Having a Heart for God - The Undivided Heart

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.

Good morning. Good morning. Welcome to the Monday Morning Coffee podcast for Monday, February the 27th. I'm Mark and I have a big cup of coffee in my hands because it's gonna take a big cup of coffee to get covered. Everything that we want to talk about today from the sermon yesterday, part of our preaching theme for the year. Jose, all that's going with that. I have a lot to talk about. And as I'm talking about that, I'm thinking about this cup of coffee because this cup of coffee comes from cer. That's a company that makes coffee and then they super freeze dry it like eight zillion degrees below zero, and they ship you this little frozen ball of coffee and you just pour hot water on top of it and it makes a great cup of coffee. At least that's what they say. And I have some friends who really, really like it because it is so easy to make and there's not a lot of fiddly coffee gear and all of that. But I gotta tell you, I'm not so sure. I think it's a good cup of coffee, but it's not a great cup of coffee. I'm still thinking about that. The jury's still out over here, gonna drink this cup of coffee today. But just because it takes a little bit more time to make a cup of coffee, if it's great, isn't that kinda worth it? Isn't that not even kind of worth it? Isn't that totally worth it? Isn't it time to talk about our sermon yesterday and quit talking about coffee? The answer to that question is yes. Let's get started. So yesterday I preached on the heart and what it is to have a heart for God. Having a heart for God is our preaching theme for this year. It's something the elders selected and it has really been challenging to grapple with that. We use the term heart in so many different ways, and I think sometimes we really have a shallow approach to some of these ideas. But I want to get to the core of what it means and how to have a heart for God. And so yesterday, talking about deep commitment and loyalty to the Lord, talked about David soldiers a little bit. Really love this passage in Psalm. Psalms 86 verse 11, teach me your way. Oh Lord, that I may walk in your truth, unite my heart to fear your name. The problem of a divided heart of flicks. So many Christians. And one of the things that I want to add to what we talked about yesterday is that if we don't unite our heart, we're just going to multiply our problems. When you at the core level, what you are, what you choose, what you're doing, your character, who you are, when you aren't settled on your identity, when your heart is divided, then you don't know who you are, which means you don't know exactly how to act in every situation or what to think or what to value, what to prioritize. You kind of end up being like the chameleon who changes his colors so that he can fit in. And when he's on the bark of the tree, he's brown, and then he gets on some leaves and he's green. And you see that sometimes in chameleon Christians, they, they don't know who they are. They haven't united their heart, they haven't given God their whole heart. And when you live with a divided heart, it's gonna mess with your mind because it's complicated and difficult to know, am I green today or am I brown? It's complicated and difficult to be worrying about. Am I gonna be found out? Are people gonna find out that yesterday I was pretending to be this, I was brown, and now the green people are mad because I'm pretending to be green, but they know I'm really brown. It just makes a mess out of life. Unite your heart. Give God your whole heart. Remember Jesus said, blessed are the pur in heart. And that passage, as I said yesterday, isn't really talking so much about cleanliness, purity as it is talking about single minded focus. Unite your heart, give God your heart. Follow him wholeheartedly. And the book Ofa is an incredible place for us to be when we're talking about uniting the heart because that is the problem with the people of God. Thata addresses, let's think about daily Bible reading. Monday's reading is Jose the 10th chapter, the first six verse, Jose chapter 10 verses one to six. And here we start with vine imagery in verse one. And the idea is the more Israel prospers, the more verse two, they end up getting involved in sin because their heart isn't right. You see that in verse two, their heart is false. So there's going to be punishment for this. They're building altars, not altars to God, of course, and they're doing all kinds of things, but they're going to be destroyed because they're not serving the Lord. And then verse three really starts that pride theme again. And I have to admit that if someone had asked me about the book of Jose, I would've said, sure, I know about the book of Jose, but I don't think I knew about the book of Jose. I certainly didn't know about how much there was talk here about pride and arrogance, and here it is in verse three. Maybe the king here is Jehovah. We don't have any king. We don't need any king. Maybe they're just saying, we don't want to respond to earthly rulership. We're not gonna respond to the king and the capital I, I think maybe in some ways it fits better with thinking about this being God, but they utter empty words. And that may relate again to the people's relationship with God and maybe even again to the earthly king, to their relationship with society. We're gonna do what we want, when we want, however we want to do it. The result of all of this, verse five, is that the calf that was set up in Bethel that they are so proud of is going to become spoiled for the Assyrians when they come. Verse six, Shalmaneser is the great king there in verse six, and carry them away into captivity. And I wanna say a word about bethen there. Remember the calf was actually set up at Bethel. Beth is the word for house, and L is the Hebrew word for God, Beth L, not we run it all together Bethel, but it is Beth L, the house of God. But here the prophet calls it bethen and even is the word for iniquity, the word for wickedness. So the prophet takes a not very subtle swipe at the house of God. City of the house of God is the city. Now that just is the house of wickedness. The emphasis then as verse six concludes, is about the mourning that will follow when their idol is taken away into captivity. And somewhere in all of this, you have to be mindful of what happened in First Samuel four when the ark was taken in battle in Israel, mourn that the Ark of God was gone. Now they mourn that their idol is gone. What a change in the people of God. Let me give you one more note here. We don't get a lot of messianic stuff in the book of Jose. Um, there's not a lot of of Jesus references, but the idea of Israel being a vine in 10, one that is the background for Jesus, is saying in John 15, I am the true vine that's based on passages like this and passages like Isaiah five that portray Israel, the people of God as being a vine or being a vineyard vineyard. Jesus comes to say that he's the true Israel, and of course he can make us be part of the true Israel when we are part of his body. Finally, then, I guess I would say this, I, I think this cup of coffee's gonna turn out okay. Um, given that there wasn't a lot of work, practically no work pulling boiling water on top of something, a little capsule of coffee isn't much. Um, yeah, it turned out okay. I probably give it a strong bee and uh, yeah, gonna enjoy this. Hope you're gonna enjoy the rest of your Monday. I'll see you tomorrow as we continue in chapter 10 of the book of Jose. It is Tuesday and this is a huge reap What you sow passage, Jose Chapter 10 verses seven to 15 is our reading for today. And if you need figures of speech and metaphor to answer question four, they are everywhere in our reading today. The high places of even then the places of iniquity are going to be destroyed. And look there the expression fall on us, cover us and say to the hills, fall on us. That is the background in New Testament verses like Luke chapter 23 in Revelation chapter six. That judgment language in the Old Testament comes right out of the Old Testament, and that's where we should see these illusions being rooted in and why it's so helpful to read the Old Testament. Verse nine talks about gibe and that's the reference to Judges 20, the terrible event there in the tribe of Benjamin. Horrible sexual immorality, just terrible. And that leads to a civil war. And the tribe of Benjamin is nearly exterminated. So this is one of the lowest moments in Israelites history. And O Jose says, from those days on, it's just been downhill from there. So I will have to discipline them. Verse 10, there's double iniquity going on. Think about what are the two major sins Jose has been talking about. And then verse 11, if was a trained calf that loved to thrash. Now if you don't know farming practices and you see me here raising my hand, yeah, that's me, then you may not get the calf love to thrash. And I spared her neck and I'm gonna put her to the yoke. The idea here is that thrashing is very easy on a cow, very easy on an ox, uh, just stomping on the wheat and to cause it to separate from the chaff. But of course, plowing is very hard work. Note verse 12. It is the ray of hope and ray of light in everything that we are reading. And once again, it announces God's incredible grace. Verse 14 makes mention of shaman. That's probably shaman nazer. And we don't know where Beth Arbel is, house of Arrb. We do not know exactly about that battle. But if you read verse 14, you see atrocities are going to be committed and the Assyrians were famous for that. Please get fixed in your mind that when a prophet comes and says a serious coming, that was utterly terrifying in a way that that we struggle to have any kind of recognition of. If you do some Googling around on the internet and you want to go back and read about the history of the Assyrians and and see what kind of things that they did, your hair will stand on end in no time at all. They were famous, for example, for piling up a bunch of skulls by the city gate. So that all would know what Assyria can do. And I want to say this, that's one of the tamer things, the as Syrians would do so as Sirius bringing judgment. And that is just going to be dreadful for Israel. See you tomorrow will begin in chapter 11, one of the most amazing chapters in the book of Jose. Good morning. It's Wednesday morning. Maybe I shouldn't say good morning. I'm not sure when you're listening to the podcast. I think most of us are doing our daily Bible reading to start the day. So good morning, it's Wednesday and we're reading Isaiah chapter 11. This whole chapter is about restoration being possible because of God's love. Today we're reading the first seven verses in the image here is of a rebellious son and a loving father. This is the prodigal son right here, but God is begging the prodigal son to get out of the pigpen and come home. It is an incredible chapter of grace. And once again, we've talked a lot about this prevailing pervasive notion that God is just angry and wants to bring judgment. And chapter 11, just wrecks that thought, just just destroys that kind of thinking as God pleads with his child. When Israel was a child, I loved him. And out of Egypt, I called my son out of Egypt. I called my son, by the way, is quoted in Matthew chapter two, and is applied to Jesus once again. Jesus is seen as the perfectly obedient son, the perfect Israel, if you will, the people of God personified in Jesus. He is the perfect one. He is what these people are not. He is obedient to God. And God gets very personal here and just, just the whole passage burst with love. It was I verse three, who taught efrim to walk. What a common image that is. You see daddy holding the toddler's hand and helping the toddler to walk, and the toddler splats and daddy lovingly picks the child up and dust the kid off and says, Hey, you can do it. Let me help you. And holds a little tighter. And together they're walking and learning to walk, yet they did not know I healed them. Verse four, may shift imagery here, there's debate. This could be still more child parent metaphor. It could be changing over to the training of a farm animal. And then verse five, you get some clarity about what it means to go back to the land of Egypt. Not really gonna go to Egypt. Egypt is gonna lose the power struggle to asy. You're gonna go to E as Syria, that's gonna be. It's gonna be like Egypt, but it's not Egypt. Egypt, it's gonna be as Syria, not Egypt, literally. And the sword will rage against these cities. But you just get a strong sense of God's heartbreak that his people refuse him. They are bent verse seven, on turning away from me. And though they call out to the most high, he'll not raise them up at all. They're not calling out in genuine repentance are they? Or God would love to rescue them more on that in Thursday's reading. See tomorrow. Welcome to Thursday, and today we're reading Jose chapter 11, verse eight to chapter 12 in verse one. The chapter division is very difficult here, and it was hard to make the cut, particularly because it seems like maybe 11 and 12 verses 11 and 12 may go with 12, one that goes over into the next section, or it may be in, its a section entirely to itself. So we'll just have to do the best we can today reading Jose 11 verse eight down through chapter 12 in verse one. And we just start with such an emotional statement by God, ama and zaum. Verse eight are those cities that were destroyed with Somon gamara. And this passage just just pours out God's heart and he is grace. He does not verse nine, want to destroy them even in a book full of judgment language. God is not trying to bring his wrath to bear upon them. They deserve it, but he just keeps hoping they will turn to him. They're so much hope in these verses on God's part, but it certainly doesn't seem like the Israeli people are responding to the message of Jose in any fashion at all. But he has hoping verse 10, that he can call like a lion, the lion roars. That's a powerful sound announcing maybe the lion is announcing that I have food, I have killed my prey. Come all the lions, the pride of lions can gather there and and enjoy that. And I think about God at Sinai, the mountain quake and shaking and the people of God came to Mount Sinai. It was terrifying to be in his presence, but it was what they needed to be. Will they come verse 10, they shall go after the Lord and they'll come trembling. But there, there's just ideas here in verse 11 of their flightiness in, in how they, they, they go to Syria, they go to Egypt. We'll get some of this in chapter 12 in verse one. These political alliances that they keep wanting and now verse 12, th they're, they're just unfaithful. Ephram has surrounded me with lies, the house of Israel with deceit. Then this last bit of verse 12 is difficult. The e s v follows the Sep two agent translation. The SEP two agent is the Greek version of the Old Testament that was translated after the book of Malachi. Uh, after the book of Malachi was written. Time between the testaments is when the subagent was done, and the ESV follows that Judah still walks with God and is faithful to the holy one. However, the New American standard does not follow the Sep two agent. Instead, translating a little bit more along the lines of Judah is still playing fast and loose with the word of God. And that's probably a better translation. As much as I like my e s v given look at 12 two, which we're gonna read tomorrow. The Lord has an indictment against Judah. It doesn't seem like in this section, Judah is being called out for being faithful. It seems like it's probably more consistent to see as the New American standard translates that, that they are not serving God. This is a, this is a, a calling out. This is an admonition. This is a rebuke of both the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom. And then 12 one completes that efrim. That's always where Jose's main message is gonna land. He's mainly concerned about the nation of Israel. Efrim feeds on the wind. They pursue these alliances. They make a covenant with the Syria, then they're doing business with Egypt. They're going back and forth. Who's gonna help us out? We'll do business with anybody. We'll make a deal with anybody. We'll make a covenant with anybody except God. More on that tomorrow as we'll. Read chapter 12. Welcome to Friday. You've made it through another week. I would remind you that the West Side Preaching Conference is going on today. It actually started yesterday. And if you could be in prayer for the preachers as we study today and as we work together to try to be more effective heralds and the kingdom of God, it would, I would really appreciate that we have so many men that come this year. We have more than 30, and we have special, special instruction going on in how to teach some specific books of the Bible. Really would appreciate your prayers in that regard. Let's think then about Jose, the 12th chapter. Our reading really here, begins in chapter 12 in verse two. And we'll read all the way through the chapter again, Jose's main messages to the Israelite. That's where he really is landing, although he says something here about an indictment against Judah. And he starts by recalling Israel's history in the womb. Verse three, Jacob took his brother by the heel. And if you remember in Genesis chapter 25, when the twins were being born, he saw in Jacob, Jacob, Jacob grabs Esau by the heel. And that becomes, that becomes his name. He is named Jacob because that means supplanter or the the one that grabs. And it really has the idea of of being clever, of being a trickster. In fact, Esau will even say when he gets fooled, when he gets taken advantage of by his brother, he will say, I've been Jacob. I've been cheated. I've been deceived. I've been tricked by the one that, the grabber, the that's, that's who has tricked me here. And so the Lord changed his name. Remember when Jacob wrestled with God and God changes his name from Jacob to Israel? You're not gonna be the tricker anymore. You'll be the one that relies upon God. And now the Lord calls on him, calls on the people of Jacob, the people of Israel, to be what they should be. They should be God's people. And notice verse four, for the first time we get Bethel, not bethen, Bethel, the house of God. That's the place where Jacob worshiped God, covenanted with God. If you will bring me home again, I'm, I'm running from my brother. I'm gonna go try to find a wife with a, with the people who know the Lord with my relatives. But if you'll bring me back here, then I will serve you. Be in covenant relationship. Jacob has that great dream there with a ladder. And the angels going up and down to heaven. God's gonna be with him. God's gonna protect him. And so now calling all that history up, Jose, is be the people of God. Be what your forefather of the patriarch promise God that you would be. But the answer, unfortunately, verse seven is we're getting rich, being false and fake and we're not gonna change. Verse eight, I have found wealth for myself. And so I'm just gonna continue in iniquity and sin of every kind. Israel is not interested in serving God. So God says, I will make you dwell intense again. You know the Feast of Tabernacles, the Feast of Booze was a reenactment of the time in the wilderness. Everybody had to go outside and live in a tent. Orthodox Jews do that to this very day to remember the time in the wilderness. And so the Lord says, don't you remember your wilderness time's gonna be like that again. It's gonna be like that again. And then verses 10 to 14, they're, they're kind of broken and a little disjointed maybe to show God's distress at what's happening here. But the theme through this is the theme of prophets. Prophets who watch for the people, prophets who guard the people, prophets who call out sin. Verse 11, the sin that's going on in Gilead, um, prophets who watch over God's people. The prophet in verse 13 probably is Moses there. And so Moses being seen as a prophet, the one who gave them the word of God and who guarded them. But efram is not listening. They don't care. And so the Lord can do nothing else but repay him. Verse 14, for his disgraceful deeds. If you're not gonna be the people of God, then judgment has to follow that. Isiah chapter 12, and we'll pick these ideas up in Isaiah chapter 13 when we resume the reading ina on Monday. Thank you for listening to the podcast this week. If you like what you're hearing and it's helping you in your Bible reading, we would love for you to follow, subscribe, rate, and give a review on iTunes or whatever app you're listening on. Most of all, we'd like for you to tell other folks about the show that helps them and helps the show. Have more listeners. So until next week, I hope your coffee is delightful, even if it is, uh, freeze dried and dropped in the cup like I began the week with. I hope your coffee is good, and I hope your Friday is wonderful and I hope the Lord will be with you today all day. I'll see you on Monday 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.is that's upbeat with two P'S UPP, B E A T, where creators can get free music. Please share our podcast with others. And we look forward to seeing you again with a company coffee, of course, on next Monday,