Sermon For Black History Month

We Have Not Come This Far Alone

Open your Bible to the letter to the Galatians, chapter three, beginning at verse twenty-six. And when you have it, hold your place there and let the words settle into your spirit. The apostle Paul writes it plain. He says, "For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For those of you who were baptized into Christ have been clothed with Christ. There is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female; since you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, heirs according to the promise."

Now slide over to the Revelation of Jesus Christ, chapter seven, verses nine through twelve, and hear what the apostle John saw when heaven pulled back the curtain. He said, "After this I looked, and there was a vast multitude from every nation, tribe, people, and language, which no one could number, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: Salvation belongs to our God, who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb. All the angels stood around the throne, and along with the elders and the four living creatures, they fell facedown before the throne and worshiped God, saying, Amen. Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and strength be to our God forever and ever. Amen."

Can the church say amen?

Now I want to preach to you today from both of those texts, because together they form a corridor. Galatians three is where we are standing. Revelation seven is where we are headed. And the road between those two verses runs straight through the testimony of a people who believed God when the world told them God had forgotten them.

We are in the season the calendar calls Black History Month. But I want you to understand from the beginning that what we are doing this morning is not a detour from the gospel. It is not a pause from Scripture. We are going deeper into Scripture. Because the God of this Book is the God who acts in history, who sees the suffering of his people, who raises up witnesses in every generation, and who is building a kingdom that no empire, no system, and no grave can stop.

So let us go to the text.

The Trouble In The World Paul Was Writing Into

When Paul sat down to write to the churches of Galatia, he was writing into a world that had drawn very clear lines. The lines told you who was in and who was out. The lines told you whose voice counted and whose voice did not. The lines told you that your ancestry, your legal status, your ethnicity, and your gender determined your standing before God and before other human beings.

And the church, which was supposed to be different, was beginning to redraw those same lines inside the fellowship of believers. People were being told that before they could fully belong to Christ, they had to first become something else. They had to pass through a gate that was guarded by human categories.

Paul looked at that and said, No. He said, Every one of you who has been baptized into Christ has been clothed with Christ. Not partially clothed. Not clothed on probation. Clothed. Fully. Completely. The word he uses carries the image of putting on a garment that covers everything. When God looks at you, he sees Christ. That is your identity. That is your standing. That is your inheritance.

Somebody Say, "That Is My Inheritance."

Now do not miss the three pairs Paul names. Jew and Greek. Slave and free. Male and female. He is not saying those distinctions do not exist in the world. He is saying they do not determine your standing in Christ. He is pulling the rug out from under every hierarchy that human beings have used to rank one another in the presence of God.

And if that word landed with power in first-century Galatia, hear how it lands in the history of this nation. There was a time when the law of this land said that certain people were property. Not persons. Property. There was a time when the church itself was used to justify that claim, when Scripture was twisted and cut and handed to enslaved people with the verses of liberation removed and only the verses of submission left in. That is not ancient history. That is within the memory of grandparents and great-grandparents of people sitting in sanctuaries across this country.

But here is what I need you to see. Even in that darkness, the people held onto the whole Bible. They gathered in brush arbors and hush harbors and whispered the Psalms to one another. They sang the spirituals and understood that when they sang about crossing over Jordan, they were not only singing about death. They were singing about freedom. They read the Exodus story and recognized themselves in it. They preached the resurrection and staked their lives on it.

That is not just history. That is faithful witness. That is the church doing what the church is called to do, holding the word of God when the world tries to take it away.

The Central Claim

Here is what I want you to carry out of this sanctuary today. The gospel of Jesus Christ is not colorblind. It is color-conscious and color-celebrating. Paul does not say there is no Jew or Greek by erasing those identities. He says those identities do not divide us from God or from one another in Christ. God made every nation and tribe and tongue. And Revelation seven tells us he intends to gather every one of them before the throne. Not blended into sameness. Standing in their fullness, from every nation, tribe, people, and language.

That means the story of Black Christians in America is not a footnote to the gospel. It is part of the gospel's unfolding in history. The faith that survived the Middle Passage, that built churches with calloused hands, that marched with Bibles and hymns, that produced preachers and teachers and freedom fighters and mothers who prayed their children through impossible nights, that faith is a testimony to the power of the risen Christ.

We honor that testimony not to divide the body of Christ, but to tell the truth about what God has done. And the church that cannot tell the truth about its history cannot fully celebrate what God is doing in its present.

The Turn

But I need to make a turn here, because the text will not let us stop at history.

Paul says in Galatians three that if you belong to Christ, you are Abraham's seed, heirs according to the promise. Not heirs of what was. Heirs of what is coming. The promise is still in motion. The inheritance is still being distributed. God is not finished.

And John's vision in Revelation seven is not a picture of what might happen. It is a picture of what will happen. John saw it. He described it. A vast multitude that no one could number. Every nation. Every tribe. Every people. Every language. Standing before the throne. Clothed in white. Holding palm branches. Crying out with one voice that salvation belongs to God.

That is the destination of history. That is where all of this is going.

So when we remember the faithful witnesses who came before us, we are not just looking backward. We are looking forward. We are saying, they ran their leg of the race, and now the baton is in our hands, and we are running toward that throne room. We are running toward that multitude. We are running toward that day when every hierarchy is dismantled and every voice is heard and every tear is wiped away and the Lamb is praised in every language that has ever been spoken on this earth.

Somebody Say, "We Are Running."

The Call To The Living

Now let me bring this home, because a sermon that only celebrates the past and only anticipates the future can leave us with nothing to do on a Tuesday morning. And God did not save us to be spectators.

If we are heirs of the promise, then we have obligations that come with the inheritance. Heirs do not just receive. Heirs steward. Heirs carry forward. Heirs take responsibility for what has been entrusted to them.

That means the church today is called to pursue justice with the same seriousness that the saints before us pursued it. Not as a political agenda. As a biblical mandate. Micah eight six says to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God. That is not a partisan platform. That is the character of the kingdom. When we work for the dignity of every person made in the image of God, we are not doing politics. We are doing theology.

It means we tell the truth about history, the full truth, not a sanitized version that makes us comfortable, but the honest account that honors the people who suffered and the people who resisted and the people who believed and the people who built. Truth-telling is an act of worship. It says that God's story is big enough to hold the hard parts.

And it means we build the kind of community that Revelation seven describes, not just in the future, but right now, in this congregation, in this city, in this generation. A community where every nation and tribe and tongue is genuinely welcome. Not tolerated. Welcome. Not managed. Celebrated.

The Celebration

I want to close by going back to that throne room.

John saw them standing there. Every nation. Every tribe. Every people. Every language. And they were not silent. They were not subdued. They cried out in a loud voice. They said, Salvation belongs to our God, who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb.

I want you to hear that. The people who had been through the great tribulation, the people who had come through suffering and fire and loss, they were not broken at the throne. They were worshiping. They were clothed in white. They were holding palm branches. And they were loud.

That is the end of the story. Not suffering. Not silence. Not defeat. Worship. Loud, joyful, uncontainable worship before the throne of the living God.

And every faithful witness who walked before us, every grandmother who prayed over her children in a one-room house, every preacher who opened the Bible in a brush arbor, every voice that sang through tears and believed through darkness, they are part of that multitude. They made it. They are there. And they are worshiping.

We have not come this far alone. God has been with his people through every valley and every wilderness and every night that seemed like it would never end. And the same God who brought them through is the God who holds us now. And the same God who holds us now is the God who is leading us toward that throne room where every nation and tribe and tongue will stand together and declare with one voice that salvation belongs to God.

So run your leg of the race. Tell the truth. Pursue justice. Build the community. Honor the witnesses. And keep your eyes on the throne.

Somebody Say, "God Is Faithful."

He has been faithful. He is faithful now. And he will be faithful until every last one of us makes it home.

To God be the glory.

Amen.

Sources Consulted

Bruce, F. F. The Epistle to the Galatians: A Commentary on the Greek Text. New International Greek Testament Commentary. Eerdmans, 1982.

Gonzalez, Justo L. For the Healing of the Nations: The Book of Revelation in an Age of Cultural Conflict. Orbis Books, 1999.

Raboteau, Albert J. Slave Religion: The Invisible Institution in the Antebellum South. Oxford University Press, 1978.

Wills, David W. and Richard Newman, eds. Black Apostles at Home and Abroad: Afro-Americans and the Christian Mission from the Revolution to Reconstruction. G. K. Hall, 1982.

Keener, Craig S. Revelation. The NIV Application Commentary. Zondervan, 2000.