“The God who Made the World”

Last updated on: September 14, 2026 at 10:16 am by Rob Giannamore

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“The God who Made the World” 2026-09-14T10:16:17-04:00 Rob Giannamore

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Miller’s Station UMC| 9/13/2026 | Anchor Verse – Acts 17:22-28

I am writing this on Labor Day and I just completed my annual charity ride for a local homeless ministry run by my church. The Ride for the Refuge was started twenty seven years ago by Aileen and Bill Baxter and a bunch of others. I was there when it was still in the talking stages. I have ridden the ride probably seventeen times, from 16 miles to 62 miles. It is the annual end of the summer ride for me and it always marks usually my first olfactory experiences of fall as I ride through the grapes in North East Pennsylvania and sometimes in Westfield New York. The fall is my favorite time of year and for many of the churches I have served over the years, we have used this time of year to rejoice over successful harvests, the return of school and of course All Saints Day and Thanksgiving.

The Season of Creation runs from 1 September – 4 October and is a special season to celebrate God as Creator, and acknowledge Creation as the divine continuing act that summons us as collaborators to love and care for the gift of all that is created. As followers of Christ from around the globe, we share a common call to care for Creation. We are co-creatures and part of all that God has made. Our well-being is interwoven with the well-being of the Earth. This week, I would like to focus on God as the creator, using Acts 17:22- 28 as our focus verse.

The Creator Who Made Everything — Acts 17:24

We are told in Genesis that it is God who creates everything. We are also told that when God was done creating, God saw that God created and declared it good. Paul begins where scripture begins: with God as Creator. The God Paul proclaims is not one god among many, not a divine being limited to a temple, city, nation, or statue. Paul declares that God is the Maker of Heaven and earth, the source of all life, and therefore the rightful Lord over all creation. This means the world is not accidental, disposable, or ownerless. It belongs to God. And if the world belongs God, then our lives, our worship, and our care for creation must be shaped by that truth.

If we consider the cultural context of what Paul is doing, we see him challenging the Athenian view of God, which displayed a polytheistic, or many gods view of the divine. They worshiped many gods, each with distinct personalities and domains. They believed that gods were powerful but not entirely separate from humans, often engaging in human – like behaviors and relationships with mortals. The major gods were seen as immortal and powerful, but the ancient Greeks did not view the divine realm as completely other than themselves. Into that world, Paul speaks a word that is both simple and disruptive: God is not “one option among many,” but the Maker of all things. When we declare God as our creator, and we see God as always creating, we can longer constrict God to our buildings, our traditions, our political preferences, or our personal comfort. To confess God as Creator is not only to say something about how the world began; it is to say something about who owns it, sustains it, and how we are called to live within it. And because the Creator owns and sustains all things, Paul takes the next step: this God is not dependent on anything we can build, offer, or provide.

The Creator Who Needs Nothing — Acts 17:25

There is a fancy church phrase called ex nihilio. It means that God creates out of nothing. This means that Gid did not need pre existing material to create. God is so mighty, so prescient that God simply knew an spoke existence into being. I find Acts 17:25 to be problematic at times because it challenges the idea that God needs our help. Paul tells us that God is not served by human hands “as though God needed anything.” I feel that this has led to the idea of let go and let God.

There is a difference between saying god needs us and saying God invites us. God does not need our worship to be more holy. God does not need our money to be more complete. God does not need our service in order remain god. But because God loves us, God invites us to share in the work of love, mercy, justice and renewal. We do not worship because God is lacking praise, we worship because we are awakened to the goodness of the One who gives life and breath. We do not give because god is poor; we give because everything we have is already a gift. We do not serve because God is helpless; we serve because God has made us participants in God’s ongoing care for the world.

I challenge you with this question – “What is God inviting us to join?” When we ask this question from a genuine place, we move our worship from obligation to gratitude. It changes mission form charity into partnership. It changes giving from guilt into trust. And it changes service from proving our worth to living out the truth that we are already loved.

The charity ride I spoke oof at the beginning of this message reminds me that even our service begins as gift. The air in my lungs, the strength(cramping) in my legs, the grapes along the road, the people who give, and the neighbors who are served – all of it comes from God before any of it becomes our achievement. We are not serving because God needs us to complete God’s work. We are serving because God has graciously invited us to participate in it.

The Creator Who Is Near to Everyone — Acts 17:26–28

The last section I want to explore comes at the end of our reading today. I want to demonstrate that God is much closer to us than we would like to admit. Too often, we want to think of God as out there, out of arms reach, working in some distant place in the sky. But in Acts 17:26-28, Paul demonstrates that God ‘is actually no far from each of us’ and this challenges both ancient and modern assumptions about who can know God and how.

Reflecting on Paul’s Judaism, knowing god often involved the Law and the temple, yet here, Paul points to a more basic, universal truth: God has made God’s self evident so that all people, everywhere are without excuse. The bible is replete with scriptures of God’s closeness.

We can take comfort in this knowing that no one is too distant, too unqualified, or too lost for God – God is near and God welcomes every honest search. Take this away from today’s message – The Creator who made everything is not far away from what God has made. The God who does not need anything from us still chooses to be near us. The God who gives life and breath and all things is not waiting for us to climb our way up to heaven, to prove our worth, or earn God’s attention. God is already closer than the air in our lungs, already present to the in the world beneath our feet, already calling through the beauty of creation, the needs of neighbors, and the longing within our own hearts.

One final invitation – pay attention this week. For me last Monday, it was the grapes ripening on the vines. It is the the change in the chill in the morning air, the breath in your lungs, the people beside you, the needs around you, and the Creator who is near us in all of it. Something I often challenge churches with is this thought: we are not magically doing something or bringing something that God has not already done or brought. We we go this afternoon, we are going into the world trusting that God is already there, already creating, already sustaining and already inviting us to join the work of love.

Friends, let us leave this place worshiping the Creator who made everything. May we serve the Creator who needs nothing but invites us anyway. And may we seek the Creator who is nearer than we often dare to believe. For in God we live, move, and have our being, Amen.