Please join with me in reviving Genesis chapter 1 once again. And I never tire of reading Genesis chapter 1. I'm sure you don't either, so tonight we're going to read it again. After we've gone through it a few times, I think we'll know it. Genesis chapter 1, we'll read through to chapter 2, verse 3 this evening. So please give your attention to God's Word. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light, and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good, and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. So the evening and the morning were the first day. Then God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. Thus God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament. And it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. So the evening and the morning were the second day. Then God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear. And it was so. And God called the dry land earth, and the gathering together of the waters He called seas. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit that yields fruit according to its time, whose seed is in itself on the earth, and it will sow. And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its time, and the tree that yields fruit whose seed is in itself according to its time. Then God saw that it was good. So the evening and the morning were the third day. Then God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night, and let them be for signs and seasons and for days and years, and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth. And it was so. Then God made two great lights, The greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night, he made the stars also. God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light on the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good, for the evening and the morning were the fourth day. Then God said, Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures. and let birds fly above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens. So God created great sea creatures, and every living thing that moved with which the waters abounded according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good, and God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters and the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth. So the evening and the morning were the fifth day. Then God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its time, cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its time. And it was so. And God made the beast of the earth according to its time, cattle according to its time, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its time. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, Let us make man in our image according to our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." So God created man in His own image. In the image of God, He created him. Male and female, He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. And God said, See, I have given you every herb that ye'll eat, which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit ye'll seed, to you it shall be for food. Also to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food. And it was so. Then God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth and all the host of them were finished. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had done, and he left it on the seventh day from all his work which he had done. Then God slept the seventh day in Tancre Carter. because in it he wresteth from all his work which God hath created and made. And here ends the reading of God's word, may he add light to his word for us. Now we've looked at the creation, we've looked at man in the image of God, and this evening I'd like to go on in verse 36, and then in verse 28, and look at man's demand over the creation. We can see in the very special way that man is introduced into the creation here in verse 26, and then repeated again in verse 27, that man's creation is purposeful. God said, let us make man in our image. and the purpose of man is expressed in the very next command, let them have dominions. All the creatures will multiply, but only one creature will have dominion over them all. And in this account, as we come to the creation of man, and the comment that follows it at the end of the chapter, we're introduced at once to man's work and a summary of God's work. We find God's work. On the seventh day, he ended his work which he had done, and he left it on the seventh day from all the work which he had done, his work which God had created and made. So God has completed his work at this point, and human work then derives from God's work. Other creatures don't work. Other creatures feed, and they breed. Some of them structure shelter. Some of them actually create paths, but they don't build highways, bridges, monuments, laboratories, offices, schools, churches, temples. Some animals store food, but they do not sell and trade. Man is made in the image of God, in his likeness. And so man works, and he rules over the creation. And the creation of man, as the Genesis text makes very clear to us, is unique and is purposeful. And his purpose, man's purpose, is stated here for us in verse 26. Let us make man according to our image, according to our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth. and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. Our purpose derives from our nature, and our nature is emphasized again in verse 27, which is the first poetic text in the Bible. And it's a text, a very short verse, in which three times it is stated that God created. And again, it's that special verb in Hebrew, bara, which Om has God as subject. He is the only one that does this kind of creating. And God created the human in His image. In the image of God, He created him, male and female, He created them. So we are created after God and in His image and for His purposes. And so our purpose, as again it is stated in verse 28, is to be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth to do it, and then exercise dominion over all the creatures. All other creatures have purpose, too. But man's purpose is explicitly stated here. It is God telling us, here is your purpose. This is why I have placed you on the earth. Here is your work that I have given to you. And part of that work is for us to figure out the purposes of all the other creators, all the other creatures, I mean. That's why we have scientists working, figuring out, you know, what do these bugs have to do within this ecosystem? How do these other things work with all these things over here? That's part of our work. And so we're called to do science and animal husbandry and farming. It's good to look under rocks at the beach and to explore God's creation. We can see this in Chapter 2, as Adam names the animals. Man has set out then to manage the herds, to train the horses and the dogs, to train falcons, to gather up fish and study them. And man exercises that dominion. He draws and he paints and he writes poems to express what he experiences and what he sees of the work and the glory of God. He composes music to reflect the beauty and the glory of God, to capture some of the sound of the creation. And these are unique gifts that God has given to us as part of God's creation. And he has said, go and explore and develop and exercise dominion. You can see how God provides for all the creatures, including man, in verses 29 and 30. He provides so that we can get work, do work, to get our food, and to carry out our purposes under heaven. We were just singing from Psalm 65. If God doesn't send his showers on the earth, we can't provide food for ourselves. If God doesn't protect our crops and our animals from disease, we don't have food for ourselves. If God doesn't cause the fish to multiply in the oceans, we run out of seafood. He provides for us so that we can go ahead and carry out our work. Now, we're given a mandate from God, the Creator, and there are three parts to this mandate. The first part is multiply, be fruitful and multiply. And if you can, for a minute, transpose yourself to the time when man first heard this from God. That's a command for that very generation. The present generation is the generation given the command to be fruitful and multiply. And then the mandate goes on. Fill the earth and subdue it, and that's given to the children's generation. We multiply, the children will go out and will begin to fill the earth and subdue it. They, in turn, will multiply, and their children will go out and fill the earth and subdue earth, and so on. The verb has subdued, sometimes translated conquer or master. It's a verb that in many places in the Hebrew Bible denotes taking something over, even with force. For example, we read in Joshua 18, verse 1, Then the whole congregation of the people of Israel assembled at Shiloh and set up a tent of meeting there. The land lay subdued before them. They had taken over the land. David subdued nations. So we're being taught here that humanity had to conquer the earth, had to subdue God's earth under his rule. And that doesn't necessarily imply that there were enemies out there to conquer, as there were later in the land of Canaan, although we do learn in chapter 3 of Genesis that indeed there were enemies out there waiting for us. But the use of this verb, by God here, indicates that it will take effort. It will take organization. It's going to take work for man to go out and fill the earth. There's a lot of territory on the earth, and it would take many generations to accomplish this. It would require population migration. It would require cutting roads, building homes. assembling areas for storage of food and so on. And so that's the first part of the mandate that God gave to man—to steal the earth and to subdue it, to bring it under the rule of God, through God's image-bearer. And then he says, and let them have dominion, or let them hold sway over in the Old Testament Greek translation of this passage, we have the same verb that we saw this morning in 1 John 5, verse 19, about the evil one having sway or dominion. God says, let them have dominion. And He commands us in verse 28, have dominion. It's an imperative, a command form, over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over the whole creation. And the term to have dominion, or to hold sway over, is a word for rule or for oversee, but it's a verb that's not used only of kings in the Old Testament. There are other verbs that are used only of kings. It is used of kings. Solomon, for example, in 1 Kings 4.24, is described as having dominion here. But it's also used, for example, of an Israelite who would supervise his workers or his servants or his slaves. For example, in Leviticus 25, 43, God said, You shall not rule over him, that's the verb, ruthlessly, but shall fear your God. It's also used of Messiah's rule. In Psalm 72, when we say, in verse 8, when we read, may you have dominion from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth. Or in Psalm 110, when God says to the Messiah, rule in the midst of your enemies. This is the word. Have dominion, sway over them. And this is His commandment to us. And you know what it means, because you enjoy having dominion. We see this reflected in every area of life. You've been editing an important document or a letter, and finally that last paragraph comes together, and you experience what it means to have dominion over a little piece of the world, maybe a little piece of the world of ideas, but you have dominion over it. You've been able to accomplish what you need to and want to with us. Many other examples, the theoretician who worked very hard to simplify the equation to capture the most elegant generalization. As he does this, he's exercising dominion. The artist who worked hard to capture just the right blue-black of that first line of the night approaching in the western sky. And when he does it, he's exercised dominion. The musician who finally gets just the right progression for the last line of the song. One of my great pleasures in the past was to have a woodpile stacked neatly by the door and ready for that first snowstorm to come, exercising dominion. Willa Tather in her book Shadows on the Rocks, which documents life in very early Quebec when there was a small colony just carved out of the Canadian winter, she writes this about housekeeping. These copper, big and little, these brooms and clouts and brushes were tools, and with them one made not shoes or cabinet work, but life itself. One made a climate within a climate. One made the day, the complexion, the special flavor, the special happiness of each day as it passed. One made life. Exercising dominion in your home. And when man does not exercise dominion in his life, we call it a mess, or we call it dysfunctional, depending on the degree of confusion. And you know how you work with your children, to teach them to exercise dominion over their small responsibilities in their work, so they can learn to later go out and be effective as servants of the Lord. You see, we were thoughtfully created by God for this very purpose. This is his command to us, and he gives us many directives for how we are to carry out this work. He establishes ethical boundaries for the way that we carry this out. He is the sovereign, and he exercises sovereign rights as the creator. Genesis 1 makes it very, very clear that God is not to be confused with the creation. that God the Creator and the creation are separate things, but he teaches us so beautifully also that this is his world that he has created, that he is the only God, and this is the creation that he has made, and he has set us in it as a part of it. Paul writes to the Romans in chapter 1 of verse 20, for since the creation of the world God's invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and godhood, so that they are without excuse." It's a remarkable statement that the invisible God, the invisible attributes of the invisible God are clearly seen, being understood, by the things that are made. So that as we look at the creation with eyes of faith, with a sanctified heart, we see that this is God's world. It reflects his very divine attributes. And so, one of the ethical boundaries for us as Christians is that we must treat God's world with respect. We're not to worship it. It's the creature, not the creator. But we are to respect the creation, and we are to treat it honorably. It reveals God's eternal power and Godhead. It is all His. The mountains, the sea, the creatures, the stars, are all His. He knows them. He knows them, and He says to us, go and learn. Learn from what I have created. Exercise dominion. He has delegated us responsibilities as His image-bearers. We, too, are God's creatures, the work of His hands. But He has made us to be noble and glorious, images and likenesses of His Godhead. The likeness is like. It is not the real thing. We are not little gods, not little godless. We are like God. We are in His likeness. But because God is a person, We are persons. Because God can speak, and He understands. We can speak, and we understand. Because God can take counsel within Himself before making man, we can take counsel before we act. Because God does good, we're called to do good. We're persons. Persons made in God's image, in His likeness. And persons are able to make decisions. But mankind had the potential to sin right from the beginning, but mankind also has the possibility of receiving grace and of showing grace. And as we subdue and rule, we must remember our exalted position in the creation. Man can exercise great power for good. We can protect, we can cultivate, we can grow, we can beautify, we can understand. But man can also exercise great power for evil. We can burn, we can wreck, we can annihilate, we can poison, we can lose understanding. God made us to be persons, and he gave us power, and we act with power. We can build up, but we can also tear down. But we are accountable as persons to God. And so, should we then not go into his Word to learn from him how he would have us exercise dominion over the creation, should we not manage our responsibilities in the world according to his will. In the beginning, God set no boundaries in space for us. The whole earth was there before mankind, all of it, and all of the skills and all of the tasks that were necessary for man to subdue the earth and to exercise dominion over it were within man's grasp all the time. Later, when we get to chapter 10 in Genesis, we see how God settled nations in different parts of the earth after the division in languages. And he gave and established territories for the different nations. And so he set up physical boundaries. But in the beginning, there were no physical boundaries. Paul, when he speaks to the Greeks, reminds them of this fact. He says in Acts, it's recorded in Acts 17 at verse 26, and God has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth and has determined their pre-appointed time and the boundaries of their dwellings. God set the whole world before mankind and he told us to go and to subdue it, but we did not. Rather, very quickly, the serpent came to us and subdued us. And we are still living with the consequences of the serpent's seductive subduing. Initially, there were no boundaries in space for us, but then God set one up. He closed off the garden, and the wilderness became our home and our new laboratory. And this is why Jesus, as he prepared to ascend into heaven, commanded His Church to disciple the nations, to baptize them, and to teach them His commandments. Now that the Son of God has come into the world, the physical bounds have been lifted once again, and we are commanded now to go out and to take back, through the Son of God, the territory that we lost to the devil. And that can only be done by the power of the Word, when men through the power of the Word and the Spirit of God, become servants of the Almighty once again. But in the beginning, and the chapter ends on this point, God did indeed set a boundary in time for us. And that boundary in time, the Sabbath day, entails ethical consequences for the way we view our work of subduing the earth and exercising dominion. On the seventh day God ended his work which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it he rested from all his work which God had created and made." And this is a boundary for our work, an ethical boundary. Later, after sin clouded our understanding, God stated it much more explicitly for us. So we read in Deuteronomy 5, six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work, you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servants, nor your female servants, nor your ox, nor your donkey, nor any of your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gate. that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you." There is a boundary here, an ethical, moral boundary to how we are to subdue the earth and to exercise dominion even over the animals. And through this Sabbath, then, God reminds us that our purpose is not only to subdue and to rule, it is also to remember, to remember God in a weekly rest. to meditate on His works, and to rejoice in His works, and to praise Him for His works. The Sabbath reminds us each week that this is His world, that these are His creatures, that we are His creatures, and that our work is an assignment that comes from Him. The Sabbath reminds us each week that God is not a taskmaster, that He has set us free from our work, and that he gives us regular rest. The Sabbath reminds us each week that we are not to make a god of our work, nor allow our work to become a tyrant. The Sabbath reminds us each week that our work is spiritual as well as physical. Jesus taught us repeatedly that the Sabbath is for doing good, for healing, and for helping. And, beloved, is there any week when you don't need healing and you don't need help. So as you exercise dominion in your life, and in your part of the world where God has placed you, shall you live with God as your master? Luther, in his larger catechism, defines God this way. He says, God is that to which your heart clings and entrusts itself. What does your heart cling to and entrust itself to? For many Americans, this means money, pleasure, a big house, a well-paying job, insurance, retirement accounts. This is what their hearts cling to and entrust themselves to. And how do we as Christians not become ensnared by the gods of this land? How do we exercise dominion in our lives for the glory of God? Well, we learn to respect God's commandments. And so you do your work morally, that is, honestly, and faithfully, and thoughtfully, prayerfully, knowing that your work is part of the assignment that God has given you in the particular place where he has put you, in the particular calling which he has given you. None of you are farmers, but you exercise dominion over many other parts of God's world. And so, honor Him where you do this. Respect His creation, and don't make sinful use of it. And remember that His creation includes other people. So, use language faithfully and respectfully in your work. Make decisions biblically, graciously. Treat your subordinates With all the respect due to the image-bearers of God that they are, treat your superiors with respect and be faithful to your responsibilities. Avoid greed and self-serving attitudes in your work. The Scripture tells us that Godliness with contentment is great gain. Cultivate contentment in the situation where God has placed you. Maybe your work is hard. It may be because God has some things that you can only learn through hard work. Maybe your situation is unsettling. You may be there because God will use that to draw you closer to Him and to bring you to fix your desires upon Him and your confidence more on Him. Work because you're designed to work. Work because you need to work to provide for your household. in order to be able to help the ministry of the gospel, and in order to be able to help the needy. But remember God's limits, and work within those limits, and do not become ensnared by the gods of the land all around you. Remember to sabotage and sacrifice. Tinnitus tragics that in the Christian church today, we are a minority voice saying, God has given us ten commandments, and this one was from the beginning. A break in time saves us from idolatry, beloved. Mammon hates the Sabbath day. Mammon is only pleased with more and more, and Mammon convinces his worshippers that they will lose blessing if they lose one day of work, and he threatens them with a penalty. And Pleasure hates the Sabbath. Pleasure wants you to have more fun, and losing a day from your weekend is robbing yourself of Pleasure. Pleasure says, Me first, God, and what is left over. How is that a Sabbath? The Sabbath says, God first, pleasure in his fellowship, and rest. Pride hates the Sabbath day. Pride wants fame and glory from man, not from God. Pride convinces you that your work or your person is so important that you can ignore the Sabbath. You're just too important for a Sabbath rest. And fear hates the Sabbath. Fear wants to avoid conflict with the powers in the world. Fear is pleased when you sit in with everybody else around you. You're in a little social cocoon. So if you keep the Sabbath, it's because that way maybe you'll be accepted by your church. And if you forget the Sabbath, it's so that you'll be accepted by your peers and your supervisors. Fear doesn't want you to keep the Sabbath to honor God, because that just exposes you too much from the world. But we love the Sabbath, don't we? It's a day when we can see again that light is indeed separated from darkness by God. We can remember again that we are creatures made in God's image and likeness. We rejoice in the kindness and mercy of our God who sets us free from our duties in the world and says, take a day of rest. And we remember that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. And so we look ahead to that Sabbath rest that is yet to come. Christians understand that the very good world of Genesis 1 has become corrupted by sin, and that only God can make good what we have corrupted by our sins. And the Sabbath is that holy time each week when we even now taste a little bit of what is yet to come. So we work six days a week. We subdue the earth. We exercise dominion. And on the seventh day, we imitate God and we rest. We sit down with God and we enjoy communion with him and with his people. We come to be disciples. We come to him to be disciples and baptize and to learn all that he has commanded us. And we learn those things on the Sabbath day in a deep and satisfying and profound way. And then on the second day of the week, we're equipped, we're ready to get back out and to exercise dominion in the name of our Creator. And we remember that our work in the world is subject to God's commandments. We've been reminded again on the Sabbath day of that fact. And so the Sabbath, you see, forms your conscience. And as you consider more and more carefully, then, all of the other ethical dimensions of your work, if you forget the Sabbath, it's very easy to forget other ethical dimensions that God has given to govern our work. Do you see how wise is God's design from the beginning? Beloved, He commanded the Sabbath, and His assessment of the whole thing is, it is very good. And it continues to be very good. So as you get out there, and as you do what God commands, as you exercise dominion wherever God has put you, your Sabbath dress reminds you that you're serving the Lord, not yourself. And it reminds you that God's design indeed is very good. Let us step closer there. Our Father in heaven, we thank you for the wisdom that you have revealed to us in your word, the wisdom that you have taught us through Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the perfect image and representation of the Godhead. We thank you, Lord, for the high and esteemed position in which you have placed us on the earth. And we thank you that you have set up barriers to keep us from running in evil ways. and corrupting further what you have created good. Grant us the wisdom, O God, to learn from you how we are to do our work in service to you. Grant us wisdom, O Lord, to know our limits, to respect the limits you have placed on us, to rejoice in them, knowing that the limits are there for our good. And grant, O God, that we would be refreshed by the Spirit of Christ to go out into his world doing the spiritual work not just of exercising dominion over the creation, but of exercising dominion over the devils, and over sin, and over unbelief. Proclaiming Christ, the Son of God, and the hope of eternal life in Him, the forgiveness of sins, and the eradication of evil on your great day. Bless us, we pray, Father, and grant us more wisdom. In the name of Jesus. Amen.