It was for Freedom...

This week, as I was studying for a sermon I'm preaching on Sunday night over Galatians 5, I was considering the imagery that Paul uses in Galatians of being a SLAVE to the Law. Thats a pretty radical analogy- a pretty harsh metaphor. And so as I was preparing to speak on this passage I was doing some research in order to illustrate a few different stories of slavery- trying to bring this imagery to the forefront of our minds- without just glazing over the metaphor as this distant concept- but one that is abusive & degrading.

I started with a story of an African slave who remembers being kidnapped from his village, thrown on a boat and sold into slavery in a distant land he had never heard of and will tell his story, and then to think his story is one of over what 10 million stories just like his. And although this is shocking & we cringe at the reality that people could have done that to other people- we look at it as a dark cloud on our country's history and treat it as a distant past mistake that we could not be making in our modern day society.

But then as I continued to do research I ran across some shocking truths of modern day slavery. Experts estimate that there are currently 27 million people enslaved worldwide- 80% of which are women and children sold into not just manual labor type slavery but into sex slavery.

I ran across this video- I won't show this in my sermon Sunday- but we should be aware of this- and we as the church should do something about it. Because "It was for freedom that Christ set us free..."

You can visit their website at love146.org

love protects. love defends. love restores. love empowers.