Marriage as a Covenant - A different way of looking at Marriage

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 12th. I'm Mark and I've got my Bible open. I have some notes from yesterday's sermon. I've got a Bible reading schedule here. And of course, yes, I have a cup of coffee going. This podcast is all about coffee. No, it's not. It's all about keeping the spiritual momentum from Sunday rolling right into the work week . We don't wanna leave behind what we got yesterday. Let's work on that. Let's get ready for daily Bible reading. Let's get started. Yesterday I preached on seeing marriage as a covenant. And I , I must tell you, that was a difficult sermon to prepare and to preach for a number of reasons. I , I never wanna cause pain for people who their marriage has been fractured and broken. I don't wanna do that. But it's such an important concept. We , we've got to talk about it and , and I , I think the people who have experienced the pains of divorce would say, let's say what the Bible says, let's help people have the kind of marriage that God wants them to have. And of course a huge step in the right direction is to see marriage, the way God sees marriage, to see it as a covenant. But the other reason this is a difficult sermon was a difficult sermon to work with is because it involves a change in the way we think. When the preacher can call for a physical action, do this thing, show up for church, you need to attend, stop looking at pornography when we're calling for something to do that's easy. Sign up to teach a Bible class. Stop smoking. That's very tangible. But what is harder is change how you think, alter your mindset so that you see your marriage as a covenant relationship that is harder to get across and it's harder to do. And that's why I'm very glad that we have the podcast because probably we're wrinkling your brow a little bit yesterday thinking, wow, that's, that's a challenge. Now it's Monday and had all the weekend business and Super Bowl and everything else and we kinda left that behind. What can I do to make that tangible? Can I suggest that a good action, something that we can do that would help us to have covenant marriage, to have that understanding would be for spouses to pray about it together. God help us to have a covenant marriage. Get your spouse pray together. Do that this week. See if you'll pray five times together Monday through Friday. Help us to think of, to see and to be part of a covenant marriage. See if that doesn't really help your marriage take a step forward. It is Monday and today we're reading in Mark chapter eight, verses 22 to 30. Let's get this daily Bible reading thing underway. We will see an unusual miracle here and I think it will help us as we're watching where Mark is going and what's happening here as he's pushing the idea of faith. If you remember earlier in Mark's gospel, we had the feeding of the 5,000 in Mark chapter six, followed by a boat trip. Jesus ends up walking on the water and the disciples don't really put it all together. Verse 52 of Mark chapter six, they don't really have it all together. Now, Jesus, last week we read this, fed the 5,000 , um, the 4,000 this time in Mark chapter eight. And the disciples are still struggling. We'll come out of Friday, we read down to verse 21, mark chapter eight, verse 21. Do you not yet understand they're still struggling, that these men need something more? And so today we're reading Mark chapter eight, verses 22 to 30, and we get first the healing of the blind man at Bethsaida. And so Jesus takes the man out of town. Verse 23, I wonder if the crowds were causing the man like a panic attack. People crowding around Jesus. Jesus wants to work with that man. One-on-one, I think Jesus shows him what he's going to do. He spit on his eyes, laid his hands on him. I think Jesus is , is helping this man to , to realize what Jesus is about to do. And then this very unusual thing happens. The guy doesn't see perfectly always. Miracles are just instantaneous. You're just all better. You're not gonna get better. No, no, you are better. This guy is not all better. Jesus has to do it again. Verse 25, what's that all about? I think that's an illustration that the disciples aren't all better. That their faith isn't full grown like it needs to be. They need, can I use this expression, a second touch ? And now Mark shows us the result of that second touch really . Verses 27 to 30 are the crossroads of Mark's gospel. This is the turning point. Mark has carefully woven together all kinds of action, fast and furious immediately is his favorite word. It's just always happening. There's so much dramatic stuff going on. And now they go to Caesarea Philippi that is very, very far north. And Jesus says, who do you say? Who do people say that I am? And verse 28, some of them have blurry vision, some of them need a second touch. But Peter says, you are the Christ. Remember, that's not a name. That's not a name. He's not saying, wow , on your driver's license, Jesus. You wanna get that last name on there. You say Jesus. Now it'll say Jesus Christ. 'cause your last name is no Jesus'. Last name is not Christ. It's a title. It means Messiah. It means anointed one. It means savior of the world. And then Jesus says, don't be telling people that. And I think as we journey further in Mark's gospel, we're gonna see the reason Jesus says that is 'cause they don't really understand everything that that means. But it's a start. It's a start. Peter sees Jesus clearly. What an important idea in this reading schedule this year when we're trying to see through Peter in John's eyes. See you tomorrow as we'll. Continue in March chapter eight . It is Tuesday. And today we read Mark chapter eight, verse 31 through Mark chapter nine and verse one. And I said yesterday that Peter sees more clearly, but it is clear that he does not see entirely everything that Jesus is all about because Jesus starts to teach. Notice he began Verse 31, the gospel is pivoting. Now Jesus is starting to introduce this teaching. He began to teach that the son of man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed. And after three days rise again. And Peter says, that isn't gonna happen. That is not how I consider what I consider the Messiah's work to be. That is not my conception of king Jesus. That's not where this is gonna go. Can't be doing that. And Jesus says, get behind me, Satan. That's pretty tough. But we remember that in the temptations of Christ, Satan offers him all the kings of kingdoms of the world without a cross. And what Peter is doing is he is articulating the temptation of of Satan, isn't he? He's saying, you can be a king without this terrible verse 31, be killed and after three days rise again. Peter is just standing in here for the devil and what the devil offered Jesus. And now Jesus moves from that to start talking about not only what he's going to do but what it is to be a disciple. What does it mean to be a disciple of such a messiah? A messiah who will be killed, who will be rejected all their visions of glory and earthly power and physical thrones. And I'm gonna be sitting up there next to Jesus with medals on my chest that everybody's gonna think I'm somebody. All of that is going out the window. Whoever would save his life will lose it. Verse 35, you need to take up your cross. Verse 34, the nature of Jesus' messiahship dictates the nature of our discipleship, self-denial, suffering. That's what this is all about. And again, everything that they would've thought, Jesus has a military leader, battles and glory, all of that is going out the window. But Jesus says the kingdom is coming. That's nine one. The chapter division here is just brutal, just brutal. Nine one goes with the rest of the material in chapter eight. But Jesus says the kingdom is going to come and you fellas will see it. Some of you will see it. That really puts a timeframe on anything that you wanna say about the kingdom that Jesus inaugurates, wow, this is some serious material. It really helps us to evaluate our discipleship and to think about Jesus, the suffering servant who is also king of kings and Lord of Lords. Tomorrow we'll go see what Matthew has to say about this very same event. It is Wednesday and today we're reading Matthew's account of Peter's great confession. This is Matthew 16, 13 to 20. And you'll notice again we're in the district of Caesarea Philippi. This is very, very far north, very far northbound, 25 miles north of Galilee. There's some interesting features in this area and may try to do some posting on Facebook about some of that, particularly this idea of the rock. There's a rock temple there that's kind of important as you think about where they are and what Jesus is saying. And once again, we get the question, who am I? And the answer's not very great. And then Peter says, you're the Christ under the living God. And Matthew's account tells us then that Peter is called out by Jesus, commended by Jesus. Blessed are you Simon Barna for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my father who is in heaven. So Peter's come to this conclusion watching Jesus the miracles he does, the teaching that he does. So then Jesus says, I tell you, you are Peter and on this rock, I'll build my church in the gates of hell. Shall not prevail against that . Of course, the question that comes outta this is what exactly does Jesus mean on this rock? And a couple of things here. We can't let the misuse of this passage drive our understanding of the passage. The passage absolutely does not mean Peter is the Pope. You can't get there from here. There's nothing about popes in the New Testament. Peter is not the first pope. Whatever we make out of Matthew 1618, it won't make Peter the Pope. There's no apostolic succession, there's no popes, none of that. It you just absolutely not. And the entire weight of the New Testament holds against all of that. Someone who's trying to get a pope in Matthew 1618 has made a grievous error. That said, sometimes there's lots of conversation about different words for rock and little rock and giant stone, and none of that works either. That's really not where Jesus is and what's going on. I think the natural reading of this is when Jesus says, you are Peter and on this rock. I think the natural reading of this is that Jesus is saying upon people who make this confession, I'm gonna build my church. You make this confession, Peter. It's people like you who will compose the spiritual kingdom of God. I think there's a lot to commend that reading. And I do think sometimes that's kind of controversial. People have sometimes I've said that and people have gotten very, very unhappy with me about that. But I think Peter is the rock here in the sense that he's the first to identify fully and completely that Jesus is the Messiah and it is people who make that identification that become the foundation the church is built on. The church is built on people who acknowledge Jesus as the Christ. So you think about that, there may some other possibilities there. I'm certainly aware of that, but I , I think in a lot of ways that just makes a lot of sense. Peter then is to be given the kingdom , uh, the keys of the kingdom. Again, that does not make him the Pope. That just means that the things that the apostles teach and preach will be the things that they are told to teach and preach by the Holy Spirit. This is an important passage because it helps us think about the kingdom of Jesus. And particularly, I love this. We don't pay nearly enough attention to this, that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Nothing can stop the Messiah's church. Nothing can prevent it from reaching its goal. Now, a lot of people take Hades to be the place, the dwelling place of the devil and and that's mistaken too. I think this is the idea here, not so much as the abode of evil powers, but I think this is the idea of death. This is the idea of death that Jesus' death won't stop him from fulfilling these things. Your death, my death won't stop the church either because , because Jesus has redeemed us. Think about those things as you think about Matthew's account. Tomorrow we journey back to the gospel of Mark. It is Thursday and today we're reading the Transfiguration account that's in Mark's gospel. That's Mark chapter nine, verse two through verse 13. And this is a wonderful account. It is tight, it is succinct, and it stresses the preeminence of Jesus after six days. Mark chapter nine and verse two, Jesus took within Peter, James and John, notice how Mark links this. We kind of interrupted this a little bit by going over and getting Matthew's account, which is really great and really helpful. But here Mark is linking after six days, mark nine, two to the confession of Peter and the conversation that went subsequent to that. All of that is being held together here by Mark's gospel. And so Jesus is transfigured. Verse three , his clothes became radiant intensely white. The term here that's being used is used nowhere else in the New Testament. It's used actually in the Tugen , the Greek version of the Old Testament to indicate the radiance of the stars. And so Jesus's clothing here just becomes dazzling white and Mark is the one that tells us no fuller or no laund man would be able to do this. A fuller is the one who would card and clean woolen clothes. And so there's no one here on earth that could do anything like this who could bleach clothes to be white like this. And then Moses and Elijah appear and they're talking with Jesus and I, I think that's Moses representing the law and Elijah representing the prophets. Many times we don't think of Elijah as being the greatest of the prophets because we don't have a book of Elijah, but many Jews think of Elijah as the preeminent prophet, and Mark doesn't tell us what they're talking about. You can get that in Luke and Matthew, but Mark is very spartan here to put the emphasis on the preeminence of Jesus. And the next thing you know, Peter's putting his foot in his mouth and we end up with saying, Hey, you need to listen to Jesus. Verse seven, this is my beloved son. Listen to him. A week ago, Peter rebuke Jesus, chapter eight and verse 32 . Now God says, you need to listen to him. You need to pay attention to Jesus. And then as they come down the mountain verses nine to 13, there's some discussion here about what's going on and what's going to happen and Elijah and that Elijah has come in the person verse 12 of John the Baptist. Once again, you get that idea that the disciples don't see and understand everything completely, but they're starting to figure some things out. Unfortunately, there's been a big failure while Peter, James and John and Jesus have been on the Mount of Transfiguration. Tomorrow, we'll finish the week talking about the failure that's going on at the bottom of the mountain. It's Friday made it to the end of the week, didn't we? And today we read Mark chapter nine, verses 14 to 29. Now Matthew and Luke have some information here that Mark does not, but his account here is longer and in some ways it's fuller. This is the account of the apostles being unable to cast out a demon when Jesus, Peter, James, and John arrive. Verse 14, there's a great crowd going on. Scribes are arguing because they're unable to cast out this demon. Someone from the crowd answered. Verse 17, I brought my son to you. This is a terrible scene. Just awful. We get a real glimpse into what it's like to be possessed by a demon here. They just take you over, try to destroy you. This poor boy has a terrible life and the apostles, the remaining apostles are completely failing and Jesus is not happy about that at all. Verse 19, oh, faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? I love how Mark shows us the emotions of Jesus. Jesus expects better of these guys. In Mark chapter six, in verse seven, he gave them the authority to handle these situations. They seem to be arguing instead of by faith taking on this terrible demon. In some ways it kind of seems like the demon is bullying them when they need to say, with faith in Jesus Christ, you get out of there and and are they trying to do that? Relying on themselves too much and not relying on the power of God And then the man, he doesn't seem to have as much faith as he would like to have. Please help my unbelief, verse 24. I love that. I love that Jesus says, what is this? All things are possible for one who believes. He says, I want to believe people who want to believe. Guess what? They get more and they get the opportunity to grow their faith. And that's exactly what happens next for this man. As Jesus casts the demon out and shows, he is the strong man. He is the one that has power over the forces of darkness. He is Jesus Christ, king of kings and Lord of lords. He is the one that rules over demons. This man's faith is lifted up just as Jesus took him by the hand, verse 27 and lifted up and he arose. The disciples say, why couldn't we do it? Jesus says, this needs prayer. I think Jesus is saying, you need faith. You need faith. That's gonna become a bigger and bigger theme as we move forward in the gospel of Mark. Thanks for listening and reading the Bible with me this week. If the podcast is helping you, then please tell someone else about it and leave us a rating and a review so more folks will be helped by this podcast. Until next week, then, when we'll open our Bibles together. Again, I'm Mark Roberts and I want to go to heaven, and I want you to come to see you Monday with a cup of coffee.

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