[Note: The following is an edited excerpt from a sermon I preached at 6:45 AM ET on May 25, 2025 at my home church in Philadelphia, PA. Five months later, the sentiments remain relevant. Be blessed.]
“So, let us now turn to the word of God.
Scripture: Hosea 4:1-6a NIV: my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.
Prayer: Have thine own way, Lord, have thine own way. Thou art the potter, I am the clay. Mold me and make me after thine will. While I am waiting, yielded and still. Now Holy Spirit, please touch my lips with your fire that I may speak a word of life and salvation.In Jesus name, Amen
Introduction: Fifty-five years ago, Marvin Gaye started recording an album that had prophetic lyrics. It was his 11th studio album and the first in which he was named as producer. In the album, he sang from the perspective of a Vietnam War veteran returning home to the United States with questions, challenges and a world view that upon first impression, sounds gloomy, dark, and full of confusion, and angry protest. But if you listen, you will find that the songs are really full of care, compassion and love.
Songs on this album include titles many of us know and remember well. Songs like, “Mercy, Mercy Me (The Ecology),” “Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler),” and “Save the Children.” In this album, Gaye sang of political turmoil, war, mistreatment of veterans, drug abuse, environmental despair, police brutality, and the need to, “save the babies.”
Did I say this album was recorded fifty-five years ago or fifty-five days ago?
The title song of the album is the one that asks the question that not enough of us are asking. I know that a lot of you aren’t really listening to me right now because you are singing the song in your head. “Mother, Mother.” The song is a classic. In it, Gaye speaks of mothers crying, brothers dying, fathers escalating war, picket lines (sister) and picket signs (sister), punishment, brutality, judgment, stereotyping, and lack of understanding.
All of this brings Gaye to ask the big question. Say it with me church: “What Going On?” And he asks it again and again. “What’s going on, What’s going on, tell me, what’s going on?” This is not just a song lyric. It’s a real question. It’s a relevant question for this world, this nation, this city, this community, and right here in this church. What’s going on? Well, since many of us stopped watching the news after November 5, 2024, let me tell you a little of what’s going on: The resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue allowed almost 60 white South African Afrikaners who he called “refugees” into the U.S. Then he hosted the South African President Ramaphosa, a Black man, and told him that there is genocide of white people in that man’s country. That same resident pushed a tax bill through the house that has devastating effects for people making less than $50,000, recipients of Medicaid and food stamps and anyone with student loan debt.
Is anybody in here today listening? What’s going on?
Did you realize that today marks 5 years since the murder of George Floyd? Did you know that just this week, the DOJ announced that it “is moving to dismiss federal oversight agreements in Louisville and Minneapolis reached following the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor and police killing of George Floyd, and dropping investigations into several major US police departments”?
Y’all want to know what’s going on? Right here in Philadelphia, 12-year-old Black boys are being killed. They’re being killed in their homes by their 17-year-old cousins and their 14-year-old brothers, and yet many of us were most interested this week in the fact that the Tush Push is still legal in the NFL.
Church – what’s going on?
It’s a good question. One that should make us all wanna holler and throw up both our hands. As a matter of fact, now that I think of it, you know, we do ask this question. We ask it causally when you run into someone you haven’t seen in a while. “Hey, sis, what’s going on?” “Hey bro, what’s going on?” But, my sisters, my brothers, and my beloveds, when God is the one asking this question, oh, it is then that we need to pause. Because when the omniscient, omnipotent God asks, “what’s going on,” it’s not a question, it’s an indictment. And that’s where we are here in the 4th chapter of the book of Hosea.
The Book of Hosea is the first book of a section of the Old Testament that is referred to as the Minor Prophets or the Book of the Twelve. It is so named because these 12 prophetic books are generally shorter in comparison to prophetic books like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel.
Some of us may know that in this book, God required the prophet Hosea to marry a prostitute. This marriage was controversial, but it was also symbolic of the status of the covenant relationship between God and Israel. You see, the book of Hosea focuses on Israel’s unfaithfulness to God. And because of their unfaithfulness, God uses the prophet, Hosea as a sort of legal counsel to argue God’s case; God’s indictment against Israel for their repeated criminal unfaithfulness. But what’s most compelling about God’s case against Israel is not only that God brings an indictment against them. It’s not even just that throughout the book of Hosea that God details on what’s going on in Israel. What’s most compelling about God’s case against Israel is that God replies to his own indictment calmly by declaring that “my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.” Not from the cursing, lying and murder, stealing and adultery. Not from the crime, bloodshed and political upheaval. Not from what was going on.
“My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.”
In that one statement, God is crying out y’all. God is saying, “my people need to know!” “My people need to know!” Y’all there are some things that we need to know.And that leads me to my first point.
We need to know that We are God’s People.
God’s compliant against Israel is that they forgot who they are. Not just who they are in general, but who they are to Him. They are a people who God chose. They are a people who God decided to love. It was not because they were more numerous than any other people. The bible says that they were the fewest of all peoples. God didn’t set his heart on them and choose them because they were good, or bright or perfect, or strong. It was because the Lord loved them and kept the oath that God swore to their ancestors that God chose them. God chosen them because God made a promise to their ancestors. God’s promise was the reason God rescued them again and again. They needed to know that they were God’s people. They were a rescued people. A protected people. A people that should have been dead and gone, but God kept them. God kept them through wars with numerous nations. God kept them through the unfair, harsh labor under Pharaoh in Egypt. God rescued them out of slavery, and beatings, and the killing of their baby boys.
Let me tell you about another people that do not make up the largest or strongest population of people in their nation. Black people reportedly make up only 14% of the US population. Black people reportedly lead the country in everything that is bad – illness, disease, maternal death, and crime. But our tradition tells us that our ancestors had a relationship with God. They believed in God. They believed in Jesus. They believed that just like God rescued Israel from slavery, so too would God deliver them. Our ancestors believed that God would “make a way out of no way.” They believed that God delivered Daniel from the lion’s den and the three Hebrew boys from the fiery furnace and that same God would deliver them, too.
And didn’t God do it, y’all? Our ancestors believed, because they knew that they were God’s people.The chosen of Jesus Christ. And no matter: how the slave holders misquoted scripture, how the white supremacists spat at their little children as they walked to segregated schools to get an education, or how often they were hosed down just for seeking the right to vote, they knew without a doubt, “Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so.” They knew that though they were weak, but God is strong!
And we must know who we are. We are not a people without a history. We are not a people whose history can be rewritten or erased. We are not a people who will be silenced. We are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. We are God’s own people. We are a people called out of darkness into God’s marvelous light.
So, church, God’s people, as I stand here today, I channel my inner Queen Ramonda, shouting to all of you T’Challas that as you go out this week, and you encounter the challenges that the evil one tries to throw at you, know whose you are. Know that you are a child of God. And “Show them who you are!” Remember, that not only must we know that we are God’s people, but as God people…
We need to know that We Have Responsibility.
It is not enough to simply know that we are God’s people. We can’t get complacent in that. We can’t take God for granted. We need to know that being God’s people comes with responsibility. We must act like God’s people.
This is where Hosea carries out God’s indictment because God has a complaint against the Israelites. God’s complaint against the Israelites is: they forgot that being God’s people meant that they had to acknowledge God, they forgot that they had a responsibility of loyalty to God, they forgot that they had to keep God’s commandments, and they forgot that they had to love God with all their all their heart and with all their soul and all their mind.
Instead, they compared the true God to Baal. They visited shrine prostitutes, adopted magical practices of fertility cults, and other corrupted forms of worship. They joined with foreign political forces, became greedy, and entered into cahoots with their enemies, who were enemies of their God. They expected their enemies to protect them. They compromised their culture, their society, their African/Edenic peoplehood, and their faith. They were selling out. They were sell-outs.
Ummm … Excuse me… I just had a thought. You see I’m a sports fanatic, and football and basketball just came to my mind as I talked about selling out. I’m thinking about football players discussing basketball on podcasts. Football players discussing the WNBA. Hard fouls. A white woman. A Black woman. Black male football players deciding that Angel Reese is an ignorant bully who hates precious Caitlin Clark. Former professional football players, Black football players, publicly berating a Black woman. Come here, RGIII, a Black former football player who failed to understand the cultural, social, and societal implications of publicly urning his back on Black women. But then I recall that there is always someone who will step in and understand the assignment. Even if his own history is not untarnished. Ryan Clark, who at least tried to stand up for Black women because he felt a responsibility to protect Black women.
Maybe someone here doesn’t understand what I am sayin, so let me be clear. Our responsibility is not merely about standing up against the ignorance that challenges us as a people. We have a greater responsibility than that. We have a responsibility as chosen people of God. Those who know Jesus as the way, the truth and the life. We are responsible: to be faithful to God, to obey God’s commands, to love our neighbor as ourselves, to do what is right, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God, to trust in the Lord with all our heart, to “lean not to our own understanding but in all our way acknowledge Him, and He shall direct our path.”
That’s the Word of God. I wonder if anybody here believes that. Do you believe that God will fight your battles if you just stand still? Do you believe that if stay loyal to God, God will stay loyal to you?You see, “if you obey the Lord, you will be blessed in the city and blessed in the fields. You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out. Your enemies will be defeated. Your children will be blessed. You will be blessed in everything you do.”
Oh, let’s praise the God of mercy, the God of love, the God of every blessing!
Family, we need to know what’s going on. We need to know that we are God’s people. We need to know that we have responsibly. And, my final point, family is that …
We need to know that We Have Power.
For some reason, I’m awfully nostalgic today. But I remember as a little kid that the opening six seconds of Schoolhouse Rock said, “as your body grows bigger your mind gets stronger, it’s great to learn, because knowledge is power.” Does anybody else remember that?
This suggested that learning about nouns, conjunctions, bills, and the number 3, we lead to power. Now while I am a great believer of the importance of an education, education alone does not always mean power. How many of us know somebody who is highly educated and has little power, influence and control in this world? Education is important. “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.” But education without Jesus does not manifest the power to confuse the enemy. It does not manifest the power to make your enemy your footstool. It does not manifest the power to turn weeping in the night to joy in the morning! It’s not education, but faith in God, and knowledge of God, and what God can do is the only thing in this world that supplies the power to look for a miracle, expect the impossible, feel the intangible, and see the invisible. We need to know that our power is in our knowledge and faith in God!
Conclusion: Speaking of that, I have to go back to our enslaved ancestors and talk about the joy they had, and the hope that they had. I have to go back and talk about their prayers and the expectations they had. They believed that by their God, one day, their little children and grandchildren would be free.
They believed that one day, God would destroy those symbols of oppression. That one day, the plantations that they worked on would be no more. They knew God! They prayed. They believed. They passed that belief on to their children. For years, we as a people who believe in the God of the Bible have prayed and believed.
And on May 15, 2025, Nottoway Plantation, a mansion in Louisiana that was built by our enslaved ancestors; a building that was the largest remaining plantation mansion in the American South; a building that had been standing for more than 166 years; a building that seemed unmovable – caught fire and burn down to the ground.
I wonder – Have you any rivers that seem uncrossable? And any mountains you can’t tunnel through?
Don’t tell me that God’s people, God’s people who know God, God’s praying people, God’s obedient people don’t have power! Power belongs to God! And if that was not enough power. It gets better!
Church, a few days after the notorious Nottoway Plantation burned down, we learned about a story that they tried to keep quiet, but the word got out. We learned that back in April 2025, a large tree fell on a confederate museum in North Carolina. As a result of that accident, the museum was a complete loss, and the insurance is not enough to cover the loss.
Oh, my sisters and my brothers, God specializes! God specializes in things that seem impossible. God will do what no other power can do. Go will do the unbelievable for a people who know God, acknowledge God and obey God. church, we need to know that our power is our knowledge of God!
With the belief and knowledge of God, the people of God will not be destroyed; we will not be defeated; we will not be erased; we will not be silenced; we will not be censored, we will not be afraid, we will not be pushed around; we will not be afraid to be called woke; we will not perish, we will not forget what God has already done; we will not stop fighting for righteousness; we will not reject God. And we will not be ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ. For we know it is the power of salvation!
Give God glory! Give God praise! For our God is worthy of it all!”
Photo courtesy Gabriella Clare Marino for Upslash
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