Jeff:
The question is: if we’re a team, what game are we playing? And I will let you say it Jeremy, because I love the phrasing, I want to hear you talk about it. So what would you say? What are the games we were playing or can be playing or should be playing?

Jeremy:
Yeah, absolutely. So we talk about we’re a multi generational team on mission. What is this game? How do you win? What is the game that we’re in? I just had a dad actually text me this the other day, and my quick response is a little bit tongue in cheek, but I just wrote back “Complete world domination.”

Jeff:
It’s so true.

Jeremy:
That’s the game we’re playing.

Jeff:
It’s like Pinky and The Brain status: to take over. What’s the plan? The same plan every night; to take over the world. That was a cartoon when I was a kid. It was Pinky and The Brain, where it was this trope. It was on Nickelodeon when I was kid. It was Pinky and The Brain, I think, and it was the joke; every episode Pinky would say to Brain or something, “What’s the plan?” And he would say, “The same plan as every night,” or whatever, “every day, to take over the world” or whatever. So the same thing.

Jeremy:
That’s awesome. All right. So it’s going to sound like we’re evil conspiracy theorists, but bringing it down, in Genesis 1, when God created the first family, he gave them a very clear mission. And this is why he created the family. And so it’s important to understand, you guys, that the family comes preloaded with a mission. It doesn’t mean that there’s not specific callings that your family has, or that individuals in your family may need to have that are given by God, but that we actually know the story. We know the narrative. It’s right there in Genesis 1.

And so when God created the first family, he told them, “Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, rule over the fish of the sea, the birds in the air, and everything that creeps along the ground.” So he gave us dominion, and so basically you can boil it down to two words if you want, which is, “Multiply,” and, “Rule.” You can sort of nest all the other elements that are described there in Genesis 1 underneath one of those two words.

But basically, we’re in a game where God has basically given us all kinds of gifts. He’s given us multi-generational teams, gave us the ability to reproduce and have more children so that we can expand God’s kingdom. We can expand the boundaries of the Garden of Eden to cover the world.

But because of the fall, most of our father’s kingdom has been lost to the enemy, right? So that’s why Jesus says in the gospels that the enemy is somehow ruling, and this is, of course, devastating to humanity. And so what are we trying to do? We’re trying to re-exert the kingdom of our father and then we do that through making disciples. That’s why we’re on a mission to make disciples. But the same thing multiply disciples and rule. Multiply and rule. This is not like dictatorship ruling. This is really stewarding, and we’re trying to figure out, “Okay, how do we take all the gifts that we have and how do we provide leadership, servant leadership, loving leadership, leadership that causes cities to flourish, that causes families to flourish, that causes children to flourish.” But we need to think about ourselves as we want more and more people to really exist and have the benefit of being underneath the shade of our leadership as families and as households, so that the world can have more and more of God’s sort of influence and the justice of God and the goodness of God and the mercy of God can be experienced by more people.

So there’s a lot to that, but that’s the game we’re in. We’re trying to really extend our influence through multiplying and through ruling. And so it’s a good thing for families to get strong, to exert leadership through their understanding and through their rootedness in the gospel. And so I just want to see more and more of your families understand. This is a very serious game we’re in and it’s important that we take seriously our role as families and we think about, we’re comfortable with governments ruling with corporations ruling, what about households? Multi generational teams that have been saturated with the gospel and understand the ways of God. What about those teams increasing the multiplying and ruling. I think that’s the description of the kind of game, there’s a lot more details there, but yeah. What in that stands out to you Jeff?

Jeff:
Yeah, I think it’s totally true and it’s sad because I think a lot of times Christian families sometimes by the opposite narrative of instead of complete world domination, it’s, “Complete retreat and go hide out,” and that’s literally sinful and wrong. It’s literally sinful and wrong. We are created. If you are blessed, then you were blessed to be a blessing. That always goes together in the scripture. You’re never blessed to then like bloat. There’s there between blessing for bloating and blessing to be a blessing. Blessed to be a blessing. And so I think, guys, it’s funny, but it’s true that complete world domination in a kingdom, Jesus upside down, service, cross bearing way, is the mission to reign and rule. But Jesus reigns and rules in a really beautiful way.

And here’s what’s interesting guys. We’re fine with this and it’s already happening. Like Jeremy said, a lot of other places. Apple is doing complete world domination. Coca Cola is doing complete world domination. Coca-Cola is in places that we wish churches and families of God were in, right? Diamond company owns 80 to 85% of all the world’s diamond supply. Can you imagine owning basically more than three quarters worth of the entire world’s diamond supply? But they do that through exploitation and a lot of unjust means. And so there’s a lot of places, and a lot of people, and a lot of corporations, and a lot of things that are actually pursuing and actually very much achieving in some sense, world domination. But Jesus says, “I want that to happen, not through exploitation, not through advertising, not through marketing, not through really cool devices, but I want to have to happen through families and I want that to be a blessing to other people. I want that to be the upside down economic of love. I want love to dominate the world.”

And that’s this mission that we’re on is to expand the reign and rule of the Kingdom of God as citizens, as ambassadors, as diplomats of this kingdom, to reign and rule and to show that kind of economic of the kingdom which is the cross and the resurrection, right? That God doesn’t force anyone to obey, but he woos people to obey by his loves. And it’s a kingdom of justice, a kingdom of blessing, a kingdom of service. And it’s an upside down kingdom. When all the other ones we named were right side up, or maybe all those ones are upside down, Jesus is right side up?

And so that’s the encouragement today you guys is, that is actually what families are for, is to expand the reign and rule of God to put Heaven and Earth back together, and the renewal of all things, and he actually wants to do it through you. Do you believe that and are you stepping into that mission?