Sermons on Mark 5:18-20
The various sermons below converge quickly on one central reading of Mark 5:18–20: Jesus’ refusal to let the healed man follow him is best read not as rejection but as commissioning—an urgent, plain mandate to “go and tell.” Preachers uniformly highlight testimony and immediate deployment as the primary means by which freedom is testified to and sanctification continues: testimony is treated as both the proof of transformation and the tool of mission, and the man’s return to his people is framed as strategic witness rather than deferred training. Shared theological notes include Christ’s authority over demonic forces (with some sermons underscoring the force of the term “Legion”), the pastoral wisdom of sending versus keeping, and imagery that links personal sacrifice to multiplication (seed-to-harvest/kenosis). Nuances emerge in emphasis — some focus on linguistic and pastoral distinctions between being demonized and possessed, others on apprenticeship-by-sending, and some on God’s providential sight of a redeemed community awaiting one bold witness.
Where they diverge matters for preaching. Some approaches press a pragmatic theology of testimony—call people to immediate, plain storytelling—while others frame mission itself as the primary means of ongoing sanctification, arguing that doing the work reforms the heart; one strain counsels sober, careful deliverance practice rooted in linguistic and pastoral nuance, another stresses the dramatic victory signified by “Legion.” Homiletically the choice changes your verbs: equip and train versus send now; explain deliverance doctrine versus invite sacrificial surrender; stir communal imagination of a redeemed Decapolis versus spotlight the exponential logic of a single surrendered life. Decide which thrust best serves your congregation—immediate witness, disciplined formation, sacrificial multiplier, cautious deliverance, or providential vision—
Mark 5:18-20 Interpretation:
Embracing Transformation: The Power of Jesus' Grace(Liberty Live Church) reads Mark 5:18-20 as the climax of a three‑part narrative (hopelessness → powerful Savior → life transformation → gospel proclamation) and emphasizes Jesus' deliberate refusal to let the healed man follow as an intentional commissioning to witness, framing Jesus' “no” not as rejection but as pastoral strategy: rather than train him in formal methods Jesus issues a simple, urgent mandate—“go and tell your story”—which the preacher treats as the central interpretive key (he repeatedly underscores the plainness of Jesus’ command and the priority of testimony over formal evangelistic training).
Jesus: Our Deliverer and Source of Freedom(The Father's House) highlights the surprising pattern that Jesus grants the requests of demons and pagans but refuses the healed man’s plea to accompany him, reading Mark 5:18-20 theologically as a sovereign, pastoral commissioning: Jesus will not take the man off the map but will return authority to him to be the evangel to his own people; the sermon also calls attention to the language around “Legion” (a Latin military term) to stress the magnitude of the demonic force that was rendered powerless, and it treats the “go home…tell” order as a strategic deployment of witness rather than mere permission.
Transformative Knowledge: Engaging in Jesus' Mission(Crossing Place) interprets Mark 5:18-20 as evidence that Jesus immediately enlists those he frees into mission—Jesus doesn’t postpone deployment for apprenticeship but puts the renewed person to work right away—using the text to argue that vocation in the kingdom is both the proof and means of ongoing sanctification (doing the mission is the mechanism by which the freed person grows), and that the refusal to take the man was a form of apprenticeship by sending him back into the field as a first‑order disciple.
Faith to See What God Sees(THE RIVER of Life Church - Doylestown) reads Jesus’ refusal to allow the man to follow as an expression of God’s missional priority: the healed man’s first call is to redeem those who had rejected him, to “go back” and testify so that the community will be drawn to Jesus; the sermon stresses that the man’s outgoing testimony is the anticipated fruit of the encounter and that Jesus’ action anticipates the later mass response when multitudes come because one witness testified.
The Power of ONE Grain of Wheat(New Hope Cardiff (New Hope Community Church)) frames Mark 5:18-20 through Jesus’ grain‑of‑wheat imagery (John 12) and harvest logic: Jesus refuses to keep the man with Him because a seed that dies (the healed man laying down his personal preference to cling to Jesus’ immediate presence) increases harvest; the preacher treats the man’s return to Decapolis as the seed‑to‑harvest pattern—one life surrendered and sent results in many being reached.
Mark 5:18-20 Theological Themes:
Embracing Transformation: The Power of Jesus' Grace(Liberty Live Church) emphasizes a pragmatic theology of testimony: salvation’s fruit is public storytelling rather than private transformation only, and Jesus’ commissioning prioritizes eyewitness narrative as the primary evangelistic instrument—this sermon pushes a pastorally pragmatic facet that testimony itself is a form of discipleship and missionary obedience.
Jesus: Our Deliverer and Source of Freedom(The Father's House) advances a distinct theological distinction between being “demonized” (daimonizomai—affected by spirits) and being “possessed,” and links that linguistic nuance to pastoral practice: because the range of demonic influence varies, deliverance ministry must be exercised with scriptural caution and pastoral sobriety while still affirming Christ’s authority to free people and to send them as witnesses.
Transformative Knowledge: Engaging in Jesus' Mission(Crossing Place) proposes mission as a primary means of sanctification: engaging in the mission of Jesus is not merely an outcome of conversion but a discipling instrument that exposes and reforms the heart (the sermon sharpens the theme that practical obedience accelerates spiritual formation).
Faith to See What God Sees(THE RIVER of Life Church - Doylestown) foregrounds the theology of God’s providential sight and the disciple’s call to see by faith what God already sees—specifically, that God sees a redeemed community in the Decapolis and that the healed man’s testimony is the seed God intends to use, so faith is the capacity to perceive God’s intended end before it is obvious.
The Power of ONE Grain of Wheat(New Hope Cardiff (New Hope Community Church)) develops the sacrificial‑multiplier theme: Christ’s kenotic pattern (grain dying to produce much) becomes the model for disciplely witness—self‑denial produces exponential fruit—so the man’s obedience to go back functions theologically like a seed that, when buried, yields a harvest.
Mark 5:18-20 Historical and Contextual Insights:
Embracing Transformation: The Power of Jesus' Grace(Liberty Live Church) supplies concrete contextual notes—placing Mark 5 immediately after the storm in Mark 4 to show narrative continuity, explaining “Decapolis” as “ten cities,” and unpacking “Legion” as a Roman military term (~6,000) to convey the sense of many demons; the preacher uses those geographic and military details to underscore how extraordinary it was that a Gentile region heard a healed Jew‑turned‑witness.
Jesus: Our Deliverer and Source of Freedom(The Father's House) gives cultural background on the setting (Gerasenes/Decapolis as Gentile territory), explicates “Legion” as a Roman military unit to quantify the demonic plural (“we are many”), and offers practical cultural reasons for the crowd’s response (economic loss from the pigs, fear of disrupted social order), tying the villagers’ request that Jesus depart to understandable local concerns.
Transformative Knowledge: Engaging in Jesus' Mission(Crossing Place) offers extended historical/cultural material: a careful review of Samaritans (their intermarriage, limited acceptance of only the Pentateuch, competing worship site on Mount Gerizim) and the Decapolis (Gentile, Hellenistic influence) to show why Jesus’ crossing into that region was culturally significant and why Philip’s later ministry to Samaria and the Decapolis had governmental and religious implications.
Faith to See What God Sees(THE RIVER of Life Church - Doylestown) situates the story geographically (Sea of Galilee → Gadarenes/Decapolis), explains the religious makeup of Decapolis (Greek and Canaanite influences, worship of storm deities such as Zeus and Baal, presence of Roman soldiers) and uses that background to make the disciples’ fear and the villagers’ later astonishment intelligible.
The Power of ONE Grain of Wheat(New Hope Cardiff (New Hope Community Church)) connects Mark 5’s episode to first‑century realities (Jesus deliberately crossing into Gentile territory despite prior instructions to the Twelve), notes Decapolis as a ten‑city Gentile cluster and links the single testimony’s social reach by pointing out subsequent narratives (e.g., later feeding of the 4,000) that suggest how one encounter could catalyze mass response.
Mark 5:18-20 Cross-References in the Bible:
Embracing Transformation: The Power of Jesus' Grace(Liberty Live Church) ties Mark 5:18-20 to the immediately preceding Mark 4 calming of the storm (narrative continuity showing Jesus’ authority) and to Isaiah 59:1 (used to assert God’s reach—“the Lord’s hand is not shortened”), and the sermon uses those cross‑references to argue that deliverance follows demonstration of authority and that no one is beyond God’s mercy.
Jesus: Our Deliverer and Source of Freedom(The Father's House) groups several biblical texts around the Mark 5 episode—John 8:36 (freedom in the Son) to theologize deliverance, Ephesians 6:12 (spiritual warfare) and Mark 16 (signs accompanying believers) to place the story within the wider New Testament teaching on demonic opposition and the church’s authority, plus James 5:16 about prayer and healing to justify communal ministry for freedom.
Transformative Knowledge: Engaging in Jesus' Mission(Crossing Place) marshals an extended set of cross‑references: Acts 8 (Philip in Samaria and his encounter with Simon and the Ethiopian eunuch) to show the pattern of one life turning many, John 4 (Samaritan woman) and Mark 5 together to demonstrate Jesus’ practice of seeking out marginalized individuals, and Matthew 15:29-31 to show the later harvest reaction in Decapolis—these references are used to build the pastoral case that God often works through single testimonies to produce mass responses.
Faith to See What God Sees(THE RIVER of Life Church - Doylestown) explicitly cross‑references Mark 4 (storm), Mark 5 (the whole Gerasene episode), Matthew 15:29-31 (Jesus’ return and the multitudes that bring the sick) and John 4 (Samaritan witness) to argue that one healed witness catalyzes broad revival when Jesus returns to that region.
The Power of ONE Grain of Wheat(New Hope Cardiff (New Hope Community Church)) clusters John 12 (grain of wheat/dying to bear fruit), John 4 (Samaritan witness), Acts 8 (Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch), Isaiah 53 (the suffering servant) and the Mark 5 material to present a theological and narrative arc: Christ’s self‑sacrifice is the pattern; one surrendered life bears much fruit and is the means by which whole regions come to Christ.
Mark 5:18-20 Christian References outside the Bible:
Jesus: Our Deliverer and Source of Freedom(The Father's House) explicitly cites Dr. Michael Brown on the Greek verb daimonizomai, summarizing Brown’s lexical point that the verb is better translated “to be demonized or affected by a demon” (a spectrum from influence to overt control) rather than the stronger English category “possessed,” and the sermon uses that technical lexical point to shape pastoral responses to people who are “demonized” and to argue against careless use of the label “possession.”
Transformative Knowledge: Engaging in Jesus' Mission(Crossing Place) quotes C.T. Studd (“Prayer is good, but, used as a substitute for obedience, it is nothing but blatant hypocrisy”) as a historic evangelical voice to support the sermon’s argument that immediate engagement in mission (the healed man “going and telling”) is the obedient complement to prayer and belief; the reference is used to push a practical, obedience‑oriented reading of Mark 5:18-20.
Mark 5:18-20 Illustrations from Secular Sources:
Embracing Transformation: The Power of Jesus' Grace(Liberty Live Church) uses a detailed March Madness (NCAA basketball tournament) analogy to describe the emotional arc of hopelessness that the demonized man experienced: the preacher unpacks the moment late in a game when a large deficit and limited time make comeback impossible, likening that collapse of hope to the man’s social, spiritual, and psychological condition before Jesus; the sports example is developed at length (bracket‑filling, underdog drama, the “win or go home” intensity) and is explicitly connected to the passage’s move from despair to liberation and testimony.
Jesus: Our Deliverer and Source of Freedom(The Father's House) uses several contemporary, secular cultural references to illustrate pastoral points around Mark 5:18-20: he jokingly invokes Ghostbusters imagery to defuse sensationalism, references Fortnite and video‑game culture as an example of modern “open doors” and unhealthy patterns (to caution against attributing every brokenness to demon possession), and uses the everyday secular examples (e.g., sports, work culture) to show how people tend to confuse strongholds with spiritual possession and to underscore the sermon’s pastoral counsel about responsibility, self‑discipline, and when to call for prayerful church ministry.