Once you get the big picture it'll help you understand a lot of stuff perhaps you've wondered about - so first of all we'll read Genesis 1:26. God said let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the cattle, all the earth, every creeping thing. Let's make man in Our image and likeness. Let Us make man a spirit being with God-type qualities and let Us put him and give him dominion over the earth - now not dominion over one another. That's why we don't want anyone to tell us what to do. We're not sort of made and wired that way. We're made to have dominion over the earth and we're made to be in relationship with God, so we find it hard to have anyone tell us what to do. But man was made for dominion, made for authority, to rule over creation. So God's intention was very simple. He had created all of heaven and in heaven His presence fills it; His character fills it. His nature fills it. His authority fills it. It's a wonderful place to be.
Then He made earth, and earth - He made earth that kingdom of heaven might be extended into the earth, and so He created man to be His agent to represent Him and to bring heaven to earth. You can tell that He's done that because number one, He gave us the mandate you've got to bring heaven into earth, bring dominion there; and secondly, He created us in His own image and likeness, a spirit being, so we're quite unique. We can access heaven, the realm of the spirit because we've got a spirit part of us, and we can live in the earth and do things in the earth because we've got a human part of us, so that makes us a wonderful creation. Psalm 8 says what is man that You are mindful of him, or the son of man that You created him to have dominion over all the works of your hands? So you are made for dominion. You are made to win in life. You are made to advance the kingdom of God. You are made to have an influence in the earth. You are made for your life to count for something eternal. That's why if you live for the moment you'll always feel empty and needing your next fix.
We are made for eternity. We are made to bring heaven into the earth, so if you work in a business you're designed to bring the resources of heaven into the earth and to touch the lives of every person you do business with and interact with - including your employees. If you're in a school you're designed to bring something of God's presence into the school. If you're in the school that is God's purpose for you. If you don't fulfil His purpose you'll follow the crowd. So wherever we are we're called to bring something of heaven into earth. The big thing is how to do it. Now let's have a look at a few things. First I want to get this real clear about [this 00.10.50], so we see here that the first one who came up with the idea of dominion was God, so God realised that the earth would need bringing into order and that in order for things to work there would have to be some form of government. We hear the word 'government' - some of you will have very negative thoughts, see?
You'll have negative thoughts because of your experience and your opinions, see? But government isn't bad; government's necessary. Just consider for a moment if there was no government, if there is no one setting rules on the road and everyone drives the way they like. The place will be very unsafe. If there is no one setting rules about what behaviour's acceptable, not acceptable and there's no authority and power to enforce that, your life will be extremely unsafe because people can break into your home and take what they want, when they want. If there is no government to provide some kind of organisation then society breaks down and becomes chaotic. So no matter where you are in the world people need government. We must have government. We understand government is God's idea. There must be government. It came from God who's a king over a kingdom, so when God created the earth He said for man, man will have dominion. They'll be My representatives, have dominion.