Title: God’s Good Creation
Series: Old Testament / Our God Provides
Readings: Genesis 1:1 – 2:4 Preacher: Phil Swain
We begin a new cycle in the Narrative Lectionary by turning our focus to the Old Testament – right back to the very beginning! Over the next month, we’ll explore stories of God’s provision from the first two books of the Bible, Genesis and Exodus, in our new sermon series, “Our God Provides.”
This week, our journey starts with the opening words of Genesis: “In the beginning…” – one of the Bible’s creation stories. Why did God create the world, and how does creation reflect God’s generosity and care? Several times in the passage, creation is described as “good.” We often take this to mean high quality – but could it mean even more? As we hear this familiar story again we will open ourselves us to the spirit revealing new truths to us and celebrate that our God does indeed provide.
Sermon Text
As already mentioned, this morning, today we are at the start of a new cycle in the Narrative Lectionary. If you are new here, our church uses a framework called the Narrative Lectionary to guide us and suggest the Bible readings for each Sunday during the year. The Lectionary moves through three sections. Between now and Advent we explore the Old Testament; from Advent to Easter we explore a Gospel (this cycle it is John); and from Easter to around June we explore the New Testament. Today is the beginning of the cycle, the beginning of our time opening up the Old Testament. Over the next three months, our preaching journey will take us through three big threads: the provision of God, the call of God, and God’s promise of hope.
Just before we jump into Genesis 1, considering that we are going to spend the next three months reading from the Old Testament, I thought I should just acknowledge the complexity when it comes with this part of the Bible. The Old Testament is full of great stories, extraordinary acts of God, and gems of wisdom – however – it also contains uncomfortable passages, too much violence, and at times it doesn’t seem to line up neatly with the picture of God we see in Jesus. So, I would like to suggest some helpful hints on how we might approach the Old Testament over the next few months:
Firstly, it might be helpful to see the OT as a narrative arc where everything is not completely worked out at the start. The Bible tells a story in which God reveals more of who God is and the ways of God over time. The people of God learn and grow through the revelation of experiences, the words of the prophets, the insight that comes through reflection.
And we see that in the Bible – that this ongoing revelation shows movement in understanding. For example, the Genesis examples of allowing taking many wives in marriage was replaced with an understanding of faithfulness in marriage between just two people. Or the “eye for an eye” retribution of the Old Testament being superseded by Jesus’ revelation of forgiveness and grace. Yet, at the same time, we need to hold together what changes and what doesn’t — God’s revelation develops, but certain things are constant such as God’s faithfulness, covenant love, justice, mercy, and desire to be with humanity. These things do not change.
Lastly, I would encourage us to be open to God revealing things to us through other voices. Followers of God have always wrestled with the sacred stories, working out what they mean for their time and place. I believe there is lots of be learnt by listening to voices from other cultures, traditions, and life experiences and how they understand the Old Testament. For example, “What might a feminist theologian notice in Genesis 1?” or “How might the persecuted church hear God’s voice when reading Exodus?” Listening to a diverse range of views keeps us from shrinking the Bible to fit only our perspective.
God wants to speak to us through the Old Testament … so here’s my challenge. Let’s not just skim the dozen or so passages we’ll read in Sunday worship but commit to reading a chunk of the Old Testament – not just the well-known and uplighting passages but also the challenging and uncomfortable parts. For starters — I am going to try and read all of Genesis over the next 4 weeks? Would anyone like to try this with me? It’s about a chapter and a half a day. I’ve got a list at the back, and I’ll post short reflections or questions online. Who’s in?
Ok, let’s get back to our reading for today. We start at the very beginning with one of the most recognisable passages in the whole Bible — the first creation account from Genesis 1.
Genesis 1 in its original context isn’t just a stand-alone poem about creation; it’s part of a much bigger ancient conversation.
In the world of the Ancient Near East, many cultures had creation stories. But most of those stories began with a fight — the gods battling one another, killing sea monsters, carving the world out of a defeated enemy’s body. The Babylonian Enuma Elish, for example, tells of the god Marduk slaying the chaos goddess Tiamat and building the world from her remains.
Genesis 1 tells a radically different story. There’s no battle. There’s no rival god to defeat. In the beginning there’s only God — sovereign, calm, and creative. God doesn’t make the world out of a corpse; God shapes it by speaking. Instead of violence, there’s rhythm. Instead of fear, there’s blessing. Instead of impulsive gods using humans as slaves, this God shapes the world as a home for life and entrusts humanity with a meaningful role in it.
It’s also worth noticing that Genesis 1 isn’t trying to be a science textbook. Its primary purpose isn’t to tell us how things were made in modern scientific terms, but who made them, why they were made, and what that says about our place in it all. And right from the start, the emphasis is on God’s generous provision — creation as gift, not accident; creation as blessing, not by-product.
Which brings us to our theme for today — “Our God Provides.”
If you read the Old Testament with this theme in mind, you’ll see it everywhere. In Genesis, God provides food, shelter, purpose, and relationship. In Exodus, God provides manna and quail in the wilderness, water from a rock, and the law to guide them.
In the Psalms, God is the shepherd who leads the flock to green pastures and still waters. Through the prophets, God promises restoration, healing, and a future hope. And in all these examples,
provision is connected to relationship — the God who provides is the God who is with us.
Genesis 1 is like the foundation stone of this theme. Before there’s a covenant, before there’s a wilderness journey, before there’s even a human being, God is already providing — creating a good and ordered world, abundant and beautiful, ready to be inhabited. Over the next five minutes or so I am going to step through Genesis 1 from this perspective of provision (as well as some other interesting things that I picked up from my readings this week).
In the beginning God might have created the heavens and the earth but we are presented with a scene of chaos: “the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep.” This verse in Hebrew carries the sense of a wild, uninhabitable wasteland. In the ancient world, chaotic waters represented danger, instability, and threat to life.
But then we find God’s first act of provision is to bring order to this chaos. Light is separated from darkness, waters from waters, sea from land. Boundaries are set so that life can flourish. The danger is held back, space is made, stability is established.
This is a deeply pastoral picture of provision – of how sometimes God provides by removing chaos from our lives; other times God provides by giving us a place to stand in the middle of it — a boundary, a pattern that keeps us from being overwhelmed. Just as God gave creation a structure, God gives our lives structure: days and nights, seasons and sabbaths, work and rest.
If you think about it, we still depend on these boundaries and rhythms for our survival. Imagine if the seasons stopped, if day and night were random, if tides and temperatures swung wildly with no pattern — life would quickly unravel. The order we experience is part of God’s ongoing provision, a gift that makes everything else possible.
And more personally … when our own lives feel chaotic, these rhythms or spiritual patterns can be anchors for us. Just as God wove seasons into creation, God invites us to build life-giving rhythms into our days — prayer, rest, work, community — practices that keep us connected and stable.
I also love how the provision of Genesis 1 isn’t just what we need but rather the language is of a generous God. The seas are “teeming” with living creatures, the skies filled with birds, the earth produces plants “bearing seed of every kind” and trees “bearing fruit.” Abundance is part of God’s character. Scarcity was not God’s original design. In creation there is more than enough — enough beauty, enough food, enough life – as well as the capacity to renew and reproduce.
Of course, with abundance comes with responsibility. We are called to be stewards, not exploiters — to reflect God’s generosity in how we treat the world and each other. When we live generously, we participate in God’s provision for others.
Let’s go on a slight tangent and zoom in on the word “good”. Six times, God looks at what has been made and calls it “good,” and at the end calls it “very good.” In the sermon blurb in the weekly eNews, I pondered whether this good was a judgement on the quality of creation. That tree produced an apple with adequate taste and texture. Good. Or does it mean more than that?
Or is the good about moral perfection … in terms of good and evil. That God created the world as good. Goodness is the default nature of creation because it reflects the goodness of God.
Or does good refer to how things being as they were intended — ordered, fruitful, life-giving. That God looked at creation and it was just as God created it to be … and that is why it was good.
Or all the above?
It’s also interesting to notice what’s not called good. On day one, light is called good — but not darkness. Is that because darkness is representative of evil? Or maybe in this context, darkness represents the chaotic “before” state – and not the order that God created (which is good). And did you note that on day two, there’s no “it was good” at all. Jewish tradition suggests that’s because the separation of waters isn’t complete until the land appears on day three … hence the two “it was good” on day 3.
Interesting questions but at the heart of this is the profound insight that God looked at creation and thought it was good. God looked at us and declared that we are very good. That affirmation reminds us that God invites us to help restore creation (and us) as it should be – to be good again.
When humanity appears in the story, God blesses us with the extraordinary identity that we are “made in the image of God.” This is the ultimate affirmation of dignity and worth. And then in an ultimate act of provision, God places us in this world, in creation, and told that this creation is for us to enjoy and be blessed by it.
But this provision comes with a purpose. Our purpose is to be stewards of creation. Not to dominate or exploit, but to care for creation as God would — sustaining, nurturing, and protecting. If we do this well, creation will keep multiplying, renewing, sustaining and providing for us always.
The problem is that when we don’t do this task of stewardship well then we find that creation is struggling to renew itself, it can’t sustain like it used to and may not be able to provide in the way that God intended. This is why our call to care for creation is so important … because our good stewardship is part of how God can be a God who provides.
Then when we move into Genesis 2 … the creation account ends not with another act of making, but with an act of stopping. God rests on the seventh day, blesses it, and makes it holy.
Rest is not an afterthought; it’s built into creation as a gift. It’s provision for our well-being, guarding us against the belief that we must keep working to survive. Sabbath rest says: you are not holding the world together — God is. In a culture that prizes busyness and productivity, receiving rest as a gift takes faith. To stop is to trust that God’s provision will continue even when we’re not striving.
That last paragraph was hard for me to write. Especially after the busy week that I had. I understand that we need to rest, but it is hard to rest when there is so much to do. But the challenge that that last paragraph gives me is that is my busyness a sign of my lack of trust in God’s provision. Let me read the last sentence of the last paragraph again – To stop is to trust that God’s provision will continue even when we’re not striving. May God help us to live that our in practice.
One last thing to notice as we wrap this up. Humanity is created last … like surprising late into the creation story … the end of day 6 just before the breaktime. If we are supposed to be the “very good” of creation, the ones made in the image of God … then why wait to the last minute to create us? Surely we could have been created before the wombat.
Maybe there is another way to look at this – one that affirms this idea of Jehovah Jireh – Our God Provides. You see, by the time people arrive, everything is ready — the light is shining, the land is fertile, the plants are growing, the animals are there. God’s provision went before us. We didn’t need to work at making things ready, God had already done everything.
I wonder whether we see the truth of this in our own lives. Often, by the time we recognise a need, has God already been at work preparing a way to help or provide? Jesus during his sermon on the mount address this issue directly. He referred to the birds or the flowers in the fields and how God provides for them.
Jesus says, “Stop worrying about what you shall eat or what shall we wear. Don’t get so preoccupied with the getting but instead lean into God promise of provision. God know what you need and has created a way to provide for you. Instead … seek first the kingdom of God and live righteously, and you will see that … our God provides”. So what has Genesis revealed to us today? A God who provides stability out of chaos. A God who sets patterns for flourishing. A generous and abundance God. A God who gives us identity and purpose. And a God who provides rest. May we live with open hands, grateful hearts, and the trust that the One who began this good work in creation is still providing for us today. Amen.