The Kingdom of God: The Dominion Mandate — Ps Adem Guneyi (TGA)

Sunday the 5th October, 9:00AM Gathering, Tauranga Location
Ps Adem Guneyi on a Freedom Centre 2025 series — The Kingdom Of God pt 1 “The Dominion Mandate“


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Led by Senior Pastors Adem and Grace Guneyi.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

All right. We are starting a new series. I am personally so, so excited about this series. It is a series on the kingdom of God. A series on the kingdom of God. And can I just tell you, we've had a lot of great series recently, not because of the quality of the preaching, but the topics themselves have been just incredible. The tear down the idols really shook us. It also caused a lot of attention from outside the church, which was great. I like that. You know, we've been having some series and different things, and uh we're starting on the kingdom of God today. You know that the whole Bible, the whole Bible is about the kingdom of God. The whole thing. And it would shock you to know how many people know about Christianity, know about Jesus, even follow Jesus, but don't understand who they are as kingdom citizens, don't understand the concept of the kingdom of God, don't know how to live in the kingdom's principles, and it can really trip us up. So my passion over the next four weeks, six weeks, eight weeks, however long this goes for, uh, we are going to break apart what the kingdom of God is. Today will be an introduction, a broad stroke brush from Genesis to Revelation. We're just gonna read the whole thing. We're just gonna go Genesis to Revelation. No, no, no, there's gonna be a lot of scripture. So if you got notes this morning, please write these down. And here's my encouragement to you over the next few weeks as you read the Bible, ask the Holy Spirit to show you kingdom language. You will be shocked at how much the Bible is actually what Dr. Miles Munro, if anyone knows him, great, I think the greatest kingdom preacher uh that ever lived, uh he would call the Bible the constitution of the country of the kingdom of God. And that's really what it is. It's a constitutional book with laws, it's a constitutional book about how we as kingdom citizens operate. And I've been praying, the team have been praying, that God would enlighten us, that God would uncover our eyes, that we would not only understand conceptually what the kingdom of God is, but we would understand exactly. Just answer it. Could it be your mom? Yep, it's all good. Mark 11. I'm sorry, Mark 1, verse 14 to 15. Mark 1, verse 14 to 15. This is our scripture for the whole of the kingdom of God series. Uh, there's just so much. I I'm excited about this. It says, now after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee, and this is what he was doing. Uh, what was Jesus doing? He was preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God and saying that this is what he was preaching. The time is fulfilled, the time is now, the time is here, and the kingdom of God is at hand. The kingdom of God's here. He's announcing that the kingdom of God is here, and he says, How do you get into the kingdom of God? Repent and believe the gospel. Repent and believe in the gospel. Holy Spirit, I'm why don't you just raise your hands to the Lord? I'm asking God that you would reveal the kingdom to each and every one of us. Lord, that you would reveal kingdom principles, that you would show us who we are as kingdom sons and kingdom daughters belonging to a royal family. In Jesus' mighty name. Amen. I want to say something a little bit controversial. But Jesus never preached the gospel of Jesus. Jesus actually never preached about uh the gospel of the blood, Jesus never preached the gospel of the cross, although all of those things are foundational in our lives. Hear me correctly. But the gospel that Jesus preached was the gospel of the kingdom. It was the gospel of the kingdom. There is no other gospel. I need you to understand that when we miss the gospel of the kingdom, we miss the gospel. A lot of people come to me and ask me, as someone who's an ex-Muslim, excuse me, how do you preach to Muslims? I can tell you very easily how you preach to a Muslim. You preach to them about a kingdom, they understand kingdoms. You preach the gospel of the kingdom because guess what happens when you introduce them to the gospel of the kingdom, eventually they meet the king. The kingdom has a king. The kingdom isn't some side thing, it is literally God's first priority. It is right from Genesis all the way to Revelation, which I'm going to expand to you this morning to show you that the whole Bible is full of the kingdom. In fact, the whole story is the story about a kingdom that God is bringing from heaven to earth. The Bible's language is full of kingdom language. Again, I want to encourage you to read the Bible over the next few weeks and start to allow the Lord to show you words like ambassadors, kings, laws, uh, different language of the kingdom of God. Uh it's it's just absolutely everywhere. Um, in fact, there's so much about the kingdom of God that I would beg to say that the kingdom of God is the most talked about topic in scripture. It's not an afterthought, it is God's priority. And many of us live powerless Christianity simply because we confuse church attendance with the kingdom of God. No, I don't subscribe to the idea that says you've got church and then you've got kingdom. I don't subscribe to, you know, sitting in a pastor's meeting recently this week, and somebody said that, you know, I believe that this is a pastor, he was saying, I believe that I'm my first priority is the kingdom, the wider body of Christ, and my second priority is the church that I'm called to pastor. And while I understood what he was saying, his definition of the kingdom of God was wrong. A lot of people think that kingdom simply means unity events, kingdom simply means the wider body of Christ, the capital C church. And I need you to understand that the kingdom of God includes church, it includes family, it includes business, it includes the arts, media, and every realm of influence. We are called to be kingdom light bearers everywhere we go. So we don't go church and then we go kingdom. And this is why people don't understand. Like if you do church, church will burn you out and church would cause you to neglect your family. But if you do kingdom, inside of that, when you're at church, if you do kingdom when you're at home with your family, if you do kingdom when you're at your business, see the difference between church and kingdom is this. I can teach you church principles today. I can teach you how to grow a church, I can teach you how to run a church. But here's what matters if it's church, it works in church, if it's kingdom, it works in church, it works at home, it works in the business, it works at family, it works in every sphere of life. And so, over the next few weeks, we want to talk about kingdom. And I want to talk about being healed of this cough. Amen. Kingdom, the kingdom. I want you to understand the the meaning and the principle of the kingdom of God. So, first we're gonna look at this. What is the meaning of the kingdom? It's made of two words it's king and domain, it's the king's domain. The kingdom is the king's domain. The word king in the Hebrew is the word melech, and it literally means kingship, rulership, reign. And so I've come up with a definition here. The kingdom of God is the active reign through Jesus by his spirit breaking into the earth. I want to give you my definition of the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is the active reign right now. Now we're gonna see that it started in Genesis and it ends in Revelation, but what does it mean for me today? It means the kingdom of God is the active reign through Jesus by his spirit breaking into the earth. I I I want again, I want to encourage you to look out for kingdom words as you read the Bible, kingdom themes, the whole way through the book of Matthew is a great place to start. Uh, you'll see the kingdom of heaven is like, the kingdom of heaven is like, the kingdom of heaven is like, where Jesus starts to describe how this world called the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven works. Um, did a bit of study because I was confused about, you know, is the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven the same thing? Most theologians would agree the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven is exactly the same thing. The reason we believe that is because there's a particular parable in the book of Matthew where Jesus explains the kingdom of God, but then uses the language kingdom of God and kingdom of heaven synonymously to explain the same thing. So when it whether whether we say kingdom of heaven or kingdom of God, you've got to understand it's God's reign, it's the king's dominion from heaven coming to earth. So I want to give you an overview of the kingdom, where it started, what's been happening. If you've never heard of this, and I don't blame you for this because there's not much kingdom preaching going on, there's not much kingdom teaching going on, there's so much about how to be prosperous, there's so much about uh healing, there's so much about all of these great things, but what we don't what we fail to understand is that encapsulated within the kingdom of God is prosperity, encapsulated within the kingdom of God is healing. Encapsulated within the kingdom of God is this king that we desire and we love. His name is Jesus, he is the king of the kingdom. In fact, you know why we call him king of kings? Because you are called to be a king in the kingdom, and he's the king of all the kings. King of kings isn't just some, he's the the king of all the kings, he's the king of the kings. You are called to be a kingdom of priests, you are called to be a king and a priest. And we're gonna look at that in this scripture. What does it look like to be a king and a priest? What does it look like to have those kind of rights? And uh, we're gonna we're gonna go through that whole thing. So let's have a look at a bit of an overview of the kingdom of God and how we bring it to earth. So we're gonna start from the start. We're gonna start from where God introduces the kingdom of God. You gotta understand God's heart, God's story is in the Garden of Eden, is not just some fairy tale, you know, uh kindy story about an apple. It's not about that. The Garden of Eden was God bringing heaven to earth. The Garden of Eden was God's kingdom mandate to mankind. In fact, he created the garden before he created man. He didn't create uh the garden for man, he actually created man for the garden. He gave us a purpose in expanding the kingdom of God, bringing heaven to earth, and then he created us to go and do what he's called us to do. So we're gonna start in the beginning, Genesis 1, verse 26 to 28. We must understand this if we're gonna understand the kingdom. Then God said, Let us make man in our image according to our likeness, let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, over the cattle, over all the earth, and 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, male and female, male and female, male and female, male and male and female, he created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, Here's the mandate, here's God's original plan for you and I be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth, subdue it, have dominion, everyone say dominion, over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. See, when you when when you're a Christian, you think God's in charge of everything. But when you understand the kingdom, you understand that God has given you dominion. This is what theologians would call the dominion mandate. The dominion mandate. And I want you to have this in your heart as we look through scripture to understand what the dominion mandate is. It's God's rule extended through his people into creation. The Bible says in the book of Psalms that heaven is God's, but he's given the earth to the sons of men. This is this is how God has set it up. Uh, heaven is mine, the Bible says, and the earth is yours. So God's garden, the garden of Eden, is God's original kingdom colony. It's God's original place to represent heaven on earth. And we know that they stuffed it up and and and things happened, but God's original plan was to have men and women on the earth expanding his kingdom, taking dominion over everything that creeps on the earth, over every problem that arises. God's idea for you and me is to take over the earth, so to speak, with the mandate of the dominion of God, with the mandate of spreading the kingdom of God and anything that stands in our way, any sickness, any demonic thing, any bit of trouble, any bit of any bit of any curse, any whatever it is, we are then to have dominion over that thing so that the purposes and plans of God can move forward in the earth. Now, if you don't know this, if you don't understand this, you haven't caught the revelation, you will be victim to the circumstances of life. But hopefully by the end of today, you'll understand that you've been given a mandate, it's called the dominion mandate, and you can actually take control of your situations. Can somebody say amen? So we start in the beginning and then we end up with the fall. Now, the fall is commonly referred to when Adam and Eve ate the apple, which is true. Okay, some would argue it was, you know, was it Granny Smith? Was it a jazz apple? I'm not sure. Was it even an apple? The point is they ate fruit. I don't even think the Bible says an apple, does it? It says a fruit. Whatever it is. Some people say, is it fruit? Is it an is it an act that they did? Whatever. They they actually disobeyed God, they brought dishonor to the to the name of the kingdom of God and to the name of their father. And what we commonly talk about is sin entered the world, which is true. But what was it the fall of? What was it the loss of? It was the loss of dominion. When when mankind fell, you need to understand we didn't just lose relationship with God, we didn't just inherit sin. We all of those things caused us ultimately to lose dominion, to no longer have dominion over the current circumstances of life. And then the kingdom is broken, but a promise is made. Genesis 3, verse 15. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed, and he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. God immediately, when dominion is lost, he makes a promise that Jesus will come and crush the enemy under his feet. There's one coming that will restore dominion. There's one coming that will restore my original intent for mankind. Now, if you think that Jesus is just here to give you a ticket to heaven, you are missing out on so many kingdom benefits. And so we have the four, which I want to suggest to you is the loss of dominion. Then we have that, you know, God makes uh a nation out of a man and calls him Israel, and we see these promises to Jacob and Abraham, and God calls Abraham and Israel to represent his kingdom. And he says this now, therefore, in Exodus 19, verse 5 to 6, again to show you that this is God's plan throughout everybody he tried this with. Now, therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to me above all people. For all the earth is mine, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel. This is God saying, In the beginning, I wanted a kingdom. I'm starting with Israel. Guess what? I want a kingdom. He goes, and then we move into the prophets. We see this this this this timeline of the Bible, and we see that in Daniel chapter 2, verse 24, and in the days of these kings, the God of heaven will set up a guy wasn't behind me. We'll try it again. Daniel 2, 44. And in the days of these kings, the God of heaven will set up a which shall never be destroyed. This is a prophecy of the kingdom of God that is about to arrive at the arrival of Jesus. That you and I now live in. And the kingdom shall not be left to other people, it shall break in pieces and consume all of these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever. You're gonna see that this is this is fulfilled in the book of Revelation. Isaiah 9 verse 6, we usually think of this as a Christmas message, and it is, but Isaiah 9 verse 6 is a governmental message, it's a message about the kingdom of God. It says, For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government, the kingdom will be upon his shoulders, and his name will be wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Again, this is a prophetic word that when Jesus comes, the kingdom of God will rest upon his shoulders. See, when Jesus came, he didn't just come as a baby in a manger, he came with the arrival of the kingdom of God. John the Baptist preached the kingdom of heaven is coming, the kingdom of God is coming. And when Jesus came, he said, It's here. Jesus preached the arrival of another world. Jesus preached the arrival of a kingdom where things operate very differently to the way we think things operate. He starts to preach the arrival of a kingdom where natural uh limitations now longer do not apply to those that are inside of the kingdom. He preaches a kingdom where forgiveness is available to everybody who repents and makes an entryway into that kingdom. A king who is ever forgiving and ever merciful and ever loving, no matter what you've done, no matter what mistakes you've made. There's a king of this kingdom that wants to welcome you in and forgive you of your past, present, and future sins. This is not just the arrival of a person, it's the arrival of a kingdom. And then so Jesus arrives in Luke 4, verse 6. We see the temptation of Jesus and the conversations that he has with the devil. We're all very familiar with it. Luke 4, verse 6. One of the most interesting things I think is that the devil says this the devil said to him, All this authority I will give to you, and their glory, for this has been delivered to me. Think about this for the second, for a second. What is the devil on about? He's saying, I'll give you, Jesus, authority. Why? Because the kingdoms of this world and their glory have been delivered to me. When? In the garden. In the garden, the keys to the kingdom of heaven, the keys to dominion, the keys of authority were handed over to the enemy. And now the enemy knows this and he tries to trick Jesus. Silly thing to try and do, tries to trick Jesus into hey, if you just bow down and worship me and you do A, B, and C, I'll give you authority. Why? Because it was handed to me in the garden. And he says, I give it to whomever I wish. Think about the Bible. When Jesus said, I have come to seek and save that which was lost. What was lost? Dominion. I know it's a great evangelistic thing and it does apply to souls too, but I want to suggest to you that what was lost in the garden was dominion. What was lost in the garden was authority. What was lost in the garden was a relationship with the Father, filled with the Holy Spirit, who's the governor of the kingdom of God, who is able to come and reinstate our authority and our position as sons and daughters in the kingdom of God. He's come to say seek and save that which was lost. That the word that there is not talking about a person, he's talking about a position. I've come to seek and save that which was lost. Doesn't take away anything from soul winning, but soul winning is plucking people out of the kingdom of darkness and bringing them into the kingdom of the Son of His love. It's about a transference of kingdoms. Now we don't understand this because we live in a democracy and we think our opinion matters, right? We vote and uh a prime minister comes in. We vote, there's signs up and down Cameron Road right now. We vote and a counselor and a mayor gets elected. Now that that's democracy. Now, what you think of democracy or what you think of kingdoms is irrelevant, but it's very hard for you and I who don't live in a kingdom. By show of hands, did anybody grow up in a kingdom? Literally no one. Interesting. So we can all admit that we need our eyes peeled back, and we we need to we need our brains washed, we need to get a little bit brainwashed by the Bible, and we need to understand what it's like to be in a kingdom. In a kingdom, a king, what a king says goes. You know, if you're in a kingdom, you don't get to vote on what the king is, the king says it and it's law. In a kingdom, the the the the issues, the decrees that happen, you don't always agree with, but you don't get to go with your picket fence and but that's what we do. You know, we post online, we pick a fence, because we're in a democracy. We think that we're the center of our own universe. But but actually, in a kingdom, the king and what he says, this is why we value his word. Why? Because it's the king's word, it's the word of a king, it's a decree, and when a king speaks, it becomes law, whether I like it or not. So he's come to seek and save that which was lost, and he comes and he announces in Mark 1, which which we read before, about the arrival of a kingdom. Now, how does Jesus, I didn't give you, I yes, I did Matthew 12, 28, how does Jesus demonstrate or prove the arrival of a kingdom? Well, Matthew 12, 28 sends this, says this, but if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you. The demonstration of the kingdom is souls saved, bodies healed, demons coming out of people. So when you have a church where you've got to, you know, just pull people into a little back room because deliverance isn't for the church, guess what you're building? Church. You're not building kingdom. Because when the arrival of the kingdom happens, deliverance is on display, healing is on display. Signs, wonders, and miracles are on display. And I need you to understand that Jesus is talking about an invisible kingdom, so something physical has to prove him right. So he speaks to a demonized person, and the demons come out of the person and they get free. And he says, Surely, if I do this by the Spirit of God, the kingdom of God is here. This deliverance, this person being free, this son and daughter finally being free is proof that there's an invisible kingdom that has arrived in your midst. The gospel of power is the answer to a world that is rational. It's the answer to a world that wants to argue about Jesus. The gospel of power, where God backs up the preaching of his word, is the answer to today's problems. Because when we demonstrate the kingdom of God, the reality of the kingdom of God becomes real in a person's life. You know, I got the privilege of going to Thailand a few years ago with a gentleman that used to be in our church that planted over 50 churches in Thailand. And so I got to preach in almost 50 churches around the country. We went right through the country from small home groups to large gatherings, midweek, weekends, all kinds of stuff to leaders, to people in villages. It was wild. And I loved it because he said to me, Everywhere you preach, what I need you to do is get people healed and kick demons out of people and then preach the gospel. Because you got to understand, they are a people who understand spiritual realities and they have somewhat some kind of power through their Buddhism and through their animism and their idol worship. They've got witch doctors, they've got all kinds of stuff. So what you need to do is demonstrate that the power of God, that the kingdom of God that lives within you is more powerful than what they fear. And so everywhere we went, just through the translator, I said, if you've got a demon, if you are doing things that you don't, sometimes we'd walk into a room and people just start manifesting. Other times we have to explain it a little bit, but we would get people healed, we'd get people delivered, and then say, look, this is this is the kingdom of God, this is Jesus, this is what he can do, and then we preach the gospel and a bunch of people would get saved. But what we're used to is let's argue people into the kingdom. Jesus never did that. What he said is when you go into the cities, heal the sick, raise the dead, preach the kingdom. What's he saying? Show people. If I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you. And then Jesus teaches us how to pray. What's the mandate? How do we pray? Your kingdom come, your will be done. Where? On earth as it is. Oh, so it's the same thing. God trying to bring heaven to earth. People say, Oh, heaven on earth. Even the world says heaven on earth. That's literally God's plan A. Heaven on earth. Do you know when we go to heaven? Heaven's actually coming to earth. It's a whole nother subject. Because it's all half of the new believers they're like. Heaven's not some faraway destination. Right now, the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven is within you. But as a physical place, it's actually coming down. The new city, the great Jerusalem. The new Jerusalem is coming down to the earth. And that's a whole nother topic about the kingdom. There's so much in it. There's so much in it. Then we get to the church age. Listen to this, is where we are at right now. So Jesus announces the arrival, he shows the arrival of the kingdom. See, when he died on the cross, the cross wasn't meant to be the centerpiece of Christianity. The cross was the doorway into the kingdom. The blood that he spilt was a necessity to wash people so that they could become holy, because a Holy Spirit will not fill something that's unholy. So he makes us holy so that the Holy Spirit, by the blood of Christ, comes and lives inside of us so that we could enter into the kingdom. What's the end goal? The kingdom of God. It's the kingdom of God. And then we get into the church, and so we see that in the book of Acts, chapter 8, verse 12, again, I'm just giving you an overview this morning. But when they believed Philip as he preached the things concerning the kingdom of God, what did pre Philip preach? He explained things concerning the kingdom of God. Are you starting to see the pattern this morning? Jesus preached the kingdom, Paul preached the kingdom, Philip preached the kingdom. We should be preaching the kingdom. And the name of Jesus Christ, both men and women were baptized. This is what they did. So who are we in this church age? I think 2 Corinthians 5.20 explains it so well with kingdom language. Now then, we are ambassadors. What's an ambassador? If an ambassador of another nation comes to New Zealand, uh a couple of years ago we had uh the privilege of meeting the ambassador of Israel that came at the time to that came to New Zealand. And and and the ambassador represents who? Represents what? Another country. So the ambassador comes and represents Israel, or let's say the ambassador of the Philippines was to come here and represent the country of the Philippines. The ambassador now has a right that when they speak, they speak on behalf of the country. That when they sign something, they sign it on behalf of the country. Represent an ambassador has full rights to represent the country that they represent while they are in another country. Hello, somebody. We are ambassadors of Christ, we are ambassadors of heaven living on the earth, able to speak on behalf of the king, able to sign the dotted line on behalf of the king, able to usher in the reality of the kingdom on behalf of the king. Now we are ambassadors, it's kingdom language for Christ, as though God were pleading through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf be reconciled to God. Then we get to Jesus' return. It says that the seventh angel sounded, and there were loud voices in heaven saying, The kingdoms of this world. There are lots of kingdoms in the world, right? The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever. This is now the fulfillment of what we read in Daniel 2, 44. Prophecy that the kingdoms of this world will be swallowed up by the kingdom of our God. And in Revelation, we see that the kingdom of God comes in its totality and actually reigns, and the kingdom, the kingdoms of this world get uh have become the kingdom of our Lord and his Christ. This is now the God's plan completely fulfilled. It's it's full restoration of God's kingdom on the earth. It's it's it but it's it's the garden of Eden again, but this time we're going global. You understand? The Garden of Eden was a small pocket on the earth. Adam and Eve were mandated to expand the Garden of Eden, the kingdom of God. But God in Revelation restores back to the garden, but this time it covers the whole earth. You understand this? It's it was God's plan before the foundation of the world. The reason Jesus was crucified and slain before the foundation of the world is because he wanted to bring us into a kingdom so that we could be ambassadors of Christ, so that we could represent him here on the earth. So I want to speak to you a little bit just as we as we close this up on the dominion mandate, this mandate in Genesis. So if we're going to talk about the kingdom, we're gonna talk about the first time God speaks about it. We're gonna find out how God feels about it and what his idea or his his original intent was for you and I. So even though this was speaking to Adam and Eve, he was speaking to mankind. So this will help some of you that might feel purposeless in life. You might think, what's my purpose here? What am I meant to do? What job do I apply for? Which city should I live in? How should I serve in church? And some of us get stuck in analysis paralysis, where we analyze our lives so much so that we never make a move, that we never do anything for God. I want to help you today to understand, I can unequivocally say that every single one of us, this is the mandate on every single one of our lives. It's called the dominion mandate. He says, be fruitful, be multiply, fill the earth, subdue it, and have dominion. Now, there's physical things that come with this being fruitful and multiply. I think it also applies to us uh having kids and procreating. I understand that. But I want to show you the spiritual implications of each of those words. The word to be fruitful is the word para, which simply means, I love this, it simply means to be productive, creative, and reproduce God's nature. In other words, do something. God's first command to Christians do something with what I've given you. Be fruitful, be productive, be creative, because I'm a creative God. You're on the earth and I want you to be fruitful. I don't want you. The Bible says that every time you roll over in a in a uh uh in your bed, it's like a it's like the door of a hint, the hinge of a door, and it says that a lazy man swings like a door. God doesn't want us to be lazy, he wants us to be fruitful, he wants us to do something. Bless you, by the way. Be fruitful and multiply. The word multiply means rabbah, which means expansion and influence. God could have spoken about anything to humankind, but he says to us, be productive. This is why I love business people. Personally, I love business, I love the way they think. They think like this. Income isn't determined by somebody. I'm gonna create, I'm gonna be productive, and I'm gonna make my own way through this thing. Business people think differently. Be productive, creative, multiply means expansion and influence. God is saying to you and I, I want you to be productive and creative, but I want you to expand. It's the nature of the kingdom, it's ever expanding, and I want you to have influence. Why does he want us to have influence? Because you're filled with the Spirit of God and people aren't. You've got Jesus and people don't. So he wants you and I to have influence everywhere we go. You are the salt of the earth, you are the light of the world. I mean, there's so much in this where God has commanded us to have influence and expand on the earth. It says, fill it. It's the word male, which literally means fill the earth with God's glory, God's culture, and God's presence. Again, Jesus fulfills this. He says, You go into a town, if you release the peace of God, release He He teaches the disciples about you coming and bringing the culture. Now, if if uh the kingdom has a culture, by the way, and our job, you and I, our job is to bring the culture of heaven to earth. So if if if in heaven, if in heaven sickness is eradicated, the moment, like no one with cancer is gonna walk into heaven and still have cancer. So so what's our job? On earth as it is in heaven. No one's gonna be depressed in heaven. No one's gonna be kind of mopey in the corner. You're gonna have nothing to be depressed about, you're gonna have nothing to be upset about. It's just gonna be joy, it's gonna be worship. That's why worship is so important. Why on earth as it is in heaven? This is why keeping Jesus central in our lives and in our church service is so important. Why? Because the Bible says that he's at the center and the Lamb is the light of heaven, and so we got to bring on earth as it is in heaven. We are here to replicate, to fill the earth with the glory of God, the culture of heaven, and the presence of Jesus. You understand? There's a culture here, and it's not here right now. There are pockets of it. You might have felt it here this morning. You made a you might you know when you come into the presence of God in corporate worship and you feel God, it's a taste of heaven. It's a taste of what we're gonna end up in forevermore. So we are called to create spaces to bring the culture and the presence and the glory of God into the earth. Are we starting to understand? Okay, cool. The next word is subdue. He our mandate is to subdue, which is the word kibbash, which simply means this. Hello, listen to this. This is what we need in today's day and age. Bring creation and the world's systems and the demonic into God's order. Subdue. How do we subdue? Fill the earth, multiply, fill it, be fruitful, subdue means to take the systems of the world and to bring it under the influence of God's order. This is why we need to raise up politicians. This is why we need to raise up teachers, this is why we need to raise up nurses, this is why we need to raise up doctors, this is why we need to raise up policy writers, this is why we need to raise up people who can go and be yeast in the systems of the world and bring God's culture and God's order everywhere they go. The goal of your life is not to get into full-time ministry, the goal of your life is to be the salt of the earth, be the yeast within the leaven of the systems of the world, to bring the culture and the mandate of the kingdom of heaven everywhere you go. I don't think we'd ever have to teach evangelism if we live like this. I actually don't. The disciple making and kingdom living would cause people, you are part of another world. You are part of something different. You are part, I see you go through some stuff, but you don't react like everybody else at work. What's different about you? I belong to a kingdom. I'm in another kingdom. I know I might be here, but I'm somewhere else all at the same time. I'm part of a kingdom, and I worship a king who's given me his Holy Spirit to be light and salt everywhere I go. My dominion mandate is to subdue Kabash. Bring the world's systems and the demonic into God's order. And have dominion is the word Radar, which means act as God's ambassadors, bringing creation under his lordship. Oh, okay, this makes sense because when Jesus came with the kingdom, all of a sudden creation bowed to him. I uh I get the privilege of teaching this Tuesday on a on a Zoom to people around the country about the gift of miracles. What's the gift of miracles? The gift of miracles is the arrival of the kingdom, it's the arrival of the kingdom where creation bows. Jesus can stand on water and say, Peace be still, and a and a and a tumultuous sea can be still, and the way wind and the waves stop. Why? Because the arrival of a kingdom is here, and that kingdom has authority over the natural kingdom. The natural kingdom must bow to the kingdom of God. And so he turns water into wine, he pulls money out of a fish's mouth. Why? Because he has authority over the natural realm, because the kingdom of God has arrived. Are we getting it this morning? The kingdom of God has a way of working. We're gonna end it here if I can get the band back up, please. The kingdom of God has a way of working, and I think if I was to sum up my intention with this series, is that in pastoring and leading people, I found something that is a commonality with most, not with all, with most, is this is that most people don't understand the way the kingdom works. Let me just give you a quick example. If you, I'm gonna give you an example that just popped into my head. If you are a renter, okay, you rent a home, and you've been believing God for your first home. In fact, we should pray for you at the end of this, because I believe God's gonna do that in the midst of the economy right now. You're believing for a first home, okay? A Christian prays God, please give me my first home. A kingdom citizen understands that there's a kingdom law that says he who is faithful in little will also be faithful in much. So instead of praying, God, please give me a home, a kingdom citizen is faithful with what they have, knowing that there's a kingdom law that will open up a door to the next thing. Will open up that house. It's the kingdom says that if you're faithful in what is another man's, God will give you your own. It's a kingdom. Christians beg God, the kingdoms step into systems and order that God has set up that never fail. Some of you are getting it. Christians beg God and fall victim to their circumstances. Kingdom citizens take authority and have dominion over their circumstances. The issue with people that think God's in control of everything, and I'm not trying to be inflammatory here, I'm just trying to tell you, it's my latest favorite topic, is this they don't understand kingdom, they don't understand the principles of the kingdom, they don't understand what God says about the kingdom, they don't understand the kingdom of heaven is like, the kingdom of heaven is like sons in a kingdom operate differently to Christians. Christians can be mean. Kingdom citizens forgive. Matthew 5, 6, and 7 is chapters about how a kingdom, son or daughter, operates. That's what it is. It's Jesus saying, I know you think it's eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, but in the kingdom, this is how we operate. I I know you think it's it's just so much about the kingdom of God and how we are supposed to operate as kingdom. You know, when the birth of the church happened, Jesus said this. He said, Behold, I give you keys to the I give you keys to the kingdom of God. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, whatever you loose on earth will be loose in heaven. And so he comes with the arrival of the kingdom of God, and he gives us keys, he gives us a way to unlock, he gives us how we operate. Principle keys are principles, they're principles in the kingdom. I know you've lived here, and here it says the economy's bad, so don't invest. The kingdom says, while it's bad, invest, double down. The kingdom says, get that person back, never forgive them. Sorry, the world says, get that person back. You know when you say something, you replay it in your head. That's but the kingdom says, forgive them. There's a way the world works, and there's the way the kingdom works. I was thinking about how Jesus said this, Matthew 16, he says, Blessed are you, Simon Bar Jonah for flesh and blood, has not revealed this to you, but my father who is in heaven, and I also say to you that you are Peter, which I don't have time to go into today, but it it actually means uh petro, which means pebble, not rock. And on this rock, petra, I will build my church. Peter, you're a pebble in the kingdom, but the rock is you announcing that you I am the Son of God. How do you enter the and he says, on this rock, not on this person, not on this pebble, like like the Catholics think it's about Peter, it's actually about the confession of faith in Jesus. On this rock, the rock is the confession. On this rock, I'll build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. Then the next thing that he says, and behold, I give you keys. I give you keys, I give you principles to the kingdom of heaven. Now that you're in the kingdom, let me teach you how to operate within it. That's why you got to get into your word because your word shows you the principles. The keys to the kids, it's not a religious book, it's keys to the kingdom. It's not just the it's not just the gospel, it's keys. Meditate on the word day and night, and everything you do will prosper. Keys all the way through the Bible keys. See, I I want to say something to you today, and I want to say this in ending my sermon. You can tell I'm excited about this, but it's it's just so much in it. And I want to say this carefully that every one of your problems that you have right now are because you haven't taken control of them. Every one of your problems that you have right now is simply because you haven't taken control of them. It's it's related to one thing, you don't control that circumstance. We live in a world where we are controlled by everyone else. Your house is controlled by the bank. Your teeth controlled by the dentist, the most expensive dental system in the world we live in right now, and you are controlled by them. Please, somebody become a dentist and sort us all out. Please, that'd be great. If you've got a car loan, you are controlled. Your car is controlled by the bank, your business might be controlled by the bank, your income is controlled by your boss, your hands, your life is in the hands of other people and other systems. But the kingdom of God is not about relinquishing control to everybody else, it's about being a kingdom son or daughter and having dominion over the earth. Christians are dictated to by their circumstances. Kingdom citizens have dominion. When we stand to our feet, I'll give an example of this. If we're honest, why do we love Jesus? Not because he was meek and mild. We love Jesus because he took control of circumstances that we couldn't control. We love Jesus because he came and he sorted out problems for us. You need healing? Jesus sorts it. You need provision, Jesus sorts it. And so thinking about my wife's message a few weeks ago about the fish, you know, cast your net onto the other side. Thinking about that story and thinking about how the kingdom relates to something like that. See, the disciples who were great fishermen had control, they understood the elements, they understood what was going on, they understood that you would only, by the way, in the Sea of Galilee, you would only fish at night because of the clarity of the water. The water was so clear that if you threw a net, the fish would literally see it and they would get spooked and they would run away. Well, not run away, swim away. So the Sea of Galilee would fishermen would only fish at night, and there are some parts of the world where you only fish at night, if you want to catch, anyway. And so they would fish at night. They would also know that the mountains that brought the the flow of the river from the mountains into the sea at certain times of the day would come and it would bring strong tidal flow, that they could couldn't fish in the deeper areas, but they would come up into the shallows. If you're a fisherman, especially in the harbor of Todanga, you know that you catch your biggest snappers not in the flow, but you catch them on the shallows because they come up to get out of the tide, and so they would fish in the shallows. You you know where I'm going with this. They would, because of the where it was situated, I studied it where the boat was situated and Jesus was on the shore. They would cut because the mountains were on this side, they would cast their net on the right side. They would fish at night in the shallows on the right hand side, and Jesus comes with the arrival of a kingdom. How you going there, fellas? How's the fishing going? Caught any fish? No, okay, you're operating according to the natural laws, you're operating according to this world that would tell you fish in the shallows, it would tell you cast your net on the right side, it would tell you only fish at night. Jesus comes along, and during the day, during the day when you're not meant to fish. I want to teach you what the kingdom's like. Not only do I want you to go during the day, that's crazy and ludicrous enough as it is, but I want you to come out of the shallows and into the deep. By this stage, the disciples are thinking, he's a little bit crazy. During the day, in the deep, and then he says, Cast your net on the other side. You couldn't have in the natural, in the natural, you couldn't have made the chances lower. You couldn't have made the chances lower. Jesus says, In the day, in the deep, on the left hand side. And what happened? They throw the net. And I think the fish heard the voice of the master. Get out of the way, I'm going into the net. I want to go where the master is, and fish and dolphins and whales, and I'm not sure what came. Yellow tailed kingfish came into the net and it sunk the boat. With how much provision came? Jesus was saying, I come from another kingdom, it operates completely differently to where you operate from. So, what did he do for them? He taught them how to take control of their circumstances. I'm so passionate about showing Christians who they are. Friends, if you're a believer in here, if you are filled with the Holy Spirit, you are not under your circumstances, you are called to take dominion. I know the interest rates might be saying something. I know the economy might be saying something, but you are not of this world. You're of a different kingdom. You're from another place, you're an ambassador. Oh Lord, I've had a sore back for a long time. Would you please? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. In the kingdom of God, my back is healed by his stripes. I am healed, and so I take authority over every bit of pain and I command it to be loosed. Come on, all over this place. If you've got something that you're under right now and you need to be over, just raise your hands to the Lord. I want to equip you. The team's gonna pray. The team's gonna play, rather, and you're gonna pray. They're gonna play and you're gonna pray. And I just want you to start to pray and start to take your authority as a kingdom son, as a kingdom daughter. We're gonna we're gonna we're gonna play loudly so that they can pray and not have anybody hear them. Whatever you're under, understand that you are over it and you have been called to have dominion over that circumstance. Come on, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray! Come on, take authority with verbal commands. I feel the anointing of the Lord. Come, Holy Spirit, come. Raise up the authority levels in this place, raise up the authority levels in this place, sons and daughters prophesying, sons and daughters taking authority in the kingdom of God.