Made to Have Dominion (11/07/2004)

All right, good afternoon. Good afternoon Psalms chapter 8

It's got a couple thoughts to share with y 'all. I'm gonna Be heading up to Dallas here this afternoon

My wife and I are gonna be brother Dave's gonna be taking us up to Dallas And so I'm probably not gonna go more than 10 or 15 minutes this afternoon.

We've got some thoughts I want to share it with you that have been exciting to me Psalms chapter 8 and I'll just read the whole chapter.

It says Oh Lord. Oh our Lord How excellent is thy name in all the earth? Who has set thy glory above the heavens out of the mouths of babes and sucklings?

Hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies that thou mightest still the enemy and the

Avenger When I consider thy heavens the works the work of thy fingers the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained

What is man? That thou art mindful of him and the son of man that thou visited in that a good question

What is man that thou art mindful of him and the son of man that I'll visit God. Why do you think about me?

For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels and has crowned him with glory and honor

Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands Thou has put all things under his feet all sheep and oxen

Yea and the beast of the field the fowl the air and the fish of the sea and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the sea

Oh Lord our Lord How excellent is thy name in all the earth and this morning we talked about the name of Jesus this afternoon

I want to talk about the subject that we were made to have dominion and not to be dominated.

It's an amazing thought Let's pray father. Thank you for your word Speak to us

I pray And we give you the praise and the majesty and the honor for it we glorify you and thank you for making us the crown of your creation and giving us specific things that we must do and That you put us here to have dominion and not to be dominated in Jesus name.

Amen You ever say hello. How are you? And somebody says not too bad under the circumstances

Do you realize that? God did not make us to be under circumstances

God made us to be over circumstances and for circumstances to be under us So as I was reading this one day and meditating on it,

I thought when it said God His name is excellent in all the earth

When you consider the works of his hands the works of his fingers and everything else he made what's man and then it says

Thou made him a little lower than the angels and crowned him with glory and honor Most people most

Christians unfortunately do not feel crowned with glory and honor They don't feel regal most

Christians don't feel like they are royalty But according to God he has crowned us with glory and honor and he made us

To have dominion over the works of his hands. I heard I've heard Bible teachers teach that The reason man has to work is because of sin

But that's not true because God gave man a job to do before man ever sin

God put Adam in the garden to dress it and keep it and the reason God gives us work to do is because God is

A God that works and we are made in the image of God so he gave us dominion and Made us to have dominion and not to be dominated as I think about that when it says when

I consider the heavens the works of thy fingers the moon the stars with our sardine well, I See that God gave us as I look at the world we live in.

I see clearly that God gave us elemental dominion God gave us the ability to harness the elements and use them for our good in his glory

I think about that every time for the most part every time I get on an airplane I think about the fact that God is awesome that he can make man

Smart enough to figure out how to make something this heavy fly That's amazing

If you want to know about dominion All you got to do is look at all that man has been able to do with what

God has given him and it shows you That God has given us dominion over the elements whenever we feel like we're stuck whenever we feel like we have hit a wall whenever we feel like there's something that is insurmountable we ought to know

Foundationally because of what the Word of God says that God has already given us dominion over that thing

He's given us elemental dominion when you think about the fact And maybe your mind doesn't work this way

This is how my mind works when you think about the fact that a man can get in a rocket ship on the earth

There's no roads. There's no there's no sky sign. I was gonna say street time, but there's no sky sign

There's no route there's no road There's no anything and he gets in this rocket ship and he goes from the earth to the moon that in itself is amazing

But the thing that he can make it back To think that the first guy thought he could make it back

That shows you that God has given us dominion over the elements when I think about the fact that I can pick up a

Cellular phone that is not connected to anything. I can talk in it down here in Corsicana, Texas And my kids can hear me all the way in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, and I'm not even talking loud

That lets me know that God has given us to me what I'm trying to say is most of us

We do not experience the life that God wants us to experience because we go through life

Thinking that everything we that we're powerless, but God did not make us powerless He made us to have dominion over the works of his hands

He gave us elemental dominion but not only that Because the fact he told me that he gave me that elemental dominion and because he told me that he has crowned me with glory

And honor then that gives me emotional dominion. I don't have to be an emotional wreck I don't have to be emotionally bent out of shape because God is in control and in his being in control

He has given me lots of control over the things that I am to do So I don't have to worry about it because I know that as long as I'm following God's plan,

I've got emotional dominion, you know Sometimes I'm sure people think

I'm half crazy and Because I don't get bent out of shape terribly often as a matter of fact my nephews and my kids

They like to make fun of me because I'm so calm And so they'll get to them that's funny but what what it is, that's what we all should have

I'm not saying I'm the example of that though. Sometimes I do get kind of catty -whompus, but But the fact is we need to have emotional dominion

We ought not to worry about the future because God's already got it built. We ought not to we ought not to Be moaned too much the past because it's already behind us.

What we ought to do is we ought to do everything We can in the here and now We've got emotional dominion

Are we God's given it to us? We don't always have it because we don't always use it But one thing that a lot of people in our world don't want to accept is

God has also given us environmental dominion Notice what it says thou mayest him to have them in verse 6

Thou mayest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands has put all things under his feet all sheep and oxen and Beasts of the field and foul the air and the fish of the sea and whatsoever passes through the paths of the seas

Now isn't that interesting that God has given us Environmental dominion

God has given us dominion over the foul of the air God put the foul of the air here for us

God put the fish of the sea here the beast of the field and the cattle and the creepy thing God put those things here for us not us for them and we spend so much time in America in our world today

Trying to make sure that the deer and the antelope and the whale have as much rights as we do

But God has given us environmental dominion. He put those things here for us He didn't put us here for those for those things and to think that animals have the same right in this world that we do

It's hideous Because that's not a part of God's plan God put the trees here for us to use

God put the water here for us to use God put the animals here for us to use not for us to abuse but certainly for us to use and God has given us environmental dominion

But not only that We know that in this in the times in which this was written they lived in an agricultural society

Which means that all God also gave us economic dominion Because that's how they made a living people had a fishing boat or they'd have a ranch they were cattle ranchers or they had fishing boats or they had

They raised sheep they made their living with The animals and the beasts of the field and all that so God has given us economic dominion now sometimes

We don't feel Like we have economic dominion But I believe the main reason we don't feel like we have economic dominion several reasons number one is

Because we don't understand first of all that God has already given it to us. It's already ours That was very hard for me to understand and to grasp as a

Christian I used to believe Because of the preaching that I would hear that it was God's intention for us to be under hard financial

Difficulty and circumstances our whole life, but that is not biblical God has given us

Financial dominion as a matter of fact as I study the Bible in the

Bible God's children were the Sam Waltons and the Bill Gates and the

Donald Trumps of their day As a matter of fact, I'm not Not character -wise, not morally, but but business -wise

Abraham was the Sam Walton of his day Job was the Bill Gates of his day.

God did not put us here to be in financial bondage our whole life I don't

I just don't believe that and if we will apply Biblical principles to our finances then we can have

Economic dominion in our financial lives as well as we can in any other aspect of our lives

Now, of course, we understand and maybe some of us don't some of us don't understand Most people in the world don't understand you ever wonder and I'm almost done

But how many of you have ever wondered? Why it seems like the economy is going down and so many people are losing jobs.

Anybody ever wonder that? Okay Because we as people don't like to change and the world is changing

The needs of the world change Therefore the service that we need to bring to the world changes

So what happened if you were living in the agricultural age and you became very great as the

Bible called it you became wealthy through the agricultural age and then you move into the

Industrial age the same things that made a person wealthy in the agricultural age that gave a person financial dominion

Economic dominion in the agricultural age doesn't give them economic dominion in the industrial age.

It's a totally different thing and The things that see most of us that are you know?

34 30 I guess it's older than that now 40 years old or older We grew up in the industrial age

With industrial age ideas that worked in the industrial age But those same ideas work less and less because technology is

Moving at a very rapid pace and therefore technology is doing in a half a day what it used to take ten men three months to do

So what happens? people are still stuck over here and they're thinking but now we live in the information age and Because people are very slow to make that transition they get left behind the curve

We grew up listening to records right we talked to our kids about records. They think it's a great on a report card

Right, but when we were kids a record was a vinyl record. We did a CD First time

I ever heard somebody talk about a music video. I thought they were talking about a video game Because we live in a different era now than we lived in then do you realize people who made vinyl records who?

Manufactured vinyl records over here no longer in business today Who would have ever thought that Smith Corona would be out of business?

We thought we'd use typewriters forever Well, they would have realized that they were in the business of word processing

Maybe they would have been the ones to make the first computer. You understand I'm saying Having said all that what

I meant to say is this God has given us economic dominion if we will use our brains that God has given us and Think about things the way they are

Instead of thinking about them the way they want to be Then we can have that economic dominion the reason so many people in America today the wealthiest country that's ever existed

The reason so many people are in financial bondage is because they were educated to earn a living in a world that no longer exists and So we need to do as Christians We need to lead the way not just economically, but we need to lead the way economically so that we can lead the way morally because the people with the money do

Guide the moral direction of a nation As a matter of fact,

I'm gonna end with a quote by Solomon How many of y 'all have ever heard the saying nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care?

How many of you ever heard somebody say that? Okay, Solomon had a different little bit different twist

He said people don't care how much you know until they know how much you got And he didn't say it exactly like that.

Here's what he said He told a story about a poor wise man who delivered a city that was besieged by a mighty king

He said and after that poor wise man delivered the city. Nobody remembered the poor wise man

Why because a poor man's wisdom is despised We were taught

I don't know if you were taught this brother Dave Or I know I've heard preachers preach I don't know how many of you but I've heard preachers preach in the past that you know

Well, we ought not to care about money. Well, that's silly most people work 8 to 16 hours a day for money, whereas if they practice anyway

I'm practice some principles from God's Word and apply some principles and and Work in the area at era in which we live.

They wouldn't have to work 16 to 18 hours a day So God has given us economic dominion and it's exciting to know that God has given each of us in this era in which we live

Something that we can do because we know that he gives to every man according to his several ability and everybody has a gift

That God has given us that we can give to the world in exchange as service in exchange for our economic dominion

Having said that let's pray Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for the truth and the power of it

Help us to realize that you have crowned us with glory and honor help us to walk around feeling special because we are special to you and help us to practice our

Elemental dominion Our emotional dominion our environmental dominion and our economic dominion because that is what you intended for us to have

Or that is what you intend for us to have Thank you for it and thank you for the fact that your name is excellent in all the earth