Monday Morning Coffee with Mark

Killing Sin

July 11, 2022 Mark Roberts Season 2 Episode 28
Monday Morning Coffee with Mark
Killing Sin
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Welcome to the Westside church’s special Monday Morning Coffee podcast with Mark Roberts. Mark is a disciple, a husband, father and grand dad, as well as a certified coffee geek, fan of CS Lewis’ writings and he loves his big red Jeep. He’s also the preacher for Westside church.

Speaker 1:

Hello, and welcome to the Westside churches special Monday Morning Coffee podcast on this podcast, our preacher Mark Roberts will help you get your week started right. With look back at yesterday's sermon so that we can think through it further and better work the applications into our daily lives. Mark will then look forward into this week's Bible reading so that we can know what to expect and watch for. And, he may have some extra bonus thoughts from time to time. So grab a cup of coffee as we start the week together on Monday Morning Coffee with Mark.

Speaker 2:

Good morning. Good morning. And welcome to the Monday morning coffee podcast from Monday, July the 11th I'm mark and I am home. It is great to be back in the good old us of a have been gone the last couple of weeks. Wonderful, wonderful trip to the British Isles. A whole bunch of really great people went with D and I on this incredible 12 day cruise, we had a tremendous time saw everything, did everything. It was amazing, and I am very glad to be home with you today. And I have for the first time in a couple of weeks, all kinds of sermon, outline notes, spread out in front of me. I'm holding a great cup of coffee. I've got my Bible open. I got my Bible reading schedule because I get to talk with you about daily Bible reading. And I get to talk with you about what I preach yesterday at Westside. Wow. Don't like to be gone, was gone two Sundays in a row. That's a very rare thing for me. And it just felt amazing to be back in the pulpit where I belong yesterday. And I'm still thinking about all the good things that happened on that trip, but looking forward to a very special week here at west side, particularly because we have a special guest on Wednesday night as we continue in our summer series. And already I'm thinking about our youth lectures at the end of this month and how important that's going to be. Romans is heating up. It is happening. Let's get started Yesterday morning in the 10 40 hour. I preached a sermon called killing sin. It treats a subject that I think sometimes we just don't talk nearly enough about, and that is about Christians triumphing over sin instead of giving into sin and particularly accepting sin in our lives. Oh, everybody does you do? I do. We're all just sin. So this is just an inevitable part of our existence. No, the Bible urges us to triumph over sin and Colosians three is an outstanding place to think about that because Colosians three, five says, put these things to death, kill it, kill it, no room for it anymore in your life. And I outlined some ideas from Colosians that will help us in that regard, not falling for gimmicks that's in chapter two, a big part of Colosians is talking about pseudo spiritual tactics and techniques that don't really help us. Then of course, from there, we need to think about our identity in Christ. There's new creatures in Christ. Colosians three, one to four. We need to decide that it can be done. Colosians three verse five. Paul thinks it can be done. He says to put these things to death, then we don't want to coddle sin. Paul does not use euphemisms or cute little names to try to pretend that sin isn't as bad as it is. And then finally from Colossians three, verse six, we need to realize what sin does. It brings the wrath of God. It brings the judgment of God. And as I'm looking at my sermon outline, I realized that I just finally like Paul does in Philippians. Paul uses finally twice in Philippians, I guess I'll have to do the same thing. Cuz when I said finally a minute ago, I didn't mean finally I had 6.6 points. Wow. And that final point then is that we need to practice righteousness and right actions. We can push sin out of our lives when we are determined to do what is right. I hope those ideas from Colossians help you, as you are thinking about mortifying or killing sin in your life. If I'm gonna give an extra thought here for the podcast, I'm just gonna say something here about a common phrase that I hear from time to time in our praying. Sometimes you'll hear someone say something to the effect of Lord. We know we sin so often or Lord we sin every day or Lord. We so often fall short. And I think there, there may be some good things in that that may be a confession of humility that may be recognizing our weakness. I don't know. Maybe it's a reality for the person who is doing some praying, but it's hard to reconcile that kind of thinking. I just sent all the time with what Paul says about put these things to death. As I said Sunday, we don't wanna practice sin management. We want to practice sin termination. And I'll conclude that from first John chapter two, you just can't use every verse in a sermon, particularly when you have six points. But first John chapter two says this, I'm sorry. This is first John three beginning in verse four. Everyone who makes a practice of sending practices, lawlessness and his lawlessness. And you know that he appeared in order to take away sins. And in him, there is no sin, no one who abides in him keeps on sinning. No one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him little children. Let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous as he is righteous. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God makes a practice of sin for God's cides in him. And he cannot keep on sin because he is been born of God. And by this, it is evident who are the children of God and who are the children of the devil? Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother. There are a number of other passages that we could bring to bear on that subject. I love that passage first, John, we just don't want to give up and give in. We are not going to keep on sinning. We are not going to practice sinning. Instead. We want to kill it. I hope that sermon challenges you. It challenges me and I hope that we can move forward to kill sin. And as we're doing that, a great place that will help us with that is the book of Romans grab a daily Bible reading schedule. And let's think about Roman This week in our daily Bible reading, we are pushing into the heart of Romans, Romans chapter three, chapter four and a little bit of chapter five is where we are. Monday's reading is Romans three versus nine to 20. This is not a long section, but in many ways, this is it. This is the climax where Paul brings everyone to their knees, Jew and Gentile. You are all the same. And where Paul starts with all the same is not. You all mean well or you all are really nice or you all have puppy dogs and we can share in that kind of wonderful dogness and all that goes. No, no, no. We are all the same. Paul says we're all centers. Romans three verse nine. What then are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For, we have already charged that all Jews and Greeks are under sin. When I preached on reading Romans and we talked about the city of Roman, what it would be like to be a Christian there and what the church was like there that's the message of June. The 19th had to preach that before I went on this protracted vacation, you may wanna go back and refresh your memory about that sermon. We talked in that sermon about the key idea in Romans is unity because everybody is the same. And I urge you to underline in your Bible expressions like all in both Jews and Greeks in verse 19, every mouth in the whole world in verse 22, all in verse 22 for there is no distinction. You get in the idea here. The idea of everyone being put together, no one is better off than anyone else. Jews have some advantages they haven't taken advantage of.'em Gentiles have done some things, right? Even without the law of God, but they still are sinners. No one does good all the time. Verse 12 all have turned aside together. They have become worthless. No one does good. The idea there of course is habitually doing good, continually doing good people do good things. You've done good things. I've done good things. We just don't do that all the time. One writer said that without a single exception, there is no human being of any shape, size or form from any culture or environment or age who has habitually produced a live characterized by an UND deviating commitment to righteousness. And that is exactly right. And that is the point that Paul is making here long quotation here from the old Testament, particularly from Isaiah 59, to bring everyone to conviction and to bring everyone to the point where they say, I am a sinner. This is Luke 18. I, if I can borrow from Luke where the public will not even raise his eyes to heaven and says, God, be merciful to me a sinner. What would cure church division faster than that? Paul knows it. And that's what he's bringing to the table. Verse 19, the law speaks so that every mouth may be stopped. This is a legal term, lots of legal ideas in the book of Romans. Roman is where the laws are being made. They talk legal, they know that kind of thing. And the idea here is that the law speaks and puts the accused in a condition where he or she has no defense. The judge looks over there and says, what do you wanna say? And you just shake your head. I, I, I got nothing to say. I, I am guilty. And I know that I am guilty for by works of law. No human being will be justified. We talked about what that word means. Justified made, right set, right? Pronounced righteous. Forgiven is how Paul will develop that idea further. No one is made right through their law, keeping where all in the same boat, Paul says we are all centers and he will develop that even further using the key verse in the book of Romans in our reading tomorrow, see you on Tuesday. It is Tuesday today. We're reading Romans chapter three versus 21 to 31, finishing this amazing and very, very powerful chapter. This really is in some ways, just kind of a fuller statement of what Paul made in Romans one 16 and 17, where he says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel. It's the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes Jew and Greek, because then at the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. As it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. Paul here, diagrams and deals with the way of faith, because there's two ways that a person can be right, can be justified, can be made, right? One of those would be on the basis of law. I always do. What's right. So I am right. That's how, of course that would work. However, if you ever do wrong, then you can't ever be right by law. It doesn't matter how many stop signs you stopped for. If you run one stop sign, you are guilty of breaking the law and stopping for every stop sign. From that point on won't change that you broke the law. So the only way for law breakers centers to be pronounced right made right, isn't, they're gonna do more right stuff. They'll have to what they'll have to be forgiven by God based on faith in Jesus Christ because of God's grace and mercy. And that is our reading today, Romans 3 21 to 31 details that very concept very explicitly and with great, great power notice that he says verse 22, the righteousness of God comes through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe for there's no distinction. There's that all there's that everybody we're all the same. We're all sin. Verse 23. That's the key verse in Romans. I think they' probably a number verses that could campaign for that title. But Romans 3 23 works just pretty well since Paul is leveling any distinction between Jew and Gentiles so that they will get along. Romans 3 23, does that in a fine, fine fashion. But as terrible as verse 23 is verse 24 comes right in and says you are justified by his grace as a gift. Of course it is a gift justification by law is an earned thing. It would be our achievement. This has to be a gift, the grace of God. But someone's going to say, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. And God can't just be handing out forgiveness like candy. That is not right. If a judge looks at a law breaker, looks at a murderer and says, you know what? I'm, I'm just forgiving you cuz I'm, I, I, I'm just good. I'm just a, a nice person. And, and I'm just gonna give you some grace and mercy here. So you just go free. We wouldn't approve of that. That would be strongly condemned as being completely unlawful and, and, and not right that isn't righteousness. How could God justify wicked people, Paul, that can't happen? Well, Paul says it can happen because he can be just, and the justifier verse 26 in Jesus Christ because Jesus Christ verse 25 has become the propitiation by his blood. The price for our sins has been paid in Christ. So the law has been satisfied. The penalty for law breaking has been paid. It's just that we don't have to pay it. Jesus pays it for us. And this is the idea of redemption verse 24. Somehow I'm backing up in my, my notes here today through the redemption that is in Christ, Jesus verse 24. Redemption is the idea of ransoming or buying someone out of. It is rooted in the idea of the Egyptians, holding the Israelite nation in slavery, in, and God rescued, redeemed saved them out of. And so Jesus is the propitiation I'm going forward. Now verse 25, I'm in the right direction. Propitiation is about appeasing the wrath of God. And that's gotten a lot of air time recently because people don't like the idea of the wrath of God. And some folks are trying to tear that out of the Bible and get rid of propitiation and get rid of the idea that God is angry at sin and angry at sinners, but you can't get there from here. Not if you take the Bible seriously, God's rap member. Chapter one is expressed against all ungodliness. And that is what needs to be propitiated. That's a mouthful to say, and it is done in Jesus Christ. Jesus turns away the wrath of God. And who does he do that for? He does that verse 28, for those who trust in Jesus, not those who trust in themselves and their ability to be right and keep the law, know those who trust in Jesus and look how he finishes 29, 30, 31 that's for everybody. That's not just for Jews. He, God is not just the God verse 29 of the Jews. Is he not also the God of the Gentiles? Yes he is. And God will justify the uncircumcised and the circumcised by faith in Jesus Christ, no place, maybe in Romans do these big themes that Paul is working, come together quite like this. Maybe we do well to try to think about sitting in the assembly in the book of Romans is being read what a quiet would fall over the congregation. Maybe some are weeping as they think about their sins and what Jesus has done for them. Maybe a brother gets up and crosses the aisle and hugs a Gentile brother or a Gentile gets up and crosses the aisle and hugs a Jewish brother and says, thanks. Be to God for Jesus. We can be one in Jesus. Jesus is who we need to be focusing on. Not our difference is we need to focus on how we all are the same. We're all sinners and we all need Jesus. We need Jesus to save us. Paul, tell us how Jesus does that. That's our subject in tomorrow's daily Bible reading Romans chapter four, CU on Wednesday, welcome to Wednesday, Romans chapter four versus one to 12 is where we're reading today. But before we get into our daily Bible reading, let me just give you something to look forward to this evening. Tonight, we have a really special guest speaking for us in our summer series. Jess Jenkins will be preaching for us tonight and he is someone just very special to all of us at west side because Jess played such a decisive part in west side's history. When the congregation was just about two years old, Jess Jenkins came to west side in August of 1955 as the first full-time located preacher that Westside ever had. Those were some tumultuous years and there were lots of things going on nationwide as there was some innovations and a hypotheses happening just really helped out as he taught the truth with courage and boldness and with love for God and for God's people and for God's word. And that helped west side stay the course and remain a sound congregation just preached for four years, a little more than four years at west side. And it is always a joy to welcome him back. Someone has said we stand on the shoulders of giants. And as I look back at the history of west side and the men who have served as elders and the men who have served as preachers and the women who have been such a vital part of this congregation and teaching in Bible classes and caring and helping, and just how so many people have done so much to make west side such a special, special place. It is a joy to be a part of the west side church because of what others have done. Others who have gone on before. And Jess Jenkins is a big part of that. And I know you'll be interested in what he has to say this evening from the Bible. And I know that you'll give him the warm welcome that we always extend to him. I am looking forward to seeing brother Jess tonight, but before we get to services, we'll be reading in our Bible. At least I'm expecting that most of us do our daily vibrating. Maybe over that morning, cup of coffee, I'm holding. Ooh, just a little bit of coffee left here. Maybe, maybe some of you do daily vibrating for you go to bed. That's not real productive for me. By the time I get there, I'm not able to be sharp enough to really think through the text the way I want to. So I'm doing this pretty early in the day. Hope you are too. Let's do it. Romans chapter four versus one to 12 is our reading for today. And this is the place where Paul will talk about the righteousness that is obtained by faith. That means forgiveness being pronounced, right, set right by God. This is the way of faith. And Paul wants to say, this is not something new. This is how Abraham was made, right? This is how Abraham was counted, righteous or justified or forgiven. I, I, I like that term forgiven. I think that simplifies some things down and takes some of the mystery out of this. Sometimes you hear imputed righteousness and that sounds fuzzy and theological and difficult. No, it's not. It just means to be forgiven. And you'll see in our reading today, both with Abraham and the example of David that this expression counted righteous or counted to him as righteousness. And then the idea of forgiven those ideas are just used interchangeably by Paul. They're all going in the same direction. So Paul begins with Abraham's story versus one to five. Watch how Paul argues from scripture and use the scripture to back up what he is saying. I love, love, love that. And I think it is important to note, verse three, that Abraham believed God, he didn't just believe what God said. He believed God, he trusted God. There is relationship there. Then he goes to David's case in verse six, seven and eight Abraham's case agrees with David's. He was justified like David was get verse seven, bless it are those whose law deeds are forgiven. There it is. There it is to be counted, righteous, to have righteousness imputed to you. If that's what your translation says is what it is to be forgiven blessed. Verse eight is the man against who whom the Lord will not count his sin. Now, verse nine, is this blessing then only for the circumcised or also for the uncircumcised, is this for everybody? That's our theme. No, it is for everybody, not just for the circumcised. Paul says, because Abraham was counted righteous before the sign of circumcision. Thus Abraham can be the father of all who believe, look at that verse 11 father of all, not just Jews, not just circumcised folks know anybody can be a child of Abraham who will believe who will trust in God. And I am gonna just, yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and just add this in here. Does any of this nullify baptism because pretty regularly somebody will operate outta Romans four to try to do precisely that. And I should say that Romans four absolutely would nullify baptism. If baptism were a work designed to earn salvation, if baptism were the kind of thing that we did so that we could say, look at me, God, look how righteous I am. I am doing everything right. And so you have to save me. You have to count me right, because I am right. But of course, baptism is the furthest thing from that. Baptism is the most public announcement possible that I am not right and that I am not doing everything right. If honestly, sometimes I get a little frustrated about this discussion. We have to deal with this and I understand why we have to deal with this. And I will deal with this in the pulpit. And I have dealt with this in the pulpit. In fact, fairly recently, I've talked about some of these kinds of ideas as we're talking about Galatians. And I think sometimes maybe we kind of make baptism into some kind of work that punches our ticket to heaven, or that earns God's affirmation in, in the smile of heaven. Because look at me, I did this big thing. We need to be careful about all of that, but I'll tell you as the guy who stands in the baptistry with an awful lot of folks, I don't see a lot of arrogance there. When people come up out of that water, they are thankful to God. They are thankful to Jesus Christ. They are painfully aware that they are to center. That's why they're standing in the water. It is not a work of righteousness in the sense that I'm earning or meriting anything. And there is just a huge difference between works that are designed to merit, salvation and being obedient to God. The obedience of the faith. Paul talks about that in Galatians Paul's stuff here is about a system of law keeping that requires perfect law, keeping where a person can never fail. Those kinds of works exclude grace because they don't need grace. They have earned salvation. They're justified based on I perfect record, but that kind of discussion never excludes works of obedience works that accept grace. And we see that in Abraham's life. He is obedient all the time. Did that earn him something? No. It demonstrated his trust in God who had forgiven him of his sins. So don't really wanna talk about that at great length. Particularly since in Romans chapter six, I'm going to talk about baptism at great length because Paul talks about baptism at great length. People try to work out a Romans four. And sometimes I just wanna say, could you, can you just turn over two chapters, watch this. Paul Paul Paul tell you about baptism and how important it is. So we'll do more on baptism. When we get to Roman six tomorrow, we're gonna do more in Romans chapter four versus 13 to 25. We'll finish the chapter. I will talk to a few further, oh, I need another cup of coffee. Romans chapter four versus 13 to 25. See you on Thursday. It is Thursday. We are finishing Romans chapter four. We will start that reading in verse 13, for the promise to Abraham and his offspring, that he would be the heir of the world did not come through the law, but through the righteousness of faith, Paul, once again demonstrates his ability to anticipate the objections in his audience, someone in that Roman church, listening to this epistle being read, maybe doesn't have the tears in his eyes that we talked about the other day move to embrace a Gentile brother, but is saying, okay. Okay, Paul? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Righteousness by faith. Abraham justified by his faith in God. Okay. Okay. But you know, the law has come and that changes everything. Everything is different. Now that we have the law of Moses and we need to keep the law of Moses. Paul says no verse 14. If it is to the adherence of the law who are to be the heirs, then faith is null and the promise is void. It can't be the law way because the law works Rath verse 15 law doesn't save. It just helps you see that you have violated the law. It points out those violations of the law, the law can't save. So if the promises to Abraham are based on the law, Moses and keeping the law, Paul says in verse 16, then we would all be hopeless because we're all centers. We haven't kept the law. And that wouldn't be universal because the law of Moses is only for Jews. So it can't be verse 16 based on law, the promise has to rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring. In some ways, Abraham is the perfect example that Paul needs here, because get ready for this. Abraham, Abraham was a Gentile. He was, he becomes the first Israelite, if you will, through the covenant of circumcision and the promises of God, but where did he start? He started as, as a Gentile. There was no such thing as Jews. He begins the whole thing. He becomes an Israeli, but he is a Gentile who becomes the father of all Jews through faith. That's what Paul needs to press here. So verse 17, he now quotes Genesis 17. Abraham had to believe in two special characteristics of God that he gives life to the dad. And Abraham believed that particularly with Isaac's birth and that God can call the things that are not as if they are the father of many nations. I have made the already a done deal. Abraham believed that as if it had already happened. Let me close. I don't think this is a hard section for us. Let me just close with an excellent, excellent thought. One scholar said as Paul makes clear in his writing to the Corinthians Jews have no reason to celebrate with religious pride, their superiority over the Gentile, nor do Gentiles have reason to VO their intellectual virtues over the Jews. The crucified Messiah makes all one, the cross renders human religious or cultural accomplishments. Nolan void is any measure of human worth. God graciously gives the new covenant in Jesus Christ to all alike. Thus all alike may respond in grateful and obedient faith to the offer of life and a new covenant community. We are all, we are all the same. We are all sin, Romans three, and we are all saved. If we're going to be saved the same way, the way that Abraham was saved, the way of faith that's Romans four. See you tomorrow. Friday will start Romans chapter five, bring coffee. I'll see you in the morning. Welcome to Friday, Romans chapter five versus one to nine. As our reading for today, I really, really like this opening section of chapter five, until someone asks me it's purpose in the book of Romans, it's a little hard to get a handle on exactly where Paul is with this material. It sometimes seems almost like a little bit of a digression. Some people have really sat down in chapter five and build a lot of theology out of this and a bunch of that ends up in a wrong direction. So that's probably not a great idea. I think this is a bridge section as Paul continues to develop these ideas that were right there at the end of chapter four in chapter four, our reading yesterday and verses 23, 24 and 25, he explains how Abraham's faith is applicable to us. And particularly some of the key terms in verse 24 are terms like righteousness and delivered and death and justification, justification, verse 25. He was delivered up for our trespasses and race for our justification. Paul now makes a little tangent here, I think on the idea of justification because he wants to talk more about how we are all the same. We're all one. I keep flogging that theme because it is the main theme of Romans and we are all the same and he will work that in Romans five, a great deal, but for a moment or two here, he talks about how that salvation gives us great hope and great joy. And that's our reading for today. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, there's our keyword justified. We have peace with God, not just the Jews. No, we have peace with God through the Lord, Jesus Christ. And he even talks then about how we have obtained access by faith. Verse two, into this grace. This gives us hope. Roman's five, two, and it even helps us survive troubling times versus three and four. And he talks about character and endurance and hope. And that hope doesn't disappoint because we have verse five, the holy spirit poured out into our hearts. That may be a reference to the gift of the holy spirit from act two and verse 38. That relationship that we have with God through the holy spirit. And of course, certainly that would reference the holy Spirit's favorite tool. The word of God, how do we know that Christ verse six died for the ungodly because the holy spirit tells us through the scripture. So we look to what God has done for us. Verse eight. We can know the love of God by the established fact of the cross for Paul assurance is never based on how you feel. It's based on the facts of what God has done. And he really, as we close that down to verse nine, Paul is really making a very rabbinical style argument. Jesus does this often in the gospels and it is the heavy to light argument. If God can do this really hard thing, if God can lift this really, really heavy weight, then obviously God can do the easy thing. God can easily lift a very lightweight. So if God could reconcile us when we are sinners, then keeping us save, oh, well that, that's just nothing. If God can save us when we are his enemies, keeping us save. Now that we are friends now that we are right with God, why that's that? That's the easy part God's done already. What's hard. And he can continue to keep us saved. That's nothing for God. Lots of hope in Romans five, lots to encourage us in Romans chapter five. And that'll set us up for our reading next week, as Paul developed some ideas about how that has been accomplished through the work of one person, Jesus, the Christ he'll use a special example of one man, affecting everyone to parallel the work of what one person Jesus did that affects everyone. But we'll dive into that on Monday Until then. Thank you for listening. If you're liking the Monday morning coffee podcast, it would be great if you would follow or subscribe to the podcast so that you get it automatically and regularly, and especially we would appreciate it. If you would give a review of the podcast on iTunes or whatever app you listen on, maybe the thing to do the most. If you're trying to help the podcast, get to more folks is to share it on social. Tell somebody about it, encourage others to listen to it. So until next time, may your coffee be delightful. I hope your Friday is wonderful and I hope the Lord will be with you today, all day I'm home. And I will see you Sunday at the west side church of Christ, and I'm ready to be with you on Monday as we read the word of God together. And talk about that sermon Sunday, I'll see you on Monday with a cup of coffee.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for listening to the Westside church of Christ podcast. Monday morning coffee with Mark. For more information about west side, you can connect with us through our website, just christians.com and our Facebook page. Our music is from upbeat dot IO that's upbeat with two P'S, U PP B E AT, where creators can get free music. Please share our podcast with us. And we look to seeing you again with a cup of coffee, of course, on next Monday,

Sermon Notes
Monday Romans 3:9-20
Tuesday Romans 3:21-31
Summer Series-Jess Jenkins- Objectives of the Devil
Wednesday Romans 4:1-12
Thursday Romans 4:13-25
Friday 5:1-9