A New Way Of Thinking About Yourself

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And let's pray together.

Lord, everything we do today, not just today, but everything we do in this life is predicated by and banked upon, built upon the fact that you're worthy.

There's no sacrifice that we can make that's going to exceed your worth.

And therefore, before a God of such infinite worth, all things are possible.

And so now, Lord, we ask that you, by your spirit, would illuminate your word.

Cause it to be more than words on a page.

Let it become life and understanding, wisdom and the way.

Lord, let it find a resting place in our head and in our heart and expression in our hands this week.

And let it start with us.

Lord, press this hard in upon us today, because the enemy would like to come and snatch away this word.

As soon as it gets sown, let the word, but the seed of your truth, God, find good soil today, take root and bear fruit, so that the children of the people in this room and the grandchildren of people in this room benefit by what you say today in our midst, God, for your glory and yet for our pleasure.

Pray all these things in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, Amen.

Amen.

You could have a seed if you got a Bible.

I invite you to take it and open up to Psalm chapter 8.

Psalms 8 · chapter mention

Psalm chapter 8.

Psalms 8 · chapter mention

And I want to begin with a confession.

I'm Psalm chapter 8, the eighth Psalm, excuse me.

Psalms 8 · chapter mention

I want to begin with a confession.

I tried to talk about this topic in a men's breakfast last semester, and I did so very poorly.

And so I want to come back.

I'm supposed to start the book of Daniel today, but I pushed that back to next week.

So if you're visiting today, we preach the books of the Bible.

We do New Testament, Old Testament.

We preached through the Gospel of John last, and we're going to start the book of Daniel next week.

But as a follow-up to last week, God had a little stirring in me.

I want to talk to you from Psalm 8 about a new way of thinking about yourself.

A new way of thinking about yourself.

Because the ways in which we think about ourselves are not always great.

And worse than that, they're usually not true and they're not biblical.

And so I'll talk to you about a new way of thinking about yourself.

And let me just say this by way of introduction.

What God intended from the beginning, God still intends.

Let me say that again.

What God intended from the beginning, he still intends.

It's not like the fall, Adam and Eve in the garden didn't, it's not like God had a plan A and they screwed it up, and now He's kind of scrambling to come up with a plan like, oh, there's a coronavirus and there's a coin shortage.

And so that means this, and the mask is the mark of the beast.

And I'm just like, stop sending me those emails.

Just stop.

I'm not gonna live in that fear, okay?

And so it's easy to look around and kind of be like, oh man, the world's just coming unhinged.

God must not know what he's doing.

God always knows what he's doing.

He always knows what he's doing.

And what God intended from the beginning, he still intends.

The fall of man didn't change that one iota.

What do you mean?

I'm gonna read from the eighth psalm, and I just want to pull three realities out of here and just say, hey, let's think about ourselves through the lens of these three things, not just this morning, but for the rest of your life.

I told somebody earlier I had to change the title of the sermon.

What I wanted to call the sermon was this is your next tattoo.

Uh but my wife's like, that you can't do that.

Uh, because somebody will go out and get that.

And I'm like, be awesome.

Uh no, get a different title.

So a new way of thinking about yourself from the eighth Psalm.

David is outside, uh, and you'll see because he looks up and he describes what he sees in the sky.

Uh Psalm 8, verse 1.

Psalms 8:1

Oh Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.

You have set your glory above the heavens, and out of the mouths of babes and infants you have established strength because of your foes.

To steal the enemy and the avenger.

When I look at their heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon, the stars which you have set in place.

What is man that you're mindful of him, and the Son of Man that you care for him?

Yet you've made him a little lower than the heavenly beings, and have crowned him with glory and honor.

You have given him dominion over the work of your hands.

You have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, all the beasts of the field, the birds of the heaven and the fish of the seas, whatever passes along the paths of the seas, O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.

David begins and ends with the same refrain of praise and worship to God.

Oh Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all of the earth.

And then he begins with that and he gets going.

And that you say, What's a new way of talking about yourself?

There's three things.

You get down there to about verse five, and David says, uh, of man.

He said, because it's easy to look up, he says, I see the moon and the stars and everything that your hands have made.

And then I think, what is man that you're mindful of him?

And the Bible uh protects us from pride and pity, okay?

Uh it's not, hey, we're we're more than than we should be, but but we are what we are.

Uh it's created beings created by God.

And the Bible says, here's the new way of thinking about yourself.

Here's what should be your next new tattoo.

He says, You've been you've, what is the man, you're mindful of him.

And then he says, You've crowned him with glory and honor, and you've given him dominion.

So the new way of thinking about yourself from the Bible is just three little words glory and honor and dominion.

And what I'm gonna say to you this morning is that this is our creative purpose.

It what it's what God intended all along.

I'll show you that from the Bible.

And I'm gonna invite you to stop settling for the alternatives and just kind of readjust your affections and your attentions to say, you know what?

God crowned me with glory and honor, and he's given me dominion.

And so you got to ask yourself, what must God think about me if he's crowned me with these realities?

So let's just jump in this morning.

The first one is glory.

He said, You what is a man that you're mindful of him?

You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings.

That phrase heavenly beings in the Hebrew, which Psalms is written in, is Elohim, which is God.

He says, You've made him a little lower than God, and you've crowned him with glory.

Glory means splendor, dignity, reputation, and reverence.

Let me say that again.

Glory.

And here the definition is splendor, dignity, reputation, and reverence.

Here's why this is important.

For for years, for decades, I would say, the church has sent two messages loud and clear, and have missed the real message of the Bible when it comes to a really key uh uh point of understanding.

Here's the two messages that we've sent loud and clear.

All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

And people are like, okay, great, I've sinned, got that, knew that, but you've confirmed it.

I'm a sinner.

Explains my life.

I I've sinned.

All have sinned, fall short of the glory.

Okay, we got it.

All have sinned.

You got me.

I give up.

And then we come along three chapters later in Romans 6, 23, and say, For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God's eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Look at me.

Two true statements.

I'm not saying that's not true, but I'm just saying, what if that should not be the goal and the focus?

That shouldn't be the place that our eye is drawn to when we read the Bible.

See, because what we do is we take pieces, parts and pieces out of different places and get the Bible to be this systematic thing that we organize in order to win religious arguments with people.

And when we do that, we miss the real crux and focus.

You say, What do you mean?

Again, those are true statements, but the wrong emphasis for two reasons.

Number one, it makes the gospel transactional instead of relational.

It makes the gospel transactional instead of relational.

It's a transaction.

Hey, sinner, you've sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

The wages of sin is death.

You want to die and go to hell?

No, I don't want to do that.

With a gift of God's eternal life of Jesus Christ our Lord.

I'll take that for a hundred, Alex.

Absolutely.

But if you read the Bible, you'll see that the gospel in Christianity is relational.

It's not transactional.

So what you have is a lot of people that pray the prayer, that agree with information about themselves and God, make a transaction, but they never live in this intimate power that the Bible talks about.

So this is what I mean when I say that it makes the gospel transactional instead of relational.

Here's the second problem with those statements taken out of context is it orients our lives around the wrong things.

It orients our lives around sin and gifts.

We're all the sin and fall short of the glory of God.

You say that enough, and people are like, okay, we've all sinned.

What do you okay?

So why are you mad at us when we sin?

We've all sinned.

The Bible even says we've all sinned.

Lighten up, Francis, okay?

It orients you around sin and gifts.

What do you mean?

Well, the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

What happens is you got a lot, the church in America gets filled up with people who struggle with constant spiritual guilt, but always look for the next gift.

What is the church going to do for me next?

Who's gonna come through for me?

And I just want to say we've missed the point that is right before our eyes.

If you'll just let your eyes see it.

And it's that lighter part of Romans 3.23.

Not that for all have sinned, but this part and falling short of the glory of God.

And falling short of the glory of God.

You say, What do you mean?

We we don't talk enough about this.

Because see, what I want you to do is to hear that we've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

I want your spirit to go, wait a minute, hello.

Or you mean to tell me that I why does the Bible say that I've not that I've sinned?

That that that's a problem.

That that that's big enough, but but that you fell short of the glory of God.

What the Bible is saying to us is that hey, the glory of God is your creative purpose.

It's what He's crowned you with, it's what you're created to live in.

This is what it's about, not as a goal, uh, but as design, not as this, oh, this is a lofty goal, but a sinner like you is never gonna get it.

So just suck it up.

You get to go to heaven when you die.

But in the meantime, try harder.

And I just want to say, I want to speak against that and say, hey, this is this is not just the goal, the glory of God.

Hey, this is a lofty goal.

You're never gonna get there.

I'm saying what the Bible says, you've been crowned with glory.

God has bestowed this upon you, okay?

You people that He created to be lower than Himself, and yet His representatives in the world have been crowned with glory.

And so it's so problematic.

We if we let that in, we're like, well, that's a lofty goal, but who can get that?

No, no, no, that's not a goal, that's a design.

Because if you live with this sense of, hey, I'll never measure up to that, instead of glory, here's what you settle for: you settle for shame.

You settle for shame.

What do you mean?

Let me give you a definition from a guy named Edward Welch.

He says, Shame is a deep sense that you're unacceptable because of something you did, something done to you, or something associated with you.

You feel exposed and humiliated.

Now, shame is progressive by nature.

And what I mean is it's not idle, it's not like, oh, great, I think I feel some shame.

Hope that goes away.

I read two Bible verses and went to bed early.

No, no, no.

Shame is progressive by nature.

So let me give you this four-step process of how shame works in us.

Number one, is it because shame is a constant awareness of our defects, we develop what is known as shame-based thinking.

Shame-based thinking sounds like a litany of these things.

I'm defective, I'm dirty, I'm incompetent, I'm unwanted, I'm stupid, I'm weak, I'm bad, I'm pitiful, I'm nothing.

You just pick one.

This is what it sounds like.

The second step is our dominant thinking becomes, I am not good enough.

Right now, as I stand here, I'm not good enough, and I will never be good enough.

Future.

A person that struggles with shame-based thinking is not excited about their future.

So, mom and dad, instead of looking at your kids and saying, Why are you not excited about you know what you got?

You got your whole life ahead of you.

You should ask yourself, how is shame at work in the life of my child?

Because when you pile on a lot of motivation, hey, why aren't you excited?

It just feels like shame to them.

It's just like, okay, just another person.

Hey, by the way, I'm not good enough and I'm never going to be good enough.

You want me to be excited about more of what I feel right now?

No, thank you.

I just can't.

Here's a third step in this process.

Therefore, it doesn't matter what I do because I don't matter.

It doesn't matter what I do because I don't matter.

At this point, we begin to act in keeping with what we believe about ourselves, others, and the world.

There's a helpful therapy out there called cognitive behavioral therapy.

It's built around those little triad, though that little triangle of beliefs.

We we believe things that are untrue about ourselves, about other people, and about the world.

And it's rooted in shame.

Here's the fourth step in this shame-based, the progressive nature of shame.

In shame, what we do becomes who we are.

Hear that again.

What we do becomes, or what we did, becomes who we are.

We define ourselves in terms of the worst moments of our life.

Uh, think Adam and Eve in the garden when God comes looking for them and God says, Where are you?

Where were you?

And Adam says, I was naked, and so I hid myself.

What I did in this moment was rooted in something I did not too long ago, and I just couldn't get my my head or my heart, my emotions or my thoughts around the fact that I did that.

I screwed up, I swore I'd never do that, and that's the one thing I did.

And so I did the only thing I know how to do.

I I hid.

Why?

Because he's ashamed.

Shame isolates us from all that we were created for.

And so when I say that, hey, this is what shame does, we what we in our thought process, it's like, hey, what I do becomes who I am.

Now it's important right here that we distinguish between guilt and shame.

Guilt says, I did it, and we in the church are great at guilt.

We celebrate how we own guilt.

Guilt says, I don't have a leg to stand on.

Man, I did it.

I mean, I got nothing.

I'm guilty.

I'm guilty.

And we stop there.

But see, we leave the door open for shame because guilt says, I did it.

Shame says I still feel it.

That's why many of you in this room are like Adam.

It may not just been just, you know, hours earlier or the day before or whatever when he says, I was naked, and so I hid myself.

For some of you, is I was married before, but now I'm no longer married, or I was married before this relationship, or I was in a relationship.

I did have a boyfriend, I don't anymore.

Everybody at school knows that I'm not cool, and he broke up with me, and why he broke up with me, and so everybody can read my mind in any room I walk in.

Everybody knows my thoughts.

Not true.

Not true, but this is the destructive nature of shame.

And so, what do you mean?

Well, there's shame and then there's the gospel.

I brought you a graphic to help you illustrate what I mean when I say there's a difference in shame and the gospel.

This is what shame does to us.

It just slowly you end up on the far right over there with what I call a diminished sense of self.

Just a beat down.

And here's how you know you have a diminished sense of self.

It's because in relationships and friendships, when you think about speaking up and contending for your needs, uh you're so diminished that you just think, I'm just being a nuisance.

I'm just being a nuisance.

I need to leave my husband alone.

He's got a lot of pressure on him at work, he's got a lot going on.

I mean, who am I?

I don't want to add to his work.

By the way, you're not work, ladies, you're privileged.

Your husband married you because he wants to swim and all the intricacies of who you are and all the craziness that comes out of your mouth.

But enough about my wife who says absurdly crazy things.

Like, I just think we're emotionally distant these days.

You've been kind of running and gunning, it's been crazy, but I'm not getting what I need from you emotionally.

And I'm like, Read the Bible, have a quiet time.

No, I don't say that.

She's so selfish, she says, This is my need, and you're supposed to meet it.

I signed up to have children with you, not this.

Because my wife used to have a diminished sense of self, and she doesn't anymore.

Glory to God.

But here's how you know men and women, you have a diminished sense of self because in friendships and relationships, you're like, Well, I'm a nuisance.

I don't want to rock the boat.

Let me just play the role that I play so everyone knows how to be around me.

Because if I if all of a sudden I start manifesting differently, people don't know how to be around me.

And so for the sake of everybody else, let me be this.

Like in my family system, I'm the funny preacher, I'm the funny guy who prays at every family function.

So when I get around my family of origin, love those people, dysfunctional as they are.

Everybody gathers for a meal.

It's like, okay, Neil, pray.

And I just resist.

I'm like, I'm prayed up.

Just this morning, Jesus said, You're good.

You can take a day off.

One of you pray.

My brothers look at me like, pray.

And my mom's like, son, with her little Minnesota mom shame, son.

I'm like, Mom, I heard God loud and clear this morning.

He said he wants to hear one of these other heathen children pray.

Just to see if they still believe in God.

And my brother's like, I'm gonna get you.

You want to get me right now?

Let's just get, let's pick up these butter knives and go at each other.

And it's awkward.

And everybody in my family's like, we don't know what to do because you're not being the preacher.

You're supposed to, I ain't praying.

Y'all can pray.

God wants to hear you as much as he wants to hear me.

Just pray.

And my mom walks over and pets me like I'm a kitty or something.

Son, would you mind just for your mother just praying?

Like, you fools never talk to God.

Come on, man, the food's getting cold.

And so to rescue everybody, I have to pray.

And I tell them after it's over, I tell my mom, Mom, I just did that for you.

I didn't do that for the rest of these people.

I love y'all, but I don't have to play a role just to make sure y'all know how to be around me.

But if you have a diminished sense of self, you just slip back into that role, especially when you get around your family of origin.

Some of you, grown woman, turn into a seven-year-old little girl in a sundress in pigtails.

I'll be whatever you need me to be, so you all feel safe.

That is shame at work in you.

It's just the opposite is the gospel.

The gospel does the exact opposite.

This is what you're seeing in this graphic right here.

It's Ephesians chapter 4, verse 13, which says, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of Man to mature manhood, mature womanhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

Ephesians 4:13

This person on the far right, not on the far right, this person is nourished by this, hey, the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

This person occupies their space in life out of their identity and with authority.

They're not a verbal bully, they're not some kind of religious know-it-all, but they are not going to shrink back from who they are because of who God is.

This is what the gospel does.

This is why you should find you a church that teaches you the Bible and informs your identity, not just gives you more activity to engage in.

Hey, we need volunteers over here.

Hey, we need this over here.

Hey, we need because your soul is crying out.

I just need to understand who I am and how I'm supposed to be.

And God comes along in Psalm 8 and says, I've crowned you with glory.

I've crowned you with glory.

Now, the last thing I said to you about shame was simply this that you know, shame in shame, what we do becomes who we are.

Adam said, I was naked, so I hid myself.

Uh let's end on this note about glory.

In glory, who we are determines what we do.

This is why it's important you understand you've been crowned to glory because who I am establishes and determines what we do.

Here's the biblical proof of this Jeremiah 32, 27.

Behold, God says, Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh.

Any questions about who I am?

I'm the Lord, the God of all flesh.

Now watch this.

Is anything too hard for me?

He goes, fingers up, I'm the Lord, the God of all flesh.

Then he goes, palms up.

Is anything too hard for me?

Why?

Because in glory, which God dwells in, who he is determines what he does.

And what he's saying to us, light and glare, that I do, I do anything.

That's how much glory I got.

Can you fathom yourself who were created by this God in his image, made by him a little lower than him?

Can you ever fathom yourself functioning with that kind of identity that expresses itself in that kind of authority?

The Bible says you've been crowned with glory.

Secondly, you've been crowned with honor.

Honor is defined as a high respect and a great esteem, which expresses itself in an adherence to what is right.

Man, that's a mouthful.

Let me say it again.

Honor is defined as high respect and great esteem.

You say, I can't write that fast.

Don't write now.

We'll put it on the on the website.

You can get the whole outline.

You can have these notes when I'm done.

Honor is high respect and great esteem, which expresses itself in an adherence to what is right.

Now we hear a lot about honoring your father and mother, honoring God, honor those in authority.

But here, God says, I've crowned you with honor.

Enough about honoring everybody else.

I've crowned you with honor.

Translation, I want you to have a high respect and a great esteem for you.

If you write anything down today, write this down.

Nobody in your life will ever be able to love you enough to make you love yourself.

Nobody will.

I don't care how serving, long-suffering, patient, tender, whatever your husband is or your wife is, they're gonna never be able to love you enough to make you love yourself.

God says, I've crowned you with honor.

This honor is what ensures you have this constant internal motivation for doing what is right.

It depends on nobody but you.

See, we live in a country and a culture that's trying to teach honor.

You drive by elementary school on the billboard sign out front, it says, This week's character trait.

Every other week it's taught.

Tolerance, but on the off weeks is things like honor and honesty and blah, blah, blah.

And honor in a secular culture is just manners.

That's not honor.

Honor from a biblical perspective is this high respect and this great esteem, which expresses itself and an adherence to do what is right.

Here's how you know your kids have honor.

You don't have to repeat yourself.

See how little your kids know about honor?

You're like, shut up.

That's right.

Wow.

Because they have this, they have this high respect and this great esteem, and it expresses itself in this adherence to what is right.

See, we live in a culture, our streets right now are filled with people who are seeking honor for their race or for their cause.

Listen to me, but they're seeking it in very dishonorable ways.

Why is that?

Because they believe it's others' people's responsibility to give them honor.

So they drive through the streets of Seattle and Portland in the back of a truck with a bullhorn, shining lights on people's house at three in the morning and saying, Wake up, wake up.

You just have this house because you're privileged.

No, they have a house because they discipline themselves, save the down payment, and they got a job and they pay their bills.

That's why they have a house.

You cannot just demand.

See, these are people, it's not about race, it's about honor.

These are people that have no honor.

They have none.

They want people to give them honor.

And nobody's gonna give them honor.

Have you noticed our country's slowly getting fed up with this?

It's like, okay, okay, this is great.

The Democratic National Convention is over.

You can stop now.

They don't know how to stop.

Because all they know how to do, they they have this deep sense of disconnectedness.

Something's wrong in here.

And we ought to be the voices in the culture going, hey, what's wrong is that you're asking people to give you what God's already given you.

And if you could get it from man, you wouldn't need God.

But because you're trying to get it, you're looking to man to meet your deepest needs, the when man looks to man to meet his needs, the byproduct is always going to be violence.

When man looks to God to understand his created purpose, the byproduct is always authority.

It's just this sense of, hey, I've been crowned with glory and honor.

What does that look like?

It's a sense of self-worth, dignity, disesteem.

Any gonna tell me, oh, do the right thing.

I'm gonna do the right thing.

Absolutely.

I was at a funeral yesterday for a young man.

Uh, and his dad told a great story.

He said, My son had done something he wasn't supposed to do, and he got away with it.

And my son was so bothered that he took me outside and he said, Dad, can I talk outside by yourself?

Ah, I was doing okay to the whole funeral, and he told this story.

I just bawled.

I was like, Yes, that's honor.

His 15-year-old son took him outside and said, Hey dad, just wanted you to know I did this.

I knew it was wrong.

And his dad said, I was so proud of him.

And I wanted to just yell at, me too! Because his son had so much, such a sense of honor.

He goes, You know, I can't live with myself.

This is not who I'm created to be.

Of course, I feel gross on the inside.

That's a young man that's been crowned with honor.

The opposite of honor is unbelief.

So, what do you mean?

You have to choose to not believe some things about yourself in order to violate the honor that you were crowned with.

You have to say to yourself, I don't respect you enough and I don't esteem you in this situation.

So therefore, I'm not going to do what's right.

That's a lie.

You have to live and operate in unbelief when you've been crowned with honor.

Thirdly and finally, then he says he's given him dominion.

Look at verse 6.

You still with me?

Look at verse 6.

He says, You have given him dominion over the work of your hands.

Just everything God made, you've given him dominion over that.

You'll put all things under his feet.

Just stop right there.

You put all things under his feet.

Before he gets to the animals, this is not about running a zoo here on earth.

This is about all things under his feet.

And then he says, All sheep and oxen and all the beasts of the field, and the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

Oh Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name and all the earth.

There it is again.

He begins and ends with the same refrain.

He can't help himself.

Why?

Because he's looking up at the stars and he's trying to be pitiful and go, oh, you know, I'm just a sinner saved by grace.

What is the man that you're mindful of him?

And then David's like, I tell you what he is.

You made him a little bit lower than you, God, and you crowned us with glory and honor.

And you've also given us dominion.

What is dominion?

Dominion is an abused word in our cult.

Dominion, yes, some people think it's power and authority.

Yeah, close.

Here's the definition of dominion from the Bible.

Dominion is the power of being trusted to be responsible.

Dominion is the power of being trusted to be responsible.

Now I realize that we preachers can get lathered up.

Like I feel compressed today because I want this language in the water.

I want this liberating truth to begin to manifest in your lives.

But I realize that sometimes we can be so excited that we miss the mark.

You walk out, people, well, how's Served?

I don't know.

He's all I think he should drink beecal.

Talking about dominion, I don't know what dominion is.

Dominion is the power of being trusted to be responsible.

Let me bring it down to where you live.

Have you ever hired a babysitter?

Say amen.

That's dominion.

You gave that person the power of being trusted to be responsible.

We had our oldest.

My wife's like, I ain't leaving this baby.

This baby's velcro to my hip.

I was like, can we go on a date?

Can we go to dinner?

Blah, blah, blah.

And my wife's great.

Great mama said, babe, I'm not pressing you.

Just whenever she's like, Yeah, I'm ready for a break.

So we asked, we were members of the church back then.

Uh we just said, Hey, you may know, oh, we got this girl, she's great, she's awesome, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

So we said, Hey, can you?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so I'm thinking, we're gonna go to dinner, then we're gonna go to a movie, then we're gonna go to the waffle house and split a waffle, listen to music.

We went to dinner, and my wife was kind of like looking at the clock.

And I was like, Hey, babe, what do you need?

I just don't feel big good about being away from the baby this long.

Can we just go home?

Sure, we can go home.

Go home, walked in, the world's greatest baby theater that we gave the power to be trusted, to be responsible.

Walked in and we said, I said, How'd it go?

She said, Great, I got a lot of homework done.

My wife turned and just walked away because she's about to shank that girl right there in the entry hall.

Because, hey, we didn't give you power and trust it, trust you to be responsible, get your homework done.

We want to hear about when she takes her last bottle, what time she goes down, did she have a diaper, blah, blah, blah.

What's her heart rate, what's her resting pulse rate?

I don't care about your homework.

My wife just walked off, kind of like I said, let me pay you before my wife kills you.

Here, get out of here.

You're never coming back.

I didn't say that.

I just walked to her door.

I said, Hey, thanks.

Is cash okay?

She goes, Well, I love cash.

I bet you do.

This is the last cash you've ever gonna get from me.

I didn't say that either.

I just smiled.

My wife's like, close the door.

Can you believe that?

Like I care about her homework.

I'm like, baby, she's a 20-something.

That's the biggest thing in her life right now.

Go easy on her.

I want to hear about my babe.

We gave her dominion.

Look at me.

We gave her dominion and she used it on the wrong thing.

That explains a lot of y'all's lives in this room.

God's given you dominion and you use it on the wrong thing.

Dominion is the power of being trusted to be responsible with everything God's created.

Not just, well, I'm just gonna settle for this.

This is gonna be my thing.

And you wonder why God doesn't trust you anymore.

Because you obsess over this, like this is everything, this is a thing, but it's not everything.

You ever lay in bed and just kind of wonder, how much does God want to trust me with?

What would he like to just lavish on me and say, hey, steward this to my glory?

Aaron Armstrong says this about dominion.

He said, When we talk about dominion, it's helpful to think of it this way as God's image bears in creation.

We were intended to act as his representatives.

We were designed in a very real way to show the world what God is like.

So when God gave us the command to rule over the earth, the expectation was to do so in a way that reflected his character.

Yes.

That's dominion, that's the power of being trusted to be responsible.

Two things about dominion, and we'll be done this morning.

You still with me?

Say amen.

Uh uh, two things about dominion.

Number one, it has been God's design from the beginning.

This didn't show up for the first time in the eighth psalm.

This has been God's design from the beginning.

Pay attention, ladies and middle school girls and high school girls and college age young ladies, pay very close attention.

It's God's design from the beginning.

What do you mean?

Genesis chapter 1, verse 26.

Genesis 1:26

And God said, Let us make man in our image after our likeness, and let them hello.

Now let me back up.

Let us make man in our image, us in our are plurals.

I always want to point this out when I read this.

Why?

Because Jesus is not God's plan B.

The Old Testament went bad, and so boom, we we invented Jesus.

Jesus is pre-existed, he's always existed.

So when God says, let us make man in our image, it's the Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, agents of creation.

Let us make man in our image and after our likeness, hello?

And let them, who's them, everybody that he creates, humanity, mankind, but it's also men and women.

Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the heavens, over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

My oldest daughter, uh, was it Baylor, and met some guy, and he's like, I think you're awesome.

I'm in this fraternity indeed.

And so fraternities aren't bad.

I think you should rent friends every chance you get.

But anyway, uh, he comes home to see me.

I'm like, why do you gotta pay people to hang out with you?

Are you not that interesting?

Uh he comes home to meet the dad, and I'm just like moderately not impressed at all.

And so my daughter, at the end of the time, she goes, So, Dad, what do you think?

And I said, I don't think that boy would be comfortable with you having dominion.

And she's like, I don't know what that means.

That boy is so insecure, he's gonna suffocate you.

Get behind me, I gotta be in front of the camera.

And that would be a problem because your dad would have to exercise some dominion over him.

And she's like, Yeah.

I said, You want me to say it in a real real real accessible way?

Yeah, yeah, I think I know what you're saying, but just say it straight out.

I think you like that boy about as much as I do.

Is he not comfortable?

Ladies, whenever you're dating somebody, you should ask yourself, can he be comfortable with me living out my identity that God created me to live out?

Or I have to just shrink down and make myself subservient to his ego.

It's been God's design from the beginning.

God said, Let us make man in our image.

He hadn't made them yet, and he already has dominion in mind.

Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the heavens, and over the livestock, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

Because this has been God's plan from the beginning.

It isn't something we want, it's something we've been given.

We've got to stop sitting around, looking around the world, and go, why is the world so screwed up?

Here's why.

Because you're not practicing dominion.

You're not exercising dominion over what God made you responsible for.

Here's the second thing about dominion.

Before we can exercise dominion externally, we have to exercise it inwardly, internally, internally.

What do you mean?

To exercise dominion inwardly is to boldly steward and rule over the circumstances of life instead of passively permitting the circumstances of life to subdue and rule over us.

This is why the opposite of dominion is submission.

There's glory and then there's shame, there's honor, and then there's unbelief, and then there's dominion and then there's submission.

Now, I use these three categories in counseling a lot.

I'm not a counselor, I'm a pastor.

Uh, somebody called up me a message and said, Hey, I heard you're a psychiatrist.

We need to see you.

Oh, stop telling people that.

I'm not.

I'm a pastor.

And I tell people I'm a pastor, like, oh, I'm sorry.

What I'm like, yeah, psychiatrists are great, highly recommend them.

I can recommend, I have a little referral list.

Here you go.

Uh but I and by the way, not only am I just a pastor, my priority is my people.

Uh I don't say yes to strangers and then have to say no to my people.

Uh and so, but every once in a while, as my schedule lasts, I see people don't go to our church.

Somebody this morning came up after the first service and said, How about relatives of your people?

I don't want your crazy relatives.

I said, Yeah, it'd be great.

It'd be great.

Call me, I have some space.

And so this is the case for the guy I see, because some of y'all are like, I don't want to come see you.

You'll talk about me in a sermon.

I don't talk about you.

Uh, this guy's like, he has worked so hard.

He he had a problem with looking at things on the internet that he should not look at.

And so, can you understand that?

Say amen.

Uh, and and so he he we we come, and I said, No, here's the thing, he's not a believer.

I said, Tell me where we are spiritually.

Well, I'm here.

It was so refreshing.

I got up out of my chair, come around my desk, and I hugged him.

I'm like, Daddy, so and he goes, I'm a good man, but I ain't very religious.

And I said, That's fine, you ain't gotta be religious.

This is about relationship.

And I said, one of the things I want us to get to is that you how God created you to live and operate with glory and honor and dominion.

And this is the intent, and then this is what we settle for.

And he said, I relate to that stuff down there on the bottom of the board, you know, shame and unbelief and submission.

And I said, Yes, that's why you struggle with the sin that you struggle with.

And so we're having this great conversation, and he tells me, I said, Well, tell me about you in the first day.

He said, Well, I'm this and I'm pretty successful.

And I said, It's fine.

You're not bragging.

I mean, you're good at what you do, and you you get paid for that.

Glory to God.

And I said, What do you like to do with your money?

He goes, I'm a big hunter.

He's on a deer lease, and this may be cheap or something.

I'm not a big hunter.

Uh, because I'm a little, I'm a little iffy on you call it hunting, because he said, I'm on a deer lease and somewhere that way.

Uh, it's$3,500 a year to hunt for two weeks.

And I said, Why don't you just buy Kobe beef?

It's cheaper.

Uh and he's like, Yeah, but we got there and we we bait them and we feed them and stuff.

I said, So basically, you you get the deer to come eat this little corn out of this feeder, and then one day you're up in there, your climate-controlled tree house, you shoot the deer.

That's like me.

I feed my dog right by my breakfast table, and one day I stand on the table and shoot him.

What's the difference?

That's animal abuse, it's not hunting.

He's like, Boy, I'm telling you, I mean, we go for two weeks, we don't shave.

Our wives leave us alone.

I said, time out.

Your wife is glad you go to deer camp.

You think your wife's home missing you?

Your wife's at home going, stay another week.

She is kind of happy when I come back.

I used to think she was happy because I was getting what I want.

No, she's happy because she's getting what she wants.

He's like, Well, we'll talk about that in another session.

So I'm trying to get him to understand the spiritual principle of dominion versus submission.

And he, as it relates to this sinful habit, and he doesn't get it.

I said, Okay, let me let me put it down there where you live.

Because Jesus talked to fishermen about fishing, farmers about soil and seed.

I said, You go to this deer, they say, Oh, it's awesome, man.

You want to go?

If I had$3,500 extra income, I wouldn't spend on that.

He goes, You can come for free, is my guess.

I'm good.

I'm good.

I'm I'm good.

But thank you very much.

I said, but$3,500, this is dominion.

You go hunt deer.

They have a cook that comes and cooks for them for two weeks.

I'm like, dang, y'all ain't camping out.

Y'all are glamping, uh, and then shooting your pet deer.

But anyway, uh, I said, here's the thing.

So dominion is you hunting the deer, hanging out with your buddies, eating and drinking and not showering.

That's dominion.

That's men being men.

He's like, Oh, uh that's awesome.

I said, Yeah, yeah, that's dominion.

But you lit, you, you, you've inverted that, and and and that's dominion, you hunting the deer.

Submission is the deer hunting you.

And he said, That's jacked up.

I said, Yeah, yeah, it's a violation of the created order.

He goes, That don't make no sense.

I said, Do you ever think that about your sinful habit?

He said, Well, you know, I went to a counselor for a while and they gave me a book called Every Man's Battle.

I said, I'm familiar with the book.

It's a great book, but it doesn't have to be every man's battle.

You were created by God, you were crowned with glory and honor, and God gave you dominion.

You don't have to live in submission.

If you want to see women with their clothes off, go home and treat your wife the way she's supposed to be treated, and that's what you're supposed to do as a man.

He's like, I ain't a bad person.

I'm not saying you're a bad person.

I'm saying you're a person who has inverted God's created purpose for your life, and you live in submission to things you should have dominion over.

Because that turns men into little boys.

My wife says I act like a little boy.

Yeah.

It's because men weren't created to live in submission.

It's a violation of your created purpose.

We're 70 minutes in.

He looked at me and he said, This is our fourth meeting.

You're pretty good.

I don't want compliments.

I want you to have understanding.

He goes, Okay.

All right.

Okay, I got it.

I got it.

You beloved.

And I just said to him, I said, hey, you living in submission to this sin isn't right.

It's a violation of the created order.

It's not what God intended.

So I just asked him this one simple question.

I ended that session with this question.

I'll end this sermon with that question.

Are you willing to return to God's design for your life as it relates to this area of your life?

And he said with tears in his eyes, you mean to tell me that's possible?

And I said, Yes, this is the wonder of the gospel.

This is why the gospel we we grow into the full measure of who Christ is.

It's unlimited possibilities.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I ask you the same thing.

Are you willing to return to God's design for your life as it relates to glory and honor and dominion?

Because what God intended, he still intends.

Let's pray together.

If you're a guest, just relax.

We like to teach the Bible and then give you some soul space to think about it.

So let me offer a prayer, some questions come up on the screen, and we just want to give you some time and space just to kind of reflect on hey, what if anything was meaningful?

What do I want to walk away and think about?

Let me pray.

Holy Spirit, thanks for the leading us into the truth today.

We reject what we were not created for, and we reject it in Jesus' name.

Even though it feels familiar, it's not true.

And so, Lord, we want the truth because the truth sets us free.

And so bathe your people in the truth now.

We wait and we listen to you, Holy Spirit.

God, the Bible tells us that you're a good father.

And so you don't rub our nose in it.

You just set it out and let us get a whiff of it and say, This is what you're created for.

And it smells good, it tastes even better.

And it is life and peace to our body and our bones because it's what we're created for.

We hear you loud and clear this morning, God.

We hear you, we hear you.

Glory, honor, dominion.

It's gonna be our next back tattoo.

Glory and honor and dominion.

What must you think of us that you crowned us with this and gave us this?

Let that be our thought as we fade into a nap this afternoon.

This is our prayer.

We prayed in Jesus' name, and everyone said, Amen.

Amen.

If you're our guest today, let me say thanks for being here.

Uh there was a lot uh in the sermon today.

And so I purp I went a little long and I apologize, and I'm just saying sometimes I'm a little fool and I don't want to cheat you.

Uh but if you're a guest, hopefully you had a chance to pull those guest cards in the seat back pocket in your row.

Fill that out.

If you haven't, would you take a moment to do that now?

Uh, and then just drop it in the wooden box by the door on the way out.

That's also where we'll receive our offering.

So if today's the day you participate in that, uh that that's where you would do that.

We like to keep you in the loop about what's going on.

We have some new so we're starting back up some things we want you to be aware of.

So give your attention to the screens, please.

Hello, everyone.

I'm Wade Burgess, Executive Pastor for Grand Parkway Baptist Church.

And with me is Blake Hardcastle, the pastor for spiritual formation.

Blake, what do we have coming up soon?

We've got midweek coming up.

It's about September, and that's what in our church this means we do a special time devoted to study during the middle of the week.

The format will be different this year in that it's only two classes for adults, and they'll be in our two largest settings to allow for appropriate social distancing.

Blake, we're also going to be offering a Zoom option, is that right?

It'll be in person and Zoom, and that way you can participate at your comfort level.

We don't want to leave anybody behind in this.

Excellent.

What class are you going to be teaching?

I'm teaching a class called How People Change.

Now, at first hearing, this might sound like great.

How I can change my kids, how I can change my spouse, how I can change my cat.

But this will not help you change any of that.

In fact, this is addressing what's God's design for changing you.

And in fact, this might be the opportunity to conquer perhaps a long-standing sin pattern in your life.

I'll be teaching a class on stewardship.

Now, this is not where we ask you to bring your checkbook and contribute to the building fund, but instead it's how are we to be managers for all that God owns?

And in that, we will find contentment and joy in doing what God commands.

These classes will happen at 6 45 and ending promptly, sometimes early, at 8 o'clock.

That way we will not delay you to the next thing you need to get to.

Blake, if folks are saying, hey, I'm interested in one of those classes, and I'm also interested in understanding how do I sign up for in-person or Zoom, what do they do?

So it's very simple.

The first thing I'd say is do not wait.

Don't put it off till tomorrow.

Don't put it off till later.

Go ahead right now while you're thinking of it.

Go to gramparkway.org slash events, and you'll see an image for this midweek opportunity.

Select that, it'll take you to a form, and you can pick which of our classes and pick which format you want to participate in.

And Blake, not only will we have adult classes, but our campus will be fully open.

We'll have our students in the warehouse, grades 5th through 12th.

We'll have our kids building back open and ready to go.

So we encourage you now, make that commitment today to join us starting September 16th.

Hi, my name is Marcy McClendon, and I'm the women's pastor here at Graham Parkway.

And I know this: all grass withers, and every flower is going to fade.

But God and his words are going to last forever.

So now more than ever, we need to be lashing ourselves to this big, beefy, true word.

So this semester I figured, why not study the whole Bible?

A lot of us know bits and pieces of the Bible, but haven't pondered how it all fits together.

Starting September 15th, we are going to take 10 weeks to look at the whole epic story of God.

We'll see how intentional and detailed God has been since the beginning.

His determination to be known and win back his people have created the greatest story ever told.

God is not scrambling to come up with a plan B.

He's been writing this one story all along.

Whether you rarely read the Bible or have studied it for years, this time together will be foundational in your understanding of God and his word.

No previous experience is required.

You can join us in person or virtually, but either way, you need to register so that we can get you all the materials to follow along.

I cannot wait to be with you this fall as we look at the epic story of God.

We'd like to conclude our service with a spoken blessing.

So if you would stand to your feet.

And as you're standing, let me remind you that if you have any questions about anything you heard today, uh, or we can pray for you in a specific way, some of our pastors will be available down front.

And let me also say this: we have another another service starting, but don't hurry.

Some of you may want to visit with some of your friends.

We can start that second the third service a little bit later.

Because this is not a production, these are people.

So don't hurry.

If you're like