The Dominion of a Man, Part 1

Happiness is not God's primary goal for marriage. Dr. Tony Evans says the Lord has a mission in mind and he gave men partners to help them carry it out.

A man who is not maximizing what God has given to the woman has limited what God can do through him because he's not using the help that God provides. Celebrating 40 years of faithfulness, this is the alternative with Dr. Tony Evans, author, speaker, senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas, and president of the Urban Alternative. Dominion is a word you don't hear a lot in everyday conversation, but it's the name of an often misunderstood biblical concept Dr. Evans tells us about today when he takes us to Genesis chapter 2.

Let's join him. If you are to buy or if you have a set of checkers and you look closely, you will see each checker has a crown on it, and that is because each checker is meant to become a king. Each checker is designed to reach the point where they are crowned, because once a checker is crowned, its domain spreads. It now doesn't just have to go one jump after another, it can sweep down the whole board because it's been crowned and its dominion is expanded. But we all know all checkers don't become kings.

It all depends on the moves that they make. Many checkers find themselves on the side, never having been crowned, not because they didn't have a crown, they just never made the moves to get crowned. God has declared that every man has a crown on him. Every man has been dubbed and deemed by God as the stabilizer and the foundation for history and for the culture. God gave Adam a divine identity. God gave him his name. God gave him a divine nature. God gave him a divine assignment. God gave him a divine calling. God gave him his divine presence in the garden. God gave him his divine word. He didn't give it to Eve, he gave it to Adam, and God gave him his divine authority.

God did all of that before there was an Eve, because in God's economy, before he would dare bring a woman into the sphere of Adam's life, he had to make sure Adam was responsible to him, because the definition of a man is responsibility under God. When a lion belts out a roe, it can be heard for almost five miles. That's 88 football fields and 283 basketball courts lined up, one next to another, and the lion is rowing to let you know, this is my domain, don't mess with it. He is setting his stake down. This is my dominion. When God created the human race, he created the human race to act in history from his vantage point in eternity. It's called, in theology, the Dominion Covenant, the agreement that he made with mankind. To understand what the male's role is, juxtaposition the female's role, you have to understand the Dominion Covenant, because that's key to understanding what you are about individually, what marriage is about, and what purpose is about, all lined up in this one agreement that God made with history through mankind. In Genesis chapter 1 verse 26, we read, Then God said, Let us make man in our image according to our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the cattle of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, subdue it, and rule over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. Three words establish the Covenant. Let them rule. That means dominion.

To rule over is to exercise dominion. He says, I want to create men, and I want to create men, mankind, in my image. An image is a mirror. When you went to the restroom and when you looked in the mirror, you saw a reflection of yourself.

You looked at your image. God says, I want to have lookalikes, images, image bearers on earth who reflect us, let us, the Trinity in heaven. So God created man to mirror from the invisible realm what God is like in the visible realm.

God created mankind so that earth would get a reflection of heaven through mankind. He said, the way I'm going to do that is I'm going to create a male man and a female man, because it says he made them male and female, but he called both man. So that's what we do when we say mankind.

We talk about males and females under the title of man or mankind. So God created mankind, male and female, in order that they would mirror heaven in history and eternity in time. So that's why God did it. God is a spirit. So there was to be a visible mirroring of his spiritual nature. That's why God breathed into man the breath of life, so that man would have the Spirit of God operating in this physical body so that he could manage the physical world from the spiritual reality of God.

That is the human assignment. That is why God made you, me, and us. Psalm chapter 8, verses 3 to 6 says, what is man that thou art mindful of him? You have crowned him with glory, having made him a little lower than the angels. So man has been crowned as God's epic part of creation in order to mirror him in history. Psalm 115, verse 16 says that the heavens belong to God, but earth belongs to man. In Psalm chapter 82, verse 6, it says that our managerial responsibility over creation is so awesome, God even calls mankind little gods, calling you little gods because I've given you managerial.

Now don't get this wrong, you don't own the thing. The earth is the Lord's, the fullness thereof, the world and all they that dwell in it. So let's don't get this wrong, but you are my managers, and your job is to manage my world based on the instructions from the owner, and I own it. So that is the job of the human race, but because God turned it over to man and gave man freedom, he allowed us to mess it up if we choose to, because within the creation process, God granted freedom. That's why he gave Adam the option of choosing. So we have freedom to mess up God's purposes.

We also have the freedom to get back in it so that we can get things aligned correctly. So even though that was the mandate, the dominion mandate to rule on God's behalf in history, God did not create man and woman at the same time. It says he created Adam first, and the reason he created Adam first was that he was supposed to be the foundation, he was to be the stabilizing force on which everything else that God made would be built. So God created the man, did all this for the man, gave the man instruction, and put him in, here it is, the garden, the place of delight, the word Eden, the place of delight. Let me say a word about Eden and the man, because there is no woman yet. We're gonna get to the ladies in a minute, but the ladies are not here yet, because God knew that he didn't want a woman coming into a messed up man, so he held off on the woman till he could get the man straight, and that's always God's process, and that's always our headache.

Because God can't get men straight, women are in trouble. So he created the man first, and he put him in the garden. The garden was the place of God's abiding presence. In other words, the man was to establish his identity in God's presence.

By man, I'm talking about male. The male was to establish his identity in God's presence, the garden. That's why it says the Lord God, the Lord God, because that's God's presence. So he was everywhere he went, boom, like a pinball machine, in the garden, he's bumping into God. We have a generation of men who want to visit God. So they'll visit him on Sunday, as long as he leaves them alone, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, but they'll give him a visit.

It's an important concept. Adam was to live in the garden, that is, living in God's presence. All of his operation was to be tied to his connection with God, because everything else would be tied to the absence or the presence of that connection. So everywhere he went, all day long, the Bible says he walked with God during the cool of the day. In other words, he and God hung out together.

It was a dynamic relationship, not an event. It wasn't going to church. No, it was living in church, that is, living in God's reality. So that was Adam's responsibility before there is an Eve. Now, God says in verse 18, then the Lord God said, it is not good for man to be alone.

I will make him a helper suitable for him. All right, so let's get this straight. Adam is not looking for a woman, because God said it's not good for Adam to be alone. Adam didn't say that. Adam didn't say where she at. Before Adam realized he was alone, God determined he was alone and said, I'm going to get him a helper, a helper suitable for him.

Now watch this. God has already given him a job. He's not going to give him a help until he got a job. He gave him his presence, and then he decided, okay, now I'm going to give you a helper who is suitable because you are alone. There's a deeper meaning to that word helper, and Dr. Evans will tell us about it when he continues our message in just a moment.

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Now, let's go a little deep in here. Let's talk a little Hebrew. The Hebrew word helper suitable is pronounced ezir kenigdo.

That's how it's pronounced in Hebrew. Ezir means help, kenigdo means a corresponding, a counterpart. So this is a corresponding counterpart to you, because you are alone. Adam doesn't feel he's alone. God decides he's alone, but alone regarding what? God says, I'm going to make them male and female, Genesis 1 we just read, and let them rule. So the reason why God is going to create a female in a few moments is not merely so that Adam can have a companion, it is so he can get help to rule. Adam, the job I want you to produce is so big, so substantive, so gargantuous, that you can't do it all by yourself alone. So I'm going to bring somebody alongside of you who corresponds to you, who's going to enable you to expand your dominion further than you could ever do it on your own. So a man who is not maximizing what God has given to the woman has limited what God can do through him because he's not using the help that God provided, that the job of the help is to expand the rule in the context of companionship.

So let's get this straight. I'm sure we have a lot of singles here, so let me explain something. Adam didn't need Eve to become complete, because we mix up being single and being alone. Those are not the same thing. If you are a single like Adam is right now, and like Eve will be before she's introduced to Adam, you are supposed to be a complete single. Marriage should be a bonus, not a necessity.

You are to be complete. Let me illustrate what I'm saying. Right now, in my head, I have two keys. Two keys. This key unlocks a door, this key unlocks a door.

They don't unlock the same door, they unlock two separate doors. But I don't need this key to unlock the door that this key has been designed to unlock. This key is not incomplete because it ain't with this key.

This key is not incomplete because it's not with this key, because they are corresponding to one another. They're both made of metal, and they're both keys, but they're not the same. However, right now, I have a key ring. So I put this key on a ring, and I put this key on a ring. Now the keys are together. This key is no longer alone. It is now attached by a ring to another key. The attachment to the key does not take away the completeness of the individual key. The individual key is still absolutely complete, but because they're hooked up, they can now do more together than they could do apart without losing the uniqueness of their indentations and protrusions. So it's okay to want a ring on it. As long as you understand getting a ring doesn't solve a problem. It's supposed to be two complete singles getting together, not half a single and half a single making one one married.

No, it is the uniqueness of the two. They just hanging out now in company with each other to accomplish a greater thing than anyone could do on its own. So what am I saying here? I am saying that happiness is not God's primary goal for marriage. Once you make happiness the primary goal, when you're not happy anymore, you don't want to stay married, because happiness was the goal.

Happiness is the fruit, not the root. The root of the goal was let them rule, and if I could ever get them to rule underneath me, in relationship to me, under the authority of me, properly relating to one another, happy won't be a problem, because happy will be the result of fulfilling the purpose for the arrangement I set up in the first place. So he's now establishing what they are to be about.

They are to be about operating under his rule. So now God brings out all the animals. He brings them out to see what the man would call them, and the man names all the cattle, verse 20. Naming in the Bible is a big deal, because naming in the Bible has to do with claiming authority over that which you name. So it's not just giving a word, it is to own it. To name it is to own it. There are 1.2 million species of animals, 1.2 million.

Underneath them, there are all kind of subspecies. So Adam is naming all the animals. He's got a big job. He's a brilliant man to give all these names to all these creatures that God is bringing before him, but God has equipped him for his calling, and God is not going to bring you what he knows you're not able to handle. So if you want to be a man that God can bring things to so that you can lay hold of it, lay claim to it, every time you come in on Sunday and you stand for communion, particularly the men, because Eve has not been created yet, and you stand before God, you take communion, you should be setting up the week. You should be saying, God, for this week I'm going to start my day with you. I'm going to bring you in on everything related to my day. I'm going to make time to make you the priority of my day so that you can flow to me so that I can see what you have for me so I can give name to it and ownership of it to increase your dominion in history.

And then every day you're bringing God to bear in every aspect of your life. You're not visiting him on Sunday, you are living with him and therefore experiencing kingdom rule. Dr. Tony Evans will have more for us on the idea of dominion on Monday when he continues this lesson from his current teaching series, Kingdom Men Rising, and he'll come back in just a moment to share an important truth from God's Word. But first, a quick reminder about that special offer I mentioned earlier. If you help us continue this broadcast by making a donation to the ministry, we'll say thanks by sending you all 12 messages in Tony's current series, Kingdom Men Rising, along with his powerful new book by the same name. This is a limited time offer, so don't put it off. Just reach out to our resource center at 1-800-800-3222.

Team members are standing by around the clock to help you. That's 1-800-800-3222, or visit TonyEvans.org. And if you've never taken the step of starting a relationship with God through Jesus Christ, it starts by realizing none of us is perfect enough to qualify for heaven on our own. But that's not the end of the story.

Here's Dr. Evans to explain why. He who knew no sin became sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. Guess what? God is going to let you go to heaven on credit. He will credit to your account the righteousness of Christ, because God is credited to Jesus Christ your sin. So your credit score can be 100 if you go to Jesus Christ for salvation right now.

How do you do that? Tony would be happy to explain it to you. Just visit TonyEvans.org and click on the link that says Jesus. He has a short, powerful video that explains what real Christianity is all about, along with some free follow-up resources. Check it out today and discover the amazing difference it can make in your life. When your car is out of alignment, your wheels are actually pointing in slightly different directions. Eventually your tires will either wear out or go flat. On Monday, Dr. Evans will talk about why so many marriages have the same problem and what men should be doing about it. I hope you'll be back for that. The alternative with Dr. Tony Evans is brought to you by The Urban Alternative and is celebrating 40 years of faithfulness thanks to the generous contributions of listeners like you.