Cry freedom sermon outline

SERMON OUTLINE NOTE TO LEADER: This sermon outline is intended to provide you with a guide to link in with the campaign theme. Please feel free to adapt or expand as appropriate to fit with your congregation.

BIBLE PASSAGES: • John 8:31–38 (quotations from Contemporary English Version) • Exodus 3:1–12 Have you ever been enslaved? Probably not physically, but I’m sure at one time or another we’ve all been enslaved by something. Maybe it was coffee or chocolate, maybe it was the latest must-watch TV show. There can sometimes be a fine line between

being able to enjoy something and becoming dependent on it. Too much of anything is bad for you – we know this. Coffee, chocolate, television – all these things are fine in moderation. But they each have a tipping point.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO LIVE FREE? Lent is traditionally the time of year for us to let go of something which is holding us back and keeping us from being who we were created to be. New Year’s resolutions are another example of where we might try and give up something, usually unsuccessfully.

Yet sometimes it is only when we give things up that we realise how dependent we have become on them.

Just ask the coffee drinker nursing a withdrawal headache after two days of trying to be caffeine-free.

In John 8:31-38, Jesus says, ‘The truth will set you free.’ For the people listening this would have been confusing, as they, much like us, had never been

anyone’s slave. Yet Jesus’ point was this – that we can all be a slave to something, but that we also can find freedom.

John 8:36 – ‘If the Son gives you freedom, you are free.’

As we can see in verse 36, we have a God who has given us freedom. We have the freedom to choose how to live our lives. We have the freedom to believe what we want and, as long as we stay within the law, act how we see fit. But how often do we truly live free?

Nelson Mandela spent a lifetime on his Long Walk to Freedom, as documented in his epic autobiography. He had had his freedom taken away from him, physically

www.salvationarmy.org.uk/cryfreedom

in prison for 27 years, and in many other ways prior to that through the Apartheid system of South Africa.

He knew what it was like to be free – he had spent a lifetime fighting for his freedom. Towards the end of his autobiography he said this: ‘For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to

live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.’

Living free is more about living in a free society. To live free, we need to let go of those things which are weighing us down. But we also need to help proclaim freedom for those still held captive.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO CRY FREEDOM? In Exodus we do see God’s people, the Israelites, enslaved by the Egyptians. In chapter 3, verses 7 and 8 we see God’s cry for freedom for his people. And in this cry, it is Moses he calls on to bring freedom.

Moses, who was a murderer and an outcast, felt inadequate and not up to this task. In verse 11 he says this. ‘Who am I… to lead your people out of Egypt?’

It’s a fair question. Moses was just one man. But as it says in verse 12, God was with him.

In the following chapters (7 to 10) Moses and his brother Aaron keep calling on the Pharaoh to free the

Israelites. On several different occasions, God presents Pharaoh with the same message – ‘Let my people go, so that they may worship me.’

It was not an easy fight – God sent ten horrendous plagues before the Pharaoh would allow the Israelites their freedom. It is the same with the modernday slavery of human trafficking. The problem is enormous, and next to the scale of it we can easily feel as if our response is inadequate. But as with Moses, God is with us.

LIVE FREE – CRY FREEDOM Are you in chains? Do you feel trapped by sin or circumstances? If you are, then God is saying the same thing about you today – he wants you to be free so that you can become the person that God has called you to be.

As we saw in Jesus’ words from John 8:34-36, we don’t need to be slaves any more. Jesus promises us that we can be free. In fact, when Christ died on the cross, he essentially proclaimed freedom for us, sending the same message that God sent to the Pharoah: ‘Let my people go, that they may worship me!’

Like us there were times when Moses was a slave to sin.

But just as God called on his people to bring freedom then, so he calls on us to bring freedom to those who are still held captive by the modern-day slavery of human trafficking.

So my challenge to you is this: What will you do today to live free, and what will you do to live in a way that enhances the freedom of others? And will you sincerely ask for the Holy Spirit’s strength and guidance to do it?

www.salvationarmy.org.uk/cryfreedom