Man's Dominion Mandate

Grace Fellowship Church

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This sermon is from Grace Fellowship Church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. To access other sermons or to learn more about us, please visit our website at graceedmonton .ca.

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I invite you to turn with me to Genesis chapter 1. Genesis chapter 1 in verse 28.

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And as you turn there, I want to share a few quotes with you from a well -known

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Puritan in his book entitled A Christian Directory. The Puritan Richard Baxter once gave a number of counsels to Christians as they sought to honor

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God in their daily work. He wrote encouragements like this.

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He wrote, Be diligent in your callings, spend no time in idleness, and perform your labors with holy minds to the glory of God and in obedience to His commands.

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He urged his readers, take pleasure in your work, and then you will not be slothful in it.

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At the same time, he warned, Idleness is robbing God who is

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Lord of us and of all our faculties. Last week in our study in Genesis chapter 1, our brother

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Sam took us through verses 26 and 27 and we heard how

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God made man in His image and likeness as the crown jewel of His creation.

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And in so doing, He made man with intrinsic dignity and worth so that it might be said that all of human life is sacred.

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God prizes human beings above all of His creation. And so we should join

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Him in that. And yet, human beings are still subject to Him.

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And this week as we continue to look at the creation of man in this

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Genesis account, we see that man's creation in the likeness of God not only speaks to his worth, but it speaks to the work to which he has been called.

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The work that we have been called to in our Lord. And as we'll see in our study today, when

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God created man, He did not create us simply to exist.

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That is, to recline in the garden and to have the animals serve us.

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He did not create us so that we would lay on a bed of ease and be marveled at by angels.

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But no, He created man with a lofty purpose. Dear Christian in this room,

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God created you with an exalted mandate. Namely, to exercise dominion as a vice -regent of the

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Most High God. To subdue the earth and to be a steward,

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His appointed steward, of His creation. Contrary to popular opinion, work is not a necessary evil.

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But even before the fall, man was created by God to work.

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To work the ground that God Himself had made. To work and to keep, and to work diligently and joyfully for the magnification of His Master.

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Now intrinsically, we know this, don't we? We know that we were created for work, for good works.

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But to call on Richard Baxter one more time, the devil suits his temptations to men in their daily work and in their business as well.

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In the midst of the thorns and thistles of the fall, plagued by our own temptations within and the devil's opposition from without, we must acknowledge all of us, dear saints, if you have ever worked a day in your life, that all of us struggle with this thing called work.

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The truth is, we are often disinclined to physical and mental exertion.

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We are predisposed to idleness and slothfulness. We easily give in to grumbling and complaining about our work and our co -workers.

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We're hard to motivate and easy to discourage. For some of us, we make a god out of our work.

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For others, we labor and toil for vain glory to please men rather than to please

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God. And very few of us, I think, can connect the dots between our earthly vocations.

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Have you ever thought about this connection? Very few of us can connect the dots between our earthly vocations and the purposes of God in the world.

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Are these two connected? And because our view of work is deeply flawed,

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I would suggest to you, dear friends, that we rob God, the

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God who created us, and our faculties to serve His purposes. We rob Him of His due glory, of the productivity that He has owed from the men and women that He has made.

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And so, with our Bibles open before us to Genesis 1, in verse 28,

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I want to take us this afternoon through three truths that relate to our mandate in this world.

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The very purpose for which we have been made. Why it is that God has created men and women in His image, and what

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He has appointed us to. In Genesis 1, in verse 28, we read this.

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And God blessed them. And God said to them, The first truth that we need to understand, that we must consider, if we're going to get this passage right, is this.

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That God has given us here a blessed mandate. Point number one, God's blessed mandate.

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In verse 28, we find the first recorded words of God to man.

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Can you believe that? Outside of His inscripturated word, the first words of God's direct address to the people that He has made.

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And what a marvel it is that these first words to man are words of blessing.

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We often end our time together when we meet for worship with a benediction, with a blessing.

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But the Lord does one better than us. He doesn't end only with a benediction, but He leads with,

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He begins with a benediction. And don't miss this. So many of us read this text, and we read right past those words,

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And He blessed man, and He said, But the God of very gods,

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The one who cannot be contained in human language, Who must be described, albeit inadequately, in the plural of majesty,

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The most holy God, In His first act after creating man,

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He blesses His people. Oh, how our

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God is indeed exceedingly good and kind to us. That of all the things

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He could have done, Of all of the things that He could have said, God, in His first interaction with man, blesses

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Him. Do we think that this is God's attitude towards us?

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If we do not, we are wrong. And notice the very first thing that God says about the role and the function of a man.

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Before He utters any other commandment, He commands man to this,

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To multiply and to work. Now when He says, Be fruitful and multiply,

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What does He mean? This idea of fruitfulness, The language itself conveys a blossoming,

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A blossoming where the Lord has placed us. And so having created Adam and Eve in the garden,

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He places them there and He says, Blossom where I have made you. Be fruitful, multiply, have children, have descendants, and fill the earth.

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And to multiply is to be numerous, to grow powerful. The children are a heritage from the

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Lord. And God designed that humanity would not occupy a small parcel of land between the rivers,

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But that we would expand and cover the face of the earth. And then

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God commands man to subdue and to exercise dominion.

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To subdue is to bring into subjection, To bring the earth itself into the bondage of man.

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And to exercise dominion is to rule, It is to dominate, it is to master the world that God has made.

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One commentator says, God gave the human family the privilege and responsibility to act as the caretakers of the world.

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Man is the crown of God's creation, He is not a mere figurehead, But He is to exercise dominion over God's creation as a steward.

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If you can picture Joseph in Egypt, When he went from prison to prime minister,

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It is like Joseph who served as the prime minister of Egypt, And was second only to Pharaoh, Having been given

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Pharaoh's signet ring, In the same way God has given humanity His signet ring,

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To exercise authority over His creation. We see a picture of this in Psalm chapter 8,

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And verse 4, Where we read, What is man that you are mindful of him?

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Or the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings,

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And crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands.

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You have put all things under his feet, All sheep and oxen, And also the beasts of the field,

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The birds of the heavens, And the fish of the sea, Whatever passes along the paths of the sea.

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The psalmist elaborates in Psalm 115, In verse 16, In a passage that highlights the sovereignty of God, But in verse 16 he says,

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The heavens are the Lord's heavens, But the earth He has given to the children of man.

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Now we're going to see over the next number of weeks, The Lord elaborating this theme of our dominion mandate,

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But I'm going to just dip my toe in a little bit ahead of those texts. Look with me at Genesis chapter 2,

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In verse 5, When there was no bush of the field, Sorry, when no bush of the field was yet in the land,

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And no small plant of the field had yet sprung up, For the Lord God had not caused it to rain, And there was no man to work the ground.

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You see the Lord looking forward to this man who is to work the ground, And then in chapter 2 in verse 15,

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The Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden, To work it and to keep it.

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How many of us, If you think about your life day to day, We treat work like that necessary evil.

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Oh, if only, I think of a joke that our brother told, If only we could watch Netflix and pet baby goats,

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As our sole occupation. But the Lord has something else for us,

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To work the garden, To work in this world that he has made,

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To keep it, to be providers and protectors, As part of our human mandate.

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I want to take us through a brief case study, On the doctrine of work.

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And I want to ask you, Does this reflect your attitude towards work?

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Or is this something that is altogether foreign to you? If we look at Exodus chapter 20 and verse 9,

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We find the Lord our God giving the ten commandments, The Decalogue as it is sometimes called.

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And in Exodus 20 and verse 9, We come to the fourth commandment. And when we talk about the fourth commandment,

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Invariably, At least those who are perhaps theologically inclined, Want to argue about the perpetuity of the

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Sabbath law. Is it a perpetual law? Is it a covenant sign just for the nation of Israel?

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That is for next week. But see with me here in verse 9, The Lord says,

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Six days you shall labor, And do all your work.

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So often times we hone in on that one day of rest, And we debate that,

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But think for a moment that the Lord would have us to work six days. Not even five, but six.

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That the Lord values work. All through Exodus, We find this word work applied to the duties of the priests,

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And the tabernacle designers. They were to be continuously working, The priests in this case,

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To offer sacrifices on behalf of the people of God. If we bounce forward just a little bit to 1

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Chronicles, In chapter 22 and verse 15, During the construction of the first temple,

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In the days of King David and his son Solomon, King David called for Solomon, And solemnly charged him.

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He said, You have an abundance of workmen, Stone cutters, Mason carpenters,

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And all kinds of craftsmen without number, Skilled in working gold, silver, bronze, and iron.

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Arise and work. The Lord be with you. As God, you can see this with me,

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As God creates the world, His design is that man would flourish in that world that He has made,

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And bring order to His creation. To bring order in the garden.

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To bring order in the worship of God. To bring order in the logistical things of the people of God.

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Let's fast forward just a bit further to 2 Chronicles in verse 30 and verse 12.

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In the days of King Hezekiah, We're told that the nation experienced a resurgence in spiritual interest.

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And as part of that, in verse 12 we read this, That the hand of God was also on Judah to give them one heart to do with the king,

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And the princes commanded by the word of the Lord. And then in verse 14, They set to work,

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And removed the altars that were in Jerusalem. And all the altars for burning incense,

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They took away and threw into the brook Kidron. To exercise dominion is to work and to keep,

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Including the work of spiritual reform. Or when Judah rebelled against God, And perhaps we can most compare,

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Or our situation most compares to this, We can most relate to these people of God.

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When Judah rebelled against Him, He delivered them over into the hands of their enemy. And God, in this case, spoke through the prophet

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Jeremiah, And he prophesied to the nations, That once they entered into captivity,

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They would remain there as refugees for 70 years. Did the creation mandate stop at that time?

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In Jeremiah 29 .5, Listen carefully to what Jeremiah tells them as they are beginning,

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Just beginning their 70 years in captivity in Babylon. And listen here for the echoes of our dominion mandate,

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Here as exiles and aliens in a foreign land. God says to the nation, Build houses and live in them,

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Plant gardens and eat their produce, Take wives and have sons and daughters, Take wives for your sons,

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And give your daughters in marriage, That they may bear sons and daughters. You see the multiplication mandate.

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He says multiply there and do not decrease, But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile,

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And pray to the Lord on its behalf, For in its welfare you will find your welfare.

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Even as exiles in a foreign land, While under the judgment of God for their sins, The nation is commanded to be fruitful,

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To multiply, to subdue and to exercise dominion, To work and to keep.

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They're called to bring that place of chaos into order. Or if you'll tolerate just a couple more examples,

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In the case of Nehemiah. In Nehemiah chapter 4 and verse 6, After the exile took place,

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And as the nation made their way back into their homeland, In Nehemiah verse 6 we're told,

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That they built the wall up to half its height, And the purpose, the reason for this building of the wall was this,

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For the people had a mind to work. Oh what could be accomplished today,

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If people held the figurative trowel in one hand, And the sword of the spirit in the other,

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And had a mind to work. Now if we fast forward just a bit,

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In Colossians 3, We're familiar with this because it's a parallel to, To our passage in Ephesians that we recently studied.

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In verse 22 when Paul gives instruction to bondservants, He says, That they are to work for their masters,

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Not by way of eye -service as people -pleasers, But with sincerity of heart, Fearing the Lord.

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Whatever you do, Work heartily as for the Lord and not for men, Knowing that from the

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Lord you will receive, The inheritance as your reward. You are serving the

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Lord Christ. Paul gave instructions to the

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Thessalonians, To work quietly and to earn their own living. He wrote to Titus in Titus chapter 2,

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That the older women were to mentor the younger women. To what end? He said that they are to teach what is good,

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And so train the young women to love their husbands, And their children to be self -controlled, Pure, working at home.

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Kind and submissive to their own husbands, That the word of God may not be reviled.

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In our Bibles, The word work appears 619 times.

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At least once for every day, Almost two for every single day of the year. One of the most blessed things,

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That God has given us in this world to do. From the very beginning,

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From the opening words that he spoke to us, Was this, To work.

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That work is a good thing. That to exercise dominion over the world,

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To be an IT technician, And to bring chaos into order,

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In the computer system that seeks to serve others, Is to exercise that dominion.

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Not just to be a zoologist, To drive a truck, And deliver groceries from one city to the next,

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To build houses and buildings, And to pave roads, And almost everything that builds,

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That grows, that serves man, And by extension God, Is a fulfillment of the dominion mandate.

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Spiritual and unspiritual. And man and woman in Christ.

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This is our summons to hard work. Whatever your hand finds to do.

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Some of you are students in this room, And you feel as if it is not work. But perhaps your work is preparing for court reporting.

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Perhaps it is preparing to perform. Perhaps it is preparing to be an accountant. Whatever it might be.

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But whatever your hand finds to do. However the Lord providentially works in your life,

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To bring you into an occupation or vocation, That fulfills his dominion mandate.

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Let me say with scripture, With the authority of scripture itself, Work with all your might.

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Of course we should refuse to work for any employer, Or any cause that undoes that dominion mandate.

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And I'm sure you can think of examples. I think Christians ought not to be working in adult bookstores.

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In liquor stores serving alcohol,

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Or pouring drinks, Or whatever the case is. You can fill in the blanks there.

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I don't want to go on a tangent here, And say the wrong thing. That I'll refuse later. But anything that does not fulfill that mandate.

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We must not do. But anything that does fulfill that mandate. Serving a fellow man.

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Serving a brother or sister. Caring for an animal. Plowing the earth. Drilling for oil.

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Whatever that could be. We're to do with all our might. Dear saints,

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How we will stand out in this world. We are not doing this to stand out in the world. But how we will stand out in the world.

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For the glory of Christ. Even in the most secular vocation. If we would but work.

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I did a bunch of reading on stats. Most of which I threw right out. It didn't end up in the sermon.

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But I'm just going to bring a couple stats. From the working world. To paint a picture.

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Researchers have found that the average worker. In an 8 hour work day. Is productive.

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Maximally for 2 hours and 53 minutes. 31 % of the time that they are paid to work.

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They are not working. I'm not here today to say.

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Brothers and sisters in Christ. Make more bricks and make it without straw. But instead.

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If the Lord has given you 8 hours in a vocation. That seeks to expand God's dominion.

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That seeks to subdue the world. That the roads for instance in Rome. Pave the way for the expansion of the gospel.

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If there is a way that the Lord has enabled you. To work then work. And work for your 8 hours.

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And work all to the glory of God. It is no wonder. If most are working 2 hours and 53 minutes a day.

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That another stat says. 73 % of managers are unhappy. With their young employees.

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There's a generation. It's a Z. That this stat is speaking to.

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And that same segment. Of those who work remotely. Another stat says. That 50 % of them do their work from bed.

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This is not how we are going to fulfill. Our dominion mandate. I think of the words of Spurgeon.

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He said. Hard work will do almost everything. But in God's service.

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It must not only be hard work. But hot work. The heart must be on fire.

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As we work. If you are in a vocation.

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If you are studying. If you are learning. If you are teaching. If you are working. Whatever the case is.

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Your brothers and sisters. Work as unto the Lord. Not by way of eye services. People pleasers.

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But as unto Him. For the glory of the God. Who sees you at every moment. And I'm not under any illusions.

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The current state of the economy. I know that some of you. At this moment. Would work. If you could find suitable work.

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Let me just say to you. Don't wait until that time. To work. But while you are looking for work.

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Improve your available time. To work at things. That you will not be able to do. Once you are in full time work.

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Seek to serve a brother or sister in Christ. Use the skills that the Lord has given you.

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I'm reminded of one brother. Who was a carpenter. And when he was laid off from his work. Sought to do renovations.

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He made furniture for the church. He did a whole variety of things. Because the Lord had given him a skill.

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And he was made to work. And some of you. Brothers and sisters.

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You have. Maybe because of physical infirmities. Or other limitations.

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You might say. But I cannot work. I cannot use my hands. I cannot build a set of stairs.

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For my neighbor. I can't build a deck. I can't lift the sound equipment. I can't do these things.

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I'm reminded of a dear brother. A friend. Who was a pastor at another church in Edmonton.

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And he went to visit a woman. Who was in the hospital. Who was infirm. She had gone blind.

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She was completely bed ridden. And she lamented. As my brother went to visit her.

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She said. I feel almost useless in the world. I feel useless to the church.

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I feel useless to Christ. And my brother. In God's kind providence.

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And in the wisdom that he gave him. After listening to her for a time. He said to her. Sister. Perhaps God has given you now.

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One of the most vital and privileged ministries. That a Christian can have. And that is the ministry of intercessory prayer.

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You don't need to lift one finger. But you can lay in your bed. You can see nothing. You can know nothing of what's going on around you.

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You can't work. You can't keep. You can't even keep yourself. But you can bring.

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Every need that you hear before the God above. This woman who had seemingly lost her ability to work and to keep.

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She now was reminded. That she had a direct line to God. The very one.

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Not who works and keeps. But who makes. And who decrees. And who provides. And who brings all things into place.

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Leonard Ravenhill once said. There are few ministries more important and indispensable than the ministry of intercessory prayer.

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Next in verse 29. You see that we've been given a mandate to work. I want to show us next.

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God's blessed provision. And God said. Behold I have given you every plant yielding seed.

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That is on the face of the earth. Of all the earth. And every tree with seed in its fruit.

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You shall have them for food. And every beast of the earth. And every bird of the heavens.

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And everything that creeps on the earth. Everything that has the breath of life. I have given every green plant for food.

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And it was so. How many of us. As we go about our work.

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We eat the bread of anxious toil. Our family just recently started putting together.

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A tight budget. The very best budget that we could put together. And one of the things that we found.

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Is we were seeking to allocate more money to savings. And allocate more money to generosity.

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And all of these things. That all of our living expenses already exceeded all that we make. The cost of living is such that.

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We just need a budget to keep the bank account. At the current balance.

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And so for many of us in this world. We can look at the decisions that are made. We can look at the way that the economy is going.

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We can look at the way that the dollar is shrinking. And we can begin to eat this bread of anxious toil. Wondering what in the world is going on.

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Why would I work hard when there is no reward even. But see this with me.

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What day was man made? Man was made on the sixth day.

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Let me ask you. When did God himself make.

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As we see here in verse 29. Every tree with seed. And for the beast of the field.

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Every green plant for food. If we go back.

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We see that on the first day. God made the light. And then on the second day.

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He made dry ground. Verse 10. I want to make sure

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I'm doing this right. And then on the third day. Verses 11 and 12. He made vegetation.

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Plants yielding seeds. Fruit trees bearing fruit. In which is their seed.

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Each according to its kind on the earth. That God made man's food.

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God provided for man. Even before he was made. That the

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Lord God who knows our very need. Made our food even before we existed.

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Now this is radically different. From what the early people of God would have understood.

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The surrounding nations gods to be like. And again having done a case study on work.

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Let's look at a case study. Again the kindness and the goodness of God.

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As we said in the first week of our study in Genesis. Really the star of creation is not creation.

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The star of creation is the creator. It is God. Let us see how good

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God is. Compare with me for a moment. The customs of the

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Babylonians. And of other pagan nations. Where according to almost all of the traditions.

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Of those gods that surrounded the first people of God. This is of course long after Adam and Eve.

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Man was specifically created to work in the world. Not as an expression of his innate created ability.

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But to work in the world to provide food for the gods. That it was not God who provided food for them.

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But they were to provide food for the gods. Their gods did not provide sustenance for them.

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But men and women were enslaved. In a cruel form of bondage. That threatened misfortune.

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On those who did not satiate the hunger of these false gods. These nations served at least as they believed it.

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Temperamental deities. Who were prone to mood swings. And malicious treatment of even their most devoted worshippers.

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And this is not the God of the Bible. See, you go out into the world.

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And you tell people that you are a Christian. You tell enough people that you are a Christian.

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Invariably you will encounter people. Who will want to paint your God as the most vile.

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And capricious being amongst all gods. But nothing could be further from the truth.

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In contrast to the other angry so -called gods of the ancient world.

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Yahweh, the God of the Bible. Shows himself to be sovereign and kind and loving.

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Against the backdrop of a whole host of the most wicked and demonic deities. God emerges.

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Our God emerges as unspeakably good. The very

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God who created you. Unspeakably good. This is one of the hardest things about being a preacher.

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And trying to preach Christ. Trying to preach the glories of God. Is that he is so good that I am going to fail.

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As we were praying just before the service. A brother asked me, how do you feel about the sermon?

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And I said, I feel the same way I feel pretty much before I preach any sermon. I am doomed to fail.

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That God is so exceedingly worthy of our praise.

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That if we were to employ every word in the dictionary.

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Every word of praise. Every synonym. Every word in every human language.

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It would fall short of explaining the goodness and the kindness and the graciousness.

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And the holiness and the love of our God. God's first words to man are not words of cursing but of blessing.

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His first act is not a cruel demand for food. But it is an act of provision. He is not a

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God who is served by human hands as if he needed anything from man. But instead he created the world to showcase his own glory for the enjoyment of his creatures.

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And to show acts of love and mercy toward man, the man and woman that he created.

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Now, I said I wanted to do a case study in surrounding gods. I got ahead of myself but here it is.

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Compare this with Marduk and Anu. I tried to use so -called gods.

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When I use the word God, speaking about these, I'm talking about small g -god. I'm not saying these gods exist.

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But so -called gods that we read about in our Bibles. For Marduk and Anu, these were the gods that the ancient

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Babylonians worshipped. Marduk was the god of the thunderstorm. Anu was the god of the sky.

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And what they promised when they were not satiated, when they were not satisfied, they would bring storms and floods and droughts and other natural disasters.

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And so it was only fitting, we should not be surprised then, that the people of Babylon to worship Marduk and Anu would do things like this.

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They would hold annual fire festivals, nocturnal fire festivals in the winter.

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Where they would bring men and women and children and light the night sky with their burning bodies in the flames.

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Baal, who was said to be the god of fertility and rain, who multiplied one's children and who caused the vegetation to grow.

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Are you seeing a parallel here? As we look at this passage, can we see why

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God would be so displeased with the worship of Baal? The fertility and vegetation god, essentially.

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But the worship of Baal in the Old Testament, because he's an imposter, he's taking credit for the very things that God has done.

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And yet what did Baal require of humanity? In order to bless them with children and to give them seed -bearing plants for food.

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He was propitiated by human sacrifice. And you can see parallels here.

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I'll let you connect your own dots. But it was the elites of the day, the elites of society, who offered the people of the lower class to this bloodthirsty

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God and they would say it was for the good of the whole community. Other gods and goddesses demanded orgies.

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Others stealing to provide sacrifice or to provide offerings.

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Artemis of the Ephesians demanded that young men be flogged and their blood collected.

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And then once all of the blood was collected, they would pour it until it covered the entire 10 -foot tall statue, until it was dyed entirely with human blood.

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But perhaps few were as bloodthirsty as the ancient Canaanite god Molech that we read about in our

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Old Testaments. You see, as we're going through Genesis, I'm trying to expand on all that we're seeing here in the

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Old Testament. We're in a canonical context.

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There are things happening here. And listen to this false god Molech. That word

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Molech is a compound word made up of two Hebrew words, one for king and the other for shame.

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And this Molech, king of shame, was a bull -headed humanoid statue fashioned out of iron.

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It was made, and if you look at pictures of Molech, depictions of it, it is so grotesque.

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This being with arms outstretched as if to receive a gift. And a fire would either be kindled around the statue or inside of the statue.

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And parents, in worship of Molech, one by one, would take their healthy baby boys and girls, usually their firstborn, and they would offer them as a sacrifice to placate

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Molech. The servants of Molech would take these babies, and again, you see the wickedness of this?

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And I'm telling you, you can draw a straight line from that act to what we see today, with reference to what our brother spoke of last week in the area of abortion and the sanctity of human life.

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The servants of Molech would take the babies and place them into the abdomen, where the womb of Molech would be, where they would be burned alive by the flames.

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Or in cases where the abdomen wouldn't receive the babies, they would place it outside of Molech's outstretched arms, where they would be consumed by fire.

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The nation of Israel would eventually get caught up in this worship of Molech, where they would go to the

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Valley of Hinnom, literally translated, the Valley of Weeping. Why?

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Because the children would take their firstborn, weeping as they went, to offer them to this false god, who they were told must be fed.

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Their firstborn children. It became known as Topheth.

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We actually see this in 2 Kings 23, when Josiah destroyed the altars of Molech in Topheth.

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What does Topheth mean? It means the roasting place. Christ himself used this valley when he spoke of Gehenna.

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What hell was like, and referencing Gehenna, Gehenna itself is that Valley of Weeping.

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It is a picture of the torments of hell itself.

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So next time someone says to you, your God is the most vile and capricious being in the world, you look back at them and you say, my

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God's first words to me were words of blessing. Not just to me, but to all of man.

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My God's first act was to provide for my needs, for your needs, for our needs.

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God designed that man would work in the garden, that he would eat the fruit of that work and of that garden.

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And get this, we should not miss this fact that God provided that food for man before he was even created.

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One commentator says, God is depicted as the beneficent provider who ensures food for both human and animal life without fear of competition or threat for survival.

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And then our Lord himself, the Lord Jesus Christ, in Matthew 6, if you go there with me for a moment, relies on this picture of God's provision, not only for man, but for all creatures, as a teaching, as a counsel, as an exhortation, not ever, ever, ever, ever to be anxious.

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How many of us are anxious for our food? We work and we grieve that our work is difficult.

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We experience the thorns and the thistles, and we say, it's almost all for naught.

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And yet, verse 25, our Lord says, I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body.

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What you will put on is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing. Look at the birds of the air.

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You see this, you can, again, we're drawing a lot of lines here, drawing a line right from Matthew 6 to Genesis 1.

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They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?

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And which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour to his span of life?

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And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow, they neither toil nor spin.

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Yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you,

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O you of little faith? Verse 31, therefore do not be anxious, saying, what shall we eat or what shall we drink or what shall we wear?

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For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.

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But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

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Matthew Henry said, Let God's people cast their care upon him and not be troubled about what they shall eat and what they shall drink.

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He that feeds his birds will not starve his babes. Then in verse 21, we'll look at the last point.

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Genesis 1 and verse, sorry, did I say 21? Verse 31. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.

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And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. In days one through five in the creation order, we see that God describes all things as good.

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But at the end of verse six, sorry, the end of verse 31 on day six, we find that superlative, very.

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God looked at his creation, all of his creation. He saw there the crown of his creation in man.

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The purpose for which that man was made. His dominion mandate.

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His subduing the world. His being fruitful and multiplying. And God, looking at all of this, he says that it's not just good, but that it is extremely good.

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Abundantly good. Immensely good. I think of a bit of a word picture in Numbers 14 when the

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Israelites sent slaves to go scout the land of Canaan to see all that was there.

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You might remember they came back. Many of them were terrified of the giants that they had saw, but they came bringing a cluster of grapes over a pole that two men had to carry.

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And as some were stirring up fear in the believers in that community, Joshua and Caleb said in Numbers 14, seven, the land which we passed through to spy out, it was an exceedingly good land.

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Now if that is exceedingly good, what must that land, what would that have been like pre -fall?

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Children, I'm not sure if you can picture this. I don't know if the grapes are the size of your head. I don't know. But it was very good.

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And yet, when we see those words very good, we see man is made, we see dominion, we see the

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Lord providing for our every need. As we see those words very good, Christian readers are right to anticipate what is to come.

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That which was very good was made ungood, was made defiled, was made fallen, was made to be nearly destroyed by the conduct of man.

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Matthew Henry says, when we come to think about our works, we find to our shame that much has been very bad.

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Often we do not exercise the dominion that God has commanded. We are slothful, we are lazy, we are distracted, we waste our time.

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We must say at various times that we have been unprofitable servants.

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Work that was once joyful to man has been hindered by the thorns and thistles of the fall.

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And we might conclude with the author of Ecclesiastes, what does one get from all of their toil and striving?

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It is all meaningless. It is all chasing after the wind. But verse 31 foreshadows

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God's blessing even for fallen humanity. We previously read in Psalm 8 of the dominion mandate that man has been given.

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And yet, in biblical interpretation, what we find is this, that the texts that come later help us to understand texts that were inspired or that were given at first.

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This is definitely the case with Psalm 8 because Psalm 8 is interpreted by Hebrews chapter 2 and verse 7 that Psalm 8 is about man.

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Man at least as a type who was to have dominion over the world. But Hebrews chapter 2 and verse 7 gives us the anti -type of that type.

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What this type points to. Verse 7 we read,

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You made him for a little while lower than the angels. You crowned him with glory and honor.

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See, this is Psalm 8 language. Putting everything in subjection under his feet. Now, in putting everything in subjection under his feet, he left nothing outside his control.

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At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him, but we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels.

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And then this author of Hebrews 2 says this, Namely, Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

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We see that our dominion mandate points to something. Even in the garden, as the

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Lord before our fall, as he gave us this dominion mandate, it was pointing to something greater.

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Someone better. Namely, Jesus Christ. That Christ himself came.

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Condescended. The eternal son of God came in the form of human flesh. In John chapter 5, in verse 17, he said,

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My father is working until now and I am working. Oh, what is he working towards?

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In John chapter 9, in verse 4, he says, We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day.

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Night is coming when no one can work. What is this daytime? What is this work? In Hebrews 9, it's explained to us in verse 26.

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Remember, Exodus 20. God gives these 10 commands. Six days you shall work.

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And we see those priests laboring in that tabernacle. Not just six days, but seven. What is going on there?

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What is this foreshadowing? Hebrews 9, 26. For then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world.

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But as it is, he, that is Jesus, appeared once for all time at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

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And just as it is appointed for man once to die and after that comes judgment, so Christ having been offered once to bear the sins of many will appear a second time not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.

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Not once has the Lord our God ever commanded us to worship him by sacrificing our sons and daughters in the fire.

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There was a testing instance in the life of Abraham. But that was a test and that does not at all relate to us.

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That itself was a foreshadowing. What God never once asked us to do, he did for us by sending his son that his blood might be shed, that we would be reconciled to him, that the curse itself would be reversed.

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I find it fascinating that Genesis 1 begins with a blessing. And as I was studying this week,

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I thought to myself, there is a blessing in Revelation 22. This gospel account, this whole account of scripture, it begins with a blessing and surely it ends with a blessing.

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This is the God whom we serve. Revelation 22 verse 14, it's not the final words, but it is the final blessing.

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In the final book, in the final chapter, our

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Bible begins with blessing, it ends with blessing. Blessed are those who wash their robes so that they may have the right to the tree of life, that they may enter the city by the gates.

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Notice that the same God who blessed us with food, with fruit from every seed -bearing plant blesses us in the last chapter of the

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Bible with a plant that we are to eat for life. Christ himself, as we exercise dominion in the world, as we work, it is a picture of Christ's working to a watching world and not just working at the factory, not driving truck, but dying on the cross for sins that all who would come to him who would repent of their sins and believe on him might take of that fruit from the tree of life and live with him in his presence forever.

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And his work means for us guaranteed success.

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Psalm 78, the motto of the nation of Canada, that he would have dominion, dominion from sea to sea, from the river to the ends of the earth.

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That we left to ourselves would never establish dominion in the world, but let me tell you, Christ will have dominion.

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That the glory of God will cover this world as the waters cover the sea. Now, redemptive historical preaching,

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Christ -centered preaching, is often guilty of saying this, that God commands this, you didn't do it,

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Christ did it, rest. But I'm going to deviate from this.

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Man was given a mandate by God. Man royally botched this mandate.

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This resulted in the fall, it resulted in the curse upon our labors. God sent his son to reverse that curse, to establish a true spiritual dominion.

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And he's delivered us now from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son.

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Now, what then are we to do? Well, if we were to follow sometimes that redemptive historical approach, we might say, well, there's nothing for us to do.

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We might fall into the Thessalonian error of we're going to quit our jobs, we'll sit on our hands, and we'll wait for Christ's return.

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Let me say, may it never be. But God, who called us, who called our pre -fall condition and our dominion mandate very good, he now empowers us to work and to will for his good pleasure.

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Therefore, we ought to pick up exactly where we left off and continue this dominion mandate.

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Especially in a world that has been thrown into chaos by sin, we are to work, we are to subdue, we are to be fruitful, we are to be productive.

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Brothers and sisters, get married, have children. If the Lord wills, have lots of children.

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Fill this world with a productive household that seeks to make much of God, that seeks to subdue the world and exercise dominion over it.

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Go out into the world and subdue, not just physically, but spiritually. Take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ.

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Work and keep. One author says, God's new creation must trample underfoot all evil forces, taking into captivity every wicked thought and deed.

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I think of a brother that we met when we were in Kamloops just a couple of months ago who planted a church in Kelowna.

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And he quoted from Acts 5, in verse 38, where the religious leaders said of the disciples, they have filled

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Jerusalem with this teaching. Brothers and sisters, be fruitful and multiply and fill

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Edmonton with your teaching. This brother said, we want to go onto the streets and we want to fill

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Kelowna with the gospel. Be fruitful and multiply. Subdue and fill

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Edmonton with the gospel. And do not be deterred by hindrances from within or external opposition.

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There was one missionary, John Elliott, who arrived into the new world and began preaching the gospel to the

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Massachusetts Indians, as they were called, in the early 1600s. And some of the Indian chiefs opposed and threatened him.

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And what did he do? Here he is trying to work and keep to subdue the world that God has made.

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He said, I am about the work of the great God and my God is with me so that I neither fear you nor all the chiefs in the country.

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I will go on. Touch me if you dare. Let us go and touch us.

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They will if they dare. In the 90th

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Psalm, you find a prayer written by Moses. How many scholars place this 90th

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Psalm in the midst of Israel's 40 years of wilderness wandering? And as Moses and that stubborn -hearted nation wandered between Egypt and Canaan, Moses offered up this petition.

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In Psalm 90, verse 1, he said, Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.

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There are people without a dwelling place, at least humanly speaking, wandering about in tents.

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And yet God himself is their dwelling place. He says in verse 7,

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For we are brought to an end by your anger. By your wrath we are dismayed.

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You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins, in the light of your presence.

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Here he speaks to God's displeasure at their iniquities. One commentator says that this recalls

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Israel's repetitive failures and God's subsequent punishments.

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For this reason, every man was to die in the wilderness. And yet, hear

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Moses' petition in verse 16 and 17. Like an exile in a foreign land.

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Like an alien. Like an Israelite. Like a Judean in Babylon.

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What are they to do? What are we to do? Moses says, Let your work be shown to your servant, and your glorious power to their children.

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Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us.

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Yes, establish the work of our hands. Now what is

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Moses talking about? One comments, he said, By God's mercy and grace, one's life can have value, have significance, have meaning, even in the midst of sin and the trials that come with it.

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Another says, Wanderers in the wilderness may leave no monument, but God can give eternal significance to the deeds of hands that serve

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Him. Oh that, saints, we would live in this world in such a way, knowing that this is not our home.

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Knowing that we are beset with the difficulties of the fall. Knowing that we are sinful.

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And at times God is displeased with the sinfulness of our life. We can say,

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By God's grace, because we have a merciful God who blesses us and who provides for our every need.

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Oh Lord, I'm just going to go back to Moses' words there for a second. Let your work be shown to your servants, and establish the work of our hands.

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Oh yes, establish the work of our hands. The doctor,

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Lloyd -Jones, he said, When man truly becomes what he is meant to be under God, he then begins to realize what faculties and propensities he has, and he begins to use them.

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And so you will find that the greatest periods and epochs in the history of countries have always been those eras that have followed in the wake of great religious reformation and revivals.

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The greatest epochs in the history of the world have always followed men when men discover the purpose for which they have been made.

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And using the faculties that God has given them, they have sought to subdue the world and bring it under the dominion of the

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Lord Jesus Christ. God has made us to work and to keep some in the marketplace, some in front of the computer, some mothers at home, some in pulpits, others in prayer closets, all for his namesake.

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And oh that God would establish the work of our hands. Let us pray.

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Thank you for listening to another sermon from Grace Fellowship Church. If you would like to keep up with us, you can find us at Facebook at Grace Fellowship Church or our

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Instagram at Grace Church, Y -E -G, all one word. Finally, you can visit us at our website, graceedmonton .ca