Assignment Earth (9AM)

This morning is week 4 in our 2023 series of sermons based out of the book of Genesis (the first book in the Bible). This week’s focus is not as emotionally charged as was last week’s message on gender, or next week’s will likely be on marriage. Today we ask the questions, “What responsibility do we have for the planet we live on? What role has God give us in relation to the created world around us?  The stakes are high. Regardless of your personal feelings about global warming (and that term IS emotionally and politically charged!) most of us would agree that things aren’t as they should be, and we should find ways to take care of the world we live in.

The church of my youth sponsored Boy Scout troop 836. I was a regular and faithful member. We went on monthly camping trips, hiked in the Sierra’s during the summer, learned practical skills (ax-throwing, fire-building, rolling rocks down steep mountains …) and I gained an appreciation for the world I live in. 

I’m grateful for those early lessons, and for my love of God’s created world. I try to diligently recycle. I try not to litter. I view myself as a renter not an owner of the land (world) I occupy. I understand I will live her for a number of years and then others inherit what I, and others, leave behind. God is the owner, the landLord, the Creator. He didn’t ask for a damage deposit when I moved in … looking back I’m pretty sure I would have.

We have a responsibility for the world we live in, the life we have been given.  Genesis makes that clear. God did not simply create us and then leave us to figure out what He wanted us to do. God left instructions. Some misunderstand, or ignore, those instructions and end up worshiping the world of nature: the rocks, trees, animals, stars. Some bow to the creation rather than the Creator. Others take the opposite approach and minimize or dismiss God’s instructions, and their responsibility. They end up using and misusing the gift of creation given to us by God. How do we avoid both extremes and follow God’s way? Genesis is a good place to start.