HOW JESUS HANDLED PRESSURE
The Gospel of Mark #10
Mark 3:7–12
Pastor Dennis Clanton
Woodland Church
Wednesday, January 11, 2023
(Mark 3:7–12, NLT) “Jesus went out to the lake with his disciples, and a large crowd followed him. They came from all over Galilee, Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, from east of the Jordan River, and even from as far north as Tyre and Sidon. The news about his miracles had spread far and wide, and vast numbers of people came to see him. Jesus instructed his disciples to have a boat ready so the crowd would not crush him. He had healed many people that day, so all the sick people eagerly pushed forward to touch him. And whenever those possessed by evil spirits caught sight of him, the spirits would throw them to the ground in front of him shrieking, “You are the Son of God!” But Jesus sternly commanded the spirits not to reveal who he was.”
THE PRESSURE
1. PRESSURES BUILD.
(Mark 2:5, NLT) “Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralyzed man, “My child, your sins are forgiven.”
(Mark 2:14, NLT) “As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at his tax collector’s booth. “Follow me and be my disciple,” Jesus said to him. So Levi got up and followed him.”
(Mark 2:18, NLT) “Once when John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting, some people came to Jesus and asked, “Why don’t your disciples fast like John’s disciples and the Pharisees do?”
(Mark 2:23, NLT) “One Sabbath day as Jesus was walking through some grainfields, his disciples began breaking off heads of grain to eat.”
(Mark 3:5, NLT) “He looked around at them angrily and was deeply saddened by their hard hearts. Then he said to the man, “Hold out your hand.” So the man held out his hand, and it was restored!”
2. POPULARITY INCREASES PRESSURE ON JESUS.
(Mark 3:7–8, NLT) “Jesus went out to the lake with his disciples, and a large crowd followed him. They came from all over Galilee, Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, from east of the Jordan River, and even from as far north as Tyre and Sidon. The news about his miracles had spread far and wide, and vast numbers of people came to see him.”
(Mark 3:9, NLT) “Jesus instructed his disciples to have a boat ready so the crowd would not crush him.”
(Mark 1:14–15, NLT) “Later on, after John was arrested, Jesus went into Galilee, where he preached God’s Good News. “The time promised by God has come at last!” he announced. “The Kingdom of God is near! Repent of your sins and believe the Good News!”
(John 6:26, NLT) “Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, you want to be with me because I fed you, not because you understood the miraculous signs.”
(Mark 3:10, NLT) “He had healed many people that day, so all the sick people eagerly pushed forward to touch him.”
(Mark 3:11, NLT) “And whenever those possessed by evil spirits caught sight of him, the spirits would throw them to the ground in front of him shrieking, “You are the Son of God!”
The life I have chosen as wife and mother entrains a whole caravan of complications.… It involves food and shelter; meals, planning, marketing, bills and making the ends meet in a thousand ways. It involves not only the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, but countless other experts to keep my modern house with its modern “simplifications” (electricity, plumbing, refrigerator, gas-stove, … dish-washer, radios, car and numerous other labor-saving devices) functioning properly. It involves health; doctors, dentists, appointments, medicine … vitamins, trips to the drugstore. It involves education, spiritual, intellectual, physical; schools, school conferences, car-pools, extra trips for basketball or orchestra practice; tutoring; camps, camp equipment and transportation. It involves clothes, shopping, laundry, cleaning, mending, letting skirts down and sewing buttons on, or finding someone else to do it. It involves friends, my husband’s, my children’s, my own, and endless arrangements to get together; letters, invitations, telephone calls and transportation hither and yon. Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea, pp 25-26
GROWTHWORK
The more we care the busier we are.
1. CARVE OUT TIME FOR SOLITUDE.
(Mark 3:13, NLT) “Afterward Jesus went up on a mountain …”
a. Get away.
1:12 – Jesus went into the wilderness.
2:13 – Jesus went out to the seaside, after being accused of blasphemy.
3:7 – Jesus went out the seaside after healing on the Sabbath
3:13 – Jesus went up on the mountain and called the disciples.
6:31 – Jesus took the disciples away to rest.
7:24 – Jesus and the disciples went into the pagan country of Tyre.
9:2 – Jesus to Peter, James, and John onto the Mount of Transfiguration.
14:32,35 – Jesus went to pray in the Garden of Gethsemane.
b. Be silent.
c. Have a sacred space.
2. TAKE TIME TO PRAY.
(Luke 6:12, NLT) “One day soon afterward Jesus went up on a mountain to pray, and he prayed to God all night.”
“What if He knows prayer to be the thing we need first and most? What if the main object in God’s idea of prayer be the supplying of our great, our endless need—the need of Himself? What if the good of all our smaller and lower needs lies in this, that they help to drive us to God? Communion with God is the one need of the soul beyond all other needs; prayer is the beginning of that communion, and some need is the motive of that prayer. Our wants are for the sake of our coming into communion with God, our eternal need.” –George MacDonald
“Prayer is not pulling God to my will, but the aligning of my will to the will of God. Aligned to God’s redemptive will, anything, everything can happen in character, conduct, and creativeness. The whole person is heightened by that prayer contact. In that contact I find health for my body, illumination for my mind, and moral and spiritual reinforcement for my soul. Prayer is a time exposure to God, so I expose myself to God for an hour and a half to two hours a day, asking less and less for things and more and more for Himself. For having Him, I have everything. He gives me what I need for character, conduct, and creativeness, so I’m rich with His riches, strong in His strength, pure in His purity, and able in His ability.” -E. Stanley Jones, A Song of Ascents, p 383
3. SHARE THE RESPONSIBILITY.
(Mark 3:14, NLT) “Then he appointed twelve of them and called them his apostles. They were to accompany him, and hew ould send them out to preach,”
a. Share your life with others.
b. Share ministry.
4. KNOW THE METRICS OF SUCCESS.
(Matthew 23:12, NLT) “But those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
(Mark 12:44, NLT) “For they gave a tiny part of their surplus, but she, poor as she is, has given everything she had to live on.”
(Matthew 19:14, NLT) “But Jesus said, “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are like these children.”