I Have Heard Your Cry

“I Have Heard Your Cry”
A Sermon for the People of God

Text: Exodus 3:7 – “And the LORD said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows.”

Introduction

God sees you. Before Moses said a word, before the burning bush turned into a miracle, before the Red Sea opened wide – God had already been watching. He had been counting every tear, cataloging every wound, remembering every name. That is where your story begins tonight. God saw, God heard, and God moved.

I. God Calls the Unlikely

Moses grew up between two worlds. He carried Hebrew blood and Egyptian privilege. He knew failure, exile, and forty years of desert silence. By the world’s measure, his best days had passed him by.

And yet God showed up at a burning bush and said your name.

COGIC saints know something about this. The Church of God in Christ rose from the red clay of Mississippi, from the hands of Bishop C.H. Mason, a man the religious establishment turned away. God took a rejected leader and built the largest Pentecostal denomination in the United States from that refusal. He specializes in the overlooked. He recruits from the margins.

God still calls people the world has written off – the elder who thinks her season has passed, the young man the streets almost swallowed whole, the single mother holding her family together with prayer and overtime. Your background qualifies you for the assignment God has already written your name on.

II. The Cry Reaches Heaven

Pharaoh had a system designed to keep God’s people exhausted. More bricks, less straw. More labor, less rest. More surveillance, less dignity.

That system had a name in 1619. It had a name in Jim Crow. It carries a name today in wealth gaps, health disparities, and communities the government abandons when the cameras leave.

Hear the Word of the Lord – that cry still reaches Heaven.

God told Moses, I know their sorrows. The Hebrew word there means God knew it intimately, the way you know a wound that lives in your own body. God carried the weight of His people’s suffering personally. He carries yours the same way. Every prayer whispered in a COGIC pew at midnight, every tarrying session soaked in tears, every grandmother interceding through the night – Heaven receives it all.

III. Deliverance Comes Through Prepared People

God delivered Israel, and He used Moses to do it. He did not send an angel to negotiate with Pharaoh. He sent a man who had been through the fire, who knew the desert, who had stood at rock bottom and survived.

COGIC has always produced those people. Mahalia Jackson carried the movement’s soundtrack on her voice. Bishop Mason funded Marcus Garvey’s ship, the Yarmouth, fueling Black self-determination. Jurisdictional leaders ran feeding programs during the Depression when nobody else showed up. The church has always been the delivery mechanism God uses.

Your congregation carries that same anointing. The entrepreneur in your pew, the teacher running the after-school program, the organizer knocking on doors in the precinct – God placed them there on purpose. Deliverance looks like your people showing up with skill, faith, and Holy Ghost power.

IV. The Red Sea Will Open

The Israelites had their backs against the water and Pharaoh’s army closing in from behind. Every logical exit had closed. The math said this was the end.

Then Moses stretched out his hand.

COGIC saints, you serve the God of the stretched hand. You serve the God who makes roads through water. The diagnosis that stumped the doctors, the eviction notice that arrived on Friday, the child who wandered far from God – none of these situations hold the final word. The same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead lives inside every blood-washed believer in this sanctuary.

Stretch your hand. Trust the Word. Watch the water move.

Conclusion: You Are Not in Egypt Anymore

Moses did not lead his people to the edge of the Red Sea and leave them there. God brought them through to the other side and then said – now walk toward the promise.

The promise still stands for this generation. Lift your voice. Carry your gifts. Build in your community. Invest in the next generation coming up behind you. Stand in the gap the way your COGIC mothers and fathers stood before you.

God saw then. God hears now. God moves still.

The Lord is not done with His people.

Amen.