Christina Cooke: Again, I just want to take those ladies home with me.
Christina Cooke: Oh my goodness.
Christina Cooke: Thank you so much for leading us in worship.
Christina Cooke: That was um beautiful.
Christina Cooke: I love the scripture in between.
Christina Cooke: The scripture just reminds us that the words we're about to sing are actually in scripture.
Christina Cooke: What a novel idea.
Christina Cooke: I can figure out how to open my laptop.
Christina Cooke: That would help.
Christina Cooke: Here we go.
Christina Cooke: But really, ladies, thank you for leading us so well in worship.
Christina Cooke: He is worthy.
Christina Cooke: Thank you.
Christina Cooke: Okay, so today we are going to look at what the creation mandate has to do with the Great Commission, how they are connected, and how we are to live in light of it.
Christina Cooke: So I know last night we went through a lot of material.
Christina Cooke: I told you it was going to be a lot from Genesis to Revelation and the big storyline of the Bible.
Christina Cooke: It's not something that we're going to grasp in one session.
Christina Cooke: I know that.
Christina Cooke: I'm hoping that I whet your appetite a little bit to go home and dig into these things like I did.
Christina Cooke: And I've been studying this for over a year, and I I still read over this lesson and be like, did I actually write that?
Christina Cooke: Because it just hits me in a new way every time.
Christina Cooke: So we're not going to grasp it all this weekend, but I hope that you will gain nuggets from it.
Christina Cooke: And today we're going to get into a little bit more practical application.
Christina Cooke: So hopefully it will be fruitful for you all.
Christina Cooke: So last night we looked at what the creation mandate was and why God gave it to us.
Christina Cooke: We touched on some application points, but this morning we're going to track this theme to see how and why this mandate is still applicable and to be obeyed today.
Christina Cooke: So we saw that the mandate, and I forgot my stick.
Christina Cooke: Sorry, hold on.
Christina Cooke: I need my slide stick.
unknown: Sorry.
unknown: Okay.
unknown: Thank you.
Christina Cooke: Okay, so we saw that the mandate was to be fruitful, help me out.
Christina Cooke: Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue it, and have dominion.
Christina Cooke: Good job.
Christina Cooke: You guys are good.
Christina Cooke: I love that over here you said the eight words.
Christina Cooke: It took us a year to figure out those eight words together as our ladies.
Christina Cooke: We just couldn't get the eight words.
Christina Cooke: And you heard it one time and you're like, God's people and God's place under God's rule.
Christina Cooke: Amazing.
Christina Cooke: Good job.
Christina Cooke: Good students here, you have.
Christina Cooke: Good.
Christina Cooke: So we see that was the mandate.
Christina Cooke: We also saw the reason why we are to fulfill this mandate, and that is because we are created in the image and likeness of God.
Christina Cooke: We are to be Christ's representative to the world.
Christina Cooke: We are to look like God, to act, to react, to respond like Him, so that when others see us, they will know who and what we worship or who we represent.
Christina Cooke: We are to image and represent God to the world.
Christina Cooke: Because of Christ, we can now do this.
Christina Cooke: And I realize we're gonna be a little bit repetitive today because if you're like me, you need repetition.
Christina Cooke: We're gonna take a look at how the imperatives or the commands of the creation mandate points us to the Great Commission.
Christina Cooke: I know you're all familiar with the Great Commission, right?
Christina Cooke: So I want to briefly track the theme of culture and dominion throughout the biblical narrative to see that it strongly indicates that the Great Commission is the creation mandate reinstated in Christ.
Christina Cooke: The implication is that Christians are still called to fulfill the creation mandate.
Christina Cooke: It just looks a little different.
Christina Cooke: So let's read these two passages together.
Christina Cooke: We're gonna read the creation mandate in Genesis 1, 28 again.
Christina Cooke: And God blessed them and 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 heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.
Christina Cooke: And now we're gonna read the Great Commission in Matthew 28, 18 through 20.
Christina Cooke: And Jesus came and said to them, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Christina Cooke: Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.
Christina Cooke: And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age.
Christina Cooke: We know that the first humans failed at obeying the creation mandate right by rebelling against God's law.
Christina Cooke: Despite their failure, God never rescinded his commission.
Christina Cooke: In fact, he reinstated it with several of his Old Testament saints.
Christina Cooke: We saw that last night.
Christina Cooke: However, like Adam, they would also fail at the task until the last Adam, which is Christ, would come to succeed on behalf of the human race.
Christina Cooke: Jesus, as mankind's redeemer and the one who now possesses ultimate dominion in heaven on earth, he reinstates the creation mandate as the mission of his church.
Christina Cooke: Only now the multiplication comes in the form of discipleship and baptism in the name of the triune God, and subduing comes by teaching the commandments of Christ, which manifests in culture.
Christina Cooke: The Great Commission is the creation mandate reinstated.
Christina Cooke: And I want to clarify that I'm not saying that making disciples replaces the original design to make more image bearers through natural birth.
Christina Cooke: That is also a way that we do that.
Christina Cooke: But we can now see that this mandate expands and points to spiritual birth as well.
Christina Cooke: It's not a replacement, so to speak, but it's another form of multiplying.
Christina Cooke: Adam was supposed to cultivate and expand Eden's garden throughout the earth as God's priest king to serve and guard God's garden temple, but failed by sinning and letting in an unclean serpent who defiled it.
Christina Cooke: God's presence resided with Adam and Eve in the garden.
Christina Cooke: However, neither of them were supposed to stay there.
Christina Cooke: As the first humans would multiply and fill the earth to subdue it, God's presence would expand along with them to all the earth.
Christina Cooke: That was the plan, that was the purpose, and we read it many times last night, so that the whole earth would be filled with God's glory.
Christina Cooke: They were never meant to stay in one place.
Christina Cooke: Adam's commission is passed down to Noah and his descendants.
Christina Cooke: However, Noah's descendants fail by refusing to disperse throughout the world.
Christina Cooke: Instead, they were more concerned with building a tower to make a name for themselves than they were with adhering to God's commission to cultivate the earth for his glory.
Christina Cooke: Then God gave the commission of Genesis 1.28 to the patriarchs, first to Abraham, then to Isaac, then to Jacob, and then to Israel as a people.
Christina Cooke: Just as God's presence was supposed to expand through Adam's cultivation, Israel's cultural activity was supposed to pave the way for God's dwelling place to encompass Jerusalem first, and then the land of Israel as a whole, and then finally, once again, the entire earth.
Christina Cooke: Israel was supposed to be a light to the nations, but they were not.
Christina Cooke: Even though Israel refused to be a light to the nations and instead profaned God's name among them, hope was not lost for God's original creation design.
Christina Cooke: Ezekiel prophesies about a time when God's people would multiply again, and that his sanctuary presence would reside with them forever.
Christina Cooke: We see in Ezekiel 37, 26, I will make a covenant of peace with them.
Christina Cooke: It shall be an everlasting covenant with them, and I will set them in their land and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in their midst forever.
Christina Cooke: And I hope you're seeing this theme a little bit as we see this covenant that we see that this is an unconditional covenant.
Christina Cooke: Because God says, I will make a covenant of peace with them.
Christina Cooke: It's not conditional on anything that they do, and this is the beauty of the gospel.
Christina Cooke: And this was accomplished through Christ.
Christina Cooke: Christ forever fulfills the creation mandate.
Christina Cooke: So far in the redemptive narrative, we have seen that God reiterates the creation mandate time and time again with his people.
Christina Cooke: The progress report of their attempts at God's calling can be summed up in one word: failure.
Christina Cooke: Not one person or peoples that God made a covenant with could fulfill the original calling that was given to Adam in the garden.
Christina Cooke: Not one except Jesus.
Christina Cooke: So let's compare the first Adam to the last Adam and see how they did.
Christina Cooke: Adam, of course, representing all of mankind.
Christina Cooke: We talked about that last night as Adam being the federal head.
Christina Cooke: He was the representative of the people.
Christina Cooke: So whatever he did affected the people.
Christina Cooke: He was the federal head, representing all of mankind.
Christina Cooke: Jesus is the priest king that Adam was supposed to be.
Christina Cooke: It was Adam who was supposed to take dominion as king, but lost it.
Christina Cooke: It is Jesus, on the other hand, to whom belongs all dominion now and forever.
Christina Cooke: Adam, as priest, should have expelled the serpent from the garden, but instead allowed Eve to be deceived.
Christina Cooke: By contrast, Jesus crushed the serpent's head and cast him out.
Christina Cooke: Adam brought death in the old creation.
Christina Cooke: Jesus brought life in the new.
Christina Cooke: Adam was disobedient in the Garden of Eden.
Christina Cooke: Jesus was obedient in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Christina Cooke: Jesus is called the final or last Adam for the reason that he will succeed in God's cultural calling.
Christina Cooke: Jesus would fulfill all that Adam could not.
Christina Cooke: Let's look at how the creation mandate is reinstated in the New Covenant.
Christina Cooke: The final instance in which the creation mandate is reinstated occurs during the end of the gospel narratives, where Jesus himself commissions his followers to go into all the world and make disciples of all the nations.
Christina Cooke: The same language that we heard in Genesis is seen here as well.
Christina Cooke: Just as the first commission to Adam was announced in Eden, located on a mountain, we see that in Ezekiel 28, Jesus gave his commission to the disciples also on a mountain.
Christina Cooke: So we see these parallels from the first Adam to the last Adam.
Christina Cooke: We see failure to success.
Christina Cooke: God blessed Adam to carry out his mission.
Christina Cooke: Jesus blessed his disciples to carry out theirs.
Christina Cooke: The commission in Eden was to be fruitful and multiply.
Christina Cooke: Jesus commissioned the apostles to multiply their disciples.
Christina Cooke: Adam was to subdue the earth using God's righteous standards.
Christina Cooke: The apostles were to teach new believers to observe all that Jesus commanded.
Christina Cooke: So how do we subdue the earth through Christ as New Testament believers?
Christina Cooke: By being obedient to our King Jesus in all areas of life is how Christians subdue the earth through him in the new covenant.
Christina Cooke: We live life in every way, living by God's righteous standards without compromise.
Christina Cooke: Jesus' reinstatement of the creation mandate would be different now for the reason that God's presence would remain with his people.
Christina Cooke: Jesus solidifies his commission by assuring his disciples that he would be with them always to the end of the age.
Christina Cooke: Jesus saying he will be with us is saying that we are the sanctuary where God's presence would remain forever.
Christina Cooke: That's a glorious fact, ladies.
Christina Cooke: I hope that never gets old with us.
Christina Cooke: Jesus himself is the temple.
Christina Cooke: And because his presence is now with us and in us, we are also God's temple.
Christina Cooke: Think about this magnificent truth that we're talking about.
Christina Cooke: Wherever we go and whatever we touch or cultivate, the world should be experiencing the presence of God through us.
Christina Cooke: Recognizing the larger goal of this mandate or commission should be a great encouragement that whatever situation God has sovereignly placed you in is opportunity for you to serve and contribute to his kingdom.
Christina Cooke: Advancing the kingdom of God is not just a pastoral mission.
Christina Cooke: This is not the leaders of our churches' mission alone.
Christina Cooke: The pastor and leaders of our churches will never accomplish this aspect of Christian dominion on their own.
Christina Cooke: It's impossible.
Christina Cooke: He said, Your job is to invite them to church.
Christina Cooke: We'll do the rest.
Christina Cooke: Of course, it is not wrong to invite your friends to church, but that is not the means of evangelism or making disciples that we are called to do.
Christina Cooke: It is not the pastor's sermon that will be the greatest tool to someone's salvation.
Christina Cooke: It is you.
Christina Cooke: Mainstream Christianity wants us to believe that the church is designed for the unbeliever.
Christina Cooke: They want us to believe that the church is where we bring our unsaved friends and family to introduce them to Jesus.
Christina Cooke: And that is not wrong to do.
Christina Cooke: We love that.
Christina Cooke: We want you to do that.
Christina Cooke: We welcome that.
Christina Cooke: But sadly, this is how many churches in America function today.
Christina Cooke: They function for the purpose of bringing the world in.
Christina Cooke: So now they have to water down the message to get them in, and then they have to entertain them to keep them there.
Christina Cooke: However, that is not the biblical model of church.
Christina Cooke: Church is designed for the believer.
Christina Cooke: Church is designed for fellowship, for worship, for prayer, for the breaking of bread, for the teaching of the word of God, and for equipping the saints.
Christina Cooke: One writer said, pastoral roles are much like military cooks.
Christina Cooke: Their job is to feed those who are fighting on the front lines of battle.
Christina Cooke: I love that.
Christina Cooke: The pastor's role is to equip the saints.
Christina Cooke: If you have a spiritual gift, you are not only supposed to use that gift, but you are called to equip the saints, teaching them how to practice the gift you have.
Christina Cooke: You are a steward of that gift.
Christina Cooke: We are all called to serve, we're all called to show hospitality, we're all called to evangelize, and we're all called to give, even if that's not your spiritual gift.
Christina Cooke: It is not exclusive to the one who has the gift.
Christina Cooke: We see this in Ephesians 4, 11 through 13.
Christina Cooke: And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, and the teachers to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, for building up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
Christina Cooke: With this in mind, your pastor and elders and leaders are not in the circles that you daily walk in.
Christina Cooke: You live and work among unbelievers every day.
Christina Cooke: We are in a spiritual battle to win souls.
Christina Cooke: This is the Great Commission to fill the earth with the glory of God by making disciples.
Christina Cooke: The spiritual war we fight needs you who are in direct contact with the world in the spaces you live in order to counter wicked people and cultures with the kingdom of God.
Christina Cooke: No job, calling, or situation in life is insignificant or unnecessary for the Great Commission.
Christina Cooke: Everything you do in your day, whether you are a parent, whether you own a business, are an employee, whether you do art, enjoy entertainment, whatever your involvement is in civil government, whether you farm, teach, are a doctor, a lawyer, a neighbor, simply a shopper in the grocery store.
Christina Cooke: These are all elements that make up culture and should be pursued with Christ's great commission at the forefront of our intellects and passions.
Christina Cooke: We're not looking to change culture simply so we can have a more moral, enjoyable place to live, although that would be nice.
Christina Cooke: We like that, but that's not the goal.
Christina Cooke: We want to change culture for the glory of God, and culture will change as Christ's followers live and subdue using God's righteous standards and telling others about the good news of Jesus.
Christina Cooke: In the spaces where you live and work, do the people there know who you worship?
Christina Cooke: Do they know you are a Christ follower?
Christina Cooke: Have you shared the gospel with them?
Christina Cooke: What standards are we looking to when we do life?
Christina Cooke: When we go to work, live at home with our families, drive our cars, walk side by side with other believers, or just rub shoulders with the world as we live among them?
Christina Cooke: Is it a different set of standards for each of those spaces?
Christina Cooke: Do we uphold Christ in church only?
Christina Cooke: Or is Christ upheld in our hearts, in his temple?
Christina Cooke: We are always first, image-bearing, worshipping representatives of Christ before we are anything else.
Christina Cooke: This is who we are.
Christina Cooke: This is our identity.
Christina Cooke: In Christ, we are new.
Christina Cooke: We are not an employee first and then tack Jesus on when we can.
Christina Cooke: We're not drivers with rights and then tack Jesus on when we want to.
Christina Cooke: We are not parents with authority first who get angry at our children and then tack Jesus on and drag them to church.
Christina Cooke: Anybody else experience those things besides me?
Christina Cooke: Those are my own examples.
Christina Cooke: We are image-bearing, worshipping representatives of Jesus first, and then in light of that, we go to work, drive in the car, be a parent or a neighbor.
Christina Cooke: The way you are at work should reflect who you are.
Christina Cooke: The way you drive in your car should reflect who you are.
Christina Cooke: The way you parent should reflect who you are.
Christina Cooke: The way you treat your neighbor should reflect who you are, and who you are is new in Christ.
Christina Cooke: There are three biblical mandates given in scripture that tie closely together.
Christina Cooke: So we've seen the creation mandate, the great commission, and then also the greatest commandment.
Christina Cooke: Matthew 22, 37 through 39 says, and he said to them, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
Christina Cooke: This is the great and first commandment, and the second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.
Christina Cooke: As Christians, we must keep all three of these mandates at the forefront of our intentions, our work, and our mission without compromise.
Christina Cooke: To understand the Great Commission is to understand that each person alive today has been created in the image of God and participates within God's story.
Christina Cooke: And right now we are living in that third part of the storyline: redemption.
Christina Cooke: The Great Commission should compel God's redeemed people to look beyond discipleship as a simple conversion, a passing out of a tract, or the job of your pastor or elders.
Christina Cooke: The Great Commission is a calling for everyone.
Christina Cooke: This is our life's purpose to make disciples.
Christina Cooke: This is the mandate to be fruitful and multiply.
Christina Cooke: Making a disciple is not evangelism in and of itself.
Christina Cooke: It includes that, it must.
Christina Cooke: But it is life on life.
Christina Cooke: It is a lifestyle.
Christina Cooke: It's living it out every day where you walk and live, preaching the gospel, leading in the spaces you live and work and using God's righteous standards.
Christina Cooke: And as those around you come to Christ, you walk with them and teach them everything that Jesus has taught you.
Christina Cooke: The Great Commission is directly correlated to the creation mandate because God, through Jesus Christ, renews image bearers of God.
Christina Cooke: In Genesis, God created man, man sinned, and marred his ability to carry out the commission that God has for us.
Christina Cooke: But we see Christ recreates humanity.
Christina Cooke: 2 Corinthians 5 17 says, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.
Christina Cooke: The old has passed away, behold, the new has come.
Christina Cooke: Then we see in John 20, 20 that Christ breathes new life.
Christina Cooke: And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit.
Christina Cooke: So when God created Adam, he breathed life into his nostrils.
Christina Cooke: He gave him life.
Christina Cooke: But then God recreated man in the new birth when he breathed new life through the Holy Spirit.
Christina Cooke: It's a new birth.
Christina Cooke: That's why we call it born again.
Christina Cooke: You're born the first time, but now you're born again with new life, new breath, Holy Spirit.
Christina Cooke: The creation mandate and the Great Commission is an evangelistic mandate and an imperative to make disciples.
Christina Cooke: This is the meta-narrative of God in the scriptures.
Christina Cooke: God created man in his image and likeness to know him, to love him, to serve him, and to fill the earth, to have dominion over it, all under his protective, loving rule.
Christina Cooke: The creation mandate mirrors the Great Commission as Christ, who is God in flesh, reigns as cosmic king.
Christina Cooke: Jesus, the second and last Adam, lived out the mission of God in perfect obedience, something the first Adam failed to do in the garden.
Christina Cooke: Our end goal is this: we journey the course in which God in Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, leads us and directs us on a sanctifying mission.
Christina Cooke: We do this with drive, zeal, and desire to be more holy, more missional, and more like Christ.
Christina Cooke: Jesus, the ultimate image bearer, was the ultimate disciple maker.
Christina Cooke: If we are created by him, through him, and for him, then our lives must have intentionality in living out what he said and did in Matthew 28, 19.
Christina Cooke: John Piper says that missions exist because worship doesn't.
Christina Cooke: The world around you is worshiping the wrong God.
Christina Cooke: This is why missions exist.
Christina Cooke: This is the purpose of the Great Commission.
Christina Cooke: So those worshippers can find the object of true and right worship, to worship the creator the way they were designed to.
Christina Cooke: Last night we talked about how the seed of the woman who is ultimately Christ will crush the head of the serpent.
Christina Cooke: Has this already happened?
Christina Cooke: Yes.
Christina Cooke: When Christ rose from the dead, he defeated Satan.
Christina Cooke: Remember when Jesus was being tempted by Satan in the wilderness, and Satan told Jesus that he would give him all the kingdoms of the world if Jesus would bow down and worship him?
Christina Cooke: Satan was given the authority that he had.
Christina Cooke: Ultimately, we know it belonged to God, but it was given to Satan.
Christina Cooke: That is how Satan was able to bruise Jesus' heel.
Christina Cooke: He wouldn't have the ability to do that unless God gave him that authority.
Christina Cooke: But let's read the Great Commission again, Matthew 28, 18 through 20.
Christina Cooke: And Jesus came and said to them, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Christina Cooke: Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you, and behold, I am with you always to the end of the age.
Christina Cooke: See, Christ defeated Satan, and authority has been given to him.
Christina Cooke: We knew it always belonged to him, but this was God's pattern.
Christina Cooke: It had been given to him.
Christina Cooke: Jesus is saying, all authority has been given to him.
Christina Cooke: Theologian Abraham Kuyper said, There is not one single square inch of all eternity that Jesus Christ does not say, mine.
Christina Cooke: Because of this fact that all authority is Jesus's, he is sending us out saying, Now go make disciples, because I have authority and I am with you.
Christina Cooke: I am with you.
Christina Cooke: We go on his authority, not our own.
Christina Cooke: We go in his strength and power, not our own.
Christina Cooke: He has already paved the way for us.
Christina Cooke: So it should be easy, right?
Christina Cooke: Do you think it's easy?
Christina Cooke: I don't think it's easy either.
Christina Cooke: Okay, so I'm gonna we're gonna watch this little clip.
Christina Cooke: I'm hoping this has worked.
Christina Cooke: Maddie, you're gonna help me, right?
Christina Cooke: I'm gonna go to this slide here, and we're just gonna watch this little clip.
Christina Cooke: I'm not promoting Disney or anything like that.
Christina Cooke: I just thought it was a good clip.
Speaker 1: A horrible mistake.
Speaker 1: But if you do this, you will start a war with Mufasa.
Speaker 1: Hyenas and lions have been at the war since the beginning of time.
Christina Cooke: But how encouraging is this to have that visual to remember who you are?
Christina Cooke: Whose are you?
Christina Cooke: Who do you belong to?
Christina Cooke: What is your identity in?
Christina Cooke: And whose power do we go in?
Christina Cooke: We're like little Simba.
Christina Cooke: We have nothing.
Christina Cooke: There's no we have nothing.
Christina Cooke: If we're going in our own strength, we have nothing.
Christina Cooke: But our Heavenly Father has given us His Spirit.
Christina Cooke: So we go in His power.
Christina Cooke: If fear is present, that may be an indicator that we are going in our own power and forgetting who we belong to and whose power we are to rely on.
Christina Cooke: With the authority given to Christ and His promise to be with us always through the power of the Holy Spirit, we will see humanity transformed by the gospel and we will see the whole earth filled with God's glory as image bearers take the gospel to all the nations and make disciples.
Christina Cooke: This is an incredible calling and a joyful one.
Christina Cooke: There is a world of image bearers out there who were designed to live in right relationship with their creator.
Christina Cooke: They are seeking all the wrong objects of worship, seeking satisfaction that they will never see outside of a relationship with Him through Christ.
Christina Cooke: God has placed this high calling on you and on me and on the church to bring the good news to them and make them a disciple of Christ so that the whole earth would be filled with the glory of God.
Christina Cooke: Let's read Acts 17.
Christina Cooke: Back.
Christina Cooke: I can't see if that's is that the right one?
Christina Cooke: Is that Acts 17?
Christina Cooke: Oh, it is.
Christina Cooke: Thank you.
Christina Cooke: Maddie already had me there.
Christina Cooke: Good job.
Christina Cooke: Acts 17, 22 through 28.
Christina Cooke: And we'll see how this truth played out for Paul while he was in Athens.
Christina Cooke: So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said, Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious.
Christina Cooke: For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription to the unknown God.
Christina Cooke: What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.
Christina Cooke: The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.
Christina Cooke: And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him.
Christina Cooke: Yet he is not actually far from each one of us, for in him we live and move and have our being, and even some of your own poets have said, For we are indeed his offspring.
Christina Cooke: Can you see how intentional God is?
Christina Cooke: Do you see how Paul was attentive to what was going on in the culture around him?
Christina Cooke: Paul saw worship going on in Athens, but he saw their worship was of the wrong God, or at least not including Yahweh.
Christina Cooke: He took this opportunity to speak into their need to preach the gospel.
Christina Cooke: Paul longed for these people to have the correct object of worship.
Christina Cooke: Verses 26 through 28 tell us that God has determined the allotted periods where men would live and the boundaries of their dwelling place.
Christina Cooke: Man's purpose is to seek God and that they would find him, because it is in him that we live and move and have our being.
Christina Cooke: There is one thing that we can know for sure.
Christina Cooke: Every single human being that has ever existed was made by God and for God to worship him.
Christina Cooke: Colossians 1 16 says, For by him, meaning Jesus, all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him.
Christina Cooke: Psalm 103 affirms this.
Christina Cooke: Know that the Lord He is God.
Christina Cooke: It is He who made us, and we are His.
Christina Cooke: God made man for a purpose, to image Him, to glorify Him, to know Him.
Christina Cooke: Does it move you to know that the Creator of the world wants to know you?
Christina Cooke: Does it move you to know that the Creator of the world humbled himself, became human flesh in the form of a helpless baby?
Christina Cooke: Does it move you to think that the creator of the world, the one who created Mary, humbled himself to be completely dependent on her to care for him?
Christina Cooke: That just blows me away.
Christina Cooke: Does it move you to know that Jesus came so you can be made right with God?
Christina Cooke: Jesus came and lived the perfect life that we cannot live.
Christina Cooke: He died the death that we could not die.
Christina Cooke: He paid the price that we could not pay.
Christina Cooke: He suffered the wrath of God in our place.
Christina Cooke: And then he gave us his righteousness.
Christina Cooke: And to think that he desires us to know him, that he desires to give us joy and life evermore.
Christina Cooke: And not only that, he gave us his spirit to empower us to do so.
Christina Cooke: Understanding this truth should bring us to worship.
Christina Cooke: We are designed for this kind of relationship with our Creator, and Christ came to restore what was broken.
Christina Cooke: And there is a world out there full of people who do not know their creator.
Christina Cooke: Every day we interact with people who are searching for meaning and purpose in life, but they will never find meaning and purpose that truly satisfies outside of Christ.
Christina Cooke: We were designed to function in one way, to image our Creator.
Christina Cooke: If we function any other way, other than the way that we are designed to function, we will never be happy.
Christina Cooke: The greatest calling and purpose we will ever have is to share this truth with every human being that exists.
Christina Cooke: Do you have unbelieving friends, co-workers, neighbors?
Christina Cooke: God has determined your allotted periods of time where you live and work, and God has determined the boundaries of your dwelling place.
Christina Cooke: The places you walk every single day have been allotted by God.
Christina Cooke: He has placed you where you are, at the time and place you are for a specific purpose.
Christina Cooke: And you walk among unbelievers who God has also allowed at their period of time and their dwelling place.
Christina Cooke: God has intention for when your path crosses with theirs.
Christina Cooke: Many of those people are seeking purpose but find it in the wrong place.
Christina Cooke: They fall to the wrong object of worship.
Christina Cooke: We're probably all familiar with Romans 10 13.
Christina Cooke: For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
Christina Cooke: And we love those verses, don't we?
Christina Cooke: But let's read the next two verses.
Christina Cooke: Romans 4 10, 14 and 15.
Christina Cooke: How then will they call on him whom they have not believed?
Christina Cooke: And how are they to believe in him who they have never heard?
Christina Cooke: And how are they to hear without someone preaching?
Christina Cooke: And how are they to preach unless they are sent?
Christina Cooke: As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news.
Christina Cooke: We carry this good news within us.
Christina Cooke: Do we really see it as good?
Christina Cooke: Are our feet swift to share it?
Christina Cooke: We all know what we are saved from, but this is what we are saved to, to bring the light of the gospel to a dark world.
Christina Cooke: We are the light of the world, and we can cling to the promise of Jesus when he said, I am with you.
Christina Cooke: First Peter 2 9 tells us, but you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
Christina Cooke: We have been called out of darkness into his marvelous light to proclaim his excellencies.
Christina Cooke: This is our purpose.
Christina Cooke: Jesus, as he is preaching the Sermon on the Mount, says this in Matthew 5, 14 and 15.
Christina Cooke: A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house.
Christina Cooke: In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.
Christina Cooke: I pray that we live in a way that lives out this commission, that we don't keep our faith to ourselves or hide it under a bushel, like the children's song says, but let our light shine.
Christina Cooke: We are in a spiritual war for souls, and this culture war will be waged by preaching the gospel.
Christina Cooke: And once we put our faith in Christ, we are called to equip other Christians to go and live in the appointed time and place that God has put them in to the glory of God.
Christina Cooke: So for the remainder of our session, I'd like to get super practical.
Christina Cooke: We're going to look at five examples of the places that God has determined for you and the spaces that you live in every day.
Christina Cooke: And with each example, I'm going to give a testimony or an example of what that could practically look like.
Christina Cooke: So number one is your home.
Christina Cooke: Your home should not just be a place to eat, watch TV, take care of your yard and sleep.
Christina Cooke: It should be a place of productivity.
Christina Cooke: This takes the form of family discipleship: loving and serving and witnessing to your neighbors, showing hospitality, have your neighbor over for a cup of coffee or tea if you drink tea.
Christina Cooke: A testimony here: when my children were young, I held Bible studies in my home early on Saturday mornings.
Christina Cooke: I invited my neighbor who was Catholic.
Christina Cooke: I lived in Florida at the time.
Christina Cooke: We had lived back in New York for over 10 years when I received a Facebook message from that neighbor.
Christina Cooke: She told me she finally understood what I was teaching in those Bible studies so many years earlier and wanted to tell me that she finally got it.
Christina Cooke: She wanted to thank me as she explained how she had accepted Christ and was now married to a Christian man and involved in a church.
Christina Cooke: In the spaces you live, use it to share the gospel.
Christina Cooke: Another example that happens frequently is Jehovah's Witnesses coming to our door.
Christina Cooke: Do you shoe them away or do you invite them in?
Christina Cooke: This is an opportunity to share Christ with them.
Christina Cooke: My husband and I have had many opportunities to do this.
Christina Cooke: And what's fun is they always bring higher-up people back.
Christina Cooke: They don't know who they're messing with.
Christina Cooke: We love that.
Christina Cooke: We had them over for dinner one night and it was so much fun.
Christina Cooke: Another example, if you're having work done at your home, a painter, a plumber, an empliance install, be prepared to bless them.
Christina Cooke: Share the gospel, give them a tract.
Christina Cooke: Don't waste any opportunity to put the gospel in someone's hands.
Christina Cooke: Your home presents many opportunities to shine your light.
Christina Cooke: Number two, your job.
Christina Cooke: Your job should not be a place of drudgery.
Christina Cooke: It is a ministry and an opportunity to bring good to others and shine your light for the gospel to the glory of God.
Christina Cooke: Do the people at your job know you are a Christian?
Christina Cooke: Do you live by a different standard than they do?
Christina Cooke: Do they see you are different?
Christina Cooke: If time doesn't allow you to share your life with Christ, with a coworker, invite them to lunch and invest in the relationship.
Christina Cooke: A testimony here is my middle son Jonathan got his very first job at the Suffolk Theater in Riverhead when he was 14.
Christina Cooke: All of his coworkers knew he was a Christian and frequently invited them to church.
Christina Cooke: They never wanted to come.
Christina Cooke: So several years later, when he was, I think it was after Bible college, he went back and worked there.
Christina Cooke: One uh his one of his co-workers was having a birthday party for her dog.
Christina Cooke: My son Jonathan thought that that was the most ridiculous thing ever.
Christina Cooke: And he said, I am not going to a birthday party for a dog.
Christina Cooke: But there was another coworker, her name was Ashlyn, and she tried to persuade Jonathan to go with her to the party.
Christina Cooke: I encouraged him to go because I felt like it was a great opportunity to be a witness.
Christina Cooke: Jonathan was not going for that.
Christina Cooke: But when Ashlyn pressed Jonathan to go, I said, Well, tell Ashlyn that you'll go to the party with her if she comes to church.
Christina Cooke: So he did, and she agreed.
Christina Cooke: She came to church for the first time at our Thanksgiving soup and pie outreach in 2018.
Christina Cooke: This began a relationship that I pursued with Ashlyn.
Christina Cooke: We began to read the Bible together and walked through a six-week discipleship course through the book of Mark.
Christina Cooke: I won't go through all the rest of the details, but eventually Ashlyn accepted Christ, was baptized at our church by my husband, and is now my wonderful daughter-in-law and the mother of my two amazing grandsons.
Christina Cooke: Praise God.
Christina Cooke: Another example at work, my youngest son, Samuel, has shared his faith with several of his co-workers.
Christina Cooke: He has invited a few of them to church.
Christina Cooke: Two of them have been coming regularly.
Christina Cooke: There's no flowery testimony here, there's no salvations yet.
Christina Cooke: But one of these coworkers is like a second mother to Samuel, will be joining us this year for Thanksgiving dinner.
Christina Cooke: But this is how we shine our light in the spaces that we live in.
Christina Cooke: We're to be faithful to share the message and live it out.
Christina Cooke: That's it.
Christina Cooke: God does the rest.
Christina Cooke: Number three, the places you daily walk.
Christina Cooke: Your place matters.
Christina Cooke: God has determined to put you where you are in the times you are in them.
Christina Cooke: No one else will walk where you walk each day.
Christina Cooke: Trust his wisdom and love where he put you.
Christina Cooke: Ask, how can I honor God in this particular space?
Christina Cooke: Who can I share Christ with?
Christina Cooke: A very practical example.
Christina Cooke: And I see a little baby in this room.
Christina Cooke: I don't know if that's your first baby.
Christina Cooke: Is that your first baby?
Christina Cooke: Second baby.
Christina Cooke: All right.
Christina Cooke: So this mom is going to the park.
Christina Cooke: I know that.
Christina Cooke: So when you have children, you take them to the park.
Christina Cooke: When my kids were younger, I would take them to the park.
Christina Cooke: When you put your child in the swing, what is typically typically happening right next to you?
Christina Cooke: There's another mom next to you pushing her child in the swing.
Christina Cooke: This is a great opportunity to start an intentional conversation.
Christina Cooke: She's not going anywhere.
Christina Cooke: Another way to engage is to talk to people and show an interest in them.
Christina Cooke: Ask if you can pray for them or how you can pray for them.
Christina Cooke: Last month, our ladies went on a treat, a retreat to Pennsylvania.
Christina Cooke: As we were eating dinner in a restaurant, one of our ladies noticed the waiter was a little off, like he wasn't feeling well.
Christina Cooke: She asked him how he was doing and offered to pray for him.
Christina Cooke: He then began to open up to her and she proceeded to share the gospel with him.
Christina Cooke: A wonderful testimony of honoring Christ and shining your light in the spaces you walk.
Christina Cooke: Number four, opportunities in your community.
Christina Cooke: Is there a library, a gym, a sports center, or another program in your community?
Christina Cooke: Be salt and light to transform it.
Christina Cooke: One example is Soundview Pregnancy Center.
Christina Cooke: Do anyone heard of Soundview Pregnancy Center?
Christina Cooke: Not a lot of you, but there is a Soundview Pregnancy Center 20 minutes from here in East Meadow.
Christina Cooke: So it's a great ministry to get involved with.
Christina Cooke: Volunteering at the Pregnancy Center has given me opportunities to minister to women in my community as I'm able to counsel them with the Word of God through life struggles.
Christina Cooke: For some, it's sharing the gospel.
Christina Cooke: For others, it's making disciples as I teach them the things God has commanded them to do.
Christina Cooke: Another example, my husband has volunteered for the Riverhead Town Anti-Litter Advisory Committee.
Christina Cooke: While he walks the streets picking up trash alongside others, it gives him the opportunity to speak into their lives.
Christina Cooke: Another example, our church offers free biblical counseling to our community.
Christina Cooke: This is one way I have opportunities to share the gospel with people in need.
Christina Cooke: Passing out gospel tracts is another thing you can do.
Christina Cooke: And that's something that we can do when we don't have time to have conversations.
Christina Cooke: If I'm driving through a fast food, fast food restaurant, I don't have time to share the gospel at the window, but I can give a gospel tract.
Christina Cooke: But when we do have the opportunity and time, we need to speak.
Christina Cooke: One of my favorite stories is when my friend Marianne told me that she shared the gospel with her dentist.
Christina Cooke: I was like, how did that, what did that even look like?
Christina Cooke: But she was like, in between, it was the hygienist.
Christina Cooke: She's like, in between cleanings.
Christina Cooke: I was asking her questions.
Christina Cooke: I'm like, this girl does not stop.
Christina Cooke: Another example, our church is involved with an organization for the homeless called Maureen's Haven.
Christina Cooke: For three to four weeks out of the winter months, we open up our church as a shelter for about 14 men.
Christina Cooke: Each time they come, they receive a bed, food, lots of love, and the hope of the gospel.
Christina Cooke: And lastly, take advantage of your citizenship.
Christina Cooke: Hopefully, some of you did that last week on Tuesday.
Christina Cooke: Paul took advantage of his Roman citizenship.
Christina Cooke: Christians should do the same for their national citizenships.
Christina Cooke: Vote according to a scripture-shaped conscience.
Christina Cooke: If you feel called or gifted in this area, run for office and rule in a godly way.
Christina Cooke: Show up to council meetings.
Christina Cooke: Make use of your freedoms for the good of the church and those in your community.
Christina Cooke: I want to add, if you do take advantage of these means, it is not for the sole purpose of having a more moral society, although that is good.
Christina Cooke: But remember, when Paul took advantage of his citizenship, he used it to preach the gospel.
Christina Cooke: In all of these examples, we are to live out the creation mandate now enabled by the power of Christ in us.
Christina Cooke: Because we are new creations in Christ, indwelled with the Spirit of God, we can now effectively be fruitful and multiply by making more image bearers.
Christina Cooke: We subdue the earth by living out God's righteous standard and teaching others to obey the commandments of God through evangelism and discipleship.
Christina Cooke: We take dominion by bringing order to the spaces we work in.
Christina Cooke: By living out this purpose as image bearers ourselves, we will, one soul at a time, see the earth be filled with the glory of God.
Christina Cooke: And living out our purpose and the way God designed us will bring us peace, satisfaction, and joy.
Christina Cooke: I hope this is the driving force of your life.
Christina Cooke: Our life in Christ, carrying out the commands of God, that should be our greatest joy.
Christina Cooke: As we close, let's stand and read 2 Timothy 4 1 through 8 together.
Christina Cooke: As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
Christina Cooke: For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come.
Christina Cooke: I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.
Christina Cooke: Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day.
Christina Cooke: And not only to me, but also to all who have loved his appearing.
Christina Cooke: Let's pray.
Christina Cooke: Father, we thank you so much for this time.
Christina Cooke: And I just pray that you would just allow these words to sink in our hearts, Lord, that we would just behold Christ and know the great gift that you have given us in Jesus.
Christina Cooke: And the offer of your free gift, Lord, is such a blessing to us.
Christina Cooke: You are so worthy.
Christina Cooke: I just pray, Lord, that you would bless each lady here and that you would help us to walk in these truths by the power of your spirit.
Christina Cooke: We love you and we praise you in Jesus' name.
Christina Cooke: Amen.