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God’s Property and the Future

By Joe Boot/ August 26, 2012

Series  Meditations on the Psalms

Context  Westminster Chapel Toronto

Topic  Lordship

Scripture  Psalms 24

Our sphere as the church has largely been that of a child; we've retreated from one area of life to another, leaving law, politics, education, etc. to the influence of godless people. Toronto is God's city because all authority in heaven and earth belongs to Christ

Scripture: Psalm 24

Sermon Notes:

  1. Everything in the world and everybody who lives in it belong to the Lord. Nothing is left out of God's ownership and jurisdiction.
  2. As we grow up, the area of our responsibility and authority increases, and we become increasingly aware of how the authority of God applies to all the areas of our lives.
  3. God creates the human family and gives it responsibility.
  4. We prepare our children to serve the purposes of God as godly, productive, mature members of family, church, and society.
  5. The original commission was to be fruitful and multiply, and to have dominion over the earth (Genesis 1:27-28; Psalm 8:4-9).
  6. Under the new covenant, we are God's new humanity, regenerated in Christ to serve the purposes of His Kingdom.
  7. Everything changes and we change. The essence of our growth is that our understanding becomes more comprehensive as connections develop between various aspects of reality.
  8. Paul distinguishes between childish and mature thinking in 1 Corinthians 13:11. We are to seek to attain maturity.
  9. We in the modern evangelical church have allowed ourselves to think and behave as toddler Christians.
  10. At Westminster, the preaching ministry has intentionally sought to change that, so we won't be irrelevant to the crisis of our age.
  11. We want to be mature, to grow up to be the people God wants us to be. Everything changes. As we change, growing into our roles in His Kingdom, God Himself brings the increase.
  12. God owns everything and Jesus is Lord; we're now to take the Lordship of Christ and apply it to our own lives first.
  13. We're to faithfully make the full gospel known, defending it in a culture which is increasingly hostile to Christ and His Word.
  14. Our sphere as the church has largely been that of a child; we've retreated from one area of life to another, leaving law, politics, education, etc. to the influence of godless people.
  15. Toronto is God's city because all authority in heaven and earth belongs to Christ (Matthew 28:18-20).
  16. We're to teach all the nations what God has commanded; Westminster has attempted to teach the whole counsel of God.
  17. We need to think and act in terms of God's plan, which entails the redemption of all things through Christ.
  18. There's reason to believe that redemptive history has many more chapters: God's salvation is for a thousand generations; God has prepared good works for us to do; Hell's gates are unable to withstand the advance of the gospel.
  19. No matter your vocation, we're to live and act in light of Psalm 24: The earth is the Lord's and everything in it.
  20. True worship is not merely Sunday observances; it is to align our entire lives with the values of God's kingdom.
  21. We need to be fed by God's Word so we can apply it to our lives and go out in terms of His Kingdom purposes.
  22. Psalm 90 teaches that our lives are short and that the empires of the world are insignificant in light of God's grand purposes in history.
  23. The Kingdom of the Lord is everlasting and sure.
  24. God's plan is for the blessing of the nations in Christ; Jesus' plan is for the discipling of the nations.
  25. We're to think as Christians while we plan for the future, praying confidently to Him who can do all things (Ephesians 3:20-21).

Application Questions:

  1. What are the limits of God's ownership of all things?
  2. What does a life of true worship look like?
  3. In what ways has the contemporary church shown itself to be immature?
  4. What are the characteristics of the Kingdom described in Habakkuk 2:14, Isaiah 2:2-3, and Isaiah 9:7 ?
  5. Is our vision for the future a God-given vision rooted and grounded in the Kingdom of God?
  6. What are Westminster's core ministries, and how does this vision advance the purposes of God's Kingdom in Toronto?

Sermon Notes