Sermon Tone Analysis

Announcements

Call to Worship Hebrews ?

(Tom Whipple?)

Prayer

Worship songs.

Announcements:

Great time at the Lock-in, thank you to everyone.

Tonight we will start Behold your God @6:30.

Pass out books tonight.

Reminder that this coming Sunday Allen Lindholt will be here both to preach and to teach a class on Prepardness within the Church.

After the class we’ll have our elders meeting on the 14th.

The following week I will be gone to the G3 conference.

Devotional time

Fellowship

1 Song

Introduction

This morning we have the wonderful joy of getting back into Galatians and finishing up chapter 3.

I want to begin the whole message by saying that as we go through this text today, it may appear as though at times I am saying some things that are hard to hear.

I would ask though that you would hear me out.

The text for today is .

Read and Pray.

The year was 1896.

8 people stood together to debate one of the touchiest issues of the era.

An issue that brought about much tension and strife from the outside world but inside that room, there was a 7-1 victory soon to be announced.

7 people in favor of the decision and 1 person who stood as the lone dissenter.

1 man would dissent from the average view of the day and would stand firm in the face of trial to uphold his convictions.

A conviction that would put this man in the spotlight as the one of the most hated men in the southern United States.

The people I am talking about were those elected to protect and to preserve the constitution and the rights of the people.

And the decision that they were faced with was whether or not the Constitution guaranteed equal rights and protection as well as public services to all people.

Or if the Constitution only guaranteed those rights to those who were white.

At the end of the day on May 18th, 1896, the court handed down the famous decision from Plessy V. Ferguson.

And in this landmark decision, the Supreme Court handed down its verdict which made the claim that a form of segregation between the two races of people, those black and those white, was not only tolerable but should remain.

This decision was monumental.

It was a 7-1 decision.

A major loss to the Christians of that day who fought against segregation.

But a major win for those Christians who argued for segregation.

And no, I didn’t misspeak, there were Christians on both sides of this argument.

Much like there has been for countless many years.

But for me, it was the dissent handed down by John Marshall Harlan that really resonates today.

This is a quote from his dissent;

“The white race deems itself to be the dominant race in this country.

And so it is in prestige, in achievements, in education, in wealth and in power.

So, I doubt not, it will continue to be for all time if it remains true to its great heritage and holds fast to the principles of constitutional liberty.

But in view of the constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens.

There is no caste here.

Our constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.

In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law.

The humblest is the peer of the most powerful.

The law regards man as man, and takes no account of his surroundings or of his color when his civil rights as guaranteed by the supreme law of the land are involved.

It is therefore to be regretted that this high tribunal, the final expositor of the fundamental law of the land, has reached the conclusion that it is competent for a state to regulate the enjoyment by citizens of their civil rights solely upon the basis of race.

In my opinion, the judgment this day rendered will, in time, prove to be quite as pernicious as the decision made by this tribunal in the Dred Scott Case.”

You see, Justice Harlan was a Christian man who had very deep convictions.

In my opinion, the judgment this day rendered will, in time, prove to be quite as pernicious as the decision made by this tribunal in the Dred Scott Case.

Convictions about how it is that we as people should interact with other people.

Other human beings.

The one race created by God in His image but corrupted by sin.

Justice Harlan didn’t believe there to be any reason for a division of people on the basis of their color, wealth or anything else for that matter.

Instead he believed that the Law of the Land and the Law of God looked upon all men as being created equal.

So here is my question, why was it that a supreme court Justice who no doubt was mocked publicly for his standing against slavery, segregation and equality as human beings.

Why is this man could see that the Constitution which is written to govern our land is colorblind, but so many men and women throughout history who professed to be Christians haven’t been able to see something so clearly spoken of in the Bible?

How is it that even now, some 70 years since the segregation laws of this country have been removed.

How is it that in so many of our Churches today there is a form racism which still exists?

Whether its disagreements concerning interracial marriage.

Or its how our Church is literally divided by the color of our skin.

How is it that this form of racial segregation still seems to find its way into the Church today?

We are a people who should always be on the right side of history.

And yet I read stories of men whom I deeply revere as profound men of God.

Men from the eras gone by such as a Jonathon Edwards who owned human beings as slaves in the 18th century.

Listen, I love Jonathon Edwards.

But he was in deep sin in this area of his life.

He was deep in sin by thinking he could own another human being.

Yet he was a man who was a failure and yet used in great and mighty ways by God.

So how did we get to the place that we’re in today in our society, our culture and our Church?

This place where this same form of division can still be very clearly seen?

How did we get here?

Today I will argue for the answer being that we, although we are Christians, are not what we should be.

We are not how we were created to be and we don’t see Christ for who He truly is.

None of us do.

Whether it was Jonathon Edwards and the sin in his life of owning a human being as a slave or whether its Cory Matlock standing before you today.

Just because I can offer up the answer to the problem does not mean that I have made my way to the solution perfectly.

We don’t have the ability to become who we were created to be.

We can strive for it.

But we will only truly reach it on that day that we enter into our eternal home.

God in all of His righteousness purposed to bring sinners into His family by adoption through Christ.

But this doesn’t perfectly fix our sinful nature.

We still have to fight against that sinful nature and we will have to until the day that we die.

And one of the attributes which go along with our sinful nature is this idea of division.

Whether it is racial or some other form, we have a drive within us that calls for division.

Yet this isn’t anything new.

Think for just a few moments about the first century world.

The Jews who were God’s chosen people despised the Gentiles.

So much so in fact they referred to them as Dogs.

They despised the gentiles so much that to be in their presence was to make themselves unclean.

But it wasn’t just the Jews.

The Gentiles felt the same way about the Jews.

They despised one another and viewed one another as immoral creatures who were sub-human.

Add to this the great division of the first century between the Slave and the freeman.

Yet this slavery was different.

This slavery didn’t depend on the color of your skin but was more dependent upon your social class.

Slaves of the first century world was given no value.