Jesus Under Pressure (Mark 3:7-19)

I want to show you something. I got this for my wife for our last anniversary. Anyone know what this is? It’s called an instant pot. Have you heard of these? They’re magical.

I can throw a rack of ribs in this thing with some rub and a little water, and fifteen minutes later, they are falling off the bone like they’ve been slow-cooked for a full day. I can make beef stew in twenty minutes. I can make hot wings in thirty minutes. I used to wonder what it was like when people first used a microwave—how amazing that must have seemed. That’s what this thing is like.

But it’s actually nothing new. It’s just a new twist on a very old tool. It’s just an electric pressure cooker.

Pressure, as it turns out, can do some crazy things:

• Pressure can turn a meal that would take hours to cook in a crock pot into a thirty minute deal.
• Pressure can turn carbon, the most common substance on earth, into diamonds, one of the rarest.
• Scientists can take ordinary substances in a lab and put them under extreme pressure to create extraordinary substances like Kevlar.

Pressure can do amazing things...but it can also crush you.

Very often in life we have to deal with pressure:

• The pressure of the modern workplace where your boss expects you to put work first or your coworkers seem out to get you.
• The pressure of financial strains where it seems like there is always way too much month left at the end of your money.
• The pressure of family and relationships where you are always dealing with other people’s baggage and trying desperately to help people who don’t want to be helped.
• The pressure to be a certain kind of person to fit in with society.
• The pressure we feel when we look on Facebook or Instagram and we see how great everyone else’s life looks.
• The pressure of our own ambitions where we are always feeling like we have to be someone or do something and that we aren’t living up to it.
• The pressure of failing health or the failing health of a loved one.

Sometimes we feel like we are the ones in the instant pot.

In our text this morning, you are going to see that Jesus was under a lot of pressure, too. In fact, He was under pressure from every side—pressure that you and I can’t even imagine.

That’s encouraging, isn’t it? Remember, Hebrews 4:15 says:

”For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as [we are, yet] without sin.”*

Jesus knows what it is like to be under pressure. He knows what stress feels like. We can cast all our cares on Jesus because He cares for us, but we can also know that He knows what those cares are like.

Let’s read Mark 3:7-19 this morning:

”7 But Jesus withdrew himself with his disciples to the sea: and a great multitude from Galilee followed him, and from Judaea, 8 And from Jerusalem, and from Idumaea, and [from] beyond Jordan; and they about Tyre and Sidon, a great multitude, when they had heard what great things he did, came unto him. 9 And he spake to his disciples, that a small ship should wait on him because of the multitude, lest they should throng him. 10 For he had healed many; insomuch that they pressed upon him for to touch him, as many as had plagues. 11 And unclean spirits, when they saw him, fell down before him, and cried, saying, Thou art the Son of God. 12 And he straitly charged them that they should not make him known.”

”13 And he goeth up into a mountain, and calleth [unto him] whom he would: and they came unto him. 14 And he ordained twelve, that they should be with him, and that he might send them forth to preach, 15 And to have power to heal sicknesses, and to cast out devils: 16 And Simon he surnamed Peter; 17 And James the [son] of Zebedee, and John the brother of James; and he surnamed them Boanerges, which is, The sons of thunder: 18 And Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the [son] of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Canaanite, 19 And Judas Iscariot, which also betrayed him: and they went into an house.”

I’m going to give you three points from this story this morning. We are going to talk about the pressure Jesus was under, the plan Jesus put in place, and the rest Jesus gives.

Let’s pray and we’ll get into that.

The first point I want to give you is...

1. The pressure Jesus was under.

In this passage, Jesus was under an insane amount of pressure. First, He was dealing with...

A. Pressure from the Pharisees.

That’s what we’ve talked about for the last four weeks, and that definitely carries over into this story. Everywhere Jesus went there were these leaders who were trying to trip Him up and catch Him in His words. All of the leaders of the land, even though they hated each other, were banded together to destroy Jesus. Eventually, they would put Jesus on the cross.

After this point, Jesus probably knew it was too hot for Him in the synagogues, so He didn’t go there anymore, and He preached instead in the open fields.

Second, Jesus was dealing with...

B. Pressure from the crowds.

Verse 7 says:

”And a great multitude from Galilee followed him, and from Judea, and from Jerusalem, and from Idumaea, and from beyond Jordan, and they about Tyre and Sidon.”

People were coming from everywhere, and I mean everywhere.

Remember: There were no phones. There was no Facebook. This is 100% word of mouth. Remember: There were no cars. Some of these people traveled a hundred miles ON FOOT to see Jesus.

And it’s nuts. It’s like the president is in town or fireworks up at Arthur. Where did all of these people come from? There are people everywhere, and they are all trying to get to Jesus. They want Jesus to heal them.

The text tells us Jesus is preaching up against a lake here, and that it was so bad that Jesus had to have a boat ready in case they stampeded Him so He could jump in the boat and get away from people. All of these sick people are literally trying to touch Him and getting right up in His space.

That’s pressure.

You’ve probably figured this out about me by now, but I’m kind of an introvert. I don’t do crowds. I like my quiet office. I don’t do a lot of parties because it drains me. My wife is the opposite. She’ll come out of a party all excited and energized. She thrives on social contact, but social interaction wears me out.

I’m just imagining myself in Jesus’ shoes here, and it sounds absolutely exhausting. Jesus wasn’t just talking to them; He was healing them.

That’s crazy pressure.

Lastly, Jesus faced...

C. Pressure from the forces of darkness.

Not only were huge crowds of people pushing themselves on Jesus, but demon-possessed people were there, too, and they were trying to out Jesus as the Son of God before He was ready. In the ancient world, there was this belief that if you named something, you’d have some kind of power over it, and that is what the demons seem like they are doing here. It’s an all-out war.

So picture the scene: Pharisees waiting, lurking in the shadows, ready to pounce; huge, massive crowds of people pressing in on Jesus; demon-possessed people shouting eerie messages at Him.

It’s nonstop pressure.

Now listen: I know you are under stress, but I highly doubt the most powerful people in the country are plotting together to kill you. I know you are under stress, but I doubt you have thousands of people from all over the world thronging you and demanding every last second of your time and privacy. I know you are under stress, but I doubt very seriously you have demons chasing you around shouting at you.

That is pressure. That is pressure you and I will never have to deal with.

So what did Jesus do about it?

Let me give you the second point:

2. The plan Jesus put in place

How did Jesus handle stress? Is there a lesson in here for us? Look at verse 13:

”And he goeth up into a mountain, and calleth unto him whom he would: and they came unto him.”

Jesus did two things to take care of stress. First...

A. He came apart

Several times in the gospels, it tells us that Jesus “came apart.” That means Jesus went into a place of solitude to be alone and to be alone with God.

Sometimes, when the stresses of life are tearing you apart, what you need is to come apart. You need to get away. You need to spend some time with God. You need to put the smartphone away and turn off the TV. Stop answering the phone calls and just get alone with God.

The old time preacher Vance Havner used to say,

“Come apart or you will come apart.”

And it’s true.

The parallel to this passage is Luke 6:12. It says:

”And it came to pass in those days, that he went out into a mountain to pray and continued all night in prayer to God.”

Let me tell you something: We have never had more time-saving devices. We have microwaves and instant pots. We have vacuum cleaners and smartphones and smart watches. We can say, “Hey Google, how many milliliters are in a teaspoon?” and a little speaker will answer us. We have so many time-saving devices, and yet we’ve never had less time.

The key to “coming apart” is you have to make it happen. You have to prioritize it. There will always be little things that suck up your time if you don’t block off a set period of time and say, “This has to happen.”

So Jesus came apart. But there is a second thing Jesus did here...

B. He came together

Jesus didn’t just spend time in solitude humming and meditating; He came together...

I. With God

He spent deliberate time in prayer. This is one of the most amazing things about Jesus. He was God in the flesh. He was 100% God and 100% man, but He still needed to spend time alone with God in prayer.

If Jesus needed to spend time alone with God in prayer, how much more do we?

So often we rush into our day, and we let the cares of this world take over us and press us. However, we never take even fifteen minutes to spend time alone with God.

In Luke, it says that Jesus tarried all night in prayer. He had to be exhausted from the pressures He was facing, but He knew that, more than He needed sleep, He needed power from on high.

Prayer aligns our mind with the mind of God. Prayer helps us to unload the cares and the burdens that weigh us down. Prayer helps us tap into God’s power. We need prayer.

You can spend all day trying to cut a tree with a dull axe, or you can spend a bit of time getting its edge sharp first and save yourself a lot of wasted time and effort. A lot of us (myself included) spend a ton of time trying to do God’s work, and we are chopping away with a dull axe because we haven’t tapped into God’s power through prayer.

So Jesus came together with God, but Jesus also came together...

II. With God’s People

The text says that He called His disciples to Him. He got alone with God, and He got alone with God’s people.

Fellowship is another remedy to the pressures of this life. We need to be around each other.

The Bible says about Jesus: ”Casting all your care upon him, for He careth for you.” But it also says, ”Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”

There is something refreshing about true Christian fellowship. Listen: If you just come to church on Sunday morning and you listen to a sermon, but you never spend time with these people through the week or never sit across the table from these people and share life with them, you are really missing out.

Christianity was never intended to be a solo sport. It’s a team activity, and your local church is the team.

If you’ve ever been to an evening service here, you’d see that it’s very common for people to hang out after the service for an hour. If you come to our Sunday School classes, you’d hear a lot of laughter and talking. That’s a good thing! That’s as much a part of Christian ministry as the preaching is. Really, that should spill over into meals together and activities.

You need fellowship. It’s important. These folks will remind you of what’s important. They will lift your burdens to God in prayer. They’ll share your really happy moments. They’ll remind you that you aren’t in this alone.

But it goes beyond just fellowship. Jesus came apart and then came together with God and with God’s people. But He also came together...

III. for shared responsibility

Jesus died for the sins of the whole world, and Jesus hears the prayers of the whole world. I don’t want to downplay Jesus’ power at all. He’s all-knowing, all-powerful, and everywhere-present. He’s God.

But it was never Jesus’ intention to minister to everyone personally in a human sense. If you look at Jesus’ ministry, He spent a huge amount of His time training others to do and to carry on the work.

And here is an important point for us to remember: We can’t do it all by ourselves. In fact, it’s foolish for us to try to do it all by ourselves. We need help.

Jesus’ plan was always to share his work with His people.

Jesus came to *”seek and to save that which was lost.”*Jesus came to preach the gospel to every creature. And when Jesus rose into the clouds in Acts 1, He left us—the Christians He left behind—with the job of carrying on His work.

Jesus trained twelve very ordinary men. Most were fishermen. One was a saved tax collector. One was a political zealot who was converted to Christ. We don’t know much about many of them, but we do know they were ordinary. Jesus gave them a job to do: ”Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.”

And listen: It’s the same job we still have to this day. It’s our job. There are people in our town who don’t know the gospel, and it’s our job to tell them. There are people in our state who don’t know the gospel, and it’s our job to tell them. There are people around the world who have never heard the gospel, and it’s our job to tell them.

When you become a part of the family of God, you become a part-owner of the family business, and the family business is preaching the gospel and starting churches. That’s not just the job of pastors, missionaries, and evangelists; it’s the job of every believer.

So Jesus came apart from the crowds and the stress, and then He gave His disciples their marching orders. He was trying to multiply his work by His twelve disciples, sending them out to do what He was doing.

So we’ve seen the pressure Jesus was under, and we’ve seen the plan that Jesus enacted, but let me make one more point before I close and that is...

3. The peace Jesus gives

So many of us are under pressure. We are stressed out. Our whole world is stressed out.

• Stress from work.
• Stress from your family.
• Stress from your health.
• Stress from your bills.

It’s like everywhere we look we find stress. We find pressure.

And we can look in this passage, and we can see that Jesus had pressure, too. He had more pressure than we ever have to deal with, but I also want you to understand this about Jesus: He is the answer to our pressure. Jesus came so that we can trade pressure for peace.

Philippians 4:7 says:

”And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”

Colossians 3:15 says:

”And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful.”

I could just read about a dozen Bible verses like that. The most common greeting in the New Testament is, “Grace and Peace Be with You.”

Jesus came so that we could have peace.

There is this old song we used to sing:

”? With Christ in the vessel you can smile at the storm. ?”

Jesus dealt with pressure so that we can have peace, and one thing about Jesus is that no matter how much pressure he was under, He still had peace.

So what is this peace that Jesus gives us? It’s several things. It is first and foremost:

A. Peace with God

All around the world, people believe in God, and universally, they believe that God is angry with them. God must be appeased.

The Bible teaches the reason for that: Sin. Sin alienates us from God.

But Jesus came to this earth and lived a perfect sinless life, and then Jesus died on the cross for our sins and God poured out His wrath—the wrath we deserved—on Jesus. Because of that, through Jesus, we can have peace. We can be reconciled.

And here is what that means, it means you can have...

B. Peace with Yourself

So much of our stress is self-inflicted. It is us trying to measure up. It is us trying to be good enough.

That’s the worst kind of pressure. It’s relentless. It never lets up.

You check your own performance every day. Every minute. Every hour. Did I read my Bible enough? Did I spend enough time with my wife? With my kids? Did I get enough done? Did I work out enough? Am I skinny enough? Am I strong enough? Am I accomplishing enough? Am I just another loser?

We play this game in our minds over and over and over, day in and day out. Constantly putting ourselves on trial.

Listen, do you know what Jesus says to us: you are not on trial. You are not on trial because Jesus already went on trial for you and He was accepted. It’s not about your performance. Jesus says: You are accepted. Through me, you are good enough. Through me, you do measure up. It’s not all on your shoulders; it was on My shoulders.

That right there helps with the pressure a lot.

Because of Jesus, you can have peace with God, you can have peace with yourself, you can have...

C. Peace with rest

Jesus said in Matthew 11:28,

”Come unto me, all [ye] that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

Most people are living this hamster-wheel existence: Work, work, work, work, work.

Work to be good enough or live with the constant shame of not measuring up.

Jesus says, “Come unto me, and I will give you rest.”

We can rest in Jesus because He did the work. We don’t have to measure up because He lived the perfect life. We are accepted by God because of Him.

The next verse says:

”take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

You can do it yourself, or you can rest in Jesus. You can run on the never-ending hamster wheel, trying to appease the gods of money, fame, beauty, and comfort, or you can rest in Jesus.

Conclusion

Let me wrap this up: Some of you are under a lot of pressure. I know it. You feel like you are in this instant pot.

Some of you need to come apart. You need to get away from the hustle and bustle and spend some time with God. You need to get out of the rat race and spend some time in fellowship.

Some of you are still trying to work your way to God. You are trying to save yourself. It’s futile. It’s depressing. You need to accept Christ and what He had done for you. You need to be saved.

All of us need to realize that Jesus is the answer to our pressure and that Jesus wants us to live at peace. We can have peace because He is in control and we can have peace because Jesus earned it for us.

Let’s stand for invitation and prayer.