Stewarding Creation

For Meditation

Last week we learned that God created humanity to be in relationship with himself, and then entrusted us with three key relationships: our relationship with creation, our relationship with other human beings, and our relationship with ourselves. This week, we’ll focus on our relationship with creation.

Despite the fact that Christians have indeed contributed to the abuse of creation, the Bible gives Christians unmatchable resources for creation care and environmental stewardship. First, we learn in Scripture that God created the world good. God makes everything in his beautiful and verdant world and pronounces it “good” before humanity is ever on the scene. Creation is not just good because it is useful to humans- it is good because God made it and loves it. “The heavens are telling the glory of God!” (Psalm 19). Second, God calls human beings to “serve the earth and care for it,” (Genesis 2:15), to act as property managers of the good world God has entrusted to us. Third, despite the fact that human rebellion has resulted in the abuse and desecration of creation, God continues to seek the care and cultivation of the earth by establishing a covenant between himself and the earth (Genesis 9:13), by establishing laws in Israel for the preservation of creation (eg Deut. 25), and ultimately through coming into creation through the person of Jesus Christ, to redeem and reclaim creation (Col 1:15-20). Finally, both in the Old Testament prophets and the book of Revelation, we see the future as a redeemed and restored creation, with humanity once again dwelling with God and the created world in peace.

The gospel of is the good news that God in Christ is committed to the renewal, reconciliation, and resurrection of all things. We are invited as stewards to work alongside God for that which will be complete when Christ fully and finally reigns!

In preparation for worship this week, read Psalm 19 and take a walk outside in God’s glorious creation, thanking him for his gift of the good earth.

Genesis 1:24–28

24 And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

27 So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.

28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

Genesis 2:15

15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.

Romans 8:18–21

18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19 For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.