I Believe in Hope

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.

Mark.

Good morning. Good morning. Welcome to the Monday morning coffee podcast for Monday, August the first I'm mark. I've got my Bible. I've got some notes from yesterday's sermon. I've got a cup of coffee and mostly I'm still just basking in the glow of the youth lectures. What a tremendous weekend it was at west side. Let's see if we can gather up a little bit of that and push it into this Monday. Start the week in the best way. Mostly let's talk about daily vow. Reading in the book of Romans get started Yesterday. I got to conclude the youth lectures by preaching on hope. I believe in hope. That's a big theme in my life right now. Something I'm going to use in my gospel meeting work this fall. I'm just loving that. I think it's a huge idea. And I think it's a missing idea. All of that said as much as I want to talk more about that sermon, I was listening to the podcast last week with Dina. It does me good to go back and listen to it. As I think about what I said on the podcast to get ready for the Tuesday night zoom Bible study and the Wednesday night Bible talk, and this guy was going on and on and on and on and on about the sermon that he preached on Sunday, which we had all just heard. So here it was Monday morning and this guy couldn't stop talking about the sermon that we had all just heard. And finally I said to D this is way too much sermon notes. And I think that's just exactly right. I'm talking too much about the sermon. You just heard the sermon. You don't need me to Rere it. You just need maybe one extra thought or a note or two, and I need to move on. So that's exactly what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna give you one more thought on hope. And then we're going to daily Bible reading. I'm gonna read from Matthew chapter 12 and verse 17. This speaks of Jesus. This was to fulfill what was spoken of by the prophet. Isaiah behold, my servant, whom I have chosen my beloved with whom my soul is well pleased. I will put my spirit upon him and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles. He will not quarrel or cry out nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets, a bruise read. He will not break. And a smoldering Wiki will not quench until he brings justice to victory. And in his name, the Gentiles will hope in his name. The Gentiles will hope. What I hope out of yesterday's sermon is that you have determined. And I have determined that we will never make our hope depend upon anything or anyone or any event, but instead we will hope in the Lord. Our hope is in Jesus and in what he is doing in our lives, in his name, the Gentiles will hope Matthew 1221. There's your verse for the day. There's your verse to start the week. There's your verse. That will fuel more hope as we begin the week together. Let's get our Bibles now over to the book of Romans, cuz it's time to talk about daily Bible reading in the book of Romans On Monday, we will read from Romans chapter nine versus 10 to 21. Let's see if we can pick up the threads of where Paul is in Romans here. As we get Bible reading underway for the week, remember out of chapter eight, Paul has said, who will separate us from the love of God? Well, some Gentiles might have looked over at their Jewish brethren and said, apparently a bunch of you, Jews are being separated from the love of God because the Jews were not in general accepting Christ and becoming Christians. What's the deal with that. And does that mean Gentiles are superior to Jews after all they're accepting Jesus, the Jews over there mostly are rejecting him. So how do we work? Gentile and Jew relationships. When you have those kinds of attitudes going on in the church, remember the book of Romans is about unity and this needs to be dealt with if this church is going to be United. So Paul begins with a cry of anguish. We read some of this last week, beginning in chapter nine. Now we're down in Romans chapter nine, beginning in about verse 10, where Paul starts talking about God's sovereign choices that God does things his way. And he gets to do things his way because he is God. And we are not part of the example here of Isaac. And ISEL however makes clear that there has always been a distinction in the Israel of promise and biological Israel and the Jews know that it is not strictly based on birth. It cannot be or Ishmail would be the child of promise. And if someone is saying, I think maybe this is unfair. Verse 14, there Paul is going to remind them that there are not two groups before the Lord, the innocent and the guilty there's only one group. Everybody is guilty. So the point of the story, verse 15 and the quote from Exodus 33 19, is that no one can see God and live, but God can be merciful and let you see his glory. The point is God has the right to be merciful. We think everybody deserves mercy. And so God has to justify when he's not merciful. Paul says, Hey, wait a minute. Nobody deserves mercy. The real issue is how can God rationalize ever being merciful to anyone? And that leads into the discussion of Pharaoh in verse 17. And some of that starts to make us really uncomfortable. The idea here, of course, again, is the sovereignty of God. God's right to choose. Not everything is being covered in Paul's use of this illustration. He's not talking about a man's response to God's work. All Paul wants to say is that God can choose. And if you're uncomfortable with this and I would admit, yeah, some of this makes me uncomfortable. Please remember God never hardens the righteous you don't ever read in scripture. If somebody wanting to do right. And God harden him to do evil. Pharaoh was wicked. And what God did was made him to serve his purposes. Even in his wickedness, Moses was obedient and God used him to serve his purposes in his obedience. If you want a choice, there's your choice. Choose to be righteous and God will use you in your righteousness. But I can't guarantee you that if you decide to be wicked, that God won't use you in your wickedness. The point is you can't beat God, God always gets his way. Maybe a nicer way of saying that is that God's will, is always going to be done. And that is exactly where that goes beginning in verse 20 and 21, God is the Potter and he will make of the clay what he chooses to make of the clay. And we don't like that. We don't like God being sovereign. We wanna have control over our own destiny, but Paul is clear. We do not. God gets to do as God wants to do more on this tomorrow as we continue reading Romans nine, and we continue to think about God's actions toward the Jews who don't believe and the Gentiles who did come to believe, see you tomorrow on Tuesday will pick up the reading in Romans 9 22. Welcome to Tuesday today we finish Romans chapter nine, we read verses 22 to 33. It's not a long reading. It's not a difficult reading. Paul begins this with quotations, especially from Jose where he says, no one should be surprised about any of this. This is exactly how the prophet said things would go. They spoke of those who would reject God. Maybe the key here for us though is in the end of the chapter, verse 30, what shall we say? Then the Gentiles who didn't pursue righteousness have obtained it here. Paul really gets down to the nuts and bolts of things. How do the Gentiles get there? When the Jews didn't? Well, verse 31, Israel who pursued the law that would lead to righteousness. Didn't succeed in reaching that law. So the Israelites aren't there, the Jews are not where they ought to be. Why not verse 32? They did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based upon works and they have stumbled over the stumbling stone, I cannot emphasize enough how important this is for you and me in our reading. It seems terribly ironic that pagan Gentiles got it. And scriptural Jews who knew their Bible missed it. How could that happen? Of course, this was a huge question in Paul's day. In many ways, it's only a minor curiosity for us because we really do not expect Jewish believers. However, in Paul's day, it is a working question. And what Paul says is that Israel's non-faith is accounted for because they went about pursuing God in the wrong way. They were out looking for God and they tripped right over him. Paul says, because they were looking in the wrong way. Notice they missed it for two reasons. Verse 32. They did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based upon works the works way instead of trusting in God's grace and mercy. Wow. What an implication for you and me? We are part of a group that is very much into obedience and talks a lot about careful obedience. I'm the guy that does that. I push that. I talk about that in the pulpit, in the Bible classes, because the Bible talks about that. We do wanna be careful in our obedience, but not to the place where we depend upon ourselves. That's the issue here. The Jews decided they could do it. They could get there. I'm gonna keep this law. I'm gonna get it right. And I'm gonna cross every T and I'm gonna dot every eye. Look at me. I'm so righteous. Remember the Pharisee in Luke 18, who appraises God of his amazing moral qualities rather than really praying and confessing that he is a center as the public does. In a nutshell, Luke 18 sums up what Paul is talking about here in Romans nine. And you and I need to think very seriously about this. Why am I being obedient? Why was I baptized? Why do I go to church? Why am I reading my Bible and listening to this podcast? Because I'm going to earn God's favor because I'm going to impress God with how amazingly righteous I am. If that's the case, you're gonna trip over God. You're gonna make the same mistake. The Jews made. You're gonna stumble over the stone of stumbling verse 33. And of course that stone of stumbling is Jesus Christ. They stumbled over him. They did not accept Jesus verse 32. They didn't pursue it by faith, but as if it were based upon works. And then two, they stumbled over the stumbling stone, a works based righteousness and a failure to accept Jesus, the Messiah. They refuse to pursue God by faith to receive forgiveness and acknowledge their dependence and sinfulness. And in humility, say, I need the Lord. And then when Jesus came and said, you need God and your works way, isn't gonna get you there. They said, we don't need you either. Where am I in my own righteousness? Where am I with Jesus? Do I think I need Jesus? That's where Romans nine takes us today. These are great questions for us to consider hope. You'll join us on zoom on Tuesday evening. We'll work with that. Some more. Talk about that. Some more. I think Romans nine has big implications for people who are careful with the word of God. That's me. And that's you see tomorrow? We'll talk more about Jews and Gentiles. Why Gentiles are receiving Jesus and Jews are not. We'll talk about that in Romans 10. See you tomorrow. It is Wednesday. And today we read Romans 10 versus one to 10. And tonight in our summer series, we will hear from boy king Boyd will be preaching on about justness what a challenge in our materialistic age. Boyd is an outstanding song leader. He's led singing for us in several of our events, youth lectures, and our singing, our annual winter singing. But I'm excited to hear Boyd preach the gospel and to talk about covetousness and how the devil uses that to undermine our faith. Before we get to services though, tonight, how about we think about Romans 10. Paul is continuing here to deal with why Jews reject Jesus as their Messiah. And there is a lot of quotations here in chapter 10 and that kind of throws people sometimes, maybe because they're not entirely familiar with the context of the quotes that Paul is using. And some of this is the way that Jewish rabbis would have discussed and debated various issues in Paul's day. We are not quite as familiar with that. And so it gives us a little bit of a hard time as we're trying to track all of that out. Can you imagine someone from, oh, I don't know, say the time before the civil war during the Lincoln Douglas debates, when those candidates spoke for long periods of time, very substantively and dealt with the issues. Can you imagine someone like that being transported into today and hearing political debate where there's really not a whole lot, much more than just a two minute sound bite. That's a different way of handling issues. Isn't it? Well, this rabbinical kind of arguing that Paul is doing here would be familiar to his readers, but it is not always as familiar to us. Just remember that Paul is saying that Jews missed God for two reasons. They sought righteousness in the wrong way and they stumbled over Jesus. And so verse three, he continues 10, three being ignorant of the righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own. They didn't submit to God's righteousness. They needed to accept the forgiveness of their sins by grace. They needed to depend upon God. Instead of trying to merit something by superhuman effort, you don't need superhuman effort. You don't have to ascend up into heaven or go down into the Abbe versus six and seven. You don't have to impress God with how awesomely amazing you are and you do all of these great works. And finally God says, we just have to have him on our team. That's not how this works, but the Jews tried it and it won't get you close to God. It won't build into you the kind of relationship with God that we want to have. And so in verse eight, he talks about how Moses was emphasizing the need to submit to God out of love over and over again. And that is a huge part by the way of the book of Deuteronomy. No, you don't have to do crazy stuff you believe, and you can trust in the Lord in your heart, verse 10, confess with your mouth. You can be saved. It's about depending upon God, not what you do. And really the stress in verses nine and 10 is not so much how to be saved. I think you can certainly understand some of the parts of salvation here and what we do in response to God's grace and mercy from that. But the idea is that the salvation that, that God's salvation comes to the one who trust, not the one who earns the contrast here is not faith versus obedience. Real faith always leads to grateful rejoicing obedience. The contrast is faith versus earning these verses of course, then do not do away with the necessity of baptism. That is one of the most joyful acts. One of the most joyful responses to God that a person can possibly be involved in, but it doesn't earn you anything. And people who think that baptism is about earning need to read Romans tan. You can't be saved by earning. That's not how it works. The Jews tried it. It did not get them where they wanted to go. Let's think more about that from Romans 10 beginning, verse 11 on Thursday. See you tomorrow. We'll talk about Romans 10, 11 to 21 tomorrow. It is Thursday. We're almost done with the week. We're reading Romans channel 11 to 21. Really great section. Here we talk so much about the idea of all and everyone in the book of Romans. And guess what we have today? Yes. If you're underlining that in a certain color in your Bible, you better find that color pencil, because here it comes again. Verse 11, everyone who believes in him, verse 12, no distinction between Jew and Greek, verse 13, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved much emphasis here by Paul, that anybody and everybody can be saved. If you'll trust in God, you can be saved. It's not just for Jews. It's not just for Gentiles. It's for all. Then he starts talking about, well, Hey, how come if faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of God, verse 17, how come the Jews didn't believe is it? Because is it because it was too hard? It was too complicated. Is it because they hadn't heard what's going on here? Well, verse nine, verse 18. I ask, have they not heard? No. They've heard, heard the gospel. They have heard the gospel. Well, why didn't they believe the gospel? Maybe it was because verse 19, it's just too complicated. No, no, that's not it either. Paul says Gentiles, who weren't even looking for God verse 19 and 20, they found God Deuteronomy 33, 21 speaks of Gentiles coming in. What was the problem? If everybody can come in, if the gospel's been preached everywhere, if it's not so complicated that any, anybody can understand it, why didn't the Jews come in? Because verse 21, all day long, I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people. One writer said the Jews didn't lack revelation. They lack trust. God did everything. He could. He did all that was necessary. He sent preachers. They heard, they knew, but they refused to obey. The summary here is that in chapter nine, that the emphasis, what Paul keeps stressing is that God can choose. But in chapter 10, Paul says, God did everything. He could to convince Israel to choose him, but they would not all day long. I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people. Now, finally, we turned to Romans chapter 11, where Paul weaves all these threads together and makes a powerful point about Gentiles and Jews and faith. We'll start that discussion tomorrow in Romans chapter 11, see you Friday. It is Friday. And today we read Romans chapter 11 versus one to 10. Maybe it is fair to say that this material has application and relevance to today. Not because it details why everybody and anybody doesn't become a Christian, but it certainly helps us understand why some people don't accept Jesus for Christ. If you're going to depend upon yourself, if you think you can do it on your own, if you think you're just pretty righteous, think you very much. You aren't going to get there. You are not going to see the need for Jesus Christ with that kind of thinking. So Paul begins to sum up the case he's made in Romans nine and 10, by saying verse one, chapter 11, I asked then has God rejected his people? And I think a lot of Gentiles would say, yep. He most certainly has. God is done with those criminal old Jews. Paul's answer to that is mm, no, not so much. And you and I need to think about that. I think sometimes that's exactly how I feel. Yes, God has given up on the Jews. No, no, that's not the case. Because for example, Paul and the rest of Romans chapter 11 verse one says, you know what? I'm a Jew. God didn't give up on me. God has not rejected his people. Verse two, God has not cashed away. His people. The question is who are the people of God and that begins and opens up the idea of the REM net, the REM net. There's always a remnant left 7,000 verse four were left in Elijah day. Now two verse five, there is a remnant chosen by grace. Paul says the remnant is not identified by its achievements, but by grace, if it's by grace, it's no longer on the basis of works. Think about it. I might, if I was looking for the people of God, look for those Pharisees, they're hitting it. They're doing so much. They're working so hard. Oh, they seem to be so righteous. Actually Paul says the remnant will be those who respond to the grace of God. And some of this material has been dealt with in chapters three and chapter four. So we get, again, the idea of hardening verse seven and brother Robert Turner in his fine work on the book of Romans says, we conclude God, harden their hearts by requiring of them something they did not wish to do. Wow. That's a sharp point right there, because if I'm working and doing all these works of righteousness to be seen of men and God comes along and says, Hey, listen, don't be doing that. You don't need to be doing that. You just need to be trusting in me. You need to be humble. You need to admit your dependence and need for me. Then I might say, mm I, you know, that's really not for me. I'm just gonna keep doing my thing. And that is exactly of course what Jesus encountered in the Pharisees when he came here. In fact, in verses nine and 10, there is another quote by Paul here. He quotes from David and about this brother Turner says here, Paul shows that those who rejected the gospel were trapped in their own stubbornness. That's strong stuff that helps me think more clearly about why the Jews rejected the gospel, why they didn't want Jesus, why they didn't become Christians. They just lack the humility to turn to God in faith. They wanted God to turn to them and applaud. That will never fly. That's not gonna work. We'll get more of this in our reading. As we complete Romans chapter 11, hold on. As you're reading this to the dissension and that, that undercurrent of unhappiness that would've been in the Roman church causing division causing a lack of unity because the Gentiles are just a little suspicious of those Jewish Christians and those Jewish Christians are a little tired of being treated like somehow. They're second class citizens by those Gentile Christians. There's a lot going on here and Paul's gonna finish this up in chapter 11. We'll read that next week. So then thank you for listening. If you love the Monday morning coffee podcast, I hope that you will follow subscribe rate and give a review on iTunes or whatever app you're listening on. Best of all, tell somebody about the podcast. That's the best way to get people to listen is to say, I listen to this. It's really helpful. You should listen to it as well. So until next time, may your coffee be delightful? I hope your Friday is blessed and that the Lord is with you today. All day. I will see you bright and early on Monday morning with a cup of coffee.

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,