His victory, combined with Ossoff’s projected victory, means the U.S. Senate will be split 50-50 between the two parties, and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’s votes giving Democrats control of the chamber.
“You need to know that this is a glimpse into God’s vision of a more inclusive humanity that embraces all of God’s children. I’m just grateful to be able to participate in this. I’m just grateful because I just want to serve, I want to ‘I just want to be a vessel, I just want to be an instrument, I just want to be a prism of God’s glory so that God’s glory can shine through me,’ Warnock said.
Warnock grew up in Savannah, Georgia, in public housing, the 11th out of 12 children. He is the first graduate in his family to attend Morehouse College, a historic black college in Atlanta.
Warnock calls Capitol riot ‘the ugly side’ of America’s story
Warnock focused his sermon on the story of John the Baptist, the ‘truthful troublemaker’ who was beheaded for speaking out against the mighty ruler Herod.
“He created a lot of problems in the process for himself. Telling the truth will get you in trouble, but there can be no transformation without truth,” Warnock said. “We can not and we will not change until we face the disease of our own situation or are confronted with it. This applies to individuals, who apply to institutions, who apply to nations.”
Warnock also quotes from the book of Matthew, which says, “From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven is being subjected to violence.”
He said the tension in that verse – that something as sacred as heaven is still undergoing violence – was seen just as it was on Wednesday when a pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol hours after Warnock’s election victory.
“We have seen the tension in such a powerful and tragic way,” he said. “Just as we were trying to put on our celebratory shoes, the ugly side of our story, our big and big American story, began to emerge. We have seen the cruel and the evil and the disrespectful and the violent break into the people. house.”
When the old order slips away, people sometimes react violently and desperately, he said.
“So there is victory at the moment, there is violence at the moment, there are fantastic opportunities and fierce opposition, and it reminds us that there is still a lot of work to be done,” he said.
He appealed to listeners to combat the violence of prejudice and fear, the violence of poverty and the violence of our politics.
“The violence in this world is real, do not be dishonest about it, but violence does not have the last word,” he said. “God is still doing something in this world. So do not give in to cynicism, do not give in to fear. Do not give in to hatred, do not give in to stupidity, do not give in to seeing xenophobia because violence is never the last word will not have. ‘
CNN’s Veronica Stracqualursi and Deanna Hackney contributed to this report.