Christianity is Wonderful : Love - 1 Cor 13:13

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 22nd. I'm Mark Roberts . I've got a great cup of coffee going, I've got some Bible reading notes. I'm thinking about yesterday's sermon, all of that and much more packed into this podcast. Are you ready? Let's get started. I'm still thinking about yesterday's sermon and I hope that you are too. I really love this series a lot about how Christianity is wonderful. I think sometimes we lose sight of that and it's just good to revisit that and to get ahold of that once again. And Christian Love, the love of God in our lives is amazing and it is part, a huge part of what makes Christianity so special. I really wrestle with that sermon. You you wanna talk about love and and what's special about Christian Love. It takes a little while to kind of separate that out because of course the world is interested in love too and kind of took a while to wrestle through all of that and think about all of that and get that where I wanted it. I hope that lesson helped you. I would say this as an additional note here. It seems to me that the love of God has to animate what we are doing. And when we lose that, when we stop thinking about how much God loves us and how wonderful that is and how that empowers and makes us who we are, the fruit of the spirit, love, joy, peace, patient love first in the list there, when we start letting go of that, that's when Christianity gets stale. That's when we get tired. That's when this gets to be drudgery. That's my word for just, you know, zombie walking through life. Christianity's just , uh, drudgery. It's so difficult and it's getting me down and I'm just trudging . It's trudgery, it's trudgery. And trudgery happens when we forget about the love of God and when we let the love of God into our lives and then we love like God loves and we allow Christian Love to flow through us, Christianity becomes , Christianity becomes wonderful. And we see some of that today in our daily Bible reading. Grab your Bible. Let's turn to the Book of Acts, get some coffee. Let's think about today's daily Bible reading . It is Monday and today's reading is Acts four 13 to 22 . As we see how the Sanhedrin responds to Peter and John who are so brave and are so bold, saw that on Thursday their salvation verse 12 in no one else for there's no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. I love verse 13, first verse In our Bible reading today, they saw the boldness of Peter and John. They perceived they were uneducated and common men and they recognized they had been with Jesus. Being with Jesus changes people and probably in this context, this refers to Jesus' ability to handle the scriptures and to make an argument from the scriptures, which is exactly what Peter and John have just done. Verse 11, this is the stone. Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders which has become the cornerstone. Only rabbis could do that kind of arguing and Jesus was untrained. Peter and John are untrained and here they are making these high powered arguments using the Bible to show that Jesus is the Messiah and this boldness certainly comes right from the Holy Spirit. Acts four verse eight. It is a fulfillment of what Jesus told them would happen and now it's rolling out right before our very eyes. They try then of course verses 15 and 16, they're gonna try to squash this. Please notice nobody says anything about let's just go get the body of Jesus. I tell you what, it's gonna be gross gonna be kind of icky, but let's just roll the body of Jesus out here and that'll shut this movement down. All this resurrection nonsense. No one says that. And no one says this was a fake miracle. This guy was a plant. It's all a put up job. No, they know this is for real. But I often, I say this a lot. Miracles, don't compel faith, do they? They do not compel faith, so they try to just bully them some more. That's going nowhere and the gospel wins. That's a huge emphasis in the book of Acts. The gospel overcomes and breaks down every barrier and we get done with all of this. You can't stop the gospel and we're gonna see more of that in tomorrow's reading. See you on Tuesday. It is Tuesday and today we read Acts chapter four verses 23 to 37. This is the end of the chapter, the end of Acts chapter four. And what we're getting here is what's going to happen after all of these threats in verse 23 says, they went to their friends and reported and the result from that verse 24 is the church praise . Want us to think about that, the church pray . Would that be our response today? If civil authorities threatened us, tried to shut the church down, forbade preaching and teaching in the name of Jesus, what would we do about that? Would we retain lawyers? Would we talk about our rights? Would we hold a press conference? This church, the New Testament church, they pray Verse 24, sovereign Lord sovereign is a powerful term here means absolute ruler. And then there's the quotation beginning in verse 25 from David. This is out of Psalm chapter two, that is a royal psalm that was written to celebrate the coronation of the new king. When you get a new king, the vasal nations, the little nations that have been subjugated by the old King, they may try to revolt during this time of transition and God just laughs at that. That kind of thing is just futile. It means nothing. It's not gonna happen because God has installed this king. And then Jesus in Psalm two, seven is expressly identified there as the king. He is the son of God. He is the one who is reigning and ruling. And so the church says, we know the Lord is reigning the holy servant Jesus. Verse 27, that you anointed, he is king and Messiah. So verse 29, we would like, this is what we're asking for, not relief from persecution, boldness to keep preaching and the church prays for God's word to go forth. And that is such a tremendous lesson for you and for me, prayer is more powerful than persecution. Can I say that again? Prayer is more powerful than persecution. That's what we're seeing here in Acts chapter four. This is the right response to persecution. This is what we should be seeking because this is what the New Testament Church does. This is how it answers these threats. And I'm always saying good things about Luke because Luke is incredible. Luke's my favorite gospel as you know. And the book of Acts is the most important book of the Bible, which makes Luke the writer of the most important book of the Bible. I can't say enough good things about Luke. And Luke here just shows literary genius because when we get done with verse 31, the power of God comes upon the church. Again, just filling them and renewing that. We wonder what , what about saying he council , what ? What are those guys gonna do about this? Peter and John weren't buffaloed at all and Luke just leaves that hanging. Luke just leaves that hanging there. We're gonna have to see where that's gonna go and what's gonna happen about that. Still some tension here, still some tension in what's going on. And then we get this idea of the generosity of the church. And once again, Luke's talking about money. Sometimes money can be a problem. We get lots of that in the gospel of Luke . It can get in the way of people serving the Lord. But this church is generous and they share together, they share together. And then verse 36, very common, very characteristic of Luke, you get the glimpse of a figure who will later turn out to be a major character. Barnabas becomes super important in the narrative of acts and you get a little glimpse of him and we'll get more of him later on. But this business of sharing together, well, I said something about sometimes wealth gets in the way of people serving in the kingdom and putting first things first. Guess what's gonna happen tomorrow. See you on Wednesday. We read about Ananias and Safara. Westsiders, I'll see you tonight on Zoom as we consider this text and we'll talk a little bit about the sharing together and how it bonds the church together. Looking forward to that. See you on Zoom tonight. Everybody else tune in tomorrow we'll talk about the devil's attack on this amazing church. Welcome to Wednesday. And we're reading, yep , we're reading a pretty difficult section of the book of Acts. We're reading Acts chapter five verses one to 16. And I don't think this is anybody's favorite part of the book of Acts. It's a scary and very sobering account of the devil attacking the church. And what's so scary about this is that we've had an attack on the church before, but that came from outside this time. This time the devil uses someone inside. Ananias and Sapphira are insiders. They are part of the church and yet they are liars and deceivers and God deals with that in an incredibly stern way. I think there are some parallels here to the story of Aiken in the book of Joshua. You might want to think through that. Go read that story again and watch how this looks like and sounds like a lot of that notice verse one, but a man named Ananias the but there is a strong link to what's going on before in 4 37. Here's a place where the chapter division may disrupt the thought. The contrast is between the generosity of Barnabas and the deception and hypocrisy of Anani and Sfi. One writer said they were not so much misers as thieves and above all liars. They wanted the credit and the prestige for sacrificial generosity without the inconvenience of it. So in order to gain a reputation for which they had no right, they told a brazen lie. Their motive in giving was not to relieve the poor but to fatten their own ego. And please underline in your Bible in verse four. While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? It's very common for people to say something about how God owns everything or everything we have is really God's. And there is certainly a sense in which that is true. I understand about that. But there is also a sense in which that is not true. God gives us possessions, gives us wealth, gives us resources, and they are ours to use as we see fit and dispose of as we see fit. And that is precisely what Peter is going for in verse four. And so Anani is struck dead. He breeded his last verse five. That is an expression used in the New Testament when someone is struck by God to emphasize divine judgment. Sfi verse eight is given a chance to make correction about that she does not. Instead she's testing the spirit of the Lord. Notice the work of the Holy Spirit going on here. Verse three now verse nine. And she dies as well. So the result then verse 11, she struck dead , I should say, to be consistent with breathe their last. She didn't just die. Oh I'm, you know, got some weird disease or you know, die of natural co then nothing natural about this. She is struck dead as her husband was by the Lord. And now verse 11, great fear came upon the whole church. Church here is Ecclesia . And that's the first time the term is used here to mean church or to mean kingdom. Very common. I can remember growing up lots of people talking about preachers talking about that the word meant called out and it was given a lot of special significance called out. Actually that's not really right and not very good etymology here, it just means an assembly. In fact, it's used in Acts 1932 of a citizen assembly in a Greek city. What's more important than this kind of artificial called out business ? It doesn't mean that it just means like a group of people. And like I said, like in an assembly, what's more important is it is the word used in the Sept , the Greek translation of the Old Testament to refer to Israel. It refers to Israel in the Old Testament. It is the regular rendering of the Hebrew word for congregation or assembly for the Israelites. So Luke is pushing here by the pen of inspiration, the idea that the church is the new Israel of God. And so signs and wonders are being done and the people hold them in high esteem. I think there's probably a couple of groups here. Verse 13, there's the Christians who are meeting in the temple and then there's unbelieving Jews who aren't getting too close. And then there's responsive Jews who do believe as the gospel continues to work. And so we get another growth statement in verse 14 as we had in chapter two verse 41. And as we had earlier in chapter four in verse four, and there's just extraordinary healing power happening here. His shadow, the shadow of Peter verse 15 , uh, that'll be paralleled later by Paul. And it does remind us of the woman who touched Jesus' garment and she was healed simply by touching. And things are beginning to move outside of Jerusalem a little bit in verse 16. We'll see more of that as some things change. Talk a little bit about headwinds and tailwinds. Not long ago, right now, church has a huge tailwind. They are rolling and the gospel's going forward Tomorrow we'll keep working in Acts chapter five because as soon as the devil fails with anoni of fire , he mounts another attack. It is Thursday. And today we read Acts chapter five, verses 17 to 26. The high priest verse 17 rose up and filled with jealousy. They arrest the apostles, watch rose up. It happens again in verse 34. That's kind of a section marker here. And so the apostles are thrown in prison and God breaks 'em out. Jailbreak verse 19, three prison releases in the book of Acts, acts five, acts 12 and Acts 16. And this is done by the angel of the Lord, angel of the Lord, sometimes in the Old Testament, particularly his God himself. I'm not sure here, this looks more like an angel. Angel, is that even a term? An angel. Angel? And what we'd certainly know here, without any doubt is that this is a supernatural release. And this is God's way of saying human powers cannot stop the gospel. The gospel keeps rolling in Verse 20, go speak to the people. All the words of this life. Christianity is life. Christianity is wonderful, isn't it? I need to preach a series about that. And so there's just more trouble and turmoil among those who are the foes of the cross, those who are trying to shut this down. I think verse 25, that it looks like verse 24, verse 25. It looks like maybe there's some Christians among the temple police and we just don't know what to do. It's just everywhere and we can't seem to get it stopped. I would emphasize that there is no attempt here on the part of the New Testament church to get involved in a political movement, to have some kind of nationalistic movement to change the laws. That's not the work of the church. And we need to be very, very clear about that. Tomorrow we finish Acts chapter five. It is Friday. It is Friday. And we're reading Acts chapter five verses 27 to 42. That's a little bit longer reading where used to reading just a few verses. And this is stretching us just a little bit. That's okay. It's okay. We're gonna work this reading here. So in Acts chapter five and verse 27, they bring in the apostles and say, Hey, we told you to stop it. Don't be doing this anymore. You're bringing this man's blood upon us. You're filling Jerusalem with your teaching. Peter and the apostles say guilty on both counts. And then you know exactly what's going to happen. Peter's gonna preach the same sermon that he's always preaching God of our fathers. Verse 30, there's that Old Testament continuity. Christianity grows out of the Old Testament. He emphasizes you hung him on a tree. Verse 30 that's out of Deuteronomy 21, verse 22 and 23, the ultimate disgrace, the ultimate punishment is to be hung on a tree. So Jesus was not just murdered, he was disgraced. God has overturned this terrible verdict. He exalts him at his right hand. Verse 31, he raised him verse 30, and we are witnesses verse 32. And so is the Holy Spirit. Two witnesses are needed. Peter says, we have two witnesses, us and the Holy Spirit probably referencing the signs and wonders that they're able to do. And so Gamal says, we , we just need to stop. He stands up. Verse 34. So we got rose up. Verse 17 stood up. Verse 34, they put him out and Galio says, let's think about this. Now, Galio is probably the most important Pharisee on the council . He is a grandson and disciple of the famous Rabbi Hillel . He was known as the glory of the law and he was one of only seven rabbis to be given the title Rabon . Rabon means our teacher. Rabbi means my teacher. And one writer said, when Rabon Galio , the elder died, the glory of the Torah cease and purity and separateness died. So he has influence, he has push. And he in a great way sums up exactly what the Book of Acts is all about. If it is of God, verse 39, you'll not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing. God. There are some con , some controversy, some questions about the, the role of the men and the order of the men that he cites in as revolutionaries in verse 36 and 37 . Josephus has a slightly different order and people have used that to say that the Bible's wrong. There's a lot to be said about that. That's beyond the scope of a podcast here. Lemme just say this, maybe Josephus is wrong. Why is it any time Bible critics read something outside the Bible that contradicts the Bible? The immediate assumption is the Bible's wrong. These guys outside the Bible. Oh, they have to be right. Josephus was a Jewish general who's defeated by the Romans and became a turncoat and became the historian of the Romans for them. And he writes for them and he writes his history to please them. And that means his history is not always infallible. So there we go. Somebody ask about that, you just say, maybe Josephus is the one that missed it here. But again, the emphasis is 39 and 40, it's 38 and 39, that that's where we are. We are opposing God. And that is exactly what we have seen so far in the Book of Acts . And that's what we're going to see in the rest of the Book of Acts. You can't stop God the book. You can't stop the gospel. The Book of Acts is about the church carrying on the mission and work of Jesus and you cannot stop it. And that's why they rejoice even though they have this terrible beating in verse 40, they rejoice and they verse 42, just keep teaching and preaching that the Christ is Jesus. You can't stop the gospel. I love reading acts. It fills me with courage and faith and I hope it does the same for you as well. Look forward to seeing you on Sunday. That's right. See you Sunday at the West Side Church of Christ. It'll be q and a morning in the nine o'clock hour and we'll think a little bit about the challenges to Christianity as we continue to work through the preaching theme in the 10 40 hour. Look to see you at the West Side Church on Sunday. That's the podcast then for the week. Sure do appreciate you listening. You know what to do. You need to give us a review, our rating so more people can , will find the podcast. Make sure you're downloading it automatically onto your device. Until next week, then when we will open our Bibles together. I'm Mark Roberts and I wanna go to heaven and I want you to come to I'll see you on Monday with a cup of coffee.

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