Hanging out with Jesus IX: Up the Mountain with Him

Hanging out with Jesus IX: Up the Mountain with Him

Mark 3:7 – 35.      Key verses Mark 3: 13 -19

The passage (Mark 3:7 – 35) presents four kinds of people that sought for Jesus - those who pressured him, those who pursued him, those who persecuted him and those protective of him.  This message is helpful as you seek Jesus to find out which of the four you are and why you need to pursue him up the mountain.

The passage traces Jesus’ moves from the synagogue where he healed a man with a withered hand. What a remarkable miracle. Infirmity is an attack not just on a person but a deprivation of what the person could do without it.  The withered hand deprived the man of opportunity to work for his living using the withered hand. Jesus is always thinking beyond what meets the eyes. When he forgives sin, he is restoring what was lost due to sin.

1) Those who pressured him (Seaside people) Mark 3:7 - 12

From the synagogue, Jesus withdrew to the seaside then went up a mountain before going back to the house. Wherever he went, he continued to share the message and do mighty works. He demonstrated that God’s work is not limited to a special day or a special place. It takes place wherever God’s people are obedient.

The seaside was the market place of those days. It brought people from many regions. It was a place for commerce and trade. It was a place for fishing and was a key hub for water transportation. That being the place where goods and money exchanged hands many people thronged the seaside. When Jesus visited the seaside, his message was relevant. He became busy with crowds pressing on him for deliverance and healing. Wherever there are people there are needs. And wherever there are human needs, Jesus is the answer.

The book of Mark records more of the miracles of our Lord than his teaching discourses.  Jesus turned the seaside from a hive of commercial activity to a hive of commendable miracles.  People from far and near made up the crowd about Jesus because of the great things they heard he did (Mark 3:8).  He had to borrow a boat to control the crowds of many wanting to touch him for freedom from unclean spirits and diseases. He stopped unclean spirits from making him known because they were unfit to do so. The main lesson is that great things Jesus does through his people will also draw crowds today.

2) Those who pursued him (Mountain top people) Mark 3: 13 -19

The biggest responsibility of Adam was obedience and multiplication. He failed on obedience and multiplied disobedient people. The last Adam, Christ was both obedient and multiplied obedient people. By his obedience he provided salvation and his biggest achievement after was sowing in his disciples the seed for multiplication. The seed was a conviction not to keep the good news to themselves but to share it and equip others to do the same (Mathew 28:18 – 20; 2 Tim 2:2). Jesus was popular and attracted a massive adoring crowd around him but that was not enough to make him complacent. He had not come to be popular but to fulfill a purpose. That purpose was to establish a strategy of multiplication of his co-laborers. He needed not only to find needy people and meet their needs but also to mobilize people to send out to do the same - preach, drive out demons and heal.

He called people out of the world and then out of the crowd to go and represent him with power and a message of hope for a needy world. The people that came to see and seek Jesus formed crowds that pressured him. Among them were people that pursued the giver not just the gift.   Jesus filtered the later out when he went up the mountain (Mark 3:13).  It was a place of recess and retirement, which he needed to refresh and to pray. Luke points out that he continued in prayer the whole night (Luke 6:12).

He called close followers from the crowd up the mountain and from among them, he chose the twelve he appointed Apostles. He transformed them from being in the crowd to being in the core.  From crowding Jesus for what he could do for them to being crowd pullers for Jesus. From experiencing his power to exercising it.  Their point of interest was shifted from seeing and touching him to knowing him.  They were not content with pushing and shoving him and pursued him up the mountain.  Those who pursue Jesus up the mountain of prayer are the ones who hear his call to be near him. Those who draw near to him he draws near to them. He calls them to be with him so that he might send them out with power. His formula for their success was to be with him. The solution to lack of power is to be with him. May the Lord send forth more and more of those with him in our day?

Christ chose those that God gave him (John 6:37; 17:6). That is why he needed to pray before choosing. To be disciple makers we teach and model spending time with Jesus in prayer without ceasing.  To be with him in the mountain of prayer, walk with him, live with him and follow him.  He chose them to go and succeed in bearing much fruit (John 15:16). He chose twelve.

Twelve is the number of humanity also with reference to the twelve tribes of Israel. They were ordinary but he transformed them into extraordinary achievers. They were most probably less qualified than most of us.  Jesus does not call the qualified but qualifies the called.  If Jesus had hired you to recruit for him, who would you have chosen. You would have thrown out most of them except Judas and perhaps Bartholomew and Thaddaeus whom we never hear about, if not polished religious experts with theology papers of the day. You would ask for a CV, Jesus offered a plan.  His plan suits you from wherever you begin. You would look at history, experience and education He looked at the future and a heart to follow, learn. You would look at the natural he looked at the spiritual by choosing prayerfully.

He chose the following:

-           Simon to whom he gave the name Peter or ‘rock’.  Simon was highly impulsive But Christ saw his potential.  He later denied Jesus when he needed support the most but repented of what he did.

-           John and James who he called Boarnerges (sons of thunder).  They seemed to be volatile with anger and selfishly competitive. They wished to call down fire from heaven to consume a village of the Samaritans (Luke_9:54).   They fought for top positions (Mark 10:35-39).  They wanted to kick out people who were casting out demons in Jesus name but were not in their group (Mark 9:38). Yet Jesus saw something loud and powerful about them.  In the end, he transformed John into an Apostle of LOVE and tenderness, who referred to himself as the beloved disciple.

-           Mathew as we saw on message VIII of this series was a despised tax collector who cheated people out of their money and betrayed his own people by working for Rome.

-           Simon the zealot. He was part of a group of Jewish extremists organized to overthrow Rome by force if necessary.

-           Thomas a skeptic who only believed after you produced hard evidence.  He said he would not believe unless he saw the resurrected Lord and his pierced hands.

-           Judas Iscariot who was so clever with money matters that he was assigned the group’s purse. He stole from the purse and later betrayed Jesus and committed suicide afterwards.

-           Andrew who introduced his brother Peter to Jesus and we do not hear about him after Christ is crucified.

-           James son of Alphaeus. He seems to have been known mostly for what his parent Alphaeus did.

The others were Phillip, Bartholomew and Thaddaeus

3) Those who persecuted him

You need the mountain experience because down the mountain you face persecutors and people who press for solutions. How blessed to face your persecutors on your way from the mountain of prayer. Jesus met the law experts and Pharisees who hated him and wished him dead. They disliked him because he reproved them and exposed their hypocrisy. Also, they hated him because he won the hearts of the people and dented their influence.  Is it not typical of wrong doers that they often would rather remove the people that reprove them than forsake their wrongdoing? They will rather destroy the mirror than sorting their faces out.  However the more the truth is suppressed, the more it comes out.  The more they hated him the more people valued him and even followed him wherever he went even to his places of rest. 

Some experts from Jerusalem wanted to discredit his work/ dissuade people from following by alleging he cast out demons through Beelzebub. 

-           He gave a lesson. If Beelzebub house stands, how is that possible if it is divided? A divided house cannot stand.

-           He gave an explanation. The only way he was able to ransack Beelzebub’s house and drive out his demons was that he had power over the head of the house and bound him first.

-          He gave a warning. Do not attribute the things of the Holy Spirit to demons. Doing so is an unpardonable sin.

4) Those protective of him

They could not trust Jesus to make sound decisions for himself without their help. How often do we want to help him with handling our life situations and holding our future?  To them he was outside his normal mind and needed to be rescued from endangering his own life. They heard reports that he was not resting and was not even finding room to eat (Mark 3:20, 21). So either out of care or reproach they stood outside the house and send word to summon him. They wanted to monopolize him as their close relation but he taught that he was for all who did God’s will.

Jesus response that he saw people who did God’s will as his family, provide the lesson of the extent to which disciple makers should value their relationship with disciples.  Another lesson is that those serious with disciple making can easily bear with inconveniences in the prosecution of it. They are prepared to make sacrifices to grab opportunities to do what is good.

Message by Dr. Kurai Chitima.

Faith Ministries – Johannesburg Faith Life Center.

Ground and First Floors Sunset Bay Building,

204B Bram Fischer drive,

Randburg, Johannesburg, South Africa