Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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Sabine was the only member of her family to survive the tribal genocide in Rwanda.
She jumped at the offer by a wealthy family to move to America and work for them.
Shortly after she arrived, however, she found herself imprisoned in their home; forced to work around the clock and made to sleep on the kitchen floor.
After six months Sabine was allowed to go to church on Sunday.
After a morning service she was approached by a kind Rwandan man who learned of her situation and helped her escape.
He took Sabine to an organization that helps victims of human trafficking find their freedom.
Yet Sabine found herself still enslaved.
She was afraid of everything.
Even going to the grocery store or using a gift card terrified her.
She did not want to go out after 4:00 p.m. because it was too dark.
It took 3 months before she was able to go shopping on her own and familiarize herself with the neighborhood.
She found somebody to teach her English, and eventually got in a job training program that helped her escape her poverty and provide for herself.
Sabine is one of the estimated 2 million victims of human trafficking who live in the USA.
The majority are women and girls, lured into this country with a promise of freedom and opportunity, only to find themselves prisoners, forced to work for little or no pay in fields, factories, or as prostitutes.
Many of them from never find their freedom.
Most of us will never know what’ it’s like to endure the horrors of human trafficking.
We enjoy a freedom here in America other nations can only dream of.
And yet on a much deeper level, many of us who claim to be free are really slaves.
Some are slaves to addiction to alcohol or illegal drugs.
Others are slaves to fear, or slaves to their past, or slaves to prejudice and pride.
Jesus Christ pinned us all when He said in
*John 8:34, 44* /…Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin./
The booze or the drugs promise happiness, the fear drives us back to where it’s safe, the prejudice and makes us feel superior.
But they also make us slaves who need to find our freedom.
This morning we’re going to read a true story about a man who traded in his chains for his freedom.
Our text is *Mark 5:1-20*
*PRAYER*
* *Some issues don’t really grab our attention until they become personal.
For example I could share some statistics about the crime of human trafficking: it’s estimated a little less than 18,000 people each year enter the USA as slaves.
But instead I made it personal, telling you the story of a specific person: Sabine.
Throughout the book of Mark we read how Jesus heals sicknesses, cleanses lepers and…what?
/Casts out demons.
/(*1:23-27, 34; 3:10-12,15*)
When we get to *Mark 5*, we zero in on one story that makes finding our freedom personal.
God shows us 3 things, beginning with the first:
*1. **The devil enslaves.
(v.
1-4) *
One of the most retold tales is the German legend of a man named Faustus.
Faustus is a
highly intelligent man who’s very dissatisfied with life.
His discontent leads him to make a deal with the devil: his soul in exchange for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasure.
In some versions, Faustus outwits the devil and goes to heaven, but in others demons drags Faustus to hell.
All of them remind us the devil’s deep desire is to enslave and destroy us.
Jesus says in
*John 10:10* /The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy…/
This poor man comes running to Jesus out from the tombs.
He’s alive, yet forced to live among death and decay, where tears fall like the winter rain, where hopes and dreams are buried forever, and grief hangs like dark fog rolling in from the sea.
Some try to bind him with chains to keep him from hurting himself or others, but he pulls the iron apart like a child pulls apart a piece of yarn.
He roams around free like a wild animal, howling and screaming, cutting himself like a maniac.
These verses bring up a burning question in my mind that just won’t go away, a question I cannot help but ask, for my own sake if not for somebody else’s: /how does this happen to him?/
I can’t imagine he was /born/ demon-possessed (though I have met a child or two who makes me wonder.)
There has to have been a time when he lived a normal life, when he had family that loved him, friends who cared about him.
But at some point something changed.
Maybe it’s a sudden, or maybe it’s gradual.
Maybe he makes a deal with the devil—a deal that he thinks will make him master, but which ends up making him Satan’s slave.
What the devil does to him he wants to do to you: /enslave you.
/
He’ll promise you the life you want—knowledge, power, pleasure, possessions.
He uses this bait to lure us into the graveyard.
Think of all the poor people who pursue sexual pleasure and end up with AIDS, or the ones who drink because it feels good and end up drinking so they won’t feel anything.
He’ll promise you strength and freedom, promise you nobody will chain you up rules or boundaries, nobody will tell you what to do.
Then almost before you know it your life goes spinning out of control and you find yourself sinking in over your head.
The devil doesn’t have to possess you to enslave you.
If he can get you to believe a lie, if he can make you believe his way will get you what you want, you will find yourself like this poor man: caged with no way out.
The book of James puts it this way:
*James 1:14–15* /14But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed.15Then,
when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.
/
/You are not immune.
/None of us are.
Satan never gives up trying to trip us up, to enslave us to his way and his will.
Satan may have a foothold on some area of your life right now.
You’re not running around naked in a graveyard, but you are in chains.
The devil has you bound in some area of your heart and mind, and you want to find your freedom.
The good news is that while the devil enslaves,
*2. **Jesus liberates.
(v.
5-13)*
This man is helpless to find his freedom.
The demons have him right where they want him,
and they’re not about to let go.
His family and friends can only watch helplessly as he slowly destroys himself.
But when Jesus steps out of the boat onto the Gadarene shore the cavalry finally rides in.
You might say Jesus’ arrival is by chance, that He doesn’t know what awaits him here in the darkness.
But a better explanation is the same Jesus Who speaks to the wind and waves and they obey also has the power to guide the ship to just where He wants to go.
I suggest Jesus doesn’t meet this man by accident—/He seeks him.
/He comes here on purpose, to help this poor guy find his freedom.
The demon-possessed man, on the other hand, is probably a different matter.
I can’t imagine the demons come running to Jesus on purpose.
He’s the last Person they want to meet.
I suppose it is possible the man himself was able to seek out the Lord, though that is by no means certain.
What is clear is when the demons get close, they know Jesus is in charge.
As the man comes closer, he bows before the Lord, and the demons begin to beg.
Demons know their destiny is torment; it’s one of the reasons why their hate is so strong.
They beg Jesus not to send them to hell /because they know He can and He will.
/
And King Jesus, in an act of pure mercy, gives them permission to enter a herd of pigs.
Don’t miss this: what the pigs do is what the demons do—they go running scared.
Jesus sends the devil running.
And what about the madman who once ran naked among the dead?
The townspeople find him sitting at Jesus’ feet, /clothed and in his right mind/.
He finds his freedom.
What chains could not do, what other people could not do, what this man himself cannot do, Jesus does.
He sends the devil running and restores this man’s freedom.
What’s true for him is true for you.
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