The Joyful Heart

Speaker 1: 0:05 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, July the 17th. It is Youth Lectures Week here at West Side . This is going to be an incredible week. We are finishing Habakkuk. We're talking about a terrible king that I don't want to talk about and I'm drinking really great coffee from Anarch Archs. How about that? It's Onyx and this is their Monarch blend. I guess that's where I got a arcs from, but it's still really great coffee and I'm drinking it in my favorite coffee mug, which is a wonderful mug from Yellowstone that has a bear on it. And I bought that mug and I said, we've got to see a bear now cuz I'm bringing home a coffee mug with a bear. And guess what? Yeah, then we saw a whole bunch of bears. So it's all about the coffee, it's all about the mug. It's all about daily Bible reading and having a heart for God. That's what I preached on yesterday. That's what this podcast is working this week as we head towards youth lectures. Let's think about it. Let's get started. Yesterday I continued the preaching theme of the year, having a heart for God, and I got to talk about joy. That's huge. I've been wanting to talk about that. I think it's an enormously important issue. Romans 1513 says, may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing. And I think we struggle with that. We struggle with believing that God wants us to be happy. And I tried to work through some of that yesterday and I hope if you took anything outta that lesson, maybe what's, what's sticking with you is God does want you to be happy and that you can't be happy without God. I hope that is where we got to yesterday. Let me just say a couple of other things, then give you a couple of additional notes. First and foremost, when we start seeing that God does want us to be happy, happy of course in the right kind of ways, and that the way we develop a heart for God is when we connect our happiness to God. When we see him as the real joy giver, when we see him as the one who has blessed us with every good thing in our life, as James tells us in James chapter one, when we see how that works, then you realize why in gratitude is such a problem in your walk with God, because you're not connecting your blessings with the Lord. You are not connecting all the good things that you are enjoying and giving God the credit for that. So those good things are not driving you to God. David gets called out for being ungrateful. Romans chapter one traces a lot of sin in the world to a lack of gratitude . Gratitude is a huge part of having a heart for God. The other thing that I wanna say is I think sometimes when we're really happy with something, we start getting worried that God is gonna want us to give that up or God's gonna take that away because we're finding such joy in that. And specifically, I'm talking here about a question I had from a young mother. She had a new baby, a tiny infant, all bundled in blue. And she said, I just love him so much I and , and she had never felt that love that a parent has for their child before. And , and just that fierce deep love that you have for your child, she said, can this be right? I worry that God will take him away from me. And I wanna say a word or two about that. First and foremost, we should not worry when we love in the way God wants us to love. In fact, the Bible even talks about those without natural affections. That's in Romans chapter one. And so when we love our children, we love our spouse. Don't back away from that. God is proud of us for being and doing in those relationships what he made us to do and to be the other . The other thing I would say in that direction is, for example, I think about a teenager who's given a car when , when he graduates or when she graduates high school. And it's a tangible reminder of mom and dad's love and trust and how excited they are as their student opens a new chapter of life and goes on to some new and exciting things. But, but Dad doesn't say, I hope you don't love this car more than me. And if you do, I'm gonna take it away from you . No, the car was given to bring joy, to be enjoyed , to make life better and rich and full and good. Now, clearly there's a huge difference between a car and a baby. And don't overtax my illustration here, but we don't give good things so that we can then take them back away because somebody's enjoying the good thing that we gave them. Oh , hey, hey, you liked this present. I gave you just a little bit too much. Let me have that back. And we need to think about that in terms of our relationship with the Lord. The Lord gives us blessings. And yes, it certainly is possible, particularly with physical things, to let those things get in the way of our relationship with God and to to end up worshiping money or possessions, our hobbies, those kinds. I , and I know about that. I've, I've talked about that a lot in the pulpit. You know where, where that sits . But I , I'm talking about the good things that God places in our lives. The the word of God, God's people, the church, our spouse, our family, our children. These are blessings from the Lord. He has given those to us so that we would be happy. And when they bring that joy to our hearts, that brings joy to our father's heart because that's why he gave those blessings to us. Don't be afraid to be happy and to be holy. You can be both and when you do, that'll bring you joy and that will bring you closer to God because you'll have a heart for the Lord. Hope that helps you. I love talking about that. God is so good to us and we just need to be more aware of that and more thankful for it if we're gonna have a heart for him. Let's move over to the book of Habakkuk. Habakkuk has a heart for God. It's a different scenario than joy. Not a lot of joy in this book, I'm sorry to say. But we wanna talk about Habakkuk's faith and we're gonna pick up that reading on Monday in Habakkuk, the second chapter. So we are reading the entire second chapter of the book of Habakkuk today, I think I'm gonna say again, I wish I had divided this up so that we could soak in Habakkuk a little bit longer. I wish I had divided the chapter into two pieces and maybe chapter three into two pieces. I just love the book of Habakkuk, what is going on here? What it says about Habakkuk's faith that he brings his complaint to the Lord. What's going on here? As we talked about last week, Habakkuk's problem is not that he doesn't believe in God. It's that he does, he believes in God, he God who is good and loves his people and is powerful. So what Habakkuk is seeing just doesn't jive with what he knows, with what he believes about the Lord. So our reading today begins with such a powerful verse two , one, I will take my stand up my watch post and station myself on the tower and look out to see what he will say to me and what I will answer concerning my complaint. So this is fearful waiting. And the prophets are often seen as being a watchman. And so Habakkuk says, I'm just gonna watch. I'm just gonna watch and see what the Lord is gonna do and what the Lord is gonna say . And that way I can get my thinking in line with God's instead of trying to get God's thinking in line with mine . You see the faith there in 2 1 2, 1 is a verse that you wanna circle. You wanna come back to again and again when you're struggling with what's happening in your life versus what you thought God would do, or as you've read your Bible and you've come to some conclusions about God's character, you think God's got to be doing this. He ought to be doing X, Y, and Z, and instead A, B and C are happening. You're just losing it. Come to habak, come to Habakkuk, pray like Habakkuk and then climb up and watch and see what the Lord is going to do. And the answer that God gives in chapter two verses two to five is you just need to trust me and be patient because I'm going to punish the Babylonians as well. So two , four , you need to live by faith. Living by faith here means believing the word of the Lord that's given to a backache being patient and knowing that that God is working this out and the Babylonians are gonna be judged. The Babylonians are an instrument in God's hands. They're going to bring judgment upon juah in Jerusalem and that's gonna be terrible, but their time will come as well. Then Habakkuk in chapter two works through five woes, underlining your Bible , those woes beginning in verse six, woe to him hoops up what is not his own works down and talks about how Babylon will be overthrown despite her defenses. God is working against Babylon. Verse 13, beholds it not from the Lord of hosts , that people labor merely for fire and nations weary themselves for nothing. I think about that passage and what it says about all the excesses and the materialism of our particular day . You're laboring for the fire. That's what, that's all that is. You're just stocking up kindling. Then there is a very common figure in verse 15, 16 and 17, the idea of being drunk and particularly the idea of humiliating others. And then you're going to be the one that will be humiliated and filling up the , the cup of God's wrath. And then chapter two verse 20 ends our , uh, it . Lemme see if I can get that out. How about a swig of coffee here? Hmm , some days you need coffee to make coffee, don't you ? Here it is. We're kicking off the weak and and I'm trying to get out chapter two verse 20, but the Lord is in his holy temple. Let all of the earth keep silence before him. That passage sometimes is used to quiet the congregation. Stop your talking, we're gonna worship. And, and , and maybe, maybe in some ways it fits and and can be used in that particular application. But the context here is the awesome power of God and that everyone needs to just stop and be odd at God's majesty as he reigns over over , not just Assyria, not just Babylon. No. God reigns over everything and every one . That's Habakkuk chapter two. We'll complete this amazing and wonderful book tomorrow. See you in the morning, itus Tuesday. And today we read Habakkuk, the third chapter, completing this amazing prophet, just love the book of Habakkuk so much. I'll share with you a little bit some of the things that I think this book helps us with, in particular in one of the reasons, some of the reasons why I just love it so much in chapter three. Habakkuk then prays in response to what God has said, working through habakkuk's problems and complaints. I just don't understand what's happening here. I don't understand why you're doing what you're doing. God. Now there is a prayer of praise and an expression of trust. And Habakkuk three is very much like Psalm 77 and Psalm 18, which are Psalms about the Red Sea deliverance. Those Psalms rest on Exodus 15. So this is a Psalm of trust and about hope in God's deliverance. A lot of this sounds like the book of Jonah by the way. And it begins then in verse one by saying, this is a prayer of Habakkuk, the prophet according to shago enough , and no one knows what that means. Thanks for asking. Do not, no, don't even need to write that down. Then in verses two to 15, the prophet recites the works of God, the mighty works of God from the past. And what this is ha about particularly look at verse two, his Habakkuk accepts God's judgment. I I see what you're gonna do. God, I see how you're working it out. I trust you. I have faith in you. Habakkuk two , four to do what's right, to do what's best. I'm gonna rest in you and in what you are accomplishing. Please notice in verse seven and verse 10, once again, we get the word Saul looking and seeing our huge emphasises emphases in the book of Habakkuk. And then we get down to verse 15. And and what you get is the idea of God coming, God coming in power, God coming in judgment. And God is doing these great and amazing things. But what God is doing is bringing the Babylonians to lay seeds to Jerusalem and to destroy it. And that's just gonna mean horrible things for the people in Jerusalem like Habakkuk, which is why he says in verse 16, I hear in my body trembles my lips quiver at the sound, rottenness enter into my bones. My legs tremble beneath me, yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble to come upon my people who invade us. This is such a statement of faith as Americans, we do not worry about invaders. I don't think about that. Not ever, but this is a reality for these people. And they know the pain and the suffering and the awfulness of siege warfare and people being marched off into slavery and their homes being burned and then loved ones being butchered. The Babylonian captivity is going to be a terrible thing. And Habakkuk says, I accept it, it terrifies me, but I accept it because I trust in God. In fact, in verse 17, even if the fig tree doesn't blossom and there's no fruit and there's no olives, and the flock is cut out , even if I starve to death, yet I verse 18 will rejoice in the Lord. People get angry at God when life doesn't go their way. And what I'm thinking is you need to read the book of Habakkuk because there's some people where life really took a sharp turn downward. And those people like Habakkuk said, I'm trusting in the Lord. I'm trusting in the Lord. I I don't know what's happening to you today, but nobody is burning my house down and killing my family and marching me off into slavery. So if Habakkuk can trust in the Lord, yet still I trust in the Lord, still I rejoice in the Lord. Habakkuk three verse 18. That is just so powerful to me. God, the Lord is my strength. He makes my feet like the deers . Verse 19, he makes me tread on high places. Habakkuk says, I trust in God. So let me just conclude by saying, I've only said about a half dozen times how much I'll live Habakkuk. A couple things that really stand out to me. First and foremost, this is a lament. Habakkuk is a lament. And lament has come to mean to us today being sorrowful, A song of lament. Maybe we think of lamentations and and , and that's certainly what it means for us . But biblically, when we're talking about a book of the Bible or a chapter in the book of Psalms being a lament, it means a cry for help to cry out to God. And Habakkuk, of course is exactly and precisely that. And sometimes when we read that kind of thing, not so much in Habakkuk, I think because he's just so faithful and so reverent, but maybe over in the Psalms sometimes when David is saying, God, have you just forgot about me? It almost sounds irreverent and we just get uncomfortable about that. But remember, lament is rooted in faith. And I, I got to watch some YouTube videos of Dr. Nathan Ward. He did some stuff , uh, this summer at Florida College, and he did some stuff in prayer. He's written a wonderful book on prayer that I'm working through, and he really helped me to think through some of this when he pointed out that lament is rooted in faith. Lament praying is rooted in faith. There are a couple of things that underpin that kind of praying. First, the absolute belief in God , you , you , you wouldn't be playing , praying if you're an atheist and then the belief that God is good, that he cares and loves his people. You , you wouldn't be saying, Hey God, we're in a bad way if God is this mean God who just chuckle and say, well, of course you're in a bad way. I'm kind of glad about it. No, we believe better of our God. And then of course , lamen is rooted in the idea that God is all powerful, that God can do something about that. He's not a weakling. Hey God, do you see what's happening to us? We know you can solve this. We know you can fix this. So lament is so deeply attached to faith. You can't pray like Habakkuk if you don't trust God like Habakkuk. Then the other thing that comes to mind here is that lament builds real relationship. Dr. Ward asked in his seminar, who are your real friends? The ones that you have to put on a fake face around you can't really share where you are. You can't really tell 'em what's going on. Or are your real friends the ones that you can share deeply and say, I'm hurting and this isn't going right and I don't understand. And they sympathize and they care and they comfort you. Who are your real friends? Well, I I I wanna have a real relationship with God. And that means with reverence of course. But when I'm hurting and when I don't understand why things are going the way they are going, that I can say to the Lord, Lord, do you see? Do , do you see what's going on here? Lord, are you gonna do something about this? Lord, I I trust that you will do something about this. I thought you would do something about this. I wanna pray like Habakkuk. And I want to believe like Habakkuk, I tell you this, that in any book, any prophetic book like Habakkuk, there's just not. I see you Isaiah, I see you Jeremiah, but there's nothing for me. There's just nothing like the book of Habakkuk. Thanks for reading Habakkuk with me. Tomorrow we go back to Kings. Oh , not good, not good. I'll see you tomorrow as we begin reading in two Kings 24. It is Wednesday and we are returning to the historical section of the Old Testament to read more about the kings who are ruling in Judah. Before we do our daily Bible reading, let's get a word from Drew Nelson who'll be preaching for us tonight in our case for Christianity. Drew, take it away.

Hi, this is Drew Nelson. I'm looking forward to joining you on Wednesday. Um, I wanna do something a little bit different than perhaps the other lessons in this series. Rather than get knee deep in , in the technicalities of arguments for God's existence or for the veracity of the Bible or answering skeptics. Um, what I wanna do is to look at a Psalm together. Psalm 19 is a psalm that says, the only reason we know anything about anything is because God has spoken. The only reason we know anything about the world or about science or about God or about ourselves is because God has revealed such things to us. But then most importantly, I think this Psalm underscores to us that the proper reaction to this knowledge we gain , uh, is not pride in ourselves for how much we know or even disdain for those who haven't heard God's voice as well as we have. But ultimately , uh, the proper reaction is humble self scrutiny and repentance. And so I'm looking forward to being with you.

Thank you very much, drew. I am really looking forward to hearing Drew preach. He's been with us several times and just does an outstanding job. I find Drew to be challenging and his material to be fresh and insightful every time I listen to him. And I am excited about hearing Drew Nelson this evening, as I know you are as well. Let's read in Second Kings today, second Kings chapter 24 verses one to nine, just a short reading. And it is about Jaho and second Kings 24. One in his days , Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon came up and Jaho come , became his servant for three years. We're gonna start talking about the Babylonians a lot now because they are the dominant world power in six 12 Nineveh Falls and the Assyrian Empire begins to die and fade away. So there's Nahum and there's that prophecy against Nineveh in 6 0 9. That's 609 years before Christ Babylon defeats an alliance of Egypt and Assyria. So they take center stage there as the world power. And that is the battle that Josiah was trying to get to, to cut off the Egyptians. And he gets killed as the Egyptians make their way north so they can help out the Assyrians. Josiah gets killed on the way, talked about that as we are reading and thinking about Josiah and whether he should have done all of that. That's in last week's reading in Second Kings chapter 23. So the Babylonians now are the big dogs on the block in 600. Jo Jolla come , he rebels against Babylon, which is a really bad idea. And so here comes the Chaldeans, the Babylonians, Babylonians and Chaldeans , same thing. And they come notice verse two, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by his servants of the prophets. Now right there, you just wanna write in the margin. That's Jeremiah, for example. That's Habakkuk, this is gonna be the time of Habakkuk as well. These are the prophets who are speaking. And so we need to deal with the Babylonians coming up against, up against Judah. So in 6 0 5, Babylon makes its first appearance. They're now the big dog on the block that has serious has fallen, and they demand hostages out of Judah and turn Judah into a vassal state. And that's when Daniel Shadrock , Mesha and Abednego , they have , they have to go to Babylon, they are taken to Babylon, and the they are taken as hostages. This is Babylon's way of making sure that these vasal kingdoms that they have under their thumb will behave themselves because hey, we have a bunch of your young people here in Babylon and they're being trained for Babylonian services, was the way the Babylonians did things to keep order in their empire. But as I said, in 600 aka , he ends up rebelling against Babylon. And that's a terrible idea. And Second Kings 24 then goes on to detail that the judgment that comes comes as a result of the sins of Manasa, second Kings 24 3. And you may be wondering, Hey, how , how come the Lord would not pardon verse four? And the answer is because they did not seek him. Because they did not ask God for forgiveness. The reforms of Hezekiah and the reforms of Josiah may have changed many things, but it is clear it did not make for long-term change in the people's hearts. Josiah upended and God stayed judgment. Judgment did not come during the time of Josiah. But these people are just wicked. And their leadership, aka in particular, is just terribly wicked. And we're gonna go read in the book of Jeremiah several of these passages and it's not in Chronicle chron . Wow . Try saying that three times real fast. It is not in chronological order. So we're gonna jump around in the book of Jeremiah a little bit here. But the more we read about hawk , the more you're going to just shake your head and just wonder, wow, how could God be patient with such a wicked, wicked man? And if you're wondering just how wicked he is, try our reading tomorrow in Jeremiah chapter 36. It is Thursday and today we're in the book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah chapter 36 is where we are reading. We'll read this whole chapter by Friday night, Thursday and Friday. We'll divide this chapter into two parts and get it all read. Of course, the timeline for Jeremiah's life is difficult. And it may be that some of the stuff that we read next week, like Jeremiah 26 precedes this. It's hard to know exactly where all these events fall, but this is a good place to start because it helps us see just how depraved the leadership of Judah was during this particular time. So verse one starts us in the fourth year of Jaho, and that would be 6 0 5. That's the year Babylon defeated Egypt in the famous battle of K Kamesh and began to assert itself as the new superpower that defeat overshadows everything. Because now Judah comes under Babylonian control. And so Jeremiah's been preaching a long time, maybe as much as 20 years by now, and he's going to write a scroll. Verse two. Now remember, Josiah found a scroll. They found a scroll for Josiah when they cleaned out the temple, and that had a huge impact upon Josiah. So maybe a scroll, maybe the writing of the word of God will have an impact upon Jo Hoka , particularly during this difficult time at time of shifting world powers and the power of the Babylonians being exerted over the province of Judah. In fact, in verse nine, there had been a fast proclaim. Maybe that's because of the fear of the Babylonians. And in verse 11, we read about Mackay . He is the grandson of Chaffin , the man who read the newly found book of the law to King Josiah back in Second Kings 22. So this is the right man. He cares about the word of God. I'm kinda reading Jeremiah 36, our first part of it that we're reading today. And I'm feeling a little bit of hope. God is bringing this message to this king. It's a time of crisis. Maybe the king is going to listen and it's a good time for you to ask yourself, am I listening to the word of God? And it's a great time to think about how we think of the Lord. One of our really good questions this year has been question six on the back of your reading schedule. How does the reading today challenge the persistent notion that God is a constantly enraged deity who only wants to judge and condemn people? And of course the answer to that is God's sending a personal message to this king. God is reaching out to this king, Hey, listen, turn back to me. You need to repent. I can help you against the powers of the Babylonians if you will be faithful, if you'll do what is right. God's patience, God's love, God's in endurance with these wicked people is just awesome. And I don't use that word Ill advisedly. I'm excited about this. What's going to happen? We'll see tomorrow what happens with this scroll, it is Friday and it's one of the best Fridays of the year because it is youth lectures. Friday we start tonight at seven, we begin singing at seven. And our theme this year is more like you becoming more Christ-like. And I'm not sure I know a section in the Bible where there's less Christ-likeness than in Jeremiah 36. Yesterday I said some things about optimism. But if you know how the story ends, you know there's no cause for optimism because in our reading today, Jeremiah 36, verses 17 to 32, the king absolutely refuses to listen to the word of God. In fact, he destroys the word of God. And so in the ninth month, verse 22, the king was sitting in the winter house. This would be December cold, the rainy season. And as je hode , verse 23, read three or four columns, the king would cut them off with a knife and throw them into the fire, in the fire pot . I just, I can't even get my head around this. He destroyed the word of God. It's not enough that he would obey the word of God. He didn't want anybody else to hear the word of God. He cut them off with a knife. And so verse 24, that's the key verse in our reading today. Yet neither the king nor any of his servants who heard all these words were afraid, nor did they tear their garments. There's a word play there. The king cut off the scroll in verse 23, and he did not cut verse 24 or tear his garments. This is the very opposite of what we have seen all year. We've been talking about true repentance and rendering your heart and not your garments. They didn't even fake it. They didn't even render their garments here. They did not listen. And there's, there's that emphasis again in the book of Jeremiah. They heard verse 24, but they were not afraid. Verse 31, they would not hear. In fact, in verse 30, notice that the throne of David, the very promises that were made to David, that's gonna have to be put on pause because of the wickedness of these people. This is just terrible. This is one of my least favorite chapters in the entire Bible. And I get very emotional when I think about somebody who gets a personal message from God and he cuts it up and destroys it as just un unthinkable. And yet, as terrible as this text is, look at the end . Verse 32. Jeremiah took another scroll and gave it to Baruch, the scribe who wrote on it , the dictation of Jeremiah, all the words of the scroll. God says, verse 28, take another scroll. I, I would've thought that the text would say that Joko is struck dead on the spot. Instead, God has ic , Jeremiah and Baruch, write it again and try again. If this isn't the most dismal chapter about a man's stubborn refusal to obey God even listened to God . And the most amazing chapter about the grace and patience of God, I , it's just unbel . Uh , it's just incredible how patient God is. I've really worked hard this year to try to counteract this idea that God just wants to smite everybody. And Jeremiah 36, maybe that's the best place to make that argument. This guy needs a good smiting and he does not get smed. Instead, he gets a second chance. It's, it's incredible how patient God is, how much God loves us and how much God longs for us to repent and turn to Him how he gives a second chances and second, he second chances. And 202nd, second chances, God is absolutely amazing. Well, there's our Bible reading for today. I'll see you tonight at the Youth lectures. If you are not in the DFW area, make sure that you tune in. We'll live stream , all of that, and you can enjoy it. The lessons will be posted on the website and they'll be there on our Facebook page as well. It is a wonderful, wonderful weekend, best weekend of the year. I'm really excited. Jordan sch Roger Schau preaching tonight, and I know we'll be challenged by the things that they have to say. So thank you for listening. If you love the Monday Morning Coffee podcast, I hope that you have subscribed or followed the podcast so that it will download right onto your device, and we'd really appreciate it if you'd tell others about the podcast and rate it or review it so that it'll rise up in the rankings and more people will find out about it. So until next week, or actually until tonight at the Youth lectures, but if we're doing that Bible reading thing, until next week, I hope that your Friday is wonderful and the Lord will be with you today all day, and 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.