Daily Bible Reading, Week 16

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 15th. I am Mark and I am holding a great cup of coffee. This is some Costa Rican coffee, just made a fresh Americano and it is really good. One of the things I love about coffee is that different coffees taste different. If you never drunk anything but Folgers or Maxwell House, then you may not have an appreciation for some of that. But if you go to a local coffee shop and you get some coffee beans and grind them, have them grind them. If you don't have a grinder and dump those into your Mr Coffee, you can taste different coffees. Kenyan, Ethiopian, Costa Rican, they all have different flavors and I'm not making that up. This is not just something that people who are coffee nerds get all excited about and the rest of the world's like, yeah, nobody really can taste any of that stuff. Oh no, the coffees taste very, very different and you'll enjoy that. And I don't know why I'm talking so much about coffee when what I really need to talk about is daily Bible reading. Maybe I'm filling the sermon note portion of the podcast with coffee notes because I was not at West Side yesterday. I was in Kentucky preaching in a gospel meeting at the Birchville Church there in Birchville , Kentucky. Excited to be with them. But as you're listening to this, I'm in Nashville trying to get on an airplane and come home, pray for me please that all of that'll work out and that they will get me home. Maybe the thing you're thinking about is not different flavors of coffee. Maybe you're thinking about Uncle Sam because yeah, today is tax day, isn't it? Make sure you get those in. And let me just challenge you with this. Everybody complains about it and I get it. I complain about 'em too. We don't like to see government waste and we don't like to see money being spent on foolish things or even sinful things. There's lots that we don't like about taxes, but this is an amazing country. It's a great country, I would argue the greatest country ever. We enjoy incredible freedoms here and and some of that has to be paid for. Some of that has to be paid for our soldiers. They gotta eat too. And your taxes pay for many of the great things that we enjoy. Roads and bridges and armed forces and all kinds of of things that make this country great. So instead of complaining, Paul says , do all things without grumbling and murmuring and Philippians, instead of complaining, let's just thank God for the blessings that we enjoy in this country and that we have been blessed in such a way that we can financially participate in assisting all the things that are necessary to make this country what it is. That's a little different take on taxes. I used that one time in the pulpit and some tax protest group got ahold of that and blasted me on social media. How can anybody be glad about taxes? Well, Christians can find something to be glad about anything because we just see the blessings of God everywhere. Wasn't at West Side yesterday, be there this Sunday. Looking forward to that. So let's just get right to it. Let's get to daily Bible reading. We are in Acts chapter two. Let's get started. It is Monday and today our reading is Acts chapter two verses 40 to 47. This is a short reading, but it is just full, full of meaning, particularly for people who are interested in restoring New Testament Christianity and being like the church found in the New Testament because this is the first time we read about the church in the New Testament and it does set the template for many of the things that we want to continue to be. I worked with this psalm in my sermon on Easter Sunday because there's implications of the resurrection and here are a bunch of those implications. Notice the emphasis on doing verse 42. What the apostles say, devoted means steadfast, single-minded fidelity, and they are continuing here in the fellowship. The fellowship is the literal reading, and I always chafe and squirm a little bit when people use fellowship to mean a social get together because that isn't how the word is used in the Bible. We wanna call Bible things by Bible names and nobody would stand in their backyard and watch people jump in a swimming pool and say, look at that baptism. That's not a baptism. It's full immersion, but it's not a baptism. And when we get together to play 42, which is wonderful, or watch the ball game , we're not having fellowship in the New Testament Sense Fellowship in the New Testament sense is right here. Acts 2 42, first time we read it, which is what sharing together in spiritual things partaking together. Fellowship means partnering together, working together, being together, and we are being together in spiritual endeavors. And one writer noted, this is not a circle of your best friends, this is a circle of people who have responded to the call of the gospel. Boy, we need to remember that about the church. The church is not a friend society where I can meet people who are gonna be like me. The church is full of people who have responded to the call of God by the gospel. And the breaking of bread there in verse 42, contextually has got to be the Lord's Supper. And what you're seeing here, look at verse 43, is people didn't have an ammo , momentary emotional reaction to Peter's preaching. Their lives change , their lives change and they are together. Verse 46 in the temple. Notice that in the temple, I talked last week about the change in our culture and in the change in our country from a tailwind to a headwind, the church began with a tailwind, lots of momentum and lots of favor with all the people. The temple here, probably their meeting in the park called Solomon's porch, which was a long court running along the eastern side of the outer court. If you'll Google that, you can pull some images up, artist conception of that great place to meet, great place for the New Testament church to get started. And they are getting started with a bang. We get more of that as we continue to see the New Testament church grow and continue to see New Testament preaching in action in Acts chapter three. See you tomorrow. Welcome to Tuesday. Today our reading is Acts chapter three verses one to 10, and I am home. So tonight West Siders , we will have a zoom call , zoom prayer and Bible study at seven o'clock tonight. Looking forward to that. Getting to see everybody get to talk a little bit about the meeting in Kentucky and get to talk a lot about Acts chapter three. This is a very cool miracle for a number of reasons, mostly because most Jews would have looked at this guy and said, this guy is terrible. Remember in much Jewish thought, you see this in John chapter nine. You see this in a number of places in scripture. If you are sick, if you're afflicted, that must mean God's curses upon you. You are a bad person. That's what's wrong with you. You did something bad and God is getting you. So here's a man lame from birth. I mean, how bad is that? This guy's clearly an awful person. And instead he receives the grace and mercy of God in a very unexpected way. That is important to note in verse five. He does not expect a miracle at all, but he receives a miracle from the pear . Paul and John , Paul, Peter and John. I'm getting a little ahead of myself in the book of Acts, aren't I? Peter and John here, the guys that we are reading after the eyewitnesses in our schedule, we're gonna see a lot of pairs in the book of Acts, Paul and Barnabas, there's Paul Barnabas and Mark, Judas and Silas. Silas and Timothy's gonna be a lot of pairs in the book of Acts. And I think that goes with the theme of witnessing. You need two to be a witness. And so they come verse one at the hour of prayer, that'd be about 3:00 PM and they're coming to the beautiful gate where this man is laid. There's a couple of options there. Most scholars think this is a gate between the court of the Gentiles on the court of the women, and that would be a good place for him to be. Jews would be going up into the closer courtyards and precincts of the temple to give for example, and they would have some additional funds be a good place for a beggar to be. Focus your attention carefully on verse six because here Peter uses the name of Jesus Christ and that shows the healing power of Jesus is still available. Jesus is still alive in the thought of the Bible times. The name doesn't just mean who that person is, what's on his driver's license. It expresses the character and nature of their being. You get that a lot in the Bible, in the Psalms. Blessed be the name of God and some people have tried to decide. That means you have to spell God's name, right, and they get into the Yahweh Jehovah JY. Nope. It means the character of God, who God is. And so here in the name of Jesus Christ means all that Jesus is the character, his being who he is, and he's still alive. His power is still available. And it's worth noting that we do some of that. You can sign a check Does . Does anybody still use checks? You can sign a check with your name and that means I stand behind this money, all that I am is behind this. And you can't sign checks when you're dead. Verse six, Jesus can't heal people if he's dead. Jesus has risen. And so there's this notable and incredible miracle. And of course when Luke writes about it, there's gonna be wonder in amazement, verse 10, Luke's such an optimistic writer and he's always queuing off the good news and good things that are happening. Oh , just amazing, unbelievable miracle. Well, it's not unbelievable. It's done by the power of Jesus Christ. We'll talk more about that tonight West at Zoom. See you at seven for the rest of you, see you tomorrow as we continue to read in Acts chapter three, I'll see you on Wednesday. It is Wednesday and we are reading in Acts chapter three. We are reading Acts chapter three, verses 11 to 16. These verses really are important and we need to slow down and just get the goodies that are here because starting in verse 12, Peter could say, yep , we're somebody. Look at us. We are really impressive. Pass the hat there, John. Let's all get some money for me and for you. Nope , no, we're not doing that. And as you turn to verse 13, notice what we would expect is the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. The God of our fathers has done this healing. But that isn't what Peter says. There is a huge Old Testament connection there. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers that gets every Jew standing there leaning in. Yeah, that's us. That's who we are. We're the people of God. But then Peter says, he glorified his servant Jesus. It's about Jesus. The Old Testament leads us to Jesus. The New Testament is rooted in the Old Testament. We need the Old Testament to understand the New Testament, and we don't ever want to see some kind of replacement theory. Oh , the Old Testament was a failure, so now God's running in something new. Oh, it's plan B. Let's get Jesus down there and get at that law. Moses thing that didn't work out real well. That's never how this is to be characterized or to be thought of. But God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob glorified his servant Jesus. And then you failed. You delivered him over. Notice he's the servant. That's that Isaiah 53, God has glorified his servant. That's Isaiah 52 13, which is part of the Isaiah 53 servant song . Sometimes we don't get all of the Isaiah 53 'cause part of it is in Isaiah 52 and then he's the holy one. Verse 14, he's the one from Psalm 16 and he is the author of life. Look at all these titles for Jesus. He's the author of life. Can You Kill the Prince of Life? The idea of author here is leader pioneer, champion originator. How can you kill the Prince of life? What a tremendous contradiction there is in that which would get people's attention, make people say, wait, wait. Oh , go over that again . Oh , what ? What did you say about that? And then there's this tremendous contrast again between how these people acted and what God has done. Pilate stood closer to God. Verse 13 than you people Pilate did. He wanted to release him. You denied. Verse 14, the holy and righteous one. The preaching here is sharp. The preaching here brings conviction. The preaching here is designed to drive people to faith in Jesus Christ. And we'll get more of that as we continue with Peter sermon. This is the second time he's had the pulpit, isn't it? Second time. We'll read more of that tomorrow in Acts chapter three. I'll see you on Thursday. Welcome to Thursday. And today we're reading in Acts chapter three. We will finish this chapter today, reading 17 to 26. And this is really the meat of the sermon. It gets a little conciliatory here in verse 17. You didn't know what you were doing, but you can't keep leading ignorance 'cause now we're telling you about the Messiah so that you'll understand and do the right thing. And if you'll do the right thing, then there can be times of refreshing. Verse 20. And there can be the restoring of all things. Times of refreshing is an expression that refers to the blessings , um, to a respite. The figure is of a refreshing breeze. Maybe you've had a hot day and the wind kicked up very nicely, maybe as you stepped over into the shade and there was this time of refreshing. Well, the Messianic age is a time of refreshing from the Lord when all things are brought together to fruition. Everything that God wants done is being done in the Messiah. And verse 20 may even sound a little bit like if everybody would repent verse 20 and 21, then then the Lord would return. And that's caused some amount of conversation and there's a lot of writing about all of that, but I'm not sure that's out of place, particularly given what Peter says in second Peter three about how God's waiting for everyone to repent. God's promises are not slack, but he is long suffering, not willing that any should perish. Second Peter, chapter three, God wants people to repent. And there may be a lot of factors in why God hasn't rolled this thing up and finish it off by now, but part of it is God wants more people to repent so that they can come and live with him. Notice the emphasis on repentance in verse 19. This is about repentance and you need verse 25 to repent because you're part of this covenant there. There's the Abrahamic promises from Genesis chapter 12 being repeated in verse 25, and I think in verse 26, turning every one of you, there's repentance again. I think Peter's gonna say some things about how everybody can be in. Everybody can be part of the kingdom, but he doesn't get to finish the sermon. The sermon is interrupted and tomorrow we see why. See you on Friday. It is Friday. It is Friday. That is just wonderful news, isn't it? We made it through the week and we're completing this series of sermons and teachings from Peter and turning to something different in Acts chapter four. The difference here is what interrupted him. In Acts chapter three, I would like to know more of where Peter was going with that sermon, but in Acts chapter four, as they were speaking to the people, verse one, the priest and the captain of the temple and said she came upon them , they get arrested. They get arrested, there's opposition to the preaching of the gospel, and that interrupts things here. Luke does use interruptions a lot in his gospel and in the Book of Acts, watch for some of those. These are powerful and important people. The Sadducees control the temple. They are the aristocracy and they are in charge of keeping the peace because they're the liaison between the people and the Sanh council and the Roman government. And so they don't like this disturbance in the temple and they grab 'em and throw 'em in jail. It's already evening verse three, so it's too late in the day. They started about the third hour, I'm sorry, about three o'clock in chapter three, verse one. And then they preach the while . So it's just too late in the day to have a full on trial. So we're gonna do that tomorrow. Luke then adds verse four, if the church is not being stopped by its enemies, it continues to grow. The term here is men. That's distinct from women and children. That's an important distinction. Some of these new gender inclusive vi bibles will blur that. This is important for us to see the number of men and in many ways that would help us. What ? What do you do here? You double the amount. Maybe there's 10,000 Christians, maybe more when you start counting women and children as well. And so the Sanhedrin assembles verse five, look at the Luke and overkill. Luke can really make sure you get the point. And these are very powerful men. This is the supreme court of the land. They are in charge. They run the show. And these guys are not happy with what's going on here. I'm looking at the courage of Peter. Then in verse eight, this is the man who could not stand up to a maid servant . And now he's filled with the Holy Spirit and he is bold. This is the prediction of Jesus Christ in Luke chapter 12, and Luke chapter 21, in the power of God. Peter is very bold. There's a difference here in Peter. And the Holy Spirit is making that difference in his life. And the first thing that Peter does is make everybody angry. Verse 10, he starts talking about Jesus Christ and that offends everybody in the room. And to bolster that claim, he then uses a favorite text. Psalm one 18, verse 22, the rejected cornerstone. And we think of the cornerstone as laying on the ground, the foundation. Everything is squared or trued off of that, but the term probably means the capstone in an arch , the highest point of the roof. The capstone holds all of that together. And he then says, there's salvation in nobody else. And what Peter's doing here is he's moving from salvation, from physical defects, the healing of the lame man to salvation of our souls. Peter announces to the whole Sanhedrin the most powerful and important, and in some ways religious people on the planet. You guys are out. And the only way back in is through Jesus. And everybody here has got to be super unhappy with where this is going. Particularly the Sadducees, because they don't even believe in the resurrection. Woo , this is some stern stuff, is it ? And they solvers 13, the boldness of Peter and John. Make sure you work those questions. What do Peter and John see here? What do we see in Peter and John? Watch this. Sitting next to a Sanhedrin councilman, don't stand next to Peter and John. Stand next to the Sanhedrin Council and look at these guys. Look at the change in them. Look at who they are. More on that on Monday, and I'll see you then. But this, this brings the podcast to a close for the week. Sure do appreciate you listening. Hope you'll share the show with others that will help them in their daily Bible reading. And as always , I'm hoping that you're subscribed or followed so it's downloading automatically. Give us a rating, give us a review that helps more people find the podcast. Well until Monday, then when we'll open our Bibles together. Again, I'm Mark Roberts and I wanna go to heaven, and I want you to come to I'll see you Monday with a cup of coffee.

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