IdentityНамуна

Main Idea: Free From Sin

Back in the 1700s, two young guys from a church in Europe heard about an island in the Caribbean. Thousands of slaves were working under the hot sun, and the owner didn’t allow anyone to talk about God. These slaves were cut off from hope, destined to live and die without hearing of Jesus’ love.

Most of us would probably just say, ‘Wow, that’s terrible,’ and then do nothing, because helping people that far away would be way too hard, right?

But these two men recognised that God had made them for a purpose, and part of their identity as followers of Jesus meant stepping in, even when it was hard. These two guys in their 20s, with all their lives ahead of them, chose to sell themselves into slavery to live among these slaves and share the message of Jesus. As their ship sailed away from their families, who were left weeping on the shore, they shouted back to the crowd, “May the Lamb that was slain receive the reward of His suffering!”

For fifty years, they laboured in the West Indies without aid from any other church. By the time a single missionary arrived from another church, they had planted churches across the islands and baptised 13,000 people.

If most of us were asked to describe the word ‘freedom’, I don’t think we’d suggest that it could ever look like that. And yet, in the Christian perspective, such an action demonstrates freedom in its truest sense – living out of the identity Jesus gives us.

The fact is that we have many wrong ideas about freedom in our day. We think it means freedom to say anything we like, or do whatever we want, or use our bodies however feels good to us. This week, we’ll look both at how sin enslaves us and also at how Jesus sets us free in a way that looks very different from what most people imagine.

Reflection Questions:

• What do the actions of these two men reveal about what true freedom looks like for followers of Jesus?
• How does their willingness to sacrifice everything challenge the way you think about comfort, purpose, or obedience to God?
• In what areas of your life might God be inviting you to live more freely, not by doing whatever you want, but by fully surrendering to Him?