Strategies for Defeating Temptation

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, April the eighth. And this is a special Monday, isn't it? It is Eclipse day today. I know we're all getting up and we're looking out the window to see if there's gonna be clouds. Are we gonna be able to see this very singular event? Exciting, exciting, isn't it? I hope wherever you are this morning, it's just going to spectacular and that you're gonna be able to get outside and take a look and see how the heavens declare the glory of God. Our world is so perfectly created, so marvelously made that we are able to time out and tell exactly where the moon will be, where the sun will be, and how all of that will work so that there will be this fabulous eclipse phenomena. What an incredible testimony to the great design in our universe. And that design testifies to the designer. And I praise God that we will see his handiwork today, or at least I hope that I will see his handy work today. For me, that means no clouds in the Fort Smith, Arkansas area where I am for a Sunday to Wednesday meeting with the North Side Church in Greenwood, Arkansas. I jumped in the car as soon as services were over yesterday at West Side and headed north. And I'm preaching here this week and that's still in the path of the eclipse. So I still get to see all of that. More importantly, I plan to see my granddaughter, Jane. That's pretty exciting for me. All of that. A good cup of coffee. That's not a great cup of coffee. I need to be honest about that. Everybody's, oh , Mark's always got a great cup of coffee sometimes, depending on what you're doing, how it's working. It's just a good cup of coffee. And this is a good cup of coffee. And I've got some sermon notes 'cause I did get to preach yesterday at West Side and I've got some daily Bible reading stuff. I've got an awful lot going on. None of that is gonna be eclipsed. So let's get this podcast started. Yesterday I preached the sermon about Peter's strategies for defeating temptation or maybe, maybe it's better to say his lack of strategy for defeating temptation. And the point of the lesson was to develop some strategies that you can use, I can use in the actual pressure packed moment when it's going down. And I'm having to decide am I gonna do what's right or am I going to give in to temptation? And I'm gonna add an additional tactic here that may help you in that regard. It comes from second Corinthians six verse 18 in second Corinthians six. Paul is actively discussing what these Corinthians need to do in a very idolatrous environment. And he talks about verse 14, don't be unequally yoked with unbelievers. What fellowship has light with darkness? What a court is Christ with il , there's no partnership here between righteousness and lawlessness. He says there's no agreement with the temple of God, with idols. That's his main effort here. And he concludes that in verse 18, as he quotes wonderful quotation here, I will be there, God, they shall be my people. Now verse 18, I will be a father to you and you shall be sons and daughters to me in the moment of temptation. Check your name tag, check your name tag. It says there I am God's child. I am a Christian. I am a follower of Jesus. Remembering who you are, your identity can be enormously helpful in the moment of temptation. Second Corinthians six 18, I'll be a father to you and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty. Hope that helps you in temptation. I know that it helps me. Now let's find the Book of Acts, time to talk about daily Bible reading. It is Monday and the reading for Monday is Acts chapter one verses 12 to 26. Lots going on here. This is an active part of the chapter is intent . And here's some notes that will help you as you do your reading. Verse 12, there's a Sabbath day's journey mentioned there that was taken by the rabbis from the size of Levitical pasture land around the city of refuge in numbers 35. It's kind of a complicated thing sort of thing. The rabbis debated endlessly and it would be about about 3000 feet, a little more than a half a mile. And so Gentile readers don't know about that. And Mark, I'm sorry, Luke here is making an explanation. I'm still stuck in the gospel of Mark and they're in this upper room, verse 13. And that may be the upper room where the Passover was, and that might even be the house of Mary. We'll see that in Acts chapter 12. And there's a list, and of course the list reminds us in verse 13 that we are incomplete, we don't have 12. And of course, 12 is the number you gotta have 12 if the apostles are going to constitute the new Israel of God. And so we'll, we'll be working towards choosing a new apostle in verse 14. By the way, that is the last mention in the Bible of Mary Jesus', mother and I , I guess I need to say this carefully because she's clearly extremely important, but she is not as important as some people make her out to be. She is Jesus's mother. That's pretty significant. Can't argue that point, can we? But she's not all over the Bible going everywhere, doing everything in the central figure as , no , no, she's just not something we ought to remember in verses 18 and 19. Then some people may be confused about the outcome that , uh, Judas ends up with. Did he hang himself? What, what exactly how does all of this work? Because verse 18 says he burst open in the middle and the answer to that is he hung himself and then he burst open , uh, just dreadful. And the chief priest bought that field in his name where he had hung himself until his body collapsed and decomposed. And if you are horrified by this, and you should be, then imagine how Jewish people would feel about this because they place a lot of emphasis on the proper care of the dead body and that that needs to be taken care of and done very, very quickly. And all that goes with all of that. All of this just says Judas end is as awful as it could possibly be. And Peter stands up then in quotes out of Psalm 69. That's a psalm that's often quoted in the New Testament, and it does speak of wicked people who are the enemies of God's people. That's how that is, that coffee is a , is getting better. Sometimes coffee will change its flavor as it cools off. And so don't give up on your coffee. Sometimes it just needs to cool a little bit. Last Thursday I was in a coffee shop and at first I didn't think the shot was very good. And, and you know, as it worked along a little bit, it started to mix in a little bit with the milk. I was drinking a cappuccino and, and it , it got better. So hang in there. Uh, here is more importantly than my notes on coffee verse 20. This is a good example of the New Testament Church taking a passage from the Old Testament and lifting it up to its higher meaning we would probably just say, Hey, we need a guy to replace Judas. But what Luke does, what Peter does is show the connections to the Old Testament. Christianity is rooted in the Old Testament. It doesn't replace the Old Testament, it grows out of the Old Testament. And so we get the criteria for an apostle. And of course what that means is you can't have any apostles today. Nobody can fulfill that particular criteria and it is significant. I'll probably say this again when we get to Acts chapter 12, that there's no replacement when an apostle gets killed. There's no mechanism for that. There's no discussion of doing that there. Apostles are very unique and they do their thing and and we don't need more of them and we're not going to have some kind of apostolic suce succession. Whew , that's stuff to say. Um, apostolic succession going on. I think the prayer here, by the way , uh, the prayer in verse 24 is a prayer to Jesus. Jesus is the Lord in verse 21. Sometimes people get confused about whether we can pray to Jesus or not. This is a prayer to Jesus. And the prayer here is for Jesus to appoint the next apostle. He appointed the first apostles. We want Jesus. He's the heart knower and we need him to appoint this next apostle. That's Monday's reading. See you tomorrow as we dive into maybe the most important chapter in the most important book in the Bible. Welcome to Tuesday. Did you survive the eclipse yesterday? I hope nobody is blind this morning. It would be appropriate, I guess if we were reading in Acts nine where Saul of Tarsus is blinded on the road to Damascus. I hope you're not acting that out today. Acts chapter two, verses one to 13 is where we are reading. And I did tease it a little bit yesterday by saying that this is the most important chapter in the Bible. That case can be made because if acts is the most important book of the Bible, then this is, this is the moment when everything God has been planning since Genesis chapter three comes together. That's what the Bible is about. In Genesis one and two, everything is good actually. It's great. And then in Genesis three, senators the world and that ruins everything. And everything from that moment forward in Genesis three in the Bible is about God reconciling, God fixing that men and women can't fix that. God's gonna have to fix it if it's gonna get fixed. And God has a big plan to save humanity from our sins. And that plan finally comes to full fruition in Acts chapter two. It comes on the day of Pentecost verse one. That's one of three annual festivals. This is probably in June. Pentecost Falls seven weeks in one day from Passover. So this would be on a Sunday. And by first century times, many people had decided that the Pentecost feast celebrated the anniversary of the giving of the law on Mount Sinai. And the Bible doesn't say that, but a lot of people were thinking that. And so it's just kind of even more appropriate that this is when the gospel goes forth and the they there in verse one in it's got to be verse 26 of the chapter in front of it. That's the 11 apostles. And as we work along in the Book of Acts , it'll become very, very clear that the apostles have a special measure of the Holy Spirit. They can do things that nobody else can do. And we will talk about that in Acts chapter eight. We get wind and tongues like a fire. This whole thing cannot be described. And I think the fire here represents the presence of God. Think about how many times in the Old Testament we see God in the burning bush or the pillar of fire guiding Israel, the fire on top of Mount Sinai. And so everyone now hears them speaking in these tongues, in these foreign languages. And the terms here clearly reference a foreign language as you work down through here, verse six, verse eight, verse 11, people can understand what was being said. It is not some weird angelic language or some ecstatic utterance. I know tongue speaking is viewed that way today. This is not that, or maybe more appropriately what people claim today to be tongue speaking is not what you see in the Bible. What we're having here is what John promised. This is the church beginning and the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus begins his ministry with the Holy Spirit descending upon him at the baptism of John. And the church here begins in the power of the Holy Spirit in the same way. So in our reading then it concludes with the role of the nations. And that helps us see that pretty much everybody in the Mediterranean world is represented here. Parthians, Meads , Elamites and Mesopotamia. That's east of Jerusalem. And then Judea, that's the land of Judea, probably includes Syria, Cappadocia, Panis , Asia, Frisia and Paraphilia. That's Asia mana to the West. Egypt, Libya, Sina would be to the South Rome center of the world, mentioned that before. And there would be large Jewish populations in all of those places. And those people would come maybe a once in a lifetime event, they would come hoping to be in Jerusalem for Passover. And if you've come so far and made this trip of a lifetime, you would stay if you could, you would stay over for the Feast of Pentecost. Some have argued out of verse 12 out of this whole reading today that this is a reversal of Babel. This is a reversal of Genesis chapter 11, that the world is brought together by the Gospel and by Jesus Christ. And that's we're thinking about, that's we're thinking about in Genesis 11. We can't understand. And so we're separated in Acts chapter two. We can understand by the power of God. And the result of that is we're brought together in Jesus Christ. Let's work further in this sermon tomorrow. See you tomorrow as we keep thinking about Acts chapter two. Welcome to Wednesday. Today's reading is in Acts chapter two verses 14 to 21. And this is where the sermon really gets going. This is the main part of what's happening in Acts chapter two. Please notice, granted I'm a little partial since I do some preaching from time to time. But preaching is the way things begin . God has always used preaching. His word is what does the work, and Peter has lots of work to do here. He needs to deal with some problems. He needs to explain the remarkable phenomena that everybody is seeing. And there is the accusation that this is nothing but drunkenness. He needs to demonstrate that Jesus' Messiah and Lord. But of course, Jesus was executed by the Roman state as a terrible criminal. How can he possibly be the Messiah and Lord? And then, hey, where is Jesus? I heard Jesus rose from the dead. Is he coming out? Gonna walk out and talk? Wait , why ? Why is Jesus not here right now? And maybe the most important thing Peter needs to do is get a response out of his listeners. And so what Peter does is preach from the Bible. Just love this, love this, love this. Joel chapter two, Psalm 16 and Psalm one 10 are the scriptural text that Peter develops in this sermon. And it begins with the quotation out of Joel. The Joel text came from a time when God's judgment was just hard upon the land. If you remember when we read Joel last year, as we spent the year with the prophets, there was a time when the locust came and just ate everything in sight. It was a hard time. The Locust plague came 'cause God's people weren't doing what was right. And Joel called people to repent and look forward to a time, a better time when God's people would want to be right with God, the time of the Messiah. And it is that theme that really gets repeated several times in acts. There's lots of preaching in acts, and that preaching usually will say something about the time of fulfillment has come. The time of the Messiah is here. And there'll be some citation of various Old Testament scriptures about that and about Jesus because he is the Messiah. And always the way we know he's the Messiah is that he triumphed over death. The resurrection is the Trump card that everybody placed to say, Hey, we gotta pay attention to this guy. They killed him, but God overturned that sinful verdict because he was not a hoax, he was not a shark . I'm getting ahead of myself in the sermon, aren't I? But God overturned the verdict and said, he is my son. He's deity, he's divine, he's the son of God, he's the Christ. And as a result, then it's time to get right with God. That's called repentance. And this centers then in verse 17 on the last days, and a lot of people want to use the last days to mean some kind of cataclysmic events right before the return of Jesus, the second coming, and all the things that lead up to that. And you can watch for those signs. And if you read revelation right , then you can see those things coming or Daniel or Ezekiel. There's always somebody who's got it all figured out. And that isn't what last days means at all. The last days means the Christian era and the end of the Jewish era. Those two things overlap. You can look for example at Hebrews one, verse two, and maybe it it , we often define it that way. It , oh , it's the the Christian era. And , and we kind of divide things into three different epics or different ages, the patriarchal age, the Mosaic age, and the Christian dispensation. But maybe the best way to reference this or to talk about this is to say, the last days refers to the time when the purposes of God would be fulfilled, when God's purposes are being fulfilled. That's Isaiah two, two , that's Micah four one. The last days are the time when God's purposes are being fulfilled and they're being fulfilled in the church as the church carries on the work of Jesus. That's the message of the book of Acts. The church carries on the work of Jesus in teaching and preaching the gospel and bringing men and women into relationship, reconciling men and women to God through the forgiveness of their sins, through the preaching of the gospel of what, and telling people what Jesus did for them on the cross. It's the time of God's decisive action. And everybody can get in on that . Verse 17, all flash , everybody gets in on that. Wow. I've, I've now gone almost four minutes and I haven't said anything beyond verse 17. This is going to be a long episode today, isn't it? But there's a lot of apocalyptic language then in verses 19 and 20, these big signs, some of those signs were seen surrounding the crucifixion of Jesus. And these are harbinger of judgment. These are the Old Testament prophet's way of saying God is bringing his wrath. God's dropping the hammer. And that heightens the tension here because God's judgment is gonna come and people are gonna get judged. And so out of verse 20, if you're standing there, what you are saying is, I don't, I don't wanna be judged. I don't want the wrath of God. I don't want God to judge me. Is there anything that I could do to get out of that? I, I don't wanna be against God, I don't wanna fight against God and, and , and know his anger and wrath. Verse 21. Well, what you need to do is you need to call upon the name of the Lord. That's what you need to do. And then you'll be saved. And so what happens then for the rest of this sermon is Peter develops, who is the Lord? And how do you call? It's a great sermon. I I'm so amazed. Sometimes people act like Peter just stood up and randomly spouted off some stuff. It is carefully structured, it's tightly done, it's very concise and it is powerful. More of that on Thursday, as we keep listening to Peter preach, it is Thursday. Thursday we read Acts chapter two verses 22 to 33. And as you're reading today, I would covet your prayers because I'm coming home today. I'm driving home from the Fort Smith area, heading back to Texas, coming home, looking forward to being home, seeing my wife, baby, I'm coming home. See you in a little while. Let's read in Acts chapter two today. Let's get more of this sermon. Acts chapter two, verse 22 to 33 . It's , boy, it's hard to stop right here. But the question is, who's the Lord? Verse 21 and how do we call? And Peter moves very directly to answer that question. It's Jesus of Nazareth. Verse 22, A man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders. It's Jesus. And this Jesus, verse 23 has been delivered up according to the plan and foreknowledge of God and you crucified him. Notice how God's planning and man's activity go together. They are woven together here and what God has done. Verse 24, God raised him up. God reversed the evil verdict of men who didn't get it, didn't see it, didn't wanna see it. God has overturned the Sanhedrin Council's verdict on Jesus. I mentioned that yesterday. That's what God has done because Jesus is real. He is the son of God. He is who he claimed to be. And David told us this is what's going to happen. Verse 25, we start getting this quotation out of Psalm 16. This can't refer to David. There's no way that this is talking about David. Can't be David because David, he's still buried verse 29, but he was a prophet. Verse 30. And he talks about the Christ. Verse 31, the resurrection of the Christ. So where is Jesus? If he's resurrected, how about he just trots out here? That'd be impressive. Could we just see Jesus a little bit? Well, that's not how that's gonna work because this Jesus, verse 32, God raised up and he's been exalted at the right hand of God. This is Psalm one 10. Now that Peter's bringing to the discussion Psalm one 10 is very important. Jesus applies it to himself in Luke chapter 20 and verse 42 in Luke chapter 22 in verse 69. And it explains that Jesus is in the , is in the exalted position in heaven. And it says verse 33, that Jesus is the one who's pouring out the spirit. Jesus is the one who's doing this. Jesus said he do it, and he is the one who's doing it. How'd he get to heaven? He was resurrected from the dead. Wow. Peter Sermon has reached a fever pitch right here. What a dramatic and important moment sets up the last part of the sermon, which we read tomorrow. See you on Friday. It is Friday, Friday end of the week. All kinds of good things happening. And once again, I'm asking for your prayers because today I get on an airplane and I fly to Nashville, then I'll jump in a car and drive to Belksville, Kentucky. I'm preaching in a weekend meeting Friday, Saturday and Sunday in Kentucky. And I'm excited about that for a lot of reasons. But one of them is, this is the last meeting for the spring. That's right from here on in. I'm staying home and I'm pretty excited about that. I love preaching at West Side . Lots of great things happen there. It's great to be on the road and meet other brethren. A lot of joy in all of that and, and I appreciate those opportunities and don't take that lightly in any way at all. Pray for me though today as I'm headed to Kentucky, meet some new brethren. I don't know anybody very well there and want to meet those brethren, get to know them just a little bit better. Well, as I think about it, I know the preacher there pretty well, but, but , uh, looking forward to getting to know those folks in Kentucky. And I'll bring a report about how the brethren are when I get back home, coming home on Monday and hope all things will go well with the flights and the weather and the rental car. But mostly, mostly I hope to see some brethren who are ready to open their Bibles and open their hearts to the word of God. That's what Peter needs here in Acts chapter two today, our reading is Acts chapter 2 34 to 39. And that's the climax of this sermon. Maybe the greatest sermon ever preached short of the sermon on the mouth , greatest sermon ever preached by a hu , by a human being. So in verse 34, Peter's really working here. It's not about David. You can't ascribe these things to David. It's not David. It's all about Jesus. And it makes verse 36, Jesus Lord and Christ king and Messiah in Gentile evangelism. The stress is always on Lord. They need to recognize him as king Jewish evangelism. Lots of times it's on Christ that he is the Messiah. They needed to recognize him as the promise Messiah. And the issue here is you need to repent in Luke's gospel, it's always about repentance. We talk a lot about baptism and we have to talk about baptism. But for Luke, it's about repentance. And Jesus preached that as well. And we saw that all through the gospel of Mark. And it's all through the gospel of Luke. Repentance is that change of heart about sin, which causes us to turn to God. Repentance is that turning around, but we get some new things in verse 38. Notice that this is for everyone. Repent and be baptized. Every one of you. This is the universal nature of the gospel, not just Jews. Everyone can participate in this. It'll take a while though for the church to understand that fully. Then there is baptism in Jesus's name that shows that Jesus is still alive and working. You didn't stop or change anything by killing Jesus Sanh counsel . And then there's the receiving of the Spirit. There's an invitation here to join in with that pouring out that Joel chapter two talks about. And of course, we're interested in what the gift of the Holy Spirit is here. Some have tried to make this into the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit, but that is, that's impossible. That doesn't work at all. In one Corinthians, Paul talks about some of those brethren don't have gifts. And we see some other things, notably Acts chapter eight, where people are Christians but they don't have the miraculous measure of the Holy Spirit. It is possible that this means the gift from the Spirit. The gift of the Holy Spirit would be the gift the Spirit is giving. And in this context then it would be salvation. And you can make a really good argument for that. That the gift of the spirit is salvation. He is giving you that you call upon the Lord, verse 21 and be saved. You're gonna get what you wanted. You call upon the Lord Jesus Christ and you will receive the gift of that salvation. It also, I should say this, it can be the spirit himself. It can be the spirit himself. You can't tell specifically from the grammar. If someone says, Hey, did you get any gifts for your birthday? And someone says, yeah, yeah, I got the gift of Mark Roberts. Well, that could be, what could that be? That could be the gift I gave , I gave you. Or that could be, I got Mark Roberts as a gift. Make you mow the yard and clean the gutters. I , I got him. And it can be here, the Spirit. And that fits pretty well with what's been said here about the pouring out of the spirit. You need to study that and think about that more and more. But I think one of the markers of the Messianic age, and one of the differences between the old covenant and the new covenant is there's something different about the spirit and more and more that's causing me to think. Some things here about the Spirit himself being the gift for those who are repenting and being baptized. And of course that is exactly the requirements if you want to be saved. That is exactly the requirements of salvation. There's no if, ands, or buts about it. I am amazed at how hard people try to work to get around. Acts 2 38, don't try to get around. Acts 2 38. The command here is not repent. And sometime later if you want to, you can get baptized by baptism. Not very important. No. You need to be baptized. Baptism marks the turning point that repentance starts. It says, I have faith in the working of God. Colossians two 12. It is the place where we are entering into the body of Christ. Galatians chapter three, Paul talks about that there. And we become a new creature in Romans chapter six, you must be baptized in order to become a Christian. These people understood that, and you and I should understand that as well. More on this as we continue in this exciting chapter on Monday. But that's the podcast for the week. Thank you for listening. If the podcast is helping you, please tell others about it. And yeah, would you leave a rating? Would you do that? Click on the star thing so that more people will find the podcast because it's being received well by its audience that would, eh , that would help us. But more than anything, just tell folks about it. Well, until Monday when I'll be home from Kentucky and we'll open our Bibles together. Again, I'm Mark Roberts and I wanna go to heaven, and I want you to come to 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.