Joel Osteen and Toby Sumter dissect the dominion mandate in Genesis 1:28, arguing that sin distorted this self-government into tyranny while the Holy Spirit restores it through regeneration. They critique modern evangelicalism for prioritizing missions over Deuteronomy 6's command to nurture children, effectively surrendering influence to secular institutions like public schools. Rejecting a two-kingdom theology, they advocate for a post-millennial view where Christians dominate industries by producing excellent goods as sacrifices of praise, asserting that all labor holds eternal value and believers must strive to outwork their pagan contemporaries rather than minimizing work. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
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Self-Control and the Holy Spirit00:14:26
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Hi, and welcome to a bonus edition of Theology Applied.
I'm joined in this episode by Toby Sumter, again discussing his 50 question catechism on the governments.
This episode deals with the government of the self.
Or, what scripture would call self control, we have no business leading others if we cannot first master ourselves.
Applying God's word to every aspect of life, this is Theology Applied.
All right, so let's go to um to part two now.
So, this is uh going to be uh the self, um, talking about self government and Jesus being Lord of.
The self.
So you go ahead and start.
Let's just do the same thing.
So, question seven.
And I'll go.
Seven.
What is the sphere and assignment given by God to individuals in self government?
Answer.
God has graciously assigned the dominion mandate to all human beings, which is part of what it means to be made in God's image.
Question eight.
What is the dominion mandate?
Answer.
The dominion mandate is found in Genesis chapter one, verse 28, and it is the command and blessing with the corresponding authority to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth.
Subdue it and rule over all of creation.
9. How is self government possible?
Because of sin and the fall of Adam, self government has been distorted and has become a means of tyranny, harm, and misuse.
Therefore, true self government is only possible through the regeneration of human hearts brought about by the preaching of the gospel and the renewing grace of the Holy Spirit.
10. What is self government also called in the New Testament?
Answer.
In the New Testament, self-government is also called self-control, one of the fruits of the Spirit.
11. Why is self-government the foundation for all other governments?
Self-government is the foundation of all other governments because all other governments are made up of individuals who either serve themselves and their lusts or else they serve others in love through obedience to the authority of Christ.
12. What is the duty of all people with regard to self-government?
Answer.
It is the duty of all people to rule their entire lives in this world to be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth with good things in praise and imitation of their maker and savior and for his glory.
All right.
Let's talk about that for a little bit.
So, that's all about self government.
And I love just, you know, I mean, it kind of goes without saying, but it really doesn't.
And that's why you added it in there.
But I think it was question number 10.
What is self government also called in the New Testament, right?
Give me a verse for that, right?
And the verse is self control.
It's a fruit of the Spirit.
You want to talk about that for a little bit?
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, I think it's, I think, I don't know about you, Joel, or our audience, our listeners, but when I hear the word, when I think growing up in the blessing of a Christian home, I remember learning the fruits of the Spirit as a little kid, probably singing jingles, memorizing them, which I'm really grateful for.
But I think it's really easy to sort of over spiritualize the fruits of the Spirit.
They are spirit wrought virtues.
They are spirit powers.
They are the work of the Holy Spirit.
But I think you can over spiritualize it and think of self control as only something that's happening inside of you.
And of course, it has to happen inside of you.
You need to control your thoughts and your emotions and so on, your desires.
But I think it's helpful to pair it with this notion of self government because it's, as soon as you say self government, I think of something far broader than that.
It includes internal self control, obedience to Christ in your thoughts, obedience to To Christ in what you're thinking about and meditating on, and so on, and what you love and what you hate.
But it's so much more than that.
And again, I think of maybe one way to frame it would be so what would the fruit of the Spirit self control look like in the garden with Adam and Eve?
Well, you know, the fruit of self control in the garden before there was sin would have been using their strength and creativity and life to obey Christ, to obey God, to To be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue it, guard the garden, tend it, and to begin exploring the world and making the whole world glorious and beautiful like the garden had begun to be.
And so I want to sort of push those things together because I think that's absolutely what Christ came to do.
Again, we were just singing Christmas carols in the last section.
And if I can go back to Joy to the World, he comes to make his blessings flow.
As far as the curse is found.
Amen.
And so the whole mission of Christ, you can think of the Great Commission, all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me, therefore go, I think, rightly, as a renewal of the dominion mandate.
It's because of Christ, because he's conquered sin and death, that we have access to the Father, access back to the garden.
Well, the whole point of that access isn't just so that we would go there and stay there.
The whole point of that axis is so that we might know the Father, know his glory, know his will, and then take that glory out into the world.
That was the point of the garden.
The garden was this place where the tree of life was, where God met with Adam and Eve, where they had fellowship, where Adam could learn from his maker, his God, about the way that his wisdom, his glory, and then take that communion, that fellowship, that glory out into the world and fill the whole world with that glory.
That's the point of the Great Commission.
And that's what's been.
Renewed through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.
Amen.
Yeah, I think it's important for Christians to understand that the Great Commission does not come as a substitute, a replacement for the cultural mandate, but rather the Great Commission comes right alongside the cultural mandate and really more of just like an exposition, a further exposition and clarifying of the cultural mandate in the sense that it's saying because of Christ, because of the second Adam, where the first Adam has failed, the second Adam has now made possible.
That we can fulfill this cultural mandate, and here is its truest sense.
Here was what was always intended by it.
And it's funny because Christians will say, well, we're just fulfilling the Great Commission and the cultural mandate.
That was for another time, or mission accomplished, right?
We've got 8.2 billion people, whatever it is, 7.8 billion people.
I think we can call it quits, we're done with that.
And it's just to pit them against one another, it's like, The best disciples I'm ever going to make, Lord willing, by God's grace, are my children.
So, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them and teaching them to obey all my commandments.
And the sad thing is, I think one of the reasons why the church in America, especially evangelicals, are losing is because, in the name of the Great Commission, what we did is in order to accomplish the Great Commission, what we put on the altar as our sacrifice was the cultural mandate, AKA our kids.
So, we sent our kids to public school so we'd have more money to give to desiring God and missions.
Right?
We put our kids in this and we failed in this and we failed in that with our own families, with our own children.
You know, we used birth control and we did, you know, all these different things.
We limited, you know, and we viewed children as a burden, although we would never really say it, but that's what we did, all in the name of the Great Commission.
So we had all these gospel conversations with people.
We were very gospel centered and we gave towards, you know, the International Mission Board, the IMB with the Southern Baptist and all this kind of stuff in the name of, of, of, Of discipling the nation so that Jesus would come back, you know.
And meanwhile, what we did at home was we seeded every major institution, we gave up the culture, we gave up politics, and tragically, most of all, we gave up our children.
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think all of that goes back to, again, the Great Commission says make disciples, baptizing them, and then teaching them everything I have commanded you.
And I think that's that.
If we failed miserably, it's there, it's in the teaching.
We failed to teach all that Christ has commanded.
And we know from 2 Timothy 3 that all that Christ has commanded is all of God's word, which is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, correcting, rebuking, and training in righteousness.
And then along with the law, it's not just the gospel, it's the whole Bible.
I mean, when Paul's writing that to Timothy, all he's got is the Old Testament.
When he says all scriptures God breathed, like that's all he's got so far.
Now, he probably has an inkling that there's a new covenant canon being assembled as he writes.
But the main thing that Timothy's got in hand, those scriptures that he was trained in as a child, was the Old Testament.
That's the scriptures that he says are so useful.
On top of that, having, if we accept that, then I think you're absolutely right.
We've failed to listen to God where he says, here's what's potent.
Here's what's potent.
You want to take the culture for Christ?
He says, Here, I'm going to give you arrows.
I'm going to give you weapons.
They're called your kids.
Psalm 127, like arrows in the hand of a mighty warrior, so are the children of one's youth.
Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them.
He will not be ashamed.
They will speak with his enemies in the gate.
Right.
When their dad is still in the fray, right?
The children of the youth.
Right.
That's right.
And we, as a culture, and particularly the Christian church, modern evangelical church in North America, said, no, we've got a better idea.
We'll do it our own way.
And you're right.
We shuffled the kids off.
We gave them to government schools.
Even when we brought them to church, we sent them down into the basement to play stupid games.
That's right.
We put them in nurseries.
And we basically taught them that they're not real Christians.
We don't think they are.
They certainly can't be until they get old and they've done drugs for a while.
And rather than saying, no, these are our weapons, we want them with us in church.
We want them to be growing up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord as we were explicitly commanded to do.
Deuteronomy 6 says that we are to teach our children to love God with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength when we rise up, when we go by the way, when we lie down, all the time, everywhere.
We're to bind God's law on our hands and on our foreheads.
We're supposed to put it on our city gates.
You can't read Deuteronomy 6 and say, but I guess sending them to places that hate God for six hours or eight hours a day would be okay.
No, he said, teach them all day long to love me.
Everywhere you go, there should be reminders of.
Me.
And this is how you fill the earth with my glory.
And this is how you're potent.
And we basically rejected that and said, no, we've got an idea.
We're going to do a big extravaganza outreach with explosions and light shows and smoke.
And it'll be a real kicking rock band.
And that's what we're going to do.
And that's just plain disobedient.
Christ said, Train up your children, raise them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
This is how you raise sharp arrows who will stand with you in the gates.
And but one last thing, Joel, I'm sorry I'm rambling, but no, it's good.
I just also think, in terms of this self government thing, in terms of and the cultural mandate, is the potency of hard work and good work in this world.
We're in we're being in the we've seen anything in the last couple of years, we've seen how so many of the industries in our country and our land.
Are run by people who hate God.
Yes.
And so the whole cancel culture thing, if you don't put the rainbow flag in your desk or put the pin on your shirt, you might lose your job.
If you say you think that sodomy is an abomination, that the murder of babies in their mother's wombs is wicked and evil, if you don't celebrate the debauchery, you can lose your job, you can get fired, you can get demoted, all those things.
And then now they're coming for the banks, they're coming for all kinds of.
Things in our life and we realize I mean what.
What have Christians been doing?
We've not been taking dominion, we've not been, we've not been saying you know what?
Um, by the grace of god, I want in my field, in my industry.
I want to provide the best possible products, the best possible services, so that by my serving the world I can bless them, but also I can protect the gospel, I can protect Christian, I can protect Christians um by, you know, running the best social media platforms, by running um the the best, um you know Whatever, oil companies, the best clothing companies, the best advertising firms, the best banking firms.
Christians should be running all those things.
Inheriting the Earth Through Meekness00:03:10
Amen.
Because, real quick, the world belongs to Christ.
Amen.
Right.
So the meek will inherit the earth, right?
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
And we've forfeited our inheritance.
And so everything you're talking about, yes and amen, a hundred times.
And I've learned a lot of this stuff from guys like you primarily.
And I've been on, you know, for the last two, three years now, this post millennial Kyperian kind of journey.
You know, when I was in Acts 29, I started to kind of resist Kyperianism.
But then I started to realize, okay, this actually isn't Kyperianism.
This is a neo Kyperianism because they were very much about, like, let's get involved in the culture.
But when you ask, like, what is a gospel issue that affects politics in the culture, it's synonymous with the Democrat platform.
So how do you know if it's a gospel issue?
Ending abortion, is that a gospel issue?
Nope, nope, nope.
But wealth redistribution, that's a gospel issue.
So I was like, all right, well, then just forget this.
I'm going the two kingdom route, you know, and I was, you know, close proximity in San Diego to Escondido and so, you know, the R2K radical too.
And so my point is theology impacts.
All of this, right?
So is the earth going to dissolve like snow, literally?
Or is this the sense of like Gary DeMar and some of these guys talk, you know, like the old covenant and some of its promises wrapping up like a rug?
And, you know, like is the creation itself groaning with eager expectations for the sons of God to be revealed because at that time the creation is going to receive a mercy killing from the Lord and be annihilated and disintegrated?
Or does creation know something that many human beings made in the image of God don't even know themselves?
Does creation know that Christ is restoring not only.
His image bears, but that Christ is going to restore the entirety of the cosmos, that the trees are going to be restored, that the new heavens will be on the new earth.
That when Jesus returns, this rapture idea is the idea of the ten virgins, and five of them are foolish and five of them are wise, right?
And when the bridegroom is coming, the five wise who had enough oil to where they could light their lamps and see the bridegroom as they run out to him, but not to go somewhere else.
They run out to him as this welcoming party to greet him, to meet him halfway, and usher him back.
This idea that the dead will rise, first those who are dead in Christ, and then the living, and we will be caught up together with him in the sky as Jesus is going somewhere.
He's coming somewhere.
Where?
To earth.
And we're the welcoming committee that meets him and then comes back down with him to the world that he's king of, that he is ruling and reigning now, but is now returned to physically.
And the new heavens now on the new earth.
And what we see is we see this eschaton unraveling before our very eyes, but it's not.
It's not some entirely new, independent, separate creation.
No, it is a redeemed, glorified Alps.
Those Alps that I remember going and visiting in my earthly life and seeing.
And now it is the eschatological Alps.
And that river is still here, but now it's beautiful.
And so my point is when you have bad theology and bad eschatology, when you're two kingdoms, when you're pre mill, when you're dispensation, I'll just, you know, these kinds of things.
Making Good Shoes for God00:07:11
And I'm saying it.
Not because I've been on the right side of this theological battle for 20 years.
No, I've been on the right side by God's grace for about two years.
And I say it with passion and gusto because I've been on the wrong side.
Not because I've earned my stripes, but because I've been on the wrong side and I've been so damaged by bad theology.
It wasn't that long ago for me.
So I can vividly remember the effects of having the wrong theological foundation and what it lends towards.
And all that back to what you're saying.
One of the things it lends towards is who cares, right?
So your job.
Your vocation, these kinds of things.
At the end of the day, right, you're always thinking, you know, some books like Radical by David Platt, you know, this kind of thing.
You're always thinking in terms of how can I do the least amount of work possible and still make, you know, decent money so that I can leave an inheritance for my children's children, so that I can be a good steward and own property and build wealth rather than building the pagans' wealth by renting.
No, no, no, don't own a home and don't do this and don't do that.
No, you want to work as little as possible so you can volunteer at church and you want to make just enough money so you can give.
Everything to the church while limiting your budget as much as, and it's just this, it's this truncated, it's like work doesn't matter, right?
You always hear the old adage, you know, everybody in their deathbed, nobody ever says I should have spent more time at the office.
Everyone says I should have spent more time with my family.
And there's a truth in that.
Yes, we should spend time, we're shepherds and pastors in our homes.
We should spend time washing our wives in the word and training up our children the way they should go and being affectionate and rolling with the little ones and laughing, rolling on the floor and laughing with them.
But then we also should clock in 50.
Our work weeks and outwork our contemporaries, our pagan contemporaries, and do better work.
And so to land the plane with this, I always think of the Luther quote.
You know, the first imperative of the gospel and the cobbler is not that he makes Christian shoes, but that he makes good shoes.
However, I think you and I would both say, no, it is that he makes Christian shoes because good shoes are Christian shoes.
So what makes it Christian shoes isn't a crappy shoe with John 3 16 written on the bottom of the tongue.
What makes it a Christian shoe is that it's a good shoe.
It was made with ethical plans, it wasn't made in a sweatshop with child labor.
It's sold at a reasonable price, it's durable and lasts, and it's aesthetically pleasing.
And even ironically, even if a non Christian made that shoe, it would be a non Christian making a Christian shoe because it glorifies the Lord.
And the sad thing is, we've had non Christians producing Christian products, meaning good products and good services.
And now the non Christians are working in their inconsistencies.
Their inconsistent worldview is finally starting to rear its ugly head in their products, transing your kids through Disney movies.
So now the worldview is getting because, right, it was only.
It was inevitable.
It was always a matter of time that their allegiance would work its way into their work.
Their work is going to reflect their hearts.
So now that their wicked hearts and rebellious hearts are manifesting in their work, they're no longer making Christian products.
They're now making satanic products.
But then the problem is Christians don't make products at all.
All we do is we go to church and we give to missions.
Yeah.
Yeah.
As we're recording this, we're getting ready to celebrate Easter.
I don't know when this show will drop, but I've been looking at 1 Corinthians 15 and, you know, His celebration, this glorious celebration of the resurrection of Jesus, and with it, the resurrection of us, our bodies as well.
And he closes this whole chapter by saying, Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for as much as you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.
Amen.
Because of the resurrection, because of the hope that Christ came to save this world, that means that our labors are not in vain.
They're not worthless, they're not empty.
It's not all going to burn.
Our bodies are going to be raised, and in some way, shape, or form, or fashion, even our labors are going to be raised.
They're going to count for eternity.
I was also thinking about Titus.
I think the book of Titus is one of the maybe an area that, you know, if somebody says, well, I mostly stick to the New Testament, obviously I have a problem with that.
But check out Titus.
The number of times that Paul talks about the necessity of good works is.
It's a bunch.
We're not saved by good works, but we are saved for good works.
We're saved to good works.
And those good works are not just giving an offering on Sunday or helping a little old lady across the street.
Yes, be kind, be generous, and so on.
But a lifestyle of good works means offering your vocation, all of your labors to Christ.
Going to your job, going to work, going to school, whatever your labor is in the Lord, that's your sacrifice of praise.
You're doing it.
It's all an altar.
Your car is an altar.
Your kitchen table is an altar.
Your desk at work is an altar.
And so ask yourself, is it a sacrifice of praise?
Am I doing this to the Lord?
And am I maximizing the glory I can give to God for it?
Christians should be the right kind of godly ambitious.
Think of Paul.
Again, at the beginning of 1 Corinthians 15, he says, I was the last one to see Jesus, the last one born out of due time, not worthy to be called an apostle.
Yet his grace to me was not in vain.
And then he has the audacity to say, and I have worked harder than all of the rest of them.
But it was not me, it was Christ in me, right?
We should have that kind of.
Of hunger.
I want to work harder than all the rest of the Christians in my field, in my business.
I want to serve Christ as a banker, as a butcher, as a candlestick maker, as a mom, as a wife, as a teacher, and outrun everybody for the glory of Christ.
Amen.
And the problem is when you don't see the work itself as valuable in the sight of the Lord.
So then all work becomes a means towards provision for your family and generosity to the church for the Great Commission, the real thing that really matters.
And you don't, and yeah.
But if you see the work itself as eternal, everything that is truly good and beautiful and in line with God's word has not just value, but it has an eternal value.
Every cup of cold water you give in the name of Jesus, if that's worthwhile, if that's meaningful, then so is every peanut butter and jelly sandwich you make for your kids, so is every invoice you write for the work you've done, so is every nail you hammer.
All of it is serving the Lord because the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof.
Yeah.
And part of the problem, I was talking to Joe Boot about this, but like part of the problem is, you know, whenever we do find a gifted Christian man who's competent, talented, and ambitious, what do we tell him he should do with his life?
Urgent Lectures on Pastoral Calling00:01:13
We take him out of any vocation that he might have been in and say, you should be a pastor.
You know, so it's like, so we just don't.
Which is interestingly, it's just the opposite of what Charles Spurgeon said.
I'll give you a Reformed Baptist shout out here.
Urgent in lectures to his students, one of my favorite lectures he gives, he begins by saying, If you can do anything else besides be a pastor, do it.
And I start every year with that to my pastoral training students.
I actually give them that talk, my own version of it.
And I say, Look, you probably shouldn't be here.
Right.
I think we should have the opposite message.
We should have the message of we need pastors, we need evangelists, we need missionaries, but you're probably not called to it.
Yep.
That's what I've been telling them the last couple of years.
And probably you need to do something else.
If you can do something else, you should do it.
And it's for the kingdom.
That is your ministry.
That's right.
And it's important you do it.
Amen.
Thanks so much for listening.
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