Sermon by Dr. M. Marshall Woodard III
BOYZ IN THE HOOD
Gen 1:27
Well the Bible says so and you read it, in fact let’s look at it again. So God created man, in His own image and likeness God created man.(elaborate) But not only did God create us in His image and likeness but let’s look at these verses of the creation story carefully and see what they reveal about our creation.
3. 6. 9. 14. 20. 24. In these passage we find the words let there be!
Verse 26. "Let Us" It took a truing effort for man to come into being.....God the Father, God The Son and God The Holy Ghost all got together and created man in their Image and likeness. We were made in the image and likeness of God my brothers.
Now brothers how many of you have sons. You see I only have two daughters..I only wished for a son...but now you men here today who have sons, don’t most of you stick out your chest a little more about your son, are your proud of him and his achievement? I’m sure you are but I’m also sure you’re proud of him just because..he looks like you, walks like you, talks like you and if he doesn’t....you’ll start checking out the milkman or the butcher.
Well if you boast and puff up your chest because your son looks like you, shouldn’t God boast and puff out His chest because of you His Sons looking like Him? Come on brothers, don’t go to sleep on this Castor oil after all.. He made you in His image and His likeness. So someone should be able to look at you and get some type of an idea as to what God looks like...Ladies, where are all the men who look like God? Have you seen any lately?
As I prepared myself in meditative moments to speak a word to the men of this church, I became engrossed in the alarming facts about crimes in our communities, here in Nassau Bahamas, we have gang violence, drugs, teen pregnancies, unwed mothers, HIV/Aid epidemic, and the staggering number of our families in which the only parent visible in any form is the mother. All of these issues can be related to these Boyz (walking around with their pants hanging down and their underwear showing) in the hoods.
Oh don’t look at me in surprise as if to say that may be the case in St Crux or the U. S. where I came from, because I am here to tell you that it is systemic to communities world wide due to the powerful forum that rap and hip hop music has become, all it points to is a much deeper problem as a generation of despairing men have shunned their God given duty. God told us men to take dominion and subdue the earth. God is looking for some real men. Job..if a man doesn’t work he shouldn’t eat.
But instead of working and taking dominion, to many men are roaming the streets lost in a perpetual state of hopelessness. Men with no thoughts or interests in the things above. Why are they so many young men living with no hope? Walking the streets lost..these Boy in the hood. Where are the positive role model’s that they should have, instead they are shooting drugs in their veins, while they shoot each other down in the prime of their life.
Now sin has a way of destroying the family structure to the third and forth generations of the ungodly. In chapter three of Genesis, we find that Adam failed to stand up and be a man, he was weak and followed Eve into disobedience...man was punished with a curse...banished form the garden of Eden.
The fruit of sin does not fall far from the tree...let’s go to Genesis chapter for verses 6-9..Here we find that the sins of the parents now fall on the next generation in manifest fashion, sin has brought forth jealously and greed which in return bring violence and death.
The reason these Boyz in the hood, are terrorizing our neighborhoods, That what it is, and that’s why you have burglar alarms on you cars in your homes and offices, Bars on your doors and windows....on the inside you have bars, and if your house catches fire you will almost dye trying to unlock the bars to get out of the house.
Meanwhile outside these Boyz in the Hood are snatching little Old ladies bags, and knocking them down as they come out of the banks from cashing their retirement check, is because the men who should be subduing the neighborhoods and in the house sucking on a beer, talking about if they come up in here I got something for them, and the thugs are outside your door selling drugs, driving by while your head is in the sand taking your daughters off somewhere impregnating them, while all the while you are out somewhere working two jobs because you planned to put them thru college.
We have got to come together and take control of our streets because when Men stand up, Boyz will sit down. We have to become our younger brothers keepers and create some positive role models for them. We can not allow these unbrotherly brothers to continue to run havoc upon us.
You use to know all the people who live across the street and next door...now you are up in your house talking about how tough you are as a real man and you are scared to take the garbage outside after dark, you tell your wife oh I’ll get in the morning.
That’s because you realize that a neighborhood is not a neighborhood if all the neighbors are hoods!!
Well what has caused this problem in our communities? There use to be a time when even in the poorest neighborhoods our young men still saw a wide cross section of men everyday getting up going to work and coming home in the evening to be with their families.
Not so today..the only role models these young me seem to identify with is rappers, movie stars like Will Smith, basketball and football players who make more money for catching a ball than your Prime Minister or Mr. George Bush...
If You Ask me something is terribly wrong with where we place our values. That’s why our cultures produces young men, super stars like Koby Bryant, Michael Jackson, Tupoc and Snoop Dog who are the New Hip Hop Generation’s role models.
Our young men need to know that not everybody will make it to Hollywood, not everyone will get that big break on Star Search or American Idol and land a recording contract. We need to tell them that not everybody in their crew or their posse will end up in the NFL or the NBA, and beside that we need engineers, doctors, lawyers, dentist, preachers, teachers and all types of enterpernurs.
When you listen to these young thugs, you can hear what they think of themselves...When they greet each other, they say what’s up my dog, MY DOG! God didn’t make you a dog He made you a man in His image and likeness, and for your information dog is God spell backwards. Or else they see each other they shout sup player..well my brother when you going to stop playing and be a man. This ain’t no time for playing we need to take the kingdom by force. We need some Christian Men to step forward as role model so that we can show them some positive ordinary men being blessed by God is extra ordinary ways.
These Boyz in the hood...Even when they have a wife, they call the women who they claim to love by the B word, Or they call her momma....... and that’s another issue we have got to correct if we are going to save our young men.
Mothers, especially those of you who are single parents, stop babying your sons. Make them work, as long as you give hem a car, money and clothes they will never work, ad then they will grow up and want to lay up on someone else little girl calling her mother as she fulfills the role that you have led him to believe woman are only good for, to take care of his lazy butt.
Before this happens you need to boycott them, if you can’t do nothing else you can stop letting him run your house, if you can’t get his attention this church has a brotherhood of real men ready and willing to talk with and pray with him in an effort to get him back on the right track.
Now I hear you say, "but Rev. Woodard, you don’t know my son"...I don’t need to know your son; because I know that there is nothing to hard for God.
So where are the men created in the image and likeness of God, There was another time when the sins of a nation were about to destroy the entire social fabric of civilization, we find it recorded in the book of Ezekiel chapter 22 verse 30. "an I sought for a man among them that should makeup the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it, but I found none.
God is looking for a few good me, who will let Him lead them for strength to strength and glory to glory. God is looking for a few good me who will allow Him to lead them along the path of righteousness for His name sake. God is looking for a few Good Men, who will pray as ask God to order my steps in your word Dear Lord, because I know that the steps of a good man is order by the Lord.
God is looking for few good men who will tell these Boyz in the Hood, that the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life thru Jesus Christ our love, God is looking for a few good men who will tell these Boyz these Boyz in the Hood, it’s appointed once to die and after death come judgement, God is looking for a few good men, who will tell these Boyz in the Hood, that we all must stand before the judgement seat of God and give an account for all the things we have done in this flesh.
God is looking for a few good men who will tell these thugs, and gangbangers.These Boyz in the Hood. that my gang leader came down from glory thru forty and two generation, and got off the train at Bethlehem’s’s Station...heal the sick, raised the dead..uplifted the down trodden.....He was wounded for our transgressions...the chastisement of our peace was upon Him and by His stripe we are healed....
Wicked me sought to destroy Him, He was betrayed by kiss from a friend and then marched from judgement hall to judgement hall, beating and lied on...then they marched Him up Golgotha Hill and nailed Him to a old rugged cross.........they hung Him high and stretched Him wide! And He died on that cross...
Oh but I’m so glad that the story didn’t end there,
Early!Early!Early! Early on Resurrection Sunday,
He Got Up!
