Jun. 22, 2025

Dominion 3 - Good Idea! - Why Don’t YOU do it? (22 June 2025) —Pastor John Custer

Introduction - This third lesson on the idea of Dominion focuses on the believer’s ultimate state as a mature son or daughter doing the works of God.  The modern church, on the other hand, often succeeds in teaching believers that there is nothing left for them to do on earth except listen to sermons and sing happy, clappy songs.  Let’s briefly examine the stages of human growth we all go through on our spiritual march to maturity:

First, right after birth comes infancy.  Every one of us has passed through this stage where little or nothing is expected of us.  Life is done for us, based upon whether we cry or laugh.  Mom feeds and changes us.  We eat mostly milk.  It is similar to the Christian who learns to pray earnestly, but never learns how to do much else. He relies on others to read the Bible for him and lives according to a few memorized promises.  There is nothing sinful or bad about this stage.  It is simply not God’s will that we remain there our entire life, though.

Hebrews 5:12-14 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the actual words of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. 13For everyone who partakes only of milk is unacquainted with the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. 14But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to distinguish between good and evil. NASB

Second, infancy and toddler growth gives way to childhood.  Most of these years, from post-toddler through adolescence are spent figuring out how to obey parents and get along with siblings, learning to do good and not to do evil.  Jesus went through these years, gaining wisdom.  He had to learn not to touch a hot cook pot or pick up bumblebees.  He never did anything sinful, but had to gain wisdom from God just like we do.  We have to learn how to gather together, talk to one another, forgive, put up with, and rejoice with one another.  This involves another step up the ladder of maturity as we discover that our strength comes from God through the group.  We are not able to live the spiritual life anonymously.  Group life involves us in a kind of mild suffering.  It is benign and survivable.   

Hebrews 5:7-8 In the days of His humanity, He offered up both prayers and pleas with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His devout behavior. 8Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered. NASB

Third, full-grown manhood and womanhood involves living in faith.  Simply put, this is the process of learning to face fear and do exploits of faith in response.  Much of the world-changing and world-building that God is expecting us to do involves facing impossible-looking situations.  When Jesus came to the earth to begin His ministry, He was all alone except for the connection He had with His father and His Father’s Spirit.  

Ephesians 4:13-15 …until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. 14 As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of people, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; 15but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, that is, Christ,… 

What does God expect of the full-grown person? Jesus answered it very simply in a couple questions:

John 21:15-17 Now when they had finished breakfast, Jesus *said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these?” He *said to Him, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.” He *said to him, “Tend My lambs.” 16He *said to him again, a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me?” He *said to Him, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.” He *said to him, “Shepherd My sheep.” 17He *said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me?” Peter was hurt because He said to him the third time, “Do you love Me?” And he said to Him, “Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You.” Jesus *said to him, “Tend My sheep.”  

This seems to be the foremost characteristic of a mature son of God: he loves Jesus!  This love is expressed by tending His sheep.  Loving God is not primarily done by reading the Bible, singing praises, giving money, or many of the other Christian activities we undertake which only marginally involve people.  Those are all wonderful but they are all “trumped” by this: It is hard to find a more pointed description of what it means to love God anywhere else in the Bible.  It boils down to this: Tend His sheep. 

Was this only for the apostles?  

John 14:23 Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will follow My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our dwelling with him. 24The one who does not love Me does not follow My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me.  NASB

It’s evident here that anyone includes everyone of us and that this exhortation was not just confined to the eleven sitting on the beach with Him, but that it applies to all of us through everything Jesus ever said which relates to loving others as He loved us.  It is easy in the modern church to postpone this responsibility by shifting it to another:  THEY should set up a program to take care of the homeless.  THEY should feed the welfare people, THEY should counsel the drug-addicted.  GOD should bring peace across the entire earth! If this is a familiar sounding phrase, we need to start turning it around and saying it through the eyes of dominion-truth:  God would say “That’s a great idea! Why don’t YOU do it!

 Conclusion-  We must first let God’s dominion rule over us, before we can subdue the earth. Jesus did not lift a finger to change the Roman Empire. He did not concentrate on electing good public officials. He put His church in charge of changing the entire world, not through the use of armed might, but through the use of our living rooms, our kitchens, and our food.  Lots to think about!

Next time: Your Home and The church at Rome