Good evening. What do you do? That's oftentimes how we, when we ask somebody, when we first meet them, we do this, we ask, where are you from? These are questions that are better than, who are you? I think that's nimbly what we're trying to get at. We're trying to figure out who you are, where are you from, what do you do? Our culture, I think what we do is a significant way of understanding each other. I think this question being one of the central ones we want to know about someone or what we want others to know about us shows the significance of work. Work is an important way in which we're investing ourselves in a way that is shaping us, hopefully shaping culture and society. We're starting a new series on work. The Protestant Reformation rediscovered the central aspect of work, that it isn't just the priestly work that's sacred, but it's the cobbler, the baker. Every kind of work can be done under God and for the glory of God. And so this is a good topic because we are all called to some work, some vocation, a labor. And I hope as we look through this first text on the topic, We can see how widespread that can be. There's lots of ways to overvalue work. Think of a workaholic, someone whose identity is tied to their performance, an overcommitment to work over to the neglect of other responsibilities. Also many examples of undervaluing work, being lazy, not committed to doing a good service or providing a quality good. Scripture addresses work in numerous passages. Ben's chosen a few for us to meditate on over these next few Wednesdays, but one of the key aspects of Proverbs is how to have a right relationship to work, making sure we understand boundaries, principles, prohibitions, and direction. Now we're looking at Genesis 128. I want to read it with Genesis 127 just so we can make sure we understand how important this passage is and where it lands and what it is doing. In Genesis 1, so God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it. And have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heaven and over every living thing that moves on earth. Uh, first thing I wanted to see is God blesses us with work. God blesses us with work. Uh, just 1 27. If you're looking at the pew Bible that that should be indented, that's poetry. It's highlighting the emphasis of how significant this declaration is of God that sets apart humans from all other creatures. Another way that God emphasizes and sets us apart is the way he speaks to us. God blesses image bearers uniquely and commands them with these instructions. Now typically, when we think of God's blessing, what do we think of? I monologue every Sunday morning. Usually a gift. Here's something I'm going to give you as a blessing. The blessing here is in the form of a command. That should just sink in. God's word to us, God's instruction, God is blessing humanity. He's already blessed them by giving them the status of image bearer, but now he's blessing those image bearers with instruction for what they are to do as his image bearers. It's a wonderful declaration here to them, male and female, both made in God's image, that they are commanded to fill and rule all this earthly creation. Just above this, again, we're made in God's image. We're made in his likeness. There's a unique position that we have. And when I teach the image of God, I always tell people there's three Ps that you want to have to think about what the image of God is. Position. What else? Alan? Purpose. You sound like you're annoyed that you know that. Empower. There's three things you want to associate with the image of God. One is the position. That's Genesis 9, 6. God just, that's a blessing of a position you always have as a human being. In view in this passage is purpose and power. Purpose being fill the earth with my glory as image bearers reflecting me. Power exercising dominion. There's an incredible ability. So to think about who you are as an image bearer, you have a wonderful position set apart, you have a power that is supposed to be used for a certain purpose. Humans are given a primary position among all creatures. The order of creation in Genesis 1 is out of order. For a theological statement, the last creation is humans. to make sure it's emphatic that we are the high point of all creation, but if you go to Genesis 2, it was man, then animals, then woman. The chronological order. We have a theological declaration and a theological reason for that order, but humans are the most important of all God's earthly creatures, and now he's giving those most important image bearers a job, work to do. Here we see God blesses his people with purpose and power, and the most central truth for stewardship, God blesses his people so that they will be a blessing. God blesses his people so that they will be a blessing. If we think about what humans can do, we have amazing power. The ability to heal the body with our medical achievements, the ability to build incredible buildings and skyscrapers and boats and the way we've really exercised a dominion over this earth is fascinating. Many folks have incredible abilities just sitting here in this room. The issue is when we use our powers outside of God's purpose, we bring chaos, disorder, destruction. What God is doing here among his good creation is saying, use the power I've given to you for this good purpose. So the thing about work, if we want to relate this passage to work, I think a question we should ask when we think about our vocation, especially if you're young and you're wondering, what should I do with my life? How can I best use what God has given me to bless others? How can I best use what God has given me to bless others? Every human being, every image-bearer has a certain power to exercise dominion, but there's numerous talents, abilities, gifts. How can I best use what God has given me to bless others? The other question is, how can I best support those who depend upon me and be generous towards others with what I commit to do for work? A self-examination question for this passage, do we use our power for selfish purposes? Do we seek to glorify God with all that we do? Again, he is the giver. We are called to steward it. So he blesses with work, but now the second part, that's not even getting into the command yet. God blessed them and said, and their commands. I want to separate this command in two different parts. First, God blesses us to fill the earth. He commands us to fill the earth. Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth. The command to fill, be fruitful, As image-bearers, we're supposed to spread God's glory all through creation, all over earth. As God's image-bearers, we're reflecting God's glory, and so God wants his glory to be all over this earth, and so we're supposed to be expanding this garden. We're supposed to be expanding the goodness and order as we spread out and as we multiply. The fish and the birds and the animals, they were also called to reproduce, but here there's a different kind of focus in that We're filling the earth as image bearers who are going to reflect His glory. I want to see here, the family unit is in focus. It is the sacred union of husband and wife that's called to procreate and multiply. That is what's something significantly implied here. With 10 pregnancy announcements this year, we can be thankful for how this is working for us, for the church, and our young couples. It's not just having babies, though. The idea of multiplying, filling the earth, is that we're raising up God-glorifying image bearers to be all over this earth. The family life of raising up God-glorifying image bearers is what's in view. It's important work. If you have a spouse, if you have children, this is a significant priority given here, the focus being on human beings, fill God's earth with his image bearers, other human beings. It's one of the most important works we can commit ourselves to. So we think of parents, what a great blessing it is to be able to fill the earth with image bearers, training up children. I want to highlight another vocation, teachers. Those who are taking young minds and hearts and training and forming and teaching them. Members of Jefferson Park, long and look for the opportunities to work in the nursery. Children's basics, the different children's Sunday school hours, times. But it's an incredible sacred task to come alongside families and help train up those young minds to be more faithful image bearers. I'm going to commend to you Basil of Caesarea's application of this passage of the new covenant. He says that if we evangelize and make disciples, we're also fulfilling this creation mandate. Because the earth has been filled with image bearers, just lost, sinful image bearers that do not know Jesus and are not, they're going to hell. They don't know God and they don't reflect God. So he says now in Christ, we're to go out and find those image bearers who do not know him, tell them of Jesus, who is the true image of God, who will recreate them to be in his image, And so all can participate in this command now to fill the earth with God's glory, with image bearers, by actually proclaiming the gospel so that a new birth takes place when somebody believes and is trained up to know the gospel. We can see this happens in the family. We can see this happens in the church. As we're thinking about how this applies to work, and how the importance of filling God's world with his image and his glory through those who reflect him. There's a unique importance on people here, how we're investing in people, children, disciples, evangelizing. I want to put out a principle here for those thinking about work. If you're never saying no to promotion to protect your family and your time and your worship, you're doing it wrong. We have really high octane people in front of me. I'm looking at really easily successful people. And if you take every promotion to become the best person you can personally be, you're leaving something on the table as to helping others become the best disciples they can be. You're going to have to say no to promotions. to fulfill your personal potential so that you can be a better parent, a better discipler, a better worshiper. There we fill. We spread God's glory to the earth with other human beings. Next, we see in the passage, be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue it, have dominion over the fish, of the sea, the birds, of the heavens, and over every living thing that moves on earth. Here we steward God's creation. put in subject the earth, have dominion over all the other living creatures, rule over all other creatures. This is what's unique. Other creatures aren't told to rule other creatures. Humans have a unique ability to rule over all the other created beings. We are created by the good and orderly God and we're supposed to reflect and steward all of the creatures by implementing his goodness and order. If we think about a right relation with animals, and this is somewhat challenging because only a few of us were raised with animals on a farm. It's amazing if you think about what God did when he created us in his image to rule and then how he created other animals. We're not the fastest of all God's creatures. But you were designed and created to rule a horse so that you can use its speed. We're not the strongest of all God's creatures, but you're designed to rule over the ox to use its power. When you think about how we're supposed to function among all of God's beings, we're able to rule over the strong, the fast, to use them to help implement and rule better over all of God's creation. The significance of what humans can do is we can actually rule over and have dominion of these creatures. And again, we want to make sure we understand this is good rule. It's helping those animals flourish in the proper order of what God would have. It's a beautiful picture of what we're supposed to be. We're far from that agricultural, agrarian culture. But we think about what we have the ability to do, right? We can take the ox, we can take the horse. Sadly, throughout history, we've abused our power and we've treated humans like animals. We need to consider how we so easily abuse this power. We've abandoned our responsibility throughout history. And this is where the whole idea of exercising dominions of doing it, we're supposed to be producing what's good. We're a individualistic consumer society, so we need to repent of that and recognize how much that changes and affects who we are. The call of what God has given to all humans is to be a community-oriented producer. Our homes should produce, our churches should produce for God's glory. Some action points. One, repent of tacit gnosticism. Tacit means unspoken, unaware of. little over-spiritualized things. We don't realize how good this earth is. We don't realize God created all things, the physical beings, good. We tend to over-spiritualize. So repent of any idea that we just need to be more spiritual and not worry about the physical. No, the physical is a significant part of what God has created us to rule over. We need to make sure we're leaving this place better than we found it. And by that I mean this room, so don't leave your trash in the room. This facility. your home, but this earth, as we seek to care for what God created. That was just a practical point of view. There's a lost and found for all the things you leave. Reorder your priorities. Work is good, but it isn't the end all. Work is a blessing, and we work so that we have something to give. We work so that we're contributing to society and making society better. We work so that we make something, money, so that we can help others. Consider how you can help produce in your home. Now, I've wrestled with this all day and I've asked for advice. I'm not saying everyone needs to go be a homesteader, but you should use your home for hospitality, producing kindness, producing warmth, producing fellowship. Use your life to produce God-glorifying kindness towards others. Finally, long for Christ's renewal. As we live in this world that is fallen, God has come to renew us in his image through Jesus Christ. But if we are seeking to truly live out this blessing and this command, We realize how difficult it is because we are too easily tempted to abuse the power he's given us, to be selfish, not multiply or fulfill, because we long for Christ's return. One last observation. If you return to Genesis 3, after Satan, the crafty one, comes to the garden, we fall. God declares a judgment on Satan, then he declares a judgment on a woman, and he declares a judgment on man. The blessing is fill with other human beings. That means have babies on the most basic level. And work. Produce something with the way you're exercising dominion. If we look at the judgment on the woman and the man, both of those now have an obstacle, a problem, and a sin problem. Women will have pain and childbearing. That's going to affect the blessing of filling and multiplying. Men are now going to have thorns, thistles, sweat, and it's not going to yield. That's going to be an obstacle for the exercising dominion over the earth. I put that out because sin has affected both of these significantly. But I also want to take a moment to recognize men are also impacted by the miscarriages and the pain. Women are also impacted by the thorns, the thistles, and the sweat. God is commanding man and woman to fulfill the blessing of multiplying filling, exercise dominion. It's to them. The suffering is what we're in together as well. I really want to emphasize we're in this together and we're in this together as a church seeking to walk alongside each other as brothers and sisters, renewing God's image in each other, longing for that final return, but also knowing how can we continue in this work to produce and promote God's good order on his earth while we wait for Christ's return. Our work should reflect God and his goodness. Our work should steward his blessings. Our work should bless others, family, fellow Christians, neighbors. Our work should seek to use our best abilities to bless others and glorify God. Will you pray with me? Father, we thank you that you established the opening of your word, the good pattern, so that we can see what's wrong with us today, and so that we can all the more rejoice in how Christ has come to renew us, restore us. May we see work as good. May we see the blessings you've given us as something to steward. May you help us to know how we can work for your glory with and for each other. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.