What do you see when you look at how much our culture is changing?  There are 2 threads woven through all these changes...

• It's  Awesome - you cannot help but be impressed with those people who invented the combustion engine, or who designed the Sydney Opera House or who develop the i-phone.  I mean, think about how we are able to travel because of the engine, think about the beautiful buildings there are all around the world, think about how friends and family can keep in touch through phone technology - it's awesome!

And yet...

• It's Terrifying - you cannot help but see a dark side through it all.  Think about how those combustion engines have been used by terrorists to drive suicide bombers into communities.  Think about the buildings that the Nazis built in the death camps, with such attention to detail so as to be the perfect killing chamber.  Think about how smart phones are ideal for cyber bullying, or gateways to the world of internet porn... prime tools to wreck kids' lives.  It's terrifying!

When God made us, he made us 'in his image', he made us to look after this world and be creative in how we develop it.  But ever since we rebelled against God back in the beginning, though we are made in his image, we are fallen and sinful.  Everything we touch, everything we make and invent have these two threads woven through...

The thread of the image of God and the thread of a sinful nature. 

We see it not just in the things we say and do, but in the whole culture we make.  When I hold a smart phone in my hand, I see something of the awesome creative 'image of God' in the people I belong to... and I see something of the terrifying fallen, sinful nature that we each have.