Sermon Notes: Society – KDSC Genesis 1:26-31

Published

Genesis 1:26-31; Genesis 3:14-24; Genesis 3:15; Matthew 28:19-20; Colossians 1:15-20

The gospel of the kingdom makes disciples who hear and obey God’s word. 

Those disciples are baptized and become members of the local church. 

Those disciples embrace the church’s God-given mission as their own together with fellow church members to make disciples in their vocational domains of society, and from there Jesus builds his church.

This is too big for a few special Christians to take on while the rest of us cheer on from the cheap seats or critique their work as armchair quarterbacks. 

God intends every follower of Jesus to be part of his great work in seeing the nations come to worship Jesus through their involvement in making disciples from the local church in the mission field of their vocational domains glocally. 

God’s vision is for the whole church.

The whole church is called to be on mission and to be relationally healthy as living examples of new creation while on mission. 

RELATIONSHIP EXCURSION: My years are getting shorter, and I don’t have time to pull punches, so I’m going to say some things along the way that are necessary with as much love as I can say them. We can’t be on mission as ambassadors of the kingdom in our domains if we won’t work through church relationships to stay committed to each other rather than bailing on each other when it gets hard. We have to learn to ask for what we need or think we need and be open to something different or just being wrong when we gain clarity, like maybe we didn’t need what we thought we needed or didn’t have full understanding, so we didn’t bail and grew that relationship deeper.   

Rome, GA Christians spit out relationships like they are chewing gum and disposable rather than work through relationships because it’s a challenge. We then tend to lay that decision on God like he told us to bail on those relationships he supposedly told us to have a few months earlier. That’s childish. 

So many people are so relationally unhealthy by being childish and don’t know it, and they continually wreck themselves and others by building bonds and breaking bonds until they have left a trail of burned relationships and have a soul that is empty. Then folks will blame it on the church and shout “church hurt”. 

We can’t be on mission in our domains when we can’t even commit to one another for mission together. We preach an incongruent message when that’s our relational environment. 

If we are going to be on mission, we need to be hearing the Lord and obeying him in relational health. We will talk about that on the podcast when Jesus addresses rupture and repair in the Sermon on the Mount.

What if the local church were emotionally, mentally, and relationally healthy like the kingdom of God? What if we were relationally mature and not relational consumers looking for what scratches our itch?

Back to the main thing…

The way to think about being on mission and getting after this vision God’s way is this: Every Disciple. Everywhere. All the time.

KDSC is the spiritual DNA that will release every healthy disciple, everywhere, all the time. 

If we believe this and act on it and stay tactically narrow by going deep in our tactical work as a local church, we will be ready to ask and answer a vital question.

What if the whole church were the missionary?

“S” of KDSC is the part of our DNA that functions as the means of releasing the whole church to be the missionary.

The work of engaging our domains of Society is where the “rubber meets the road”. 

But, does “domains of society” and “the whole church being the missionary” have any biblical teeth to them? Let’s see.

What is society?

Society is composed of groups of people who work and live within their areas or domains.

Domains are core structures the wise Creator Jesus fashioned that make up created order.

Examples: Ag & water / social & civil / education / art & media / science & tech / governance / medical / economics

The people who live and work inside these domains meet the basic needs of creation and social order and keep it all functioning. 

Domains of society are crucial in the stewardship of AND transformation of a city, a state, a nation, and ultimately the whole of creation. 

Domains of society are crucial because God created them, and their wise management is part of the healthy maintenance of creation. – Genesis 1:26-31. 

The people who assume leadership in these domains have the potential to reshape the values, priorities, and practices of their city and ultimately the world. 

Human beings, as co-regents who bear the Lord’s triune image, function with a delegated authority from the Lord, whether they follow Jesus or not. 

They have built-in gifts and the ability to bring order to creation.

God sits sovereign over his creation, and his image-bearers exercise His delegated power and influence over His creation. 

This is why it matters who sits in authority and oversight in the world. 

Christians have, by the Holy Spirit, a holy capacity to be in the domains of society as ambassadors of Jesus to GOVERN creation well, INFLUENCE the way created order functions, BE INSTRUMENTS of Jesus’ kingdom advance, PREACH the good news of the rule and salvation of Jesus, MAKE DISCIPLES, and MULTIPLY local churches from their domains.  

In calling his church to the nations through every disciple everywhere all the time, God is calling us to bless the nations of the world by disrupting evil, healing, bringing God’s order, AND the proclamation of the gospel as the means of seeing his kingdom come and his will being done on earth as it is in heaven. – Adapted from “Release”, p. 30

Let’s read it in the Bible: Genesis 1:26-31

Observations from the text:

God Creates Man for Mission.

God did glorious work to equip mankind for mission. What does God do to outfit us for mission?

God creates man in his triune image. Genesis 1:26
1. Every child born to image bearers possesses the spark of the divine image of God.
  1. This is just one of the many reasons we value life from conception to the grave. 
God makes sure that Adam is not alone. Genesis 2:18-25
1. Genesis 2:18-25 gives us a glimpse into the first wedding ever performed, and it is performed by the Lord for Adam and Eve, who he created from the side of Adam.
  1. This is just one place among many we see God’s good love for his creatures.
  2. It was not good for man to be alone, so God did good to and for Adam by providing a woman who corresponded to him to be married to him and to be with him on the mission of God. 
God “blessed” the newly married couple. Genesis 1:28
1. Bless (barak) – to kneel.
  1. In a very real sense, by making mankind in his image, God “kneels”.
    1. God kneels in the sense that he has given mankind the image of himself and knitted that blessing of himself into what it means to be human. 
    2. God does not kneel in the sense that he bows down to man, but in the sense that he has knelt and given some of his nature to humans. 
      1. Imagine a good daddy kneeling to give something good to his child to meet them where they are. 
        God kneels like that in blessing us with marriage. 
  2. The blessing of the Lord in Adam and Eve is like God blowing the embers of his image into a burning flame of powerful effect.
    1. This “blessing” of mankind is the source of mankind’s authority over and co-regency of creation with the Lord.
      1. As a result of this blessing, all of Adam and Eve’s descendants will carry this spark of blessing with them for their work in creation. 
      2. Mankind has the “blessing” of being made in God’s image that will multiply into all of Adam and Eve’s descendants which is why all humans are precious and full of potential for good. 
God gives mankind 5 commands that make up the mission we are equipped for. Genesis 1:28 (be fruitful / multiply / fill the earth / subdue / have dominion)
1. Be fruitful: In the labor of co-regency with God in the created order, mankind is to be productive.
  1. We were made to produce, and that is why we get satisfaction from a job well. 
  2. Doing work and producing is a source of dignity for image-bearers.
    1. To remove the mandate for fruitfulness from people by not putting them to work is one of the most inhumane things we do to people.
      1. That is hurting not helping. 
2. Multiply: We are to increase the productivity of the earth and multiply other image-bearers in the earth who participate in increasing the productivity of the earth. 
3. Fill the earth: Filling the earth is related to “multiply” but it is a distinct command.
  1. “Fill the earth” gives us the scope of our multiplication labor.
  2. We are to fill the earth to its capacity everywhere.
    1. The earth is NOT overpopulated. 
    2. Certain cities are overpopulated, and in many ways, we treat cities like Babel in gathering to make a name for ourselves rather than moving out from population centers to fill creation.
      1. But to fill the earth, we must do the next command. 
4. Subdue: We are to tame the living creation’s holy and wild nature.
  1. Taming creation is a challenging command. 
  2. What if someone learned how to irrigate the high deserts of Ladakh and populate that place with image-bearing people who follow Jesus.
    1. Someone did that, and what if it had been a follower of Jesus who did it?
      1. Check out this article for an example of what we should be leading in.
        https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240612-the-ice-man-of-ladakh-building-artificial-glaciers-in-the-himalayas
5. Have dominion: Having dominion is not dominating creation, and this is not “dominion theology”.
  1. The ESV does not mean “dominate” by its translation “dominion”. 
  2. The Hebrew word “radah” predominately translates as “rule”, and the CSB translates this better by translating it as “rule”.
    1. Dominion is a fine translation but can be easily confused with dominion theology, and that’s a different team.  
  3. Our ruling of creation should encompass the previous 4 commands with the care and concern of the Lord.
    1. Fruitfulness with creation and with people. 
    2. Multiply creation’s resources and people. 
    3. Fill up the earth with resources and people. 
    4. Subdue the wild and living creation.
      1. All of this is done with people worshiping the Lord, loving the Lord, hearing the Lord, obeying the Lord, and enjoying the Lord, their Good Creator and Sustainer. 
All that God did here to equip for mission and the mission is said to be very good. Genesis 1:30, 31
All these good works God did for man to be equipped for mission and the mission precede the sin of distrust.
1. Mankind was to be God’s joyful stewards of creation and rule over it with him while in fellowship with him and with each other.
  1. So, what happened?
  2. Something has gone wrong.

Adam and Eve Distrust God by Believing the Lies of the Serpent, And All of Creation Breaks. 

Genesis 3:14-24

As a result of the sin of distrust, fulfilling God’s mission in the 5 commands was made harder. 
Fulfilling the Lord’s commands is harder now because man is now relationally at war with God and under God’s just condemnation.
1. NOTE: This consequence from the sin of distrust is not because God was taken by surprise or has a co-equal force resisting him in the Serpent. 
2. No! God intends for mankind to see the full measure of His glory by being redeemed from sin so that having been redeemed we would know the riches of what love really is.
  1. God determined that to be redeemed and know him through the experience of salvation is better than to never need to be saved from sin.
    1. Therefore, we can confidently say that the Lord has eternal purpose in the fall for his glory and our good. 
  2. We can also confidently say that he is able to work all things for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28). 
  3. God’s good Genesis 1:26-31 purposes will not be ultimately thwarted.
We know we have a real and mostly unseen enemy with whom we must learn to do battle because this enemy wants to impede the kingdom of God. V. 14-15
Because of the sin of distrust, we have relational strain that comes against the family unit which is the basic building block of every organizational effort in the universe to accomplish God’s mission. V. 16
1. There is no such thing as an organizing effort without the family unit influencing it.
  1. If that family unit is unhealthy, the members who come from that unit tend to affect the organizational family’s (i.e. the church) functioning negatively.
    1. My sin in and with my family affects everyone I’m in fellowship with.
      1. Sin is a toxic and fast-spreading cancer that will corrupt all things. 
  2. NOTE: The basic building block of any successful organizing effort is the health, stability, and vitality of our families. 
We have a broken relationship with created order and exponential difficulty in overseeing its fruitfulness. V. 17-19
Relationship with God was broken, we came under the condemnation of the Lord’s righteous anger, and access to life was cut off. V. 20-24
1. Surely God does not want to leave it this way.
  1. What will God do? How is God going to restore order to the Edenic state of creation before the sin of distrust wrecked it?

Jesus, the one in whose image we are created, will come, take on flesh, die in our place for our sin, rise from the dead, ascend to his rightful place, send us the Holy Spirit, and send us on the mission of Genesis 1:26-31 to tell the good news of his kingdom and by his help set all things in order as we labor in anticipation of his bodily return to complete the work with us. 

Genesis 3:15; Matthew 28:18-20; Colossians 1:15-20

Jesus’ Great Commission is Jesus restating his mission in Genesis 1:26-31.
1. Matthew 28:18-20 is not a new command.
  1. The Great Commission is Genesis 1:26-31 empowered by the resurrected Jesus who was promised in Genesis 3:15.
2. We obey this mission by being fishers of people from all nations and teaching them to obey all that Jesus has commanded them. 
3. We see in all this the unified mission of God from the opening of the Bible to its fulfillment in Revelation 22. 
The command of disciple-making is explicit.
1. The command to make disciples in all domains of society comes from God’s stated mission in Eden. Followers of Jesus are to be doing his work everywhere all the time over all of God’s created world by overseeing creation, leveraging our co-regency and God-given authority over creation, and making disciples as the missionary people of God. 
  1. This is supposed to be understood in Matthew 28:19-20 because Jesus intends us to be acquainted with his word that teaches us his means of doing his mission in the first three chapters of the Bible. 
  2. This is explicit in the book of Acts as we see the whole church sending, going, and disciple-making before establishing church offices (elders-overseers).
    1. Every disciple. Everywhere. All the time. 
      1. This metanarrative of the gospel is the source of the tactical effort of TRC to release the whole church to be the missionary because it’s what God created us to do.

Application: So what?

If the whole church is the missionary, then to see the whole church operate as the missionary, there are 4 key shifts necessary for folks like us who have been raised in and discipled by consumer church culture. 

4 Key Shifts

We must shift from needs to assets.
1. This is a shift to the biblical fact of who we are and what we are created for. 
1. This shift causes us to stop looking for more spiritual goods and services and causes us to evaluate our Holy Spirit gifting for the church and the world. 
1. This shift causes us to see that Jesus has given us everything we need for life and godliness and the desire to put it to work. 
1. This shift changes the question from “What did you get out of the service?” (or “what did you get out of small group?”) to “What did I contribute to the advance of the gospel?”
1. This shift causes us to see every member of the local church as missionary ambassadors of the kingdom.
  1. This shift causes us to see the local church as the primary mission sending agency. 
We must shift from programs to domain engagement.
1. This shift changes how we organize work and what work gets done. 
1. This shift keeps TRC narrow and focused on sending rather than defaulting to doing more work that is not necessary. 
1. This shift keeps the church focused on releasing equipped saints together on mission and releasing the whole church to care for each other rather than depending on one or two or a few.
1. This shift is Spirit-led as members of the church take ownership and responsibility for action at home, on the job, and in the community in disciple-making and church multiplication and serving each other.
  1. This shift begins to change the landscape of the professional missionary sending enterprise by moving the mobilization to vocational domains rather than funded Christian sending platforms. 
We must shift from working for the city to working with the city. 
1. This shift is about relationships in our city and with our city leaders. 
  1. This changes how we interact. 
1. With this shift, we become a partner of the city to create solutions for the city’s challenges rather than a provider of “spiritual goods” that don’t contribute to the health of the whole or are only marketing events to get people to come to our church. 
1. This shift makes us value-added partners in the public square, and we then earn access to interact in integrity with people of other faiths or worldviews and share the good news from a position of vital public square significance. 
We must shift from managing ministries to leading members.
1. This shift is about releasing the church body to supply its part to care for and serve one another without creating a new organizational branch to be funded and overseen by more labor. 
  1. With this shift, we must provide members with better tools to be saints who are released to be apostles, prophets, pastors, evangelists, and/or teachers. 
  1. This is why the RL group is the epicenter of ministry. 
  1. This is the church dispersed and on mission together while serving one another. 
1. These shifts exponentially multiply the Great Commission workforce to EVERY MEMBER. EVERYWHERE. ALL THE TIME.
  1. JESUS’ MISSION HAS A CHURCH. THE CHURCH IS THE MISSIONARY, AND THIS IS HOW WE REALIZE IT.