In the sermon 'Image Bearers Having Image Bearers' by Brian Borgman, the concept of 'dominion mandate' for the church is explored, emphasizing its fulfillment through the Great Commission. The church's role is to spread God's glory by making disciples who are redeemed and reflect God's image. The sermon stresses the church's responsibility to affirm that children are a gift from God, which implies a strong opposition to abortion. The declining birth rate is linked to the prevalence of abortion, and the church must actively promote life by encouraging adoption, foster care, and teaching young parents about the value of children. The sermon also addresses the trend of young couples, including Christians, choosing not to have children, highlighting the need for discussions about having children during premarital counseling.

I think that there's in a sense sort of two levels that we need to think about. One is the dominion mandate for the church, without excluding the idea of actual procreation, which I'll address in a second, that dominion mandate is supremely fulfilled as we are fulfilling the Great Commission. So the whole idea of image bearers bearing image bearers, What are image bearers doing? They're reflecting the glory of God throughout the world. That was the idea.

In terms of us as disciples making disciples, what are we doing? In a sense, We're doing our best to fill the earth with those that are now redeemed, reflecting God's glory. So the church is always about that first. But at another level, the Church actually has to take a very, very positive stand in reaffirming, constantly teaching, children are a gift from the Lord. Children are a gift from the Lord.

And that has massive implications for the Church. It means that we strongly stand against the murder of unborn babies. You can't actually complain about the declining birth rate and not see abortion as a vital part of what's going on. So, you know, when you're killing babies by the millions, of course your birth rate is going to go down. So the church has to be strong.

The church has to be aggressively opposing abortion and promoting life. So children are a gift from God. We hate abortion, but then we do other things to promote a culture of life, which may be encouraging God's people to adopt, enter into foster care, taking care of those that may end up being, you know, just trophies of God's grace in our families. And then we teach young parents, and this is sort of a, this is a trend that I think is very unfortunate, and that is there's a lot of selfishness among young couples, even Christians, who don't plan to have children. And I think that in premarital counseling, So this is really practical, right?

In premarital counseling, you talk to the prospective couple about having children. And there have been a few times over the years when I've done that, and they've said, well, we're not planning on having children. And then that's when you