The Family

Hey, we're diving into this new sermon series this week called United.

So if you have your Bible, if you have an app, open up to Genesis 1.

That's where we're going to be parked at this morning.

And we're kicking off the series, looking at the family.

And we're going to be diving into the creation narrative to better understand not only what the family is, but what I want to make an argument for and submit to you this morning is why the family exists, right?

And that's going to be critical for us as we look at what it means to be a church on mission and to be a people who are making disciples, right?

That's what we're sent on mission to make disciples and plant churches.

That's why sacred mission exists.

So here's where we're going to be Genesis 1, right?

Dutch theologian and churchman Herman Bavenck, he said that the family is the most natural, the most necessary, and the most noble institution given with creation itself.

The family was the first institution established by God to cultivate and steward his very creation.

It was established to expand the beauty of Eden beyond its borders and to fill the earth with his glorious image.

God made the family for order, beauty, culture, worship, and mission.

The family, it's not a cultural construct.

It's not a cultural invention.

It is a divine institution where in it God establishes this generational strategy for his image to be multiplied, his worship to be sustained, and his kingdom to be extended throughout all the earth.

There's this inherent nobility within the family.

Because it's actually God's image bearers established within a covenantal union that is seated as the very crowning glory of creation with all things under their dominion.

Is the family that is commissioned by their maker to build a world where people are deeply known and deeply loved, where every child is a blessing, every marriage is a covenant of joy, every household a place of peace.

Where generations actually walk together in fellowship and communion, not divided and apart from one another, where people are formed, not by doom-scrolling algorithms and trending influencers, but they're formed by wisdom and worship and warm affection.

But what we experience is actually far from that picture.

Families are fractured, marriage is postponed, avoided, or treated like some trap.

Parenting feels more like a burden than a blessing.

We face heart-crushing struggles with infertility, and loneliness haunts even the most connected of homes.

I want to acknowledge that the ache that we feel is real.

But even more real is the good design of God.

And here's what we have to be watchful of.

We cannot allow the ache to drive our understanding and value of family.

It's gonna cause us, if we do that, it's gonna cause us to disregard and toss out God's good design and work to replace it with a design of our own.

We see the ache of the fractured family.

And so culture's doing their best to try and toss out God's good design and insert designs of their own making.

But what happens when we do that?

When we do that, the fear is this that not only will we suffer as people, but all of creation will suffer in agony along with us.

So I want to let us go back.

Go back before the church was ever established, before governments ever held authority, before kingdoms claimed their dominion within the earth, before even the fall of man.

And what we're going to see is God's ordained purpose for the family that he claimed was very good.

And he establishes it for the flourishing of all creation.

That's going to be our point here this morning.

So in Genesis 1, 26 through 28, we see the initial story of the creation of mankind here in the text.

Man was created as male and female to bear the image and likeness of God.

That's an important word.

Likeness.

They were created to be God's representatives within the earth, bearing within them these communicable attributes of his divine nature.

You see, they weren't made to be gods, they were made to be like God, like him, distinct from all other aspects of creation.

And one of their primary creaturely distinctives was that they were given dominion over all that had been made.

Over all creation, mankind was invested with dominion.

Now, this word dominion, it communicates the inherent responsibility within the very nature of man to rule justly and righteously over all creation with all things under their feet.

They were not made to dominate creation in such a way that they would tread disastrously and destructively over top of it, but that creation under their rule would flourish and be cultivated in order and beauty.

You see, creation would not be impoverished because of the presence of man, but it would actually reach its ultimate prosperity under his dominion.

It's much like us.

We find our ultimate flourishing in good as we are under the rule of God, as we are submitted under his dominion and lordship.

So as God's representatives within creation, creation was supposed to find its ultimate flourishing as it rested under our lordship.

So God created man as male and female, complementary to one another, so that they might reflect him in the earth, and creation find its ultimate good under their just and righteous rule.

And then from this, right, from this creation, we see what we would call the creation mandate.

The creation mandate.

This is the creation mandate.

It's also known as the cultural mandate given to mankind.

And we see it in four distinct parts.

We're gonna work through each one independently.

The first part that we see in this mandate is be fruitful.

Be fruitful.

This is the call to generate life.

Fruitfulness is both a creative and a reproductive command rooted in the fact that humans are made in the image of God.

When we hear the word fruitful, I want us to not move beyond childbearing, but I do want us to see it as something bigger than childbearing.

Everything that the Lord God does bears fruit.

Everything he puts his hand to and blesses bears fruit.

What kind of fruitfulness are we bearing in our life, in our work, in our relationships, in the way that we engage with the church, right?

What kind of fruitfulness are we producing?

This is this call to generate life.

When our hand touches something, it ought to prosper.

And it should not be impoverished because of our presence within it.

And so we're called here to be fruitful.

As God creates life, so humans, reflecting Him in His very nature, are called to produce, to nurture, and to sustain life.

This includes having children, as I've already said, but it but it's also broadly refers to the very fruitful nature of man to bring about growth and goodness in the world.

Man is to be fruitful in all his works and endeavors.

His hand, his hand and his authority ought to be wielded to produce life.

Right?

That's what we're called to in this fruitfulness.

The second part of this cultural mandate we see is multiply.

Multiply.

This is the call to expand and extend.

Right?

This aspect of the mandate, it actually builds upon fruitfulness.

What is given life ought to multiply, right?

That we understand that as healthy life.

Healthy life multiplies itself, calling man to expand their influence, their rule, their dominion, reproducing not just life but formation and godliness.

You see, it sees its primary context in multiplying image-bearers who serve God and who live under his rule.

Dutch reformer Abraham Kuyper, he saw society's growth as part of humanity's God-given destiny.

We were supposed to expand and extend the Eden that we were placed within.

God took the man and put him in the garden.

He said, Work it and keep it, serve it and guard it.

Make this beauty that you are in the midst of expand throughout creation.

As our hand was put to work, it was supposed to cultivate and extend that glory.

All of creation, both image bears and the rest of created existence, was to extend beyond Eden under the dominion of man.

The third part of the mandate.

Fill the earth.

This is the call to spread God's glory.

You see, to fill the earth is to extend presence.

To fill the earth is to extend presence.

The presence of God, primarily in image bearers.

You see, God had created this earthly temple of sorts.

When the Romans or the Greeks would build a temple, the first thing that they would do is they would put an image of the God of whom the temple was for in the midst of it.

God bigger than Rome, bigger than Greece, had built out of this spoken word this temple for his glory.

And he established in the center of it his image.

An Adam and an Eve.

And the commission was this: now take that image and multiply it and fill the earth.

That my image, my glory would fill the earth like the waters in the sea.

You see, we're supposed to saturate creation with God's image, with God's blessing.

God's glory is to extend to every realm.

Not one aspect of creation was ever going to be left absent of this beautiful reflection of his majesty, worth, and glory.

We actually see this as this eschatological, right?

Or this final destiny.

Reality of creation in Isaiah chapter 11, where he is prophesying that under the righteous rule of the coming Christ, he says that the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

Isaiah 11 · chapter mention

This is the end of all existence, that the earth would be full of the glory of God.

And so to fill the earth is this mandate to saturate creation with the glory and the knowledge of God.

Subdue it and have dominion.

This is the call to steward and to govern.

To steward and to govern.

The word subdue, the Hebrew kibosh, and have dominion, radda in the Hebrew, they don't imply violence or exploitation, right?

When we hear this language of subdue and have dominion, we we probably are picturing some type of exploitation or some type of violent expression of what it means to force something under our submission.

That's not what this is communicating.

It's like this how do we get the best of wine?

Right?

We till the soil, we plant the crop, we're we're pruning it back, we're making sure it has a healthy environment to grow in.

And then we harvest the grapes.

And what do we do?

We put them down and we stomp on them under feet.

It is in that pressure, in that dominion, in that rule that comes out of it, the sweet nectar of the best of wine.

This is the picture that we need to see.

It's that under our rule, creation will flourish, it'll produce beauty and goodness for all people.

You see, we were meant to bring order.

We were meant to cultivate potential and exercise loving rule as God's vice regents.

Mankind has given this delegated authority to steward creation on God's behalf to its prosperity.

You see, to subdue the earth is to develop its potential, not destroy it.

And this mandate, it was actually instilled within the very nature of man as the just and righteous expression of the dominion that was invested in him.

You see, in the very good state of creation before the fall, man was given work and responsibility.

He was invested with authority, he was not called to idleness.

Work and rule were not punishments given to us after the fall in the curse.

No, work and rule were privileges handed to us in God's good design.

And this noble work.

This noble work was to see all creation flourish.

I love the way the early church father Chrysostom observes this.

He says, Man was set in the midst of paradise, not to indulge in luxury, but to work it, to keep it, to bring it into fruitfulness.

So in the creation mandate, God was calling us to this glorious stewardship, to cultivate life, to extend his glory across the world, to see society, culture, beauty, worship all be flourishing and being sustained underneath our rule.

But in what way?

Right?

If this is the mandate, how is man going to actually live this out?

By what means would God actually establish for this mandate to be fulfilled?

This is where we come into Genesis chapter 2.

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

But I want to submit this the family.

The family is God's plan for the flourishing of all creation.

The family is God's plan for the flourishing of all creation.

Let's dig into the text to see how this plays out.

In Genesis 1, we were given the first introduction to the creation narrative of mankind, male and female.

We saw it from this high-level view.

We saw their invested dominion, and we saw their mandate to be carried out.

But then here in Genesis 2, we get this close-up view of the work of creation.

And what we see is actually how God intends for man to carry out and fulfill the very mandate he commissioned him with.

Adam is given the garden to work it and keep it, but God says it's not good that man should be alone.

Not because he's lonely, but because he's incomplete.

He cannot fulfill the creation mandate without a helper.

He cannot fulfill what God has commissioned him to ultimately without Eve.

Because we see that every animal that God brings to Adam is insufficient, right?

It can't measure up to what he needs to be able to actually fulfill the mandate.

That was the person, the person, right?

That was the reason for the helper.

Man had a mission.

And because man had a mission, he needed a helper to fulfill it.

We we say this all the time at Sacred Mission, but a man without mission needs no helper.

If you're just some guy who's sitting on the couch and being idle and lazy and you're not cultivating your eating, you're not seeing the glory of God expand throughout your dominion, right?

Then you have this wife who's been called to help in what?

Nothing.

And she's frustrated, she's angry, she gets bitter because she's made to help, not make you a sandwich.

And so, men, we need to step up and we need to understand the mission given to us by God so that we invite this strong helper, this necessary complement, into the mission of what God's called us to.

Eve is his priestly helper.

Eve is his supplemented strength.

She's not an assistant, she's not a secretary, she's not someone who runs to get him coffee.

No, she's an essential partner in this mission.

The Bible calls her a helper fit for him, equal in value, distinct in role, and made from his side, not from beneath his feet or from above his head.

He cannot fulfill this mandate without her.

Verse 22, we read this of chapter 2.

And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her.

Her to the man.

Then the man said, This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh, and she shall be called woman because she was taken out of man.

Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

Here's what I want us to see.

God had commissioned man with this creation mandate.

He sought to help him understand how he would fulfill it.

Hey, Adam, you're gonna need a helper here.

Alright, here's all the animals, right?

Nope.

Ox won't do.

Mm-mm, sorry.

Uh leopard won't do.

Nope.

Whale, nope, sorry, right?

And then he goes, okay, okay, look, here, I'm gonna give you this woman.

Ah, now this, now this.

This is how I'm gonna fulfill the mandate.

And what's the displayed expression of that?

It's the wedding ceremony of Eden.

As a father walks his daughter down the aisle to place her hand into the hand of her awaiting husband, so God brings his daughter to Adam, her awaiting groom.

And Adam bursts out in song at the delight of what he beholds.

And what is he seeing?

A helper fit for him.

Someone to fulfill the mandate with.

To partner and labor and mission together.

And see, it would be from this covenant union that a family would be formed to see the mandate fulfilled through generational legacy.

Now, in order for the creation mandate to be filled, God established and instituted the family.

One husband and one wife in covenant union together, bearing children and expanding the glory of God beyond the borders of Eden.

Or at least this is what was supposed to happen.

You see, if we were actually to continue in the story, we would see the fall of mankind, their envy for God's unmatched likeness, and their abdication of the mandate that they had been called to.

And ever since that time, the ache has been felt.

The family has been broken, and we've experienced more pain than paradise.

In our relationships with one another, in our relationship with the world around us.

But we have to understand this.

Listen, this is important.

We have to understand that it wasn't the design of the family that was flawed and destined to fail.

It was the sin within our hearts that took the very good gift of God and perverted it to be absent of the flourishing that it was intended for.

And because of this confusion, where we've blamed the gift and the giver, rather than taking the blame upon ourselves, we've thrown out God's good design and we've sought to replace it with one of our own.

But if we're honest, the outcome has been utterly devastating.

You see, we reject God's plan, and when we do that, we flounder instead of flourish.

We need to realize that the creation mandate is ongoing.

Let me say that again.

The creation mandate is ongoing, even in a fallen world.

The aim of mankind has never been lost, even if our willingness and ability to complete it has been.

The aim for mankind, the vision, the mandate, it has never been lost.

What's been lost is our desire and our ability to see it carried out.

That's what's been lost.

You see, although sin disrupted the mandate, it was never revoked from us.

But here's the problem.

The problem is we don't trust God's plan.

We don't believe that his design is ultimately good.

We think we know better.

And so we rebel against the very thing that was established to cause us to flourish.

Right?

The culture says the family is just one option among many.

Some parts of the culture say that the family needs to be outright dissolved.

We need to dispel it and we need to put in its place something else.

It says that the aim of our own flourishing is at the deep cost of the people and things around us.

It says children are a constraining weight to our dreams and aspirations, not image bearers who are arrows in the quiver of a mighty warrior.

The culture says that you should pursue your dreams even if it costs you your own household.

And the result?

Our society is floundering.

Now, when I say floundering, I mean to struggle mentally.

I mean to show and feel great confusion.

I think that sums up our cultural moment, wouldn't you?

We are wandering, wandering aimlessly in this deep state of confusion.

No one knows up from down or left from right.

Society's not being formed through order.

Culture's not shaped by convictions and values that reflect the glory of God.

Beauty is not displayed within humanity.

All this and more is a result of the sinful effort to destroy the family.

You see, many of us we believe our flourishing is actually in individualism.

Some of us view responsibilities and commitments like family, marriage, parenting, as limitations on personal freedom and happiness.

And look at what extent we will go to make sure that our happiness stays intact.

We will literally kill and murder anything we believe is in our way.

We run away from God's design through this sexual autonomy, rejection of marriage, abandonment of children, or pursuit of pleasure at the cost of any truly fruitful responsibility.

We've convinced ourselves that flourishing is going to come through individualism.

Don't let anyone or anything define you.

Live your truth.

Don't settle down.

Go ahead.

Travel, experience, consume.

You only have one life.

Do everything you can here and now, and don't let anyone or anything stop you.

Family can wait.

Heck, family can be completely redefined.

Or maybe we can just outright replace it with something else.

But what's the long-term result?

It's isolation and loneliness, exhaustion and emptiness.

It's a life of this.

It's a life of working without the fruitfulness that ought to be enjoyed from our labor.

We're feasting on rotten fruit.

And it's not satisfying.

Some of us we believe our flourishing is at the cost of others.

It's at the cost of others.

We don't see people and things around us as something to serve for their good, right?

But we see them as something to be served by for our own good.

We often live our lives by performance and self-righteousness, using others to elevate ourselves above them.

In the context of the family, this looks like heavy legalism and harsh parenting.

It looks like joyless marriages and children who are provoked to anger.

Our dream of self-exaltation is what others and even all creation is meant to see fulfilled for us.

And so we objectify everything in every one.

Because they are a means to a greater end for ourselves.

And we wonder why we don't have relationship.

We wonder why we feel so empty.

You see, the people and things around us, they're not under our feet as God intended them, but they're under our heel to be treaded upon.

And the fruit of that is just bitterness, pride, disconnection.

You see, God has called mankind to find their flourishing in the flourishing of everything and everyone around them.

That's the upside-down reality of the kingdom of God.

We think our flourishing comes at the expense of everyone and everything around us.

But no, it's when we are expended for the good of others that our flourishing is actually discovered.

This is what Jeremiah prophesied to the people of Israel.

In Jeremiah 29, 7, as they're exiled to a foreign land under these pagan rulers and kingdoms, he declares this but seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile and pray to the Lord on its behalf for what?

In its welfare, you're going to find your own.

There's no doubt about it.

And we put the blame on the design and the designer of it.

Rather than on the sin in us that caused it to fracture.

You see, church, the tragedy is the ache we feel is our own doing.

And the reality is we need a family.

But left to ourselves, we're only going to repeat the cycle of our first parents from generation after generation after generation.

We need a savior to redeem and restore the family that we were always supposed to have.

So our hope is that Jesus' blood makes an everlasting family where all creation flourishes.

Here's my proof that the family is the primary means by which God will cause all creation to flourish, that out of our brokenness, more importantly, out of Christ's brokenness is redeemed a family of eternal brothers and sisters reconciled to the Father, and there, under his righteous rule, under Christ the King, all creation will flourish forever.

If family wasn't the means by which the creation mandate would be fulfilled, then Christ would not have come to redeem and restore and reconcile and reestablish the family.

You see, Christ is the fulfiller where Adam abdicated, where Eve was tempted and failed, Christ comes in, the true and better Adam, to fulfill the family of which God had established for the creation mandate to be fulfilled underneath his dominion.

Jesus doesn't just forgive sinners.

No, church, Jesus fights for family.

Jesus dies for family.

Jesus rises again to establish a family.

He reclaims the household for God by defeating the forces that tear it apart.

Lust, pride, greed, apathy, resentment, bitterness.

On the cross, Jesus breaks the curse that fractured the family as he crushes the serpent who tempted Eve.

And he restores what Adam failed to guard.

Jesus creates a new family by his blood.

You see, through the cross and resurrection, Jesus forms an everlasting family.

It's a family not built on genetics, but built on grace.

A people and restored and redeemed to God's good design.

Jesus fulfills the creation mandate by perfectly embodying and restoring humanity's calling to multiply his image, to fill the earth with his glory, to exercise righteous dominion.

You see that the finished work of Christ is that a spiritual family who fills the earth and whom they, along with all creation, eternally flourish under the Son's righteous dominion.

Praise God.

The mandate was never revoked, but it was fulfilled.

Perfectly in Christ.

And now we who are in Christ, we wait for something.

We wait for the fullness of that fruitfulness to be revealed.

And we feast with him forever.

So what do we do in the waiting?

My prayer is that as a church, we would flourish in God's good plan.

We would flourish in God's good plan.

Look, church, the mandate was never revoked.

Here's the reality: the onus, the responsibility is not on you to fulfill it.

That's Christ's job and he completed it.

Our responsibility is to live in it from a response of joy and gratitude because of what he's done.

You see, the church as the new humanity.

We're called to proclaim the gospel.

We're called to live out the cultural mandate in light in response to the Great Commission, which beautifully mirrors Genesis 1.28.

If you look at the cultural mandate given to mankind and you look at the Great Commission given to the church, see this beautiful parallel adapted here from Matthew 28, the Great Commission.

It says, Go and make disciples of all nations, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded.

Right?

In Genesis 1:28, he says, Be fruitful here in the Great Commission.

Genesis 1:28

He says, make disciples.

In the creation mandate, multiply.

He says here to his church, baptize the nations, fill the earth, go to all people, subdue it, advance the kingdom, exercise dominion.

It is under Christ the King and His just and righteous rule.

You see, the church is carrying out what has been fulfilled in Christ.

It's the creation mandate, restored and renewed and redeemed through his blood.

In Christ, we're not only brought into a true and better family, but we are called to joyfully participate in the cultural mandate to see all of creation flourish under Christ's just and righteous rule.

So may we live that out, church.

May we not abdicate it.

May we not see it as gross, but let us see it as the gift of which it is.

God's good design.