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Sunday Gathering -Clare Mulroony – IJM – Freedom Sunday – Sermon Only
This we we have Clare Mulrooney joining us from IJM.
Summary
Clare Mulroony shares a story that instills hope, emphasizing the possibility of achieving the impossible in a world plagued by darkness. She identifies with a community that stands boldly against various injustices locally and globally. Clare highlights the story of a courageous girl named Rajaswari, illustrating the power of determination and resourcefulness in the face of adversity.
She then draws parallels between Rajaswari's story and the biblical tale of David and Goliath from 1 Samuel 17. In this story, the Israelite army is paralyzed by fear of the giant Goliath, representing seemingly insurmountable challenges. David, a shepherd boy, rises to the occasion, using ordinary stones to defeat the giant. Clare underscores the importance of ordinary individuals, with their unique skills and tools, working in partnership with God to tackle injustice.
Clare challenges the audience to consider what they carry in their metaphorical "bag," representing their skills, talents, and resources. She emphasizes the significance of deepening one's relationship with God and stepping into action, taking a stand against injustice. Clare encourages active involvement in the fight against exploitation and slavery through prayer, using personal talents, and contributing resources.
Highlighted Bible verses:
1 Samuel 17 - The story of David and Goliath, illustrating the theme of facing challenges with faith and determination.
Micah 6 - Emphasizes doing good, acting justly, and walking humbly with God as a guideline for facing injustice.
Romans 16:19 - Highlights the importance of following Jesus and bringing the gospel of grace and peace to combat injustice.
Transcript
That video gets me every time I watch it.
I have to deep breathe for a second because I am reminded that in a world of so much darkness,
the impossible is happening.
And it fills me with bold hope, which even being here this morning and just listening to the
stories and people, I feel like I am at home in a community of people that stand in bold
hope in the face of many injustices both locally and globally.
So it is a joy to be with you this morning.
My name is Claire Mulroony.
I am just a mum with four children from Hertfordshire with a passion for God's heart of justice.
So it is a joy to be with you this morning.
And I wanted to start out as we explore a little bit about justice and God's heart for it
by sharing a story that spurs us on here at RGM to believe that the impossible truly is happening.
I don't know about you, but what's your geography like?
Do you find it easy to explain to someone how to find your house if they've never been there before
or perhaps you rely like me on Google Maps for everything and everywhere these days
to figure out where I'm going.
But I wonder if you had to draw a map from your home to the local school or your home to your workplace
whether you'd be able to draw on paper every detail of that route, the trees, every signpost.
Would you be able to do that?
I think I'd probably find it a little bit impossible if I'm honest.
But perhaps if your family's life depended on it,
he would find it in your memory bank to figure out every fine detail to draw that map
and that is what a brave and courageous girl who was called a Regiswari did for her family.
Her family found themselves in a brick kiln in South Asia
because when her grandfather had passed away, her father had needed a loan in order to bury his dad.
And so he'd taken a loan from what seemed to be a very reputable man,
but it turned out that he was not as reputable as it seemed
and not only did the dad then owe this man money,
but he took their entire family and forced them to work in a brick kiln.
But this brick kiln was in the middle of hundreds of brick kilns and lost
and it was a very compact area.
And so to cut a very long story short,
the local authorities became aware of Regiswari and her family's predicament,
but it was impossible to get to them.
They were literally in a maze of brick kilns.
And they just didn't know how they were ever going to get to this family.
And Regiswari, at 10 years old, had a pen in her pocket.
And she basically said, you know what, I could draw you a map.
And so she drew on a piece of simple piece of paper with a pen in her pocket
a very detailed map of how to lead the investigators to their family.
And our RGM staff said, you've never seen such a detailed map from a 10-year-old.
They had every fine detail.
And they followed, they got a picture basically through a secret phone to the authorities.
And they've used Regiswari's map to lead them to this family.
And not only did they find Regiswari and her family,
they found another family.
And actually, it went on to have ripple effects for that area
because it awakened the mayor in this region to the number of families
caught in bonded labor.
He were being abused and beaten and working 15, 16 hours a day in horrible heat building bricks.
And he declared that he wanted his region to be bonded free.
And so it led to a massive reduction, which I will talk about later.
But the thing about Regiswari's story is that I think I do have a PowerPoint.
I'm not going to be very good at clicking through it, but anyway.
As I think about Regiswari's story, it reminds me of a story in the Bible
that I have loved since I was a little girl.
That is Regiswari, right there.
And it is the story that we find in 1 Samuel 17.
I think many of you might know this story, even if you're brand new to church.
And it's the story of David and Goliath.
And for context here in chapter 17 of 1 Samuel,
we discover this Israel army is up against a Palestine army
and they're camped out on two mountains with a valley between them.
Face to face, ready to have a battle.
And Goliath is a giant.
He is declared the champion.
He's about 9 foot 9 tall.
They think he was dressed in the best armor of the time.
And he's bellowing across this valley, asking them,
who will come and fight me? Who's brave enough? Who's going to accept the challenge?
And what we find in verse 11 of this chapter is that we find in the Israel army
that is terrified. The fear is rampant in this place.
All the men of Israel are looking at this giant thinking,
I cannot face him. It is surely going to end badly.
And so I want you to imagine that scene with me for a minute.
Where is that fear come from?
You know, wasn't that Israel army a solid army?
Won't they men ready for battle?
As we look closely here, we start to conclude that the giant probably looked impossible to defeat.
He appeared to have all the winning factors on his side.
An army that was cloaked in the best, impenetrable armor, physically terrifying in demeanor.
And they had masses of people behind them with a reputation that was saying to them,
you will never defeat me.
Perhaps it was the fact that they'd been listening to Goliath for 40 days,
taunting from the other side of that valley, saying, who will come and fight me?
Who thinks they can take me down?
And I think there was just a reality of intense fear in the camp.
And then enters David, a shepherd boy.
They think he was probably about 13 or 15 years old.
And his three older brothers were in that Israelite army.
And he was the youngest in his family.
And he'd spent his days tending sheep in a field, following his dad's orders
taking food supplies to the army as needed.
And when he arrived into this camp on this particular day,
he walks in to the Israelite army, finally rising a battle cry, saying,
okay, guys, this is it, we're going to have to go for it.
And David kind of is listening.
He can imagine he's like, what is going on here?
And in the bustle of the army preparations, it says that David ran into that gathering
and just as Goliath was shouting once again across the valley,
David hears the taunts and he starts to ask questions that lead him to King Saul.
And it says in the text that David said,
let no man's heart fail before him, Goliath, your servant will go and fight him.
And so after some more back and forth and Saul gives in, essentially,
because he'd had some legit concerns as to why the small shepherd boy would be the one to fight this giant.
And we reached this pinnacle moment where it says that David runs out to the battle line to meet Goliath.
And in despite, I'm sure of the probably immense pride shining from Goliath like this guy,
I'm going to take him down in no time coming out of him.
David, the word says that David goes ahead and puts his hand into his bag, takes out a stone,
slings it and strikes the Philistine on the forehead.
And the stone sank into his head and he fell on his face to the ground.
Boom.
Now, can you imagine that the scene in that Israelite army?
I'd love to watch this. Make a great movie, by the way.
But can you imagine the disbelief that this tiny shepherd boy had gone out and with stone, one stone slung the giant?
And I want us to look at this for a minute in verse 49 where it says that David puts his hand into his bag.
And I want you to think that bag is the same bag that he would have carried with him while tending sheep back in the quiet of the field.
It's the place where he would have learnt to fight the bears and lions as the word tells us.
The bag that held the tools of his craft, it would have been a symbol of his skill.
And yet if you think about it, it's so ordinary, a bag with some stones, simple stones.
The stones that if they had been seen with ordinary times would have just looked so like not the thing to take and fight a huge giant at war.
And yet in David's hands they became a powerful weapon.
A boy after God's own heart turned out to be the one that was needed that day to bring down the giant and he brought him to the ground.
And I think this little verse can be so easily skipped over in the grand story of this amazing interaction that we read about.
And I think it calls for our attention as we think about injustice and God's heart of justice.
And it struck me that as I've heard stories like Raja Swaris and many others that as we face the giants of injustice, both those really close to home,
like those in Romania that we heard about this morning and across the world that God has shown us an example in David,
of how we're to walk out our calling as his disciples given to us in Micah 6.
He's shown us what it is to do good and what is right to walk humbly and act justly.
And I think so often, for me, it's easy and perhaps for you, when I look at injustice, when I watch videos like we just watched about IGM's work around the world,
I can feel frozen and I can feel like it's so overwhelming to even engage in these things.
And actually, if I'm honest, when I look at the story of David, I find myself in the camp of those Israelite men.
I want to be like David, but the reality is I probably find myself in that army that is overwhelmed by the sheer size and scale of a force of darkness
that seems to exist, the lack of what I have or the inability that I have to do anything.
And I can sit easily on the safety of my mountainside looking on at the world around me, stagnated into taking any action.
And let's be honest, justifiably so, right?
The giants of exploitation, of trafficking, of violence, to things like homelessness, the foster crisis, the financial crisis, the climate crisis,
the political, I mean, the list goes on and on and on and it's understandable to look at the darkness of our world and think,
is there really any way through? I come on. Can I really make a difference? It's just too complex. I can't take these giants down.
But here is the thing.
David couldn't either, from a human perspective. He was a boy, the youngest, and therefore the most insignificant in his culture,
he was a shepherd who tended fields, not army battles. And on his own, there was no way that he could slay Goliath.
King Saul's hesitation was completely valid. And yet, as we consider this story, somehow in the midst of those fields, he had developed a communion, a relationship, a deep trust and love in a living God.
He'd worked hard, he'd sharpened the skills of his hands in the practical, learning to fight lions and bears.
But I think something deeper had happened in David in those fields that he knew God. He knew that when God led him to action, he could follow in simple acts of obedience and trust God with the outcome.
It was God working with David that day that brought Goliath down. It was not David on his own. It wasn't God just doing a supernatural miracle that required nothing of the people present.
It was God inviting David to work with him.
And so I wonder if God's way of bringing down the giants of injustice in our day right now with the ones that right before us won't come from human logic or wisdom alone, or even by God doing it in some miraculous breakthrough.
I wonder if it's like this story where God isn't looking for people armed with the best defensive armor.
He's looking for people like David who faithfully pursue relationship with him, deepening their love in him, receiving his love for them, remembering the power of the cross that with God on our side, who can possibly stand against us.
People that give God access to their ordinary lives, stay at home mums, as retired individuals, as teachers, as businessmen, shopkeepers, as students, as children, the list goes on to see God's mission and glory be established on this earth.
But us simply saying yes. I think God's looking for a church who knows and walks like Jesus on this earth, who knows that through that death on the cross, he really did establish our victory and that we're empowered and we're given authority to run before the giants of injustice of our time as children of God, partnering with him, remembering the fight is not with weapons of this world.
As it says in Romans 1619, but one of following Jesus and bringing the gospel of grace and peace, there are simple acts of obedience.
And as we do, we get the absolute privilege to watch God do the seemingly impossible and bring down the giants of our time, making the impossible possible.
And so the question, perhaps the invitation for us this morning is as simple as, what's in your bag?
What might God have put inside of you, have entrusted in you, created you to be gifted you with, what are the stones or the pen in your pocket?
However ordinary they may seem or insignificant, out of knowing who God is and the injustice that breaks his heart and most likely yours too, is God prompting you to give him fresh space again this morning in your life to move and work with you.
I have the immense privilege of working with international justice mission which was birthed by an ordinary man who decided to look at the giant of violence and exploitation on God's nudge and dared to take a first step.
And for the last 25 years, IGM has grown from one man to a movement of people across the globe who now work alongside local justice systems and partners to protect people in poverty from violence and exploitation.
Believe it's really possible because we see it happening to see the giants of violent abuse, exploitation for and have a world where 50 million plus people who are currently caught in slavery, one in four of whom is a child, have their lives radically transformed.
And is it easy? Is it simple? Absolutely not. But we know it's possible and we know there's a route to a world without slavery.
You know the area that Rajaswari is from a recent independent study showed that between 2014 and 2021 local authorities achieved a reduction of 81.9% in the bonded labor quantity that was going on.
And how does that kind of transformation happen? That is a study across the long haul, not by IGM, somebody outside of our work.
But it happens to a host of people doing their part out working a model that has proved time and time again to work, coming alongside local authorities in nations to bring people to safety.
Strengthening justice systems so that criminals are brought to account so that communities can build stronger futures as we equip and convene champions and survivor leaders in their communities to ensure a future that's free of exploitation.
And some of the stones in our pocket as IGM have looked like persistent prayer. As staff, there are 1500 of us, we start every day, we're contracted to start every day in half an hour of science solitude because we know to face the giants of injustice, we have to stay close to the father.
We also spend half an hour every day in intercession, we are global colleagues praying for the Rajaswari's of this world.
It looks like relentlessly showing up and refusing to walk away even when it looks hopeless, it looks like committed hard work team, it also looks like joy.
If we go back to that slide, our founder Gary Hagen says, he has an amazing quote, the victims of injustice in our world don't need our spasms of passion, they need our long obedience in the same direction.
The lungs and legs of endurance are sturdy stores of joy and I want to point out it's joy, we have to find joy in this road.
We celebrate the stories like Rajaswari's as we go because it fuels us for the long road of obedience.
But mostly it's a movement of people from lawyers and criminal investigators, the social workers, partners, donors and honestly the local church people like you and me.
The local church is pivotal and it's unique because it has an understanding that prayer changes things.
And we've been able to witness that as church is around our country, dig into prayer for this work.
Every person can play a part as we face this injustice.
And for some of you in the room right now, you might even have watched that video and had tears, you might have felt a nudge in something that I've said this morning.
And you might be asking God, so what can I do to be a part? You might have heard a spark of hope that a world without slavery is possible.
And you might be saying, yeah, I want to give my yes to God's invitation, I just don't know what that looks like.
And I just want to invite you this morning, first and foremost, the first invitation is, would you just ask God what is your part to play?
I'm not going to tell you what your part to play is because I trust that he speaks to us individually and we all have parts to play in different parts of the work in the world.
So giving him fresh space, asking him the question and not seeming.
But I do want to invite you to consider, would you pray with us as I GM?
We need a local church that's burning with a passion for prayer as we want to see this injustice ended.
Perhaps it's looking at your talents, what is in your hands, literally, how could you use the things that bring you joy?
I don't know, to raise money, maybe like cycling, maybe you like walking, maybe I don't know what that looks like, but there's a million different ways that you could get involved.
And maybe it's about your treasure, maybe it is saying, actually, I would prefer to not have this coffee or do this thing or buy that candy or whatever it looks like.
And you want to become a freedom partner with IGM and give consistently a monthy so that we can keep going after the one around the world.
But God is the God of the impossible.
And I believe that he wants to speak to us and he wants to partner with us.
And so I'm around after, if you want to talk to me, I've got some amazing, more stories, if you want more stories, there's some leaflets.
But yeah, would you pray with us? Would you partner with us?
But mostly would you open your heart of fresh to hear what God might want to say to you? Amen.
View all episodes
By Meadowhead Christian FellowshipThis we we have Clare Mulrooney joining us from IJM.
Summary
Clare Mulroony shares a story that instills hope, emphasizing the possibility of achieving the impossible in a world plagued by darkness. She identifies with a community that stands boldly against various injustices locally and globally. Clare highlights the story of a courageous girl named Rajaswari, illustrating the power of determination and resourcefulness in the face of adversity.
She then draws parallels between Rajaswari's story and the biblical tale of David and Goliath from 1 Samuel 17. In this story, the Israelite army is paralyzed by fear of the giant Goliath, representing seemingly insurmountable challenges. David, a shepherd boy, rises to the occasion, using ordinary stones to defeat the giant. Clare underscores the importance of ordinary individuals, with their unique skills and tools, working in partnership with God to tackle injustice.
Clare challenges the audience to consider what they carry in their metaphorical "bag," representing their skills, talents, and resources. She emphasizes the significance of deepening one's relationship with God and stepping into action, taking a stand against injustice. Clare encourages active involvement in the fight against exploitation and slavery through prayer, using personal talents, and contributing resources.
Highlighted Bible verses:
1 Samuel 17 - The story of David and Goliath, illustrating the theme of facing challenges with faith and determination.
Micah 6 - Emphasizes doing good, acting justly, and walking humbly with God as a guideline for facing injustice.
Romans 16:19 - Highlights the importance of following Jesus and bringing the gospel of grace and peace to combat injustice.
Transcript
That video gets me every time I watch it.
I have to deep breathe for a second because I am reminded that in a world of so much darkness,
the impossible is happening.
And it fills me with bold hope, which even being here this morning and just listening to the
stories and people, I feel like I am at home in a community of people that stand in bold
hope in the face of many injustices both locally and globally.
So it is a joy to be with you this morning.
My name is Claire Mulroony.
I am just a mum with four children from Hertfordshire with a passion for God's heart of justice.
So it is a joy to be with you this morning.
And I wanted to start out as we explore a little bit about justice and God's heart for it
by sharing a story that spurs us on here at RGM to believe that the impossible truly is happening.
I don't know about you, but what's your geography like?
Do you find it easy to explain to someone how to find your house if they've never been there before
or perhaps you rely like me on Google Maps for everything and everywhere these days
to figure out where I'm going.
But I wonder if you had to draw a map from your home to the local school or your home to your workplace
whether you'd be able to draw on paper every detail of that route, the trees, every signpost.
Would you be able to do that?
I think I'd probably find it a little bit impossible if I'm honest.
But perhaps if your family's life depended on it,
he would find it in your memory bank to figure out every fine detail to draw that map
and that is what a brave and courageous girl who was called a Regiswari did for her family.
Her family found themselves in a brick kiln in South Asia
because when her grandfather had passed away, her father had needed a loan in order to bury his dad.
And so he'd taken a loan from what seemed to be a very reputable man,
but it turned out that he was not as reputable as it seemed
and not only did the dad then owe this man money,
but he took their entire family and forced them to work in a brick kiln.
But this brick kiln was in the middle of hundreds of brick kilns and lost
and it was a very compact area.
And so to cut a very long story short,
the local authorities became aware of Regiswari and her family's predicament,
but it was impossible to get to them.
They were literally in a maze of brick kilns.
And they just didn't know how they were ever going to get to this family.
And Regiswari, at 10 years old, had a pen in her pocket.
And she basically said, you know what, I could draw you a map.
And so she drew on a piece of simple piece of paper with a pen in her pocket
a very detailed map of how to lead the investigators to their family.
And our RGM staff said, you've never seen such a detailed map from a 10-year-old.
They had every fine detail.
And they followed, they got a picture basically through a secret phone to the authorities.
And they've used Regiswari's map to lead them to this family.
And not only did they find Regiswari and her family,
they found another family.
And actually, it went on to have ripple effects for that area
because it awakened the mayor in this region to the number of families
caught in bonded labor.
He were being abused and beaten and working 15, 16 hours a day in horrible heat building bricks.
And he declared that he wanted his region to be bonded free.
And so it led to a massive reduction, which I will talk about later.
But the thing about Regiswari's story is that I think I do have a PowerPoint.
I'm not going to be very good at clicking through it, but anyway.
As I think about Regiswari's story, it reminds me of a story in the Bible
that I have loved since I was a little girl.
That is Regiswari, right there.
And it is the story that we find in 1 Samuel 17.
I think many of you might know this story, even if you're brand new to church.
And it's the story of David and Goliath.
And for context here in chapter 17 of 1 Samuel,
we discover this Israel army is up against a Palestine army
and they're camped out on two mountains with a valley between them.
Face to face, ready to have a battle.
And Goliath is a giant.
He is declared the champion.
He's about 9 foot 9 tall.
They think he was dressed in the best armor of the time.
And he's bellowing across this valley, asking them,
who will come and fight me? Who's brave enough? Who's going to accept the challenge?
And what we find in verse 11 of this chapter is that we find in the Israel army
that is terrified. The fear is rampant in this place.
All the men of Israel are looking at this giant thinking,
I cannot face him. It is surely going to end badly.
And so I want you to imagine that scene with me for a minute.
Where is that fear come from?
You know, wasn't that Israel army a solid army?
Won't they men ready for battle?
As we look closely here, we start to conclude that the giant probably looked impossible to defeat.
He appeared to have all the winning factors on his side.
An army that was cloaked in the best, impenetrable armor, physically terrifying in demeanor.
And they had masses of people behind them with a reputation that was saying to them,
you will never defeat me.
Perhaps it was the fact that they'd been listening to Goliath for 40 days,
taunting from the other side of that valley, saying, who will come and fight me?
Who thinks they can take me down?
And I think there was just a reality of intense fear in the camp.
And then enters David, a shepherd boy.
They think he was probably about 13 or 15 years old.
And his three older brothers were in that Israelite army.
And he was the youngest in his family.
And he'd spent his days tending sheep in a field, following his dad's orders
taking food supplies to the army as needed.
And when he arrived into this camp on this particular day,
he walks in to the Israelite army, finally rising a battle cry, saying,
okay, guys, this is it, we're going to have to go for it.
And David kind of is listening.
He can imagine he's like, what is going on here?
And in the bustle of the army preparations, it says that David ran into that gathering
and just as Goliath was shouting once again across the valley,
David hears the taunts and he starts to ask questions that lead him to King Saul.
And it says in the text that David said,
let no man's heart fail before him, Goliath, your servant will go and fight him.
And so after some more back and forth and Saul gives in, essentially,
because he'd had some legit concerns as to why the small shepherd boy would be the one to fight this giant.
And we reached this pinnacle moment where it says that David runs out to the battle line to meet Goliath.
And in despite, I'm sure of the probably immense pride shining from Goliath like this guy,
I'm going to take him down in no time coming out of him.
David, the word says that David goes ahead and puts his hand into his bag, takes out a stone,
slings it and strikes the Philistine on the forehead.
And the stone sank into his head and he fell on his face to the ground.
Boom.
Now, can you imagine that the scene in that Israelite army?
I'd love to watch this. Make a great movie, by the way.
But can you imagine the disbelief that this tiny shepherd boy had gone out and with stone, one stone slung the giant?
And I want us to look at this for a minute in verse 49 where it says that David puts his hand into his bag.
And I want you to think that bag is the same bag that he would have carried with him while tending sheep back in the quiet of the field.
It's the place where he would have learnt to fight the bears and lions as the word tells us.
The bag that held the tools of his craft, it would have been a symbol of his skill.
And yet if you think about it, it's so ordinary, a bag with some stones, simple stones.
The stones that if they had been seen with ordinary times would have just looked so like not the thing to take and fight a huge giant at war.
And yet in David's hands they became a powerful weapon.
A boy after God's own heart turned out to be the one that was needed that day to bring down the giant and he brought him to the ground.
And I think this little verse can be so easily skipped over in the grand story of this amazing interaction that we read about.
And I think it calls for our attention as we think about injustice and God's heart of justice.
And it struck me that as I've heard stories like Raja Swaris and many others that as we face the giants of injustice, both those really close to home,
like those in Romania that we heard about this morning and across the world that God has shown us an example in David,
of how we're to walk out our calling as his disciples given to us in Micah 6.
He's shown us what it is to do good and what is right to walk humbly and act justly.
And I think so often, for me, it's easy and perhaps for you, when I look at injustice, when I watch videos like we just watched about IGM's work around the world,
I can feel frozen and I can feel like it's so overwhelming to even engage in these things.
And actually, if I'm honest, when I look at the story of David, I find myself in the camp of those Israelite men.
I want to be like David, but the reality is I probably find myself in that army that is overwhelmed by the sheer size and scale of a force of darkness
that seems to exist, the lack of what I have or the inability that I have to do anything.
And I can sit easily on the safety of my mountainside looking on at the world around me, stagnated into taking any action.
And let's be honest, justifiably so, right?
The giants of exploitation, of trafficking, of violence, to things like homelessness, the foster crisis, the financial crisis, the climate crisis,
the political, I mean, the list goes on and on and on and it's understandable to look at the darkness of our world and think,
is there really any way through? I come on. Can I really make a difference? It's just too complex. I can't take these giants down.
But here is the thing.
David couldn't either, from a human perspective. He was a boy, the youngest, and therefore the most insignificant in his culture,
he was a shepherd who tended fields, not army battles. And on his own, there was no way that he could slay Goliath.
King Saul's hesitation was completely valid. And yet, as we consider this story, somehow in the midst of those fields, he had developed a communion, a relationship, a deep trust and love in a living God.
He'd worked hard, he'd sharpened the skills of his hands in the practical, learning to fight lions and bears.
But I think something deeper had happened in David in those fields that he knew God. He knew that when God led him to action, he could follow in simple acts of obedience and trust God with the outcome.
It was God working with David that day that brought Goliath down. It was not David on his own. It wasn't God just doing a supernatural miracle that required nothing of the people present.
It was God inviting David to work with him.
And so I wonder if God's way of bringing down the giants of injustice in our day right now with the ones that right before us won't come from human logic or wisdom alone, or even by God doing it in some miraculous breakthrough.
I wonder if it's like this story where God isn't looking for people armed with the best defensive armor.
He's looking for people like David who faithfully pursue relationship with him, deepening their love in him, receiving his love for them, remembering the power of the cross that with God on our side, who can possibly stand against us.
People that give God access to their ordinary lives, stay at home mums, as retired individuals, as teachers, as businessmen, shopkeepers, as students, as children, the list goes on to see God's mission and glory be established on this earth.
But us simply saying yes. I think God's looking for a church who knows and walks like Jesus on this earth, who knows that through that death on the cross, he really did establish our victory and that we're empowered and we're given authority to run before the giants of injustice of our time as children of God, partnering with him, remembering the fight is not with weapons of this world.
As it says in Romans 1619, but one of following Jesus and bringing the gospel of grace and peace, there are simple acts of obedience.
And as we do, we get the absolute privilege to watch God do the seemingly impossible and bring down the giants of our time, making the impossible possible.
And so the question, perhaps the invitation for us this morning is as simple as, what's in your bag?
What might God have put inside of you, have entrusted in you, created you to be gifted you with, what are the stones or the pen in your pocket?
However ordinary they may seem or insignificant, out of knowing who God is and the injustice that breaks his heart and most likely yours too, is God prompting you to give him fresh space again this morning in your life to move and work with you.
I have the immense privilege of working with international justice mission which was birthed by an ordinary man who decided to look at the giant of violence and exploitation on God's nudge and dared to take a first step.
And for the last 25 years, IGM has grown from one man to a movement of people across the globe who now work alongside local justice systems and partners to protect people in poverty from violence and exploitation.
Believe it's really possible because we see it happening to see the giants of violent abuse, exploitation for and have a world where 50 million plus people who are currently caught in slavery, one in four of whom is a child, have their lives radically transformed.
And is it easy? Is it simple? Absolutely not. But we know it's possible and we know there's a route to a world without slavery.
You know the area that Rajaswari is from a recent independent study showed that between 2014 and 2021 local authorities achieved a reduction of 81.9% in the bonded labor quantity that was going on.
And how does that kind of transformation happen? That is a study across the long haul, not by IGM, somebody outside of our work.
But it happens to a host of people doing their part out working a model that has proved time and time again to work, coming alongside local authorities in nations to bring people to safety.
Strengthening justice systems so that criminals are brought to account so that communities can build stronger futures as we equip and convene champions and survivor leaders in their communities to ensure a future that's free of exploitation.
And some of the stones in our pocket as IGM have looked like persistent prayer. As staff, there are 1500 of us, we start every day, we're contracted to start every day in half an hour of science solitude because we know to face the giants of injustice, we have to stay close to the father.
We also spend half an hour every day in intercession, we are global colleagues praying for the Rajaswari's of this world.
It looks like relentlessly showing up and refusing to walk away even when it looks hopeless, it looks like committed hard work team, it also looks like joy.
If we go back to that slide, our founder Gary Hagen says, he has an amazing quote, the victims of injustice in our world don't need our spasms of passion, they need our long obedience in the same direction.
The lungs and legs of endurance are sturdy stores of joy and I want to point out it's joy, we have to find joy in this road.
We celebrate the stories like Rajaswari's as we go because it fuels us for the long road of obedience.
But mostly it's a movement of people from lawyers and criminal investigators, the social workers, partners, donors and honestly the local church people like you and me.
The local church is pivotal and it's unique because it has an understanding that prayer changes things.
And we've been able to witness that as church is around our country, dig into prayer for this work.
Every person can play a part as we face this injustice.
And for some of you in the room right now, you might even have watched that video and had tears, you might have felt a nudge in something that I've said this morning.
And you might be asking God, so what can I do to be a part? You might have heard a spark of hope that a world without slavery is possible.
And you might be saying, yeah, I want to give my yes to God's invitation, I just don't know what that looks like.
And I just want to invite you this morning, first and foremost, the first invitation is, would you just ask God what is your part to play?
I'm not going to tell you what your part to play is because I trust that he speaks to us individually and we all have parts to play in different parts of the work in the world.
So giving him fresh space, asking him the question and not seeming.
But I do want to invite you to consider, would you pray with us as I GM?
We need a local church that's burning with a passion for prayer as we want to see this injustice ended.
Perhaps it's looking at your talents, what is in your hands, literally, how could you use the things that bring you joy?
I don't know, to raise money, maybe like cycling, maybe you like walking, maybe I don't know what that looks like, but there's a million different ways that you could get involved.
And maybe it's about your treasure, maybe it is saying, actually, I would prefer to not have this coffee or do this thing or buy that candy or whatever it looks like.
And you want to become a freedom partner with IGM and give consistently a monthy so that we can keep going after the one around the world.
But God is the God of the impossible.
And I believe that he wants to speak to us and he wants to partner with us.
And so I'm around after, if you want to talk to me, I've got some amazing, more stories, if you want more stories, there's some leaflets.
But yeah, would you pray with us? Would you partner with us?
But mostly would you open your heart of fresh to hear what God might want to say to you? Amen.