The family is established in immediate relationship to the cultural mandate (Gen. 1:28). The cultural mandate cannot be fulfilled without the assumption of familial duties. In the fall of mankind, the enemy struck a blow that impacted both the cultural mandate and the family. Our first parents doubted God's blessing and the goodness of His design. Our sin resulted in a curse that touches upon work, childbearing, and family relationships. But, the second Adam, the seed of the woman, has come and in Him, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. He redeems sinners and sanctifies them to engage family responsibilities by faith, and in so doing fills the earth with His image and glory.

Well, good morning everyone. It's good to see you all this morning. I think for this many people to come out this early you must really want to exercise dominion. I think you know, you probably saw the title and thought well I definitely want to want to go there who doesn't want to exercise dominion at 845 in the morning. That's a wonderful thing.

You got your cup of coffee and you're all ready to go. So it was mentioned about preaching, just so you know, this is, I figured when I saw breakout, this would be more of a teaching time. There's been some wonderful preaching that has gone on at this conference and just want to take 45 minutes to dive in to the Dominion mandate or it could easily be called the cultural mandate or even the creation mandate and look at God's Word together and think about some of the implications of his Word. I'll tell you up front that my goal is to have us leave this place considering what the family is for. Not even ultimately, ultimately we know that family is for the glory of God, but think about what the family is for in relationship to this earth on which we live.

And think about the family, as the Psalmist says, as these children are like arrows in the hands of a mighty warrior. What are arrows for? They're for doing battle. They are for being sent out. And children are in our home for a time, and then they're launched out into the world.

And as we do so, how are we to be thinking about them? How are we to be thinking about the Lord Jesus Christ and what God would have us do here on earth as we live for his glory in our families. And so I want to do a survey. This whole conference has really been on biblical theology. And we're gonna be doing a lot of that kind of biblical theology here, particularly with a mind to this dominion mandate or Creation mandate and its application to the family.

So that's a little bit about where we're going So to begin with you say what what's wrong? What is bent that needs to be made right and I'm convinced that there's a great temptation presently to defeat Christianity and retreat Christianity it is easy right now given what's going on in our culture, to have a defeatist mindset. You say, I mean, you know, you just turn on the news or you turn on your internet and you look at the latest update from Twitter or from Facebook or wherever it is that you get it, and you say, what is wrong with the world? If there were ever a time where you were going to say, hide your kids, hide your wife, just turn off the television, unplug it, turn off all of the media and pull the shades down, and let's just do nothing but catechism with the children. Let's not consider anything else.

I don't even want to read a history book. That would be the time. It really would be the time. I believe that temptation is quite strong. So retreat and defeat and I'm convinced that Though we are to die and Christ went to the cross He went to the cross Victoriously he went as a king to Jerusalem being praised because that is what kings do in the kingdom.

They die, but they don't die in defeat, they die in victory. And Christ said, it is finished. And we need to have that same model for our children. We need to help them to know what it means to die and that that is actually living the victorious life. What it means to lose your life in this world, that you actually will save it.

So defeat, retreat Christianity is a great temptation right now, and I'm concerned about that in our families, that we would cultivate that mindset in our children. And they would think, well, you know, when Christ says, my kingdom is not of this world, well, we begin to think that being a Christian has nothing at all to do with this world. Nothing at all. I don't even have a, I don't have any reason to be here other than to just wait for the return of Christ when I will be ushered in to eternal glory or die, go into the intermediate state and be there with Christ in spirit and await the resurrection. And I believe that is a truncated vision of what it means to live Christianly in the world, that we ought not to pass on to our children, but we should say God actually has a purpose for us right here, right now, and that is related to this dominion mandate.

So I want to look at a number of texts, but I want us to start in Genesis chapter one. So open to Genesis chapter one and verse 26. If you were to consolidate my main point in this breakout session. It would be that the family exists to fill the earth and have dominion. The family exists to fill the earth and have dominion.

And so Genesis chapter one, verse 26 is where we see this cultural mandate. There God's word says, then God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Notice right at the outset of this creation mandate, God made man in his own image, after his own likeness. The call for families to fill the earth and have dominion is a call to fill the earth with the image of God, the creator, the creator of this whole wide earth. We are to take his image and we are to propagate it out over the wide earth. That's the foundation.

That's what's established right there in verse 26 And the language of Dominion is also found right there in verse 26 The text goes on in verse 27 says so God created man in his own image in the image of God He created him male and female he created them So this is probably basics for us at a Theology of the Family Conference, but male and female are both created in the image of God and are equal in that sense that they are created in the image of God. There is absolutely a headship in the home, there is absolutely a primacy of leadership. When it comes to male leadership even in the world, there are distinctions and differences that exist that ought to be identified and clarified and even qualified. But if you have one man, you have the image of God. If you have one woman, you have the image of God.

Some have contended that you actually need both in order to have the image of God, and then you have a big problem, right? Because you don't have that image of God in the individual male, in the individual female. Verse 28 says, and God blessed them and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth. Notice what God does in verse 28. It says God blessed them.

God blessed Adam and Eve. God blessed humanity. We are greatly blessed by our creator. And along with that blessing comes a commission. You are to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.

So it's kind of interesting to have a breakout session on the dominion mandate in the family. You know, I don't know if you found a way to multiply yourself without having children, but that would be unique to me. You would have to educate me on how to do so. So when you say, what's the relationship between the family and the Dominion mandate the answer is somewhat just yes Yes, you can't you can't fill the earth and have Dominion without actually having the family without actually having these children And this is what God wants us to do to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth I remember growing up and having a lot of people a lot of friends and even in pastoral ministry a lot of people that are coming into the church or maybe have been in the church for a long time that think of having children as optional It's like it's the thing that you know, I'll kind of do it Maybe I'm trying to think if I'm called to that or not That might be my calling and you say well No It's everybody's calling because you're told to be fruitful and multiply now with it always comes the issue of barrenness what a grievous thing what a reality of the fall that we experience And so we weep with those who weep and do experience that barrenness.

But we know that this is actually a command and we need to see it as a command. Be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth. But not only be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth, notice the language, what are you to do? Subdue it and have dominion. That's huge, subdue it and have dominion.

So when you're raising your children you're not only saying you know go out there into the world we're told to be fruitful and we're told to multiply You're supposed to go out there and you are to have dominion. You are to subdue the earth. And in so doing, you are to resonate or represent out to that world, even to the rulers and authorities in heavenly places, the image of God in man. So if you turn to Genesis chapter two, you can see a little bit more of the nuts and bolts of how this dominion mandate is going to operate. In Genesis chapter two in verse 15, we hear about what God does with Adam.

Genesis chapter 2 verse 15 says, the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man saying, you may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. Now the text says just before that, that God planted a garden in Eden. He planted a garden. So the whole world doesn't appear to be the Garden of Eden, but there is the creation.

And then there is a garden that God plants. And then he takes man and he puts man in that garden to work it and to keep it. He actually has a job to do. He is exercising dominion in that garden. And it's right in the context of that cultural mandate that cultivating mandate that we hear verse 18 Notice how the text goes on then the Lord God said it is not good that the man should be alone.

I will make a helper fit for him. It is not good that man should be alone because how is he going to do the work that I just gave him to do without help? Who's going to hand him the rake? Who's going to hand him the fertilizer? Who's going to counsel him about how to accomplish the tending of this garden in which I have put him?

He needs a helper. You see? And so right at the outset, you have this, what I call shoulder to shoulder friendship and blessing and unity that comes with marriage. The modern notion of marriage that we get through all of our Disney movies and through all of the kinds of things that are advanced in 21st century America is this face-to-face understanding. This face-to-face, oh, you're so beautiful, I love you, you're so beautiful, I love you too.

No, really, you're the best. No, I promise, really, you're the best. And that works on the honeymoon. It works maybe the first year, but then it falls in upon itself. It's not big enough, it's not glorious enough.

It's not actually the paradigm that is set before us in Genesis chapter two. The paradigm is here is the garden, work it and keep it, and be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion. And in order to do that, it's not good for man to be alone. And quite simply, he can't do it. He cannot multiply by himself.

He needs a helper suitable to him that this multiplication would happen and that the work of tending that garden would happen. So God gives man a woman and we have marriage and marriage ought to be seen in the light of this dominion mandate. Marriage ought to be understood in the light of this cultural mandate. That's been lost in our own society. And that's why we have this independent woman 1960s second wave of the sexual revolution or the feminist movement that occurred there where we've thought, well, you know, if a woman's at home, if a woman's helping her husband, she's not working.

And we've lost the sense of helper, of these two together, working together. And so I have this sense, I would go out from work and I know my wife is at home, and she's tending to seven children, and she's educating those seven children, and she's cooking these wonderful meals, and she's caring for this home. And I come home and we talk about the day, and who's my chief counselor? Well, it's my bride, here she is, she's counseling me, She's doing all these kinds of things and I coming back and reporting the news of the day, you know Here's the new battlefield that we took today and here's the loss that we experienced in trying to exercise Dominion and here's what I'm hoping would be another hill that might be able to be taken and here's where the prayer is needed about what's happening with some of our brothers over in this other state And and and then the children are involved too And so I don't know if you heard about this recently with James Coates a pastor up in Alberta Canada that got arrested and it's just insane what happened to him I'm coming home and reporting the news, you know and the kids are doing their work at home and their understanding that because of what they're doing, because of their obedience to their mother, because of their study and their education, they're being raised up to exercise dominion too and they get to hear reports from the front lines as dad comes home and talks about how it was tending the garden today, working in the garden today.

This is what happened. And so the whole family begins to take that shape. And you begin to see how valuable a wife is, by the way. I tell everybody that I've got a big old life insurance policy on my wife. A Big old life insurance policy.

How could I not do you know what happens to our family Dominion if she goes You understand you might as well. I would rather you break my kneecap. I would rather you take a limb Just Seriously, it's gone and our yes our face-to-face. That's not all bad CS Lewis says friendships best live shoulder to shoulder and I think he's right about that. There's face-to-face dimensions But then there's the shoulder to shoulder if you take the helpmate then this whole enterprise of dominion falls to the ground.

So you see it in Genesis one, you see it in Genesis two. Now look at the implications of that dominion mandate when you think about the fall in Genesis three. Have you ever noticed where the curse falls? Where does the curse fall on the man? Right on the Dominion mandate.

You're supposed to work in the garden. What's gonna happen now? Thorns and thistles is gonna bear for you. You're gonna work by the sweat of your brow. The Dominion mandate just got really really tough.

It got much harder than it was before. And I would add it's impossible. It's now impossible to do without the second Adam. We're going to consider more about the second Adam and his relationship to the cultural mandate, the dominion mandate in the family. But we see where the curse strikes.

It strikes man right at the dominion mandate. And where's it strike woman? Right at the dominion mandate. Now bearing children is going to be painful. Do you mean the glory of having children?

I'm still amazed. I'm only one of two children. My wife's only one of three children. We had seven. We have seven children.

And going through it is, it's insane. It's remarkable. It's amazing because you're there and all of the pain involved. I remember growing up thinking the pain was just like 30 minutes in the hospital I'm like the pain starts at the beginning and it doesn't end till like two years later and Probably not even then because then you got to raise them. So The the glory You know, I've heard once what someone once say that Puritans the Puritan women when they went to labor they understood it was the day of battle.

They thought of it that way. They conceptualized it. And that's exactly what it is, the pain, you know, this production of the fruitfulness that God has commanded of us while experiencing the fall. How could you not be a Christian? How can you have a baby and not be a Christian?

How can you look at what's happening in the labor and delivery room and not know that there's a God in heaven that is son Jesus Christ as savior? Because you're experiencing tangibly, viscerally, Genesis 3. You're seeing it. You're seeing the curse. And you're participating at that very moment in the dominion mandate of being fruitful and multiplying and filling the earth.

But there's even more in Genesis 3. Genesis 3.15 is this glorious promise of how the dominion mandate will actually be fulfilled. And that is, Genesis 3.15, I will put enmity between you and the woman in between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. The language of offspring is interesting here.

There's certainly implications about the natural offspring. There is an enmity between the offspring of Eve and the offspring of the devil. And ultimately that offspring is certainly Christ. It is the Lord Jesus Christ is the one who bruises the head or crushes the head of the serpent. And we're going to see there's no way to actually have dominion and to fulfill the creation mandate given in Genesis one evidence in Genesis two that we just talked about without Christ.

It cannot be done without Christ. So I like to say that you could be the best tire changer ever down at the local auto shop. I mean you could change them more quickly than other people and you could change them you know so they're gonna last longer And you could come up with better ways to change the tire than people did before but if you are not doing that work in Faith if you are not doing that work Trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ and repenting of your sins, then you're actually not fulfilling the cultural mandate You are not fulfilling the Dominion mandate so Babe Ruth one of the best baseball players that ever lived, not trusting Christ, not fulfilling the cultural mandate. It can't be done. And so there's this breaking that exists.

What happens is there, we think, well, we can repent of our sins and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, but you really, and you have to do that to fill the great commission, and you have to do that to be a Christian, but you don't have to do that to live in God's world the way that God has designed. And so what I can do is I can teach you Bible, and then we can forget Bible, and we can teach you science. And we can forget Bible, and we can teach you economics. And we can forget Bible, and we can teach you all of these other things about the world and that's the that's the wrong arrangement it's Christ as Lord over absolutely everything and everything in submission to Christ and sent out into the world to exercise dominion by Christ and for Christ. There is a genuine question that could be asked is with the fall in Genesis 3, does the cultural mandate fall to the ground?

This is just something that's entirely past, something that is not still binding upon us now as Christians. And I believe if you go to Genesis 9, we see that this great mandate is restated. Consider Genesis chapter nine, beginning in verse one. And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. We have a restatement of the same command that Adam and Eve received in the beginning, and we're post-fall now.

That job of propagating the image of God over the whole wide earth for the glory of God, for the good of the families of the earth, for the good of the peoples of the earth is not dead on the fall. It's going to be accomplished in a new way. It's going to be accomplished with a new head of humanity, Christ, the second Adam, It must be accomplished by him and by faith in him, but the command is still there. Verse two says, the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered.

Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you And as I gave you the green plants I give you everything but you shall not eat flesh with its life That is its blood and for your lifeblood. I will require a reckoning from every beast I will require it and from man from his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. Whoever sheds the blood of man by man shall his blood be shed for God made man in his own image." There's the language of image again. So the language of Being created in the image of God is inextricably tied up with the dominion mandate to be fruitful and multiply. And so we need to have our children.

And when we have our children, we need to tell them you're created in the image of God. And being created in the image of God comes with some binding consequences. You are to represent your creator. You are to represent Faithfully that God in this world that is now broken that is now lost that is now dying And you are commissioned to go out and face those big scary Blaspheming giants You can't run from it. You can't hide from it.

And I know it's scary, but there's a second Adam. I know that you can't do it on your own. You can't. But there is a second Adam and his name is Christ and he's actually already broken the back of the devil. He's broken his back.

And so you can trust in that Lord Jesus Christ and you can follow him and know that you will have to die yourself. You will have to take up your cross, you have to follow him, but you were to go and represent this God in the world. You're not allowed to privatize this thing. You're not allowed to just buy into what President Obama once said is the freedom of worship. Where do we get that idea?

What happened to the freedom of the full exercise of religion? Whatever happened to being right out there in the public square? Whatever happened to it being a commission to go and make disciples of the nations? What happened to that? And Now we've somehow said you can somehow hide and still be faithful.

No, you must go spread that image. Verse 7 Genesis 9, and you be fruitful and multiply increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it. It's quite interesting. I won't spend a ton of time, but Genesis 12 and what's given to Abraham there, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Genesis 15, 18 to your offspring, I give this land.

He's clearly giving that to Old Testament Israel there's physical realities there but even in those physical realities of what God is promising Abraham we see that the Messiah is going to come that the greater seed the true seed is going to come and there's going to be implications for land, there's going to be implications for blessing. Genesis 17, same kind of language goes to Abraham, but we're starting to see in those promises what was already revealed in Genesis 3 15 that this is not something that we're going to accomplish in and of ourselves. And it's not, there's not going to be a fruitfulness. There's not going to be any kind of dominion and any kind of blessing that goes out to the wide earth apart from the Messiah, Jesus Christ. We see this very clearly when you go to Psalm 2.

So let's turn there, Psalm 2. We can already see that the orientation is to go. The orientation is to be fruitful, multiply, and fill, fill the earth. And back to the Tower of Babel, you have some problem there, because what seems to be happening is that people are making a name for themselves rather than a name for the one in whose image they are. And they're not filling, they're building a tower.

Let's stay right here. They're not filling the earth and having dominion. So again, Christ must be the one to do it. Psalm two is this glorious picture of the fallen and broken world and the rebellion against God almighty that occurs. So we see that in the first verses.

Psalm two one, why do the nations rage and the people's plot in vain, the kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed saying, let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us. Your children need to know that. So right from the outset we don't sugarcoat the fact that there are people that hate God and therefore are going to hate you because you're going to follow him and people aren't going to like that. So This is the world that we now live in and we find appropriate ways to talk about these things One thing when it comes to the Dominion Mandate and all of parenting I think it's finding the way to talk in generalities and then talk in specifics So it's not that you just don't talk about certain things and you drop them off like a cliff into the deep end of these subjects, which is sometimes the model. But you talk about these things in general ways, and you can get more specific with them as they get older.

But from the beginning, I mean, we teach our youngest little kids, there are the people of God and there are the sons of the devil, and this battle exists and it rages. And there will be people who don't like what we do, and they won't like the God that we serve. So that's the setup. And they need to know after understanding that much, because if you only understood that much again, well, let's just pull down the shades. Let's just stay right here.

Okay, We don't have to go out there and look at all those powerful kings, because the problem is it's the kings that are doing this. That means they're people with power, people that can hurt us. So let's not go out there. They need to know verse four, he who sits in the heavens laughs. I love telling that to little kids because you can see their eyes light up.

I mean, they already got enough stuff to be scared about. You know, you don't, you might have a few kids. I've got like one that needs to be more scared of things guy that climbs too high in the trees that kind of thing But you know, we this is how we are. We're riddled with fear because of the fall We're afraid of all sorts of things that we shouldn't be afraid of. It's just a fear God You're not supposed to fear man supposed to fear God.

You're not supposed to fear the raging kings And so I love looking at them, you know what, so you know what God does? God laughs. In their eyes, they start to go, okay, he laughs. So God's bigger than the raging kings is what you're telling me. That's exactly what I'm telling you.

God thinks it's, God thinks it's cute. Little ants down there, so upset about it, so upset about him, about his bonds that are upon him which are bonds that are good for them if they were in their right mind. And so they start to go, oh okay. So he who sits in the heavens laughs. All right that's good.

Now is God just gonna laugh and then like not do anything about it in the world? Just let them go on in their raging and then in the new heavens and the new earth, you know, he'll fix all that. Or is he going to do something about their blaspheming and about their raging now? Text goes on verse five, then he will speak to them in his wrath and terrify them in his fury saying, as for me, I have set my King on Zion, my Holy Hill. I have set him there.

Who is he talking about he's on my Christ Christ is the king God's King and he's set on Zion his holy hill now we hear the Sun speak in verse 7 I will tell of the decree the Lord said to me you are my son today I have begotten you ask of me and I will make the nation's your heritage and the ends of the earth your possession the ends of the earth be fruitful and multiply fill the earth and subdue it Christ says God said to me the ends of the earth will be my possession. You don't have to be afraid of the ends of the earth. You don't have to be afraid of what is out there. You need to be afraid of God. You need to fear him and reverence him, but you don't need to be afraid of that.

You need to see that it's silly. You need to see that it's upside down. You need to see that it's foolish. You need to see that the sorrows of those who run after another God shall multiply as Psalm 16 tells us But you don't need to be afraid of them and think that they have something you don't You have something they don't and you are to trust this great Christ who is having dominion and is inheriting the nations. Verse nine, you shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.

Now therefore, O kings be wise. Now we hear the Psalmist speak. This is our message. This is what we ought to incorporate this is the way that we ought to be thinking in our families now therefore Oh Kings be wise be warned Oh rulers of the earth he's talking to people that are rebelling against God people with power people with authority that's boldness verse 11 serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son.

I'm not angry, I'm not angry at you. I'm not angry at the lost and dying world. I know that you're blind. I want you to kiss the Sun I want you to kiss the Sun come to the Sun so we are to be agents of reconciliation ministers of reconciliation saying be reconciled to God ambassadors of Christ this is your job you say I'm supposed to go say that to people that might throw me in prison? I'm supposed to go say that to people that might harm me in all sorts of ways?

And the answer is yes. That's exactly what you should do. Verse 12, kiss the son, lest he be angry and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him. So we must see that Christ is ruling and reigning as the great king, as the ultimate king, as the one who is having dominion and then we trust him.

We don't try to be him, we don't try to exercise the dominion that he exercises, but we absolutely fill this earth and have dominion by faith in him, and we can see which way The battle is raging. I know there's been at least some talk I've talked to people here at this conference about what kind of hope we ought to have There's there's a danger of having this some this false Hope about our own nation like like America's somehow really gonna turn around like you asked me. I just don't know I don't know. I don't think things look very good right now and tell you that The The point is not about what even will happen in our day, or what will happen in our lifetime, or what will happen for our children. We do not know.

We could turn into the Soviet Union. I mean, who knows? But what we do know is that Christ is the king victorious. We know that's true and we know he's going to inherit the nations and we know that he has been set on Zion. He has been set and so we need to start thinking about the crucifixion and the resurrection the ascension and the session of Christ in that light And we see some of that in Psalm 110.

So turn with me there. I'm convinced that if people get Psalm 110, you will grasp this cultural mandate, dominion mandate, and you will be able to avoid, reject, defeat, and retreat Christianity and the defeat retreat family. Psalm 110 says, the Lord says to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies, your footstool. All right, so a little exegesis, the Lord, you got the Lord says to my Lord, so you have to ask yourself, who's the first Lord? And you probably got all caps there.

So you're talking about the Lord Yahweh says to my Lord that is the Lord Jesus Christ so we have the Father speaking to the Son the Lord says to my Lord sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool and the question would be when did the son sit at the right hand of the father well we have the ascension he ascended into heaven and he sat down at the right hand of the father And when did the Lord say to the Lord to sit there until? He says until I make your enemies your footstool. So When is there going to be a rising up from that seated position at the right hand of the Father? When the enemies of Christ have been made his footstool Where is Christ right now? He is seated at the right hand of the Father.

That means what is happening right now? That means the enemies of Christ are being made his footstool. That's what's happening right now. The enemies of Christ are not raging and winning the battle against Christ and making Christ their footstool. That is absolutely not what is happening.

But Christ's enemies are indeed being made his footstool. And that's why we're here in the New Testament. Christ says, on this rock, I will build my church. The gates of hell will not overcome it. The gates of hell are an offensive or defensive weapon.

They're a defensive instrument. I mean, have you ever seen anybody take up gates and rip them out of the ground and sling them over their head to do offense? No. The gates of hell shall not prevail against Christ and his church. That means he is ruling and he is reigning and the enemies are being made his footstool.

As the song goes on we see even more of this idea of Christ's rule and reign. Verse 2 says, the Lord sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter rule in the midst of your enemies. So from Zion, Zion often associated with Jerusalem and what did Christ say? You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, to the very ends of the earth. And so here we hear that this mighty scepter is going to be sent forth from Zion and Christ will rule in the midst of his enemies.

Now it's a different thing to rule once all of your enemies have been made your footstool and to rule in the midst of your enemies. And so you hear the same kind of language in Psalm 23. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. Isn't that amazing? You got enemies arrayed.

What are you gonna do? I think I'm gonna eat a steak. I think I'm gonna have a meal. How can you do that? How can you even think, aren't you nervous?

Jesus is gonna rule in the midst of his enemies. God's prepared a table for us in the presence of our enemies and we already know how this thing's gonna go I mean the worst they can do is kill us It's not that bad is it? You know don't fear those who can kill the body but fear the one who can destroy both soul and body in hell Martin luther the body They may kill God's truth abideth still, the seed of stake. So Christ rules in the midst of his enemies. So you children, as we're raising them up and sending them out, they need to know the battle's gonna be hot.

You're gonna Take some arrows. You're not only an arrow, you're going to take some. You're not only going to do some damage, you're not only going to tear down some strongholds, some things are going to be torn out of you. Some trouble is going to come. In this world, you will have trouble.

This is not some kind of pie in the sky everything's going to be smooth this life is not a lazy river it is a battle and exercising Dominion is hard exercising Dominion hurts it's gonna have physical ramifications for you spiritual ramifications for you emotional ramifications for you and yet Christ is the one who is ruling in the midst of his enemies verse 3 Your people will offer themselves freely on the day of your power in holy garments from the womb of the morning the dew of your youth will be yours I am fascinated by the language in verse 3 of the day of Christ's power and verse 2 the sending forth from Zion from Jerusalem And you start to think about what Christ said. What did Christ say? Acts one eight. You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And so what's that signaling to us?

And in that moment, when you receive, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, Acts 1 eight says, and you will be my witnesses. You're going to receive the power of the Spirit and be my witnesses. There's a very close relationship between receiving the power of the Spirit and being a witness of Christ. There's a very close connection here in verse three of people offering themselves freely, Christ's people, on the day of his power and in holy garments. Holy Spirit, holy garments.

Well what's the signaling thing to us? You can't even begin to think about exercising dominion without the Holy Spirit. You can't even contemplate exercising dominion without being born again. You must be born again. We need to look at our children and say you must be born again.

You must receive the internal working of the Spirit. If you're going to exercise dominion, don't start to think that you can go out there and face that world and somehow disciple the nations. If you don't have the Holy Spirit of God abiding in you, convicting you, comforting you, helping you, and empowering you to do so. Verse four, the Lord has sworn and will not change his mind. You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.

Verse five, the Lord is at your right hand. He will shatter kings on the day of his wrath. He will execute judgment among the nations, filling them with corpses. He will shatter chiefs over the wide earth. There's the language again.

He's going to do this over the wide earth. He will drink from the brook by the way, therefore he will lift up his head. That's interesting language there about drinking from the brook by the way, but it signals this commander who is conquering the nations and striking them down and rather than resting and taking a full break he drinks from the brook by the way to continue the pursuit of exercising Dominion. So This Psalm 110 teaches us that Christ is the one who rules to the very ends of the earth. We need to set that before our children.

Finally, I want us to consider Matthew 28. There is a connection between the cultural mandate and the Great Commission. This creation Commission and this New Testament Great Commission. They're not identical commissions, but they're absolutely related commissions. So as we consider Matthew 28, we consider this great commission.

We ought to be thinking about the implications of it for the dominion mandate. So let's pick up in Matthew 28 and verse 16. Now the 11 disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Now before we even talk about the Great Commission we're going to hear the go therefore in verse 19 but good Bible readers know when you see the word therefore you got to say what's the therefore there for? Why is it there? Something very important must have come before. So if you're about to tell me to go I mean we can't just go to the children and go to the spouse and say let's go and make disciples You know the response would be do you not know this world's fallen? Do you not know that there's a devil?

Do you not know he prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour do you not know that? There's Goliath out there. Do you not know that the Kings are out there? I don't want to go Okay. Well, let me tell you what came before that First Jesus said it so you better do it But he gives us even more than that all authority given him all of it There's not a bit of authority.

It's not his There is no domain no sphere of authority that exists that is not his all authority so, you know the governors that are like being ridiculous and telling you, like you need to wear a mask in order to walk down the street outside, two masks, three masks, four masks. They're under the authority of Christ. They're under the authority of Christ. Christ is the King of Kings. That wonderful language.

Have you ever thought about that? Sometimes to help us know what the Bible is talking about, we need to use things like Christ is the King of your county commission. And you start to go, Oh, okay. Cause we don't have like, We don't think in king terms here in America. What is he talking about?

It means all authorities, including civil authorities, it's all there. Anything in this home for husbands, as head of homes to be checked, Christ is king. Christ has all authority. I'm not allowed to do anything that he hasn't said to do. I have to do what he says to do.

I can't do what he's told me not to do. He truly is the authority, the ultimate authority. And it goes on, all authority in heaven and on earth on earth We're tempted to think that Christ has authority in heaven and not on earth and That well isn't there a prince of the power of the air as the book of Ephesians says right the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience absolutely but he's not he's not the ultimate friends he's a power he's a power but Christ has authority here Christ has authority here it's been given to him And so I'm not going to go around operating as if this world belongs to the devil. It doesn't belong to the devil. Christ has authority.

Now there's all sorts of demonic things that happen here, but they ought not. I was explaining this idea recently to our folks and said, you know, you go into a bookstore, just a normal bookstore, and what do you have? You have the Christian section. You have the Christian section, and you have science and history and biography and everything else. What does that mean?

Does it mean all the other sections are the devil section? This is the Christian section, those are the devil section. And we can't go read those books because they're in the devil section. Jesus is king of the whole library, of the whole bookstore. Everything in there ought to be brought into subjection to Christ.

And it doesn't matter if you're in the Christian section or if you're in the whatever section, it belongs to Christ. Christ has authority. And if it's not in subjection to Christ, it is to be put into subjection to Christ by grace through faith in him. You can't propagate these ideas that are contrary to the Christian gospel and think that that's appropriate. A part of, you know, that might be one way to think.

You need to take, the dominion mandate involves taking the Christian section and making it propagate its way all the way across the bookstore. This is how we are to live. So Jesus has all authority in heaven and on earth. And then he says, go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you, teaching them to observe all I have commanded you. So the Great Commission actually involves teaching.

It doesn't only involve making a convert. It does involve that. It doesn't only involve baptizing. It does involve that. You can't teach someone to obey all Jesus has commanded without them being converted and without them being baptized.

Those things have to happen. But those are certainly, that's the starting line, you see? That's not the finishing line. It's the starting line. And now we are to teach you, we're doing great commission work when we teach you to observe all that Christ has commanded, what's gonna be involved in that, Knowing what Christ has commanded.

We need to be very clear about the law of God. We need to be clear about the law of God in our homes. This is how God would have us live. And we don't do this perfectly, but we are brought into conformity more and more by repentance and faith and by the word of God and the power of the Spirit in us. And then we go and teach others to do the same.

And you know what? There is this restoration of the image of God in man as that happens, a recovery of the scarred image by grace through faith in Christ, Ultimately done by Christ, impossible to be done without his spirit. But we are to go, and as we go, we are to have dominion. And the Great Commission is essential now to that dominion. You can't have dominion without the Great Commission.

You can't have dominion without the gospel of Jesus Christ. But that gospel of Jesus Christ is for your justification, your justification and your sanctification. Now your growth in Christ and your representation of Christ in this lost and dying world. So by way of summary, the family exists to fill the earth and have dominion. This ought to orient the way that we think about our parenting.

It ought to orient the way that we think about Marriage the way that we're going about our work each day. We can go about our work with joy and really see That the changing of the diaper is related to the Dominion Mandate. It really is cooking up the beans Related mowing the yard related driving in the car related the worship of the trium God that holy sacred glorious worship on the sacred day is related to the dominion mandate. We worship this God on the first day of the week. Christ is making all things new.

We have a shift from the last day of the week to the first day of the week. And what are we, we're commissioned out into the world upon that worship to live for Christ six days, to work six days, to work for God, to work by faith, to work by grace, to work by the power of the Spirit, to glorify God on earth. And then we'll meet back again, first day of the week, to worship this triune God again and be commissioned out again the next week so we can only fill the earth and have dominion in Christ. Three very practical pointed applications would be first so lead your children always to Christ always to Christ can't be done without Christ Don't think there's any part of their lives that can be done without Christ. No part of their education, no part of their vocation, no part of their understanding of finances, no part of their future marriage, no part of any of those things that can be done apart from Christ.

So lead your children always to Christ, that's number one. Number two, raise your children to live on God's earth for Christ. Think about these earthly implications of your parenting duties. The earth belongs to Christ, the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. Remember that God is their Redeemer and their Creator.

We are to teach them and train them to live before the face of their Creator and to enjoy the gifts that He's given and to bless God for them and to teach others about their Creator. We need to remember the Lord's Prayer and how we think about the earth. You remember what the Lord's Prayer says? Your kingdom come, your will be done where? On earth.

On earth. As it is in heaven. So they should be orienting themselves that way it should be their earnest desire that upon their death though it can't be guaranteed to them that upon their death the will of God would have been obeyed on earth more than at the outset of their life. That should be their earnest desire. Saying, God if you would so grant it, you asked me to pray it, here I am, I understand there's a there's an up and down in this world, and I understand I could be living in a time where everything's going to the pits, but this is my prayer, this is my earnest desire that Christ would be known and that his will would be obeyed and that we would be able to teach people to observe everything that he's commanded and my life would be spent for that glory of Christ, for the blessings of all the families of the earth.

So raise your children to live on God's earth for Christ. Number three, show your children how to rule and have dominion by and for Christ. So guard yourself against this retreat and defeat notion of the family if it's in you It's going to be given down to the children. That's the natural order God could change that but if you're not in your mind thinking about this Dominion mandate in the rule of Christ Then it won't be passed down to the children. Thank you so much for coming to this breakout session.

Let me pray as we close. Father, we praise you for you are God. You are God in heaven, you are God on earth. And we rejoice that Jesus Christ is our great savior, that he has suffered for our sins, that he is the righteous one, that he has conquered sin, death, and the devil, that he has risen again, and he is seated at your right hand. And we ask that you would help us to trust him and to rejoice in his rule and his ever-advancing reign, and help us to raise our children in the nurture and admonition of that Christ, that we would be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and have dominion.

We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.