God's Creation

Call to Worship (Psalm 98)

Sing to God a new song, for God has done marvelous things! Make a joyful noise to God, all the earth, for God is still doing marvelous things! Break into joyful song! Sing praises with lyre and melody and trumpets! Let the seas roar and the floods clap their hands! For God is coming to judge the world with righteousness. God is coming to judge the world with equity. Sing to God a new song!

Opening Prayer (Acts 10, Psalm 98, 1 John 5, John 15)

God of songs and marvels, old and new, your powerful love for this world continues to astound us. In these last days of Easter, we gather to recall the love that brought Jesus into this world and into our lives: as savior, friend and brother. We thank you for welcoming us into your household and for trusting us with your marvelous work to draw all people into the spacious home of your love. Amen.

Invitation to the Offering (Acts 10, Psalm 98, John 15)

We began our worship today with a psalm about the new songs that God inspires us to sing. In our Gospel lesson, we heard Jesus teaching his disciples a new song: a love song about Jesus’ love for his disciples and for the world. Jesus hoped we would all join in singing and living out this new song of love. Today in giving to others, let us join in this song so that the whole world may hear the beautiful and welcoming melody of God’s love.

PRAYER:

Dear God, We are called to a higher understanding. Love must take the form of service and compassion, of hope and proclamation, of patient waiting and urgent striving for the good of all people. Open our hearts today, Lord, and imprint your message of love upon them, that all we say and do is done in your name and for the sake of your people and your world. AMEN.

Psalm 8:3-8New International Version

3 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 4 what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?[a]

5 You have made them[b] a little lower than the angels[c] and crowned them[d] with glory and honor. 6 You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their[e] feet: 7 all flocks and herds, and the animals of the wild, 8 the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas.

God’ Creation

Introduction:Creation is not a consequence of divine need. God is distinct from and independent of the creation. Even humans have not been created to fulfill a need of God. They have not been brought into being to serve God or to provide a conversation partner for an otherwise isolated deity. Before humans ever existed, God had the capacity within himself to communicate, commune, and deliberate, in Genesis 1:26 demonstrates: “Let us create humans in our image, in our likeness.…” The role envisioned for humans from the first is not to serve God but to serve the rest of creation.

So, why the creation? If God is complete in and of himself, why was the creation necessary? Creation is the result—the necessary consequence—of a God of love, who desires to extend that love beyond himself, to make himself known. God created the cosmos, and in particular human beings, so that they might experience the benefit of knowing him and being in relationship with him. God is a God who desires to be known, and that is why his name is majestic in all the earth and his glory is set above the heavens.

Created in the very image of God, they are given responsibility to extend God’s dominion and protective care over the rest of creation.

1. Empowerment and Responsibility

The honor and glory bestowed on humans is driven home unequivocally in the second half of verse 5 “crowned with glory and honor”: God’s establishing of human status to a place just below the heavenly beings is certainly not a penalty. It is equivalent, says the psalmist, to being crowned “with glory and honor.”

Crowned with glory and honor. Crowns in Israel were normally wreaths woven of flowers or palm branches. Israelite kings and priests wore a crown, signifying their consecration to God. Other pagan kings were said to wear crowns, a sign of royal authority. Crowns of the type, decorated with flowers, were worn at banquets as a sign of honor and elevation. It is probably this type of “crowning” that the psalmist envisions in this case—human beings exalted as a sign of divine favor with “glory” and “honor” ( “splendor, grandeur”). These are characteristics of God himself that adorn the frail humans created in his image and allow his power to be displayed through those creatures he has graciously chosen to extend his authority into the world.

The term for “glory” is most often used to describe the glory of God. Divine “glory” in this sense is the more inward, defining essence of God as he really is, as contrasted with “majesty” (ʾaddir, cf. 8:1). When the psalmist describes God as crowning humans with glory, the implication is that through their unique relationship to Yahweh humans come to share in their own inner being the image and essence of the creator that belies their outward appearance of weakness and insignificance.

IT IS natural for us to assume that if we see a watch, it has a watchmaker. Evolution would have us believe that we could take the contents of a watch, throw them up in the air, and expect them to fall down precisely in the correct order and positioning and automatically start ticking!

This is a call for women of all generations to continue their march toward equality and empowerment, yet to do so by once again embracing the power of prayer. This is a call for women in every community to dream like their daughters and pray like their grandmothers.

In conclusion, God gave human beings tremendous authority-to be in charge of the whole earth. But with great authority comes great responsibility. If we own a pet, we have the legal authority to do with it as we wish, but we also have the responsibility to feed and care for it. How do you treat God’s creation? Use your resources wisely because God holds you accountable as his steward.

Benediction (John 15:12)

Jesus speaks again today: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” Go in joy and faithfulness, knowing that you, the chosen friends of Jesus, abide in Jesus’ love and bear the gift of this love to the world. Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy— 25 to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.