“Belt of Truth & Breastplate of Righteousness" | Sunday AM | Ross Thornhill

Ephesians chapter 6.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

Ephesians chapter 6.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

10 verses here.

Verses 10 through 20.

Ephesians 6, 10 through 20.

I am reading out of the ESV, just like the way it flows and sounds.

Verse 10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.

Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

Therefore, take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all to stand firm.

Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace.

In all circumstances, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one, and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication, to that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly as I ought to speak.

You may be seated.

So I'm sure you can guess that we are talking about the armor of God.

A lot of subtle clues in there, like when we talked about the armor of God and listed pieces of the armor.

We also have a big sign outside by the road that shows about armor up, right?

Protecting ourselves.

So to that end, I'm not gonna be talking about all of the pieces of the armor of God.

You're not gonna hear that repeated every single lesson.

Uh instead, the format that we'll be working through is we'll be focusing on um two individual pieces of the armor of God, each lesson.

And we're gonna look at how those pieces interact with each other and then look at what those things, what those armor pieces are protecting.

So it gives us a chance to dive a little bit deeper into each thing as we go through and hopefully find a new way to look at the armor of God as we approach this.

Um each week we'll have a theme as well that um what these things are protecting.

We're gonna be doing a theme.

So what I'll be talking about today are the pieces of the armor that are the belt of truth and the breastplate of righteousness.

Which I think, yep.

So you can see nice shot right there, right in the middle.

If you're confused, what am I talking about today?

It's not the helmet, it's not up there, it's the belt and the breastplate.

So the belt of truth.

So when we are discussing the pieces of armor, um, we are looking at what the author would be seeing, right?

The Roman soldiers that would be walking through the town, the Roman soldiers that would be controlling the area, they would be seeing the various levels of Roman soldiers who did have different types of armor.

But for the people of this time, whenever they would read this or hear this read to them and they would say armor, they would begin to think of this stuff.

We're not thinking about knights in a medieval full suit plate armor, um, although I think that would also be pretty cool.

We could dig into that and like, what would that look like in the armor of God?

But in this context, we're talking about what would be uh the time of the Romans.

What would they normally be wearing?

And so when we talk about the belt of truth, so a belt in a Roman set of armor was not just a thin piece of leather that was a fashion statement that has a neat little belt buckle you can switch to make it reversible.

So if you want it to be brown or black to match your suit, uh that's not what we're talking about.

The belt was designed to be uh a utility.

Um it was made to fulfill multiple roles, it had a purpose, um, not just simply to, you know, keep pants up or something.

Um what you would see instead is that the the uh the belt was a place of stability.

You know, it it it went about the waist to provide this this feeling of stability, but it was also where the weapons would be hung when they were not in use.

If they carried any other tools, um anything else that they would need in battle, it would go on the belt as well.

And then the breastplate was actually held in place by the belt.

Now, obviously, you know, it goes uh around the neck and over the shoulders, as you can see here, but there was a chance that in battle, all that movement, things would begin to shift out of place.

And so the belt was designed to hold the tunic underneath it and the breastplate all together so that no matter what you were doing, what you were moving, there was this sort of static element to your armor, that it would be in place, it would not be moved, it would not be jostled, you would not find important bits like lungs and hearts suddenly exposed when they weren't meant to be.

The belt held that in place.

And also something is very interesting with the Roman suit of armor, the belt had these attachments that came down the front, uh called an apron, but these were leather straps.

And these leather straps also had um uh metal weights on them.

You can see it's cut looked sort of decorative, but this was also intentional, right?

It it uh would keep parts of the tunic held down that were lower down to the knees.

Um it created extra layers of protection lower down.

This was still part of the belt.

And so the belt was something that was meant for war.

It was meant for combat.

Um, and even though, let's say, it was a time of peace, but you are a soldier still wearing your armor, you're walking around the town, this belt is still holding everything ready, right?

It's still there just in case you need your sword, in case you need something else.

So when when we're thinking about the belt in uh armor, it's very interesting that uh the writer chooses the belt to represent truth.

Right?

So, spiritually, how does truth apply as the belt in our armor?

So when we look at scripture and we look at what truth is and what truth means, truth is not simply uh a fact or an acceptance of a fact fact, right?

We're not saying simply that gravity exists and it's true because I'm not floating into space.

It's not simply a fact.

When we are looking at uh truth in the context of a Christian life, of a spiritual life, the truth of God is foundational and it is what makes righteousness, it's what makes salvation possible.

Truth is a unifying element to us.

So if we look at uh John chapter 8, uh, verses 31 through 36, so Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

John 8 · chapter mention

They answered him, We are offspring of Abraham, and have never been enslaved to anyone.

How is it that you say you will become free?

Jesus answered them, Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.

The slave does not remain in the house forever, the son remains forever.

So if the son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

So Jesus gave a truth.

He said very plainly, if you abide in my word, and you are my disciples, you will know the truth, and it will set you free.

Very plain truth.

But they weren't grasping it.

They were thinking, Well, we're exempt from this.

We're the offspring of Abraham.

We have not been enslaved to anyone.

How can you say you will become free?

They weren't grasping a truth.

They weren't understanding what Jesus was trying to get across to them.

That it's not about who they were, their identity as Jews.

It wasn't that.

The point was the truth is Jesus was the Son of God coming to set them free from sin.

That fundamental truth is the only thing that makes salvation possible.

And that's what he's trying to get across to them.

So truth is this unifying element.

You cannot have righteousness without truth, right?

You cannot put on the helmet of salvation without truth.

Now the belt's not connected to the helmet, but we see this idea, though, that there is this central place in the armor that is holding things together.

That is the belt of truth.

Uh John 17, 17 tells us that truth is a sanctifying force.

It says, Sanctify them in the truth, and your word is truth.

1 John 1 and 6.

If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in the darkness, we lie, and we do not practice truth.

So again, all these different parts of a Christian life, all these different elements that the armor represents, the the breastplate righteousness we're going to get into, right?

The sword of the spirit, without truth, what are those things?

Right?

Truth has to hold those things together.

Truth is the foundation of these things.

Um, you know, all too often the enemy can put doubts in our mind, can make us question even things like salvation.

Am I truly saved?

Well, if you know the truth of the word and that truth is what you base your salvation on, then you understand, yes, I am.

Right?

That question begins to go away because you have truth.

That is what the salvation is based on, not simply an idea, not simply a faith you had one evening, a feeling of belief you had one evening after a good church service.

It's not relying on that.

Salvation is based on a truth, a fundamental truth that everything builds on.

Uh John 3, 20 to 21, uh adding on here, for everyone who does wicked things hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.

But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.

So again, truth here is holding everything together.

Truth is what is binding salvation and actions, because we're not saved by our own works.

That's a truth that we have to believe, that we have to understand that we cannot ever do anything good enough.

But we're still called to do good actions, to do righteous actions.

So if we don't have this truth that is binding those things together, that is, that is guiding us, that is giving us that sense of security in what we're doing and the actions we're taking, then those actions aren't righteous.

They're hollow.

They're meant for I'm gonna go try and achieve something.

I'm gonna go try and make do, I'm gonna figure this out, I'm gonna be the best I can be.

But if it's tied to truth, suddenly these are acts towards righteousness.

These are acts towards living out what God wants us to do.

And one of the things, too, that is interesting about this is when we look at salvation, we look at these things based on truth, we gain an identity.

Our salvation, we gain this identity that we are Christian, right?

Because we believe on Christ.

We have believed on him and his word, and now he has done this transformative work of salvation, and now we are Christ-like.

And then our walk is continuing to pursue Christ-like, is continuing to pursue these things.

We accept an identity based on this truth.

Um, we're gonna get more into it after we talk about the breastplate, but what we're looking at today in terms of the area of protection for these things is our identity, right?

Because it is one thing to say, well, I'm a Christian, I believe, but then if you have not been engaging with the truth, if you've not been studying the truth, if you've not been allowing the truth to affect you, then the simplest question is going to just undermine that.

And then you'll be left going, well, I don't know the answer to that.

Am I really a Christian?

Right?

I've had people tell that to me that I've met at co-workers and things over the years, college, what have you, where they talk about like, what are you doing tonight?

Well, it's Wednesday I'm going to church.

Oh, you go to church on Wednesdays?

Yeah, when do you go to church?

Easter?

And then they begin to question.

I'm not questioning them, but they go, Do you have to go to church every Sunday to be a Christian?

And I'm like, okay, well, we're gonna back this, right?

And but the idea is that, you know, they've gained an identity at some point that they claim, but there's no truth under it.

They didn't have a foundation of scripture that says, why do we value going to church for that to become a priority and an act in their life that they're doing to engage with the Word of God, engage with other believers, and walk in that life.

So just the simplest things.

Without that truth is a foundation, no matter what your good intentions are, they have to be based on truth.

So the belt of truth.

Uh so the second armor piece, the breastplate of righteousness.

So the breastplate is interesting as well, because again, I think at least for me, a lot of us, I think, in in our culture and in our media and things, if we think of armor, we think of a medieval suit of armor, right?

We think of a knight.

Um and a breastplate would be one solid piece of metal, sometimes with like some deflections or things on it to divert swords and things, but the Romans did not have that.

The breastplate for the Romans is multiple pieces of metal that are combined together.

You'd have leather underneath, you'd have leather things to fasten them together, you can see kind of zigzagging through there, um, through the different snaps and things.

Um, it was designed to fit the body, right?

So you they would take it, they put it around the soldier, and then they would tie it together.

So it is, it is going around the body, it's it's coming together.

Um it, even though it's a breastplate, it's covering more than just the chest.

This wrapped around the body.

So it's covering the back, it's covering the sides, it's covering the shoulders.

Um, so breastplate is a little underselling it here.

But the idea is that it's covering all these angles of attack to vital organs, to very important things that you do not want to get taken out ever, but in battle especially.

It is also in multiple segments, which allowed for greater movement, because those segments could flex a little bit, could move a little bit.

So not enough to risk exposure by like flexing and then opening up a huge gap, but just enough that if the soldier felt they needed to do an attack this way or swing this way or turn to face an enemy or crawl over something or under something, they could do that.

Um, it was something that essentially was form-fitted and it moved with them.

It wasn't something that they had to fight against.

It moved with them.

And their training that they had was built around using these things as well.

They didn't just kind of keep them on a shelf because they felt heavy and then they would pull them out in battle.

They trained with this.

It was part of them.

No matter what weapon they carried or shield they carried, they would train with these things on.

It was it was part of that movement.

And so if we look at the breastplate of righteousness, so what is the goal here?

So I'm going down to my notes here.

I forgot to scroll down.

So righteousness, we get a few scriptures.

There's a lot of scriptures about righteousness, not just a few, but um looking at today, there's a few I want to point out specifically, but 2 Timothy chapter 2, verse 22.

2 Timothy 2:22

So 2, 2, 2, 2, 2.

So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.

So righteousness is something that is pursued.

Righteousness is something that is continually developed.

It is not just something we can put on, but just like they put on and then practiced with it and did movements with it and did training with it, righteousness is something that we use with us to protect us and our vital organs, our core, but it's something that has to go with us at all times.

Righteousness is uh it represents our identity because people can look at us and look at the life we have and know that we are different.

Know that we are separate because we are making choices that are based on a truth, on a fundamental truth.

And those choices are designed to draw us closer to God, to draw us further into righteousness, right?

Um James 1 and 22, but be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.

Right?

So it's not enough to simply take in truth and learn truth and understand truth, you have to act on it.

That is a fundamental element of righteousness.

If we go back to this first scripture I read where Jesus is talking to those Jews and he's laying it out for them that he's there to release them from slavery, and then they just think, oh, well, it uh we're not slaves to anybody, and he unveils, well, it's about slavery to sin.

If they understood it in that moment, that's great.

But then if they didn't follow him and didn't become his disciples, it would have meant nothing.

They would have heard it, but then deceived themselves, thinking that even though I hear it and I understand it, I won't act on it.

I'm not gonna follow, I'm not gonna change my lifestyle, I'm not gonna change who I'm who my teacher is.

They would deceive themselves.

And so this is our commandment as Christians, right?

Is not to try and, you know, do actions to make us worthy of salvation.

This is righteousness is past that.

Righteousness is this constant pursuit where we are always trying to get closer and closer to God.

And he lays out things that he wants us to do and wants us not to do.

And it's it's not like a list of, you know, these things are good, these things are bad.

What I like to think of these things is God is laying out lists of things that says, look, if you do these, you draw closer to me.

But if you do these other things, that is different from me.

I'm not where those things are, you are going away from me.

So it's less of this like legalistic sort of rules, things.

To me, it's like, these are the things that get me closer, and these are the things that pull me away.

And that is to me what the core of righteousness is.

Um Colossians 3 and 5.

Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, covetousness, which is idolatry.

So again, this idea: put to death these things that are earthly in you, right?

These things are pulling you the wrong way.

These are gaps in the armor.

You have opened up the breastplate, or you have removed the shoulder pads, right?

You are you are you're undermining what righteousness is there to do because you're you're allowing it to hurt your hurt you inside, hurt you internally, hurt who you are.

Um, Romans 6 and 13.

Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.

So again, we are we are trying to train ourselves and to be and to be these righteous individuals that God can use.

A little bit uh of an aside from this, but something I was thinking about too, um, again, more comparisons to the medieval armor set.

But um, when I was going through this lesson, I was thinking about, you know, obviously at the time of the Roman army, they didn't have the same sort of like Metallurgy and smithing practices that could make full plate armor.

But I also think it's very interesting that if you look at medieval armor, the full suited armor, the knight that we think of, they served a very different purpose to the soldiers that would wear this armor.

See, these soldiers were all trained to be strong individually.

We're all trained to be good fighters, to be knowledgeable, to know all their weaponry, to do all these things.

But when they would go into battle, they would be shoulder to shoulder, shields in front, a wall.

They had a one that was called the tortoise, where they would even hold the shields above their head, and they made this giant rectangle of metal that would march through battle all together.

And then if they had to fight individually, they could.

But the point was this armor was for all of them to move together.

Versus if you look at the knights, those knights they would travel with other soldiers or they travel with other knights, but their goal was very different.

They wanted to fight alone.

They wanted to have accolades put on them more than just knighthood.

They wanted to go out and battle by themselves.

And so I think it's interesting that, you know, obviously the knights weren't there at this time, but even just looking back and thinking about all these pieces of armor, it's like, what are we designed to do?

Our righteous life that we're trying to live gets us closer to God, but it's also designed so that we can come together and we can fight together, right?

We can use the truth we understand as a common place of unity and then just share that with each other.

If one of us is struggling with something in this righteous life, I'm trying to close this gap in my armor, that's where we come in to help, to teach, to pray, to train, and that's like another soldier just slotting into place.

Right?

Just getting right up in there, and my shield goes there, you've got this hole in your armor, I'm gonna step up against it, my armor will be your armor.

So I think even the tactics around the use of this armor, I think is is so much more applicable to the Christian life as well.

So again, there's a little bit of a tangent, not exactly out of scripture, but I thought that was interesting.

Um, righteousness too, when we pursue righteousness, the the scripture gives us certain assurances about pursuing a righteous life.

Proverbs 21, 21.

Whoever pursues righteousness and kindness will find life, righteousness, and honor.

So even if our pursuit is just righteousness, just getting closer to God, just changing ourselves in these ways that allows us to get closer and closer to that God that we love and feel more of Him, it creates new things in us.

We find life, we find honor, right?

We're pursuing righteousness and kindness, which is another step, another way to reflect the love of God.

Right?

We're pursuing these things.

All these things get added in as well.

Because whenever we pursue righteousness, we are pursuing who God is and the nature of God and getting closer, so we begin to grow these other things.

You know, not in this lesson today, but there are the fruits of the Spirit, right?

That when we are filled with the Spirit, there are these fruits that begin to come out of us.

Love, joy, peace, patience, right, etc., etc., Sunday school, so forth and so on.

But you get these things that just start to develop because you're allowing God to change who you are and to change what you're doing, to change not only like the way you think, but the way you react to things.

How do you respond?

Uh, Matthew 5 and 6.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

You know, I think if there's anything you could say about the history of this world, it's unsatisfied.

It's a group of people on this big ball spinning through space that are constantly looking to be satisfied.

Right?

The songs, books, poetry, whatever.

There's this core longing.

There's this desire to be satisfied.

You look at philosophy, so much of it is based around just what is happiness?

What does it mean to be fulfilled?

How do we get there?

Well, in our identity, knowing the truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, we can be satisfied.

Right?

We can be satisfied.

That's why scripture talks about all these different things where, you know, where we other people are wondering about what's going to happen in this world and this economy and things, and we might wonder that too, but then we can have a moment of peace where we go, God's got it.

And we can find satisfaction in that.

Because we know the armor is here to protect me in this battle, it's right here, but God's got it.

We find satisfaction in that because as we pursue righteousness and we train in that armor, we see more things that God is doing in our lives.

More stuff is revealed to us, and we get that growth in faith, which is an another piece of the armor.

But we're seeing this thing where righteousness is not just something simply to protect us.

What is happening while that protection is taking place is even more important.

And I think looking at you know our identity, so I mentioned you know, briefly earlier that we take on this identity of being a Christian, right?

When we receive the Holy Ghost and we are saved and we pursue this righteous life, we are we are actively pursuing an identity of being a Christian, of being Christ-like and all the things that that entails.

And, you know, I think it's very trying to figure out exactly how to say this.

Uh this is this is the part of the lesson I was worried about the most.

Because I have a lot of thoughts in my head right now that just want to bounce around, all get in the first place, and come out first.

Identity is such a hot topic today.

Identity is, I think, in many ways, um, probably one of the hardest challenges today.

And I say identity, you're probably thinking about five or six different things as well, and I think that's part of the problem.

But truth fundamentally is being changed.

The idea of truth, what does it mean, is being changed.

And I mean, there's even a social network out there where every post you make is called a truth, right?

Talk about numbing a word, talk about changing the meaning of a word, right?

Is if you just see all these people posting and it just says truth and then their post, truth and then their post, right?

Truth is, even I'm saying it so many times now, it's starting to sound weird in my head, right?

One of those weird words.

But truth is changing.

And I I'm not gonna get deep into it, but AI, AI stuff that's happening, it it is, it's it bothers me.

I'll leave it there.

But even that is changing how people are understanding what is true and what isn't.

Whether it's images or video or even just the text, you go to Chat GPT, you ask it a question, probably not true.

Probably about 60% there, right?

That's not really truth.

And I'm not gonna get into all the technical side of that.

But from looking at all this stuff, we can see that there is this fight for truth that's happening because it does shape that identity.

Um, recently uh I was stumbled on a Christian music artist that I looked at it and I went, that's AI.

I'm pretty sure that's AI.

Started looking into it, it was.

And I was like, okay, well, what else is going on here?

Started poking around a little bit and found that this AI band was pointing to a Bible app.

And I go, oh, cool, what's this Bible app?

Go to the Bible app.

It's an AI Bible app where you can read the Bible and then you can ask the AI in it questions about the Bible.

Uh, it can even pray for you if you want it to.

Um you know that was spooky and awful, and I hated it.

Um, and it was terrible, and it made me mad for like two weeks, and Cheryl, uh, God bless her, had to hear me talk about this over and over again.

I was like, can you believe it?

It's praying for anger, and now I'm angry.

But that is the world we're in now, where even the things which are considered sacred can be processed by something else.

And then we'll take it in.

Right?

It's this it's this distance, it's engaging, disengaging.

We're creating distance between us and the thing which drives us.

Instead of learning directly, we're having a proxy and hoping it's true.

And you know, there this is a thing that we have always struggled with to a certain degree, right?

Whereas as Christians, we can get comfortable sitting on a pew and just letting pastor teach to us and then just taking it in, and then not going and studying further, right?

We we're not we're not engaging with it.

And now we have another way to not engage with it.

Um and so this idea about truth is is fundamentally changing, and if we're not careful, it will change our identity because we're no longer getting truth from the source.

We're no longer getting truth from reading the word and then praying about it and studying it and digging deeper.

Those are the things that shape us, right?

We cannot have something else wear our armor, right?

We cannot go into battle just completely exposed and hope that if I throw the breastplate in front of me, it'll stop a sword, right?

Our identity is tied to these things in such an intricate way.

And if we are not careful and we we stop in our acts of righteousness or our pursuit of righteousness, and if it's not based on that truth, then we will fall.

We will be misled.

The the through line to this that I was I was trying to figure out a way to put it pretty concisely, um, and I think this is the best I can get to it.

Truth is the stability that enables righteous living.

And a foundation of truth holds all the elements together which guides our pursuit of righteousness.

Righteous living reveals the functioning of Christ in our life and shows that we have identity as one of the righteous.

So, righteousness as identity.

It is an act, it is all these things we do, but because we are doing these things and allowing God to shape us and we are based on this truth, then we are perceived by the world as other, as separate, as different as the righteous, the group.

This is not capital T, capital R, but it is this concept that they can see we are different.

They can see we are satisfied.

They can see we have joy when there is not.

They can see these things.

And so, whether intentionally or not, we build this identity.

We're wearing armor they're not wearing.

We're holding tools differently than they are.

They're having to carry it around their hand and swing as hard as they can.

We have a place to rest it, right?

We have a place to set, to put our weapons aside and just walk and march together.

So you see, righteousness as identity, a bit of a strange concept, but it is natural.

It's what happens because we are creating a separation from the world.

And that is what people need to see.

That is what the people around us so desperately need to see.

Not like, oh, how great I am, look how often I pray and how often I read the Bible and go to church.

But it's the works in our life that come out of it.

These things like kindness, hope, these other things that we we talked about here in scripture that that come off of that.

That is what people are looking for.

And that is how we can go into battle, whether by ourselves in our job or our classroom, whatever it might be, or together.

Together going and visiting somebody in a hospital, together, you know, going and witnessing to somebody, together sitting here in this room and praising and worshiping, whatever it might be.

But the point is that even if you don't stop and think, I want to be different from the world, if your focus is just I want truth and I want righteousness, then that identity will just naturally form.

And people will identify you.

Even if you don't go around to every person you meet and say, I'm a Christian, I'm a Christian, I'm a Christian, I go to Calvary Church, I'm a Christian.

Have I told you I'm a Christian?

Right?

Like vegans.

I'm a Christian.

But people just start to recognize that you're different.

They start to recognize that there's something different about you, that you react differently, you respond differently.

Even like that conversation I mentioned earlier.

What are you doing tonight?

Well, it's church tonight.

That wasn't like a plug.

I wasn't trying to market and advertise and extend an invitation.

It was just a fact.

That's what I'm doing tonight, it's church.

And then that guy just started reeling, right?

Like, what's going on?

Do I need to go to church?

When is your church?

And it's just something that's natural, right?

You still have to put effort into outreach.

I don't say go, don't go in outreach.

But the point is that if you are pursuing these things and you're based on truth, you're not going to be identified as a member of a political party or identified as, you know, some social class, whatever.

If you are living out a life that is based on this truth and is pursuing these righteous principles, you will be identified as a Christian.

You'll be identified as someone who can help me.

You'll be identified as someone who can give me the truth when there isn't truth.

That's the way the world will look.

So to wrap up here, a little bit of practical.

What I would say is audit your sources of truth.

I mentioned AI before.

That's a soapbox that I will not get on.

But a surprising statistic came out a couple days ago.

Um, Cloudflare, they're a huge internet infrastructure provider, etc., etc., all kinds of stuff.

And they said that for the first time, traffic on the internet from AI bots exceeded humans.

That could be anything.

That could be just seeking information, that could be posting a picture on Instagram.

But the internet is no longer just a good library.

It is now, according to Cloudflare, 57% synthetic interactions.

What are your sources of truth?

Is it Facebook?

Is it Instagram?

Insert social media here, right?

What is your source of truth?

How often are you going into the Word of God?

How often are you going into the Word of God yourself?

How often are you reaching for God in prayer?

How often are you talking to another member in the church or a minister you respect to ask about your questions and make sure you're studying right and gain that strength together?

Throughout your day, are you putting the truth of God's word into your life?

The music you listen to, not the AI-generated Christian music.

Be careful about that.

But the music you listen to, is it echoing the truth of God throughout your day?

When you're in the car or you just need some music while you work, where is your sources of truth?

Where are they coming from?

And so that would be my practical thing for you today is to just seriously spend time and look at this.

How often do you reach for social media?

How often do you reach for the internet?

How often do you reach for a news article?

What are your sources of truth?

And make sure that we are not building new foundations separate from the one God has built for us.