a Creator. And to bear His image is to make. The very first thing God tells humans to do in Genesis is “Be fruitful and multiply… fill the earth and subdue it.” Create! Build! Compose! Restore!
J.R.R. Tolkien called us “sub-creators,” invited to participate in the creative glory of God.
You were not made to just watch. You were made to work. To shape. To imagine. You bear the image of the Creator. So get your hands dirty. Leave something behind that didn’t exist before you showed up.
5. We value escape over incarnation.
Technology promises connection but often delivers isolation. We escape into screens, games, videos, distractions. We avoid conflict. We hide from pain.
But Jesus didn’t escape.
He entered.
He took on flesh. He moved into the neighborhood, to quote Eugene Peterson. He sat at tables with sinners. He touched lepers. He wept at graves. He didn’t run from suffering; He ran straight into it.
And so must we. No app will hug a hurting friend. No screen will wipe away real tears. Be present. Be interruptible. Be local. Be human.
To be human is to be present. Embodied. Accountable. Don’t run from the mess. Run into it. Whether it is yours or someone else’s.
6. We value information over wisdom.
We live in the Information Age. The total sum of human knowledge is in your pocket (plus cat videos). Any time one of your kids asks you what slug eggs look like, you can find out in less than ten seconds. You can Google anything. AI can write your papers. But none of it makes you wise.
Even most educational systems focus primarily on information transfer rather than wisdom cultivation. This is to our detriment. Information forms in us the world’s values. Christ transforms us into wise bearers of God’s image.
Proverbs tells us, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”
You can know a thousand facts and still wreck your life.
You can master every subject and still lose your soul.
True godly wisdom cannot be downloaded, it must be formed. Slowly.
It’s Scripture. Prayer. Silence. Suffering. Obedience. Sharing. Waiting.
So if you want to be wise, learn from Jesus. Follow Him. Listen to Him more than the noise of the world.
Conclusion
Laura Beth, Class of 2025… the world you are entering is fast, efficient, optimized, digitized, sanitized, and mechanized.
But you were made in the image of a God who weeps, waits, laughs, lingers, breathes, bleeds, and creates.
This is your mission: to live as the Image of God in an Image of Machine World.
To be slow in a world of speed.
To be loving in a world of utility.
To be real in a world of performance.
To be creative in a world of consumption.
To be incarnational in a world of escape.
To be wise in a world of mere information.
This is not an easy life. But it is full of truth, beauty, and goodness.
So don’t become a machine. Become more human than ever—because you’ve been united to the truest human who ever lived: Jesus Christ, the image of the invisible God.
Now go and shine.
Not like a screen.
But like the light of the world.
(Photo Credit: Tamara Brewer)
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