Sunday Sermon Notes 2/20/2011

Here are some of the highlights and notes from Sunday mornings message. I am posting this so that we all can review, meditate on, and apply what we have heard from God's Word.

On day 6 of creation God blessed man with three things:

• Be fruitful and multiply (Genesis 1:28)
• Subdue the earth and have dominion (v. 28)
• You shall have food (v. 29-30)

God has given us good gifts for our good and for His glory. Sexual intimacy, reigning under His rule, and food are all things that make God more deeply knowable. The things that God blesses us with should cause us to anticipate the consummation of our union with Christ in Heaven. Our home is not this world and we are not to love this world (I John 2).

Sin has marred God's image in us and has greatly distorted our use of His good gifts. Instead of seeing Him more clearly because of His blessings, we use His blessings to worship ourselves and others. The primary purpose of created things has become (in sinful man) man's ultimate pleasure and a tool to help us establish our kingdom on earth.

In short, God's blessings should cause us to love Him, know Him, obey Him, worship Him, rejoice in Him, and hope in Him. "Hope" in the Greek means "earnest expectation." Our sinful hearts have the propensity to place our expectation for satisfaction and redemption on created things instead of our Creator.

The mandate for dominion over created things has been twisted in our minds for a desire to dominate each other. The way we react to suffering, to being cut off in traffic, to having our "rights" violated, to being skipped in line, passed by for a promotion, are all proof that we are latching onto this world, desiring to build our kingdom here.

How do we enjoy God's blessings without bowing down to them? The answer is when we learn to hope in God.

Review the following passages:

• Romans 5:1-5; Romans 8:18-25
• Colossians 1:3-5; Colossians 2:23-36
• Ephesians 1:15-20; Ephesians 2:12-13
• Psalm 42:5, 11
• I Timothy 6:17-19

We should anticipate most our eternal consummation.
Instead of desiring to dominate other men, we should be ministers of reconciliation "regarding no man according to the flesh" (II Corinthians 5:16-21).

We "hope" in God by enlarging our soul (Jonathan Edwards in Charity and Its Fruits):

The ruin that the fall brought upon the soul of man consists very much in his losing the nobler and more benevolent principles of his nature, and falling wholly under the power and government of self-love. Immediately upon the fall, the mind of man shrank from its primitive greatness and expandedness, to an exceeding smallness and contractedness. As soon as man transgressed against God, these noble principles were immediately lost, and all this excellent enlargedness of man's soul was gone; and thenceforward he himself shrank, as it were, into a little space, circumscribed and closely shut up within itself, to the exclusion of all things else. Sin, like some powerful astringent, contracted his soul to the very small dimensions of selfishness; and God was forsaken, and man retired within himself, and became totally governed by narrow and selfish principles and feelings. Self-love became absolute master of his soul. And so Christianity restores an excellent enlargement, and extensiveness, and liberality to the soul, and again possesses it with that divine love or charity that we read of in the Scriptures.

I gave the illustration of taking off in an airplane and how a vertical "trip" places all things horizontal in their proper perspective. When we are intimate with God and dig deep in the Scriptures; when we set our minds on things above and think much of Heaven; when we preach the gospel to ourselves and mediate on the Word we have heard; when we pray earnestly and dwell quietly in the presence of the Lord -- we then take a vertical trip that places all things horizontal in their proper perspective.

Here are some good application questions for discussion:

Is God’s blessing of “dominion” in your life revealing a desire to build your kingdom on earth or God’s Kingdom in Heaven?

Do your thoughts, desires, and actions mirror a marred representation of “having dominion” or a hope of reigning in the eternal Kingdom of God?

To long for Heaven is to long for God’s presence. Is the future hope of Heaven consistent with your daily activity? Does your heart yearn for and anticipate fully knowing and seeing God? If so, does the promise of a temporary glimpse (1 Corinthians 13:12) drive us to see what we may see now (Seeing Christ in Scripture; sitting at His feet in Prayer)?

If our hope is in Heaven, it is made evident in how we pray, what we pray for, how we spend our money, what we desire to do with our “free” time.

How does your check book, where you spend your time on the Internet, the books you read, what you express thankfulness for in your prayers, reflect where your hope is?

Is God’s mandate for dominion exercised primarily in your desiring to dominate man or to participate in the growth of God’s Kingdom under submission to His rule?

Do you find yourself living with the invisible hierarchy? Do you play mental survivor? Have you noticed how upset you get when your “rights” are violated?

Love you guys. Hope this helps you apply the message and hope you have a week of high thoughts of God.