The Thief on the Cross and the Wrong Way to be Saved

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 June the 10th. I'm Mark and I have got some great coffee here and I am working on the remains some leftovers from National Donut Day on Friday. Yes, Dean and I absolutely are big believers in celebrating National Donut Day. Why do we have 12 days of Christmas and we don't have 12 days of donut day that somebody get busy on that. So I'm working on a little Krispy Kreme here. I've got some coffee going. I'm looking at my notes from yesterday's sermon and I am excited about the gospel of John because that's where Daily Bible reading is going this week. It is gonna be a great week. Let's get started. So a big part of the podcast is getting some of the spiritual momentum from yesterday and keeping it going as we move into the work week . Yesterday I preached on the Thief on the cross and how he makes us uncomfortable and shatters some of those very commonly held ideas about what it takes to get to heaven. That's a tough sermon to preach. I'm always afraid that people will misunderstand when you preach about grace and being saved by grace, you don't ever want to talk about grace and have people shrug their shoulders and say, great god's got it. I'm being saved by grace. I can just live like a complete pagan and do all kinds of crazy bad things and it's all gonna be fine 'cause that we're saved by grace. And that of course is absolutely false. However, it is possible to be misunderstood about grace. Paul was misunderstood about. Grace says that in the book of Romans, we are not saved by works by getting everything right. We are saved by being in relationship with Jesus Christ and that relationship is founded upon forgiveness. Lemme just say a couple of other things. I mentioned a little bit about this do good and go to heaven business and that it's difficult to define exactly what is good. Maybe somewhere in there we ought to say something about no one ever gives credit for all kinds of good things in life When we're talking about good in the context of going to heaven, it's always church stuff, reading your Bible, praying, maybe donating to charity. Well hey, how about inventing air conditioning? That's pretty good if you ask me if good works gets you to heaven, that's that's gotta get you there, doesn't it? How many people have been made more comfortable and enjoyed life a lot more 'cause they had ac, what about the guy that invented Krispy Kreme donuts, man, if, if, if that's, if doing good is what it takes to go to heaven, his salvation is eternally sealed. That's in my book about as good as it possibly can get. So that just illustrates the absurdity though of this. If you do good stuff, you go to heaven. There's no passage in scripture that teaches that zip zero nada . And we need to stop thinking that and the next time you're at a funeral, can we stop with the She's so good. I just know she's in heaven. What we need to say is, isn't it wonderful that Jesus died so she could be forgiven? That's what we need to emphasize. Think more about that as we keep that sermon moving in our lives this week. And now, as much as I'd like to tell you to turn over to the gospel of John, I can't tell you that. In fact, instead I need to tell you to turn to the end of second Peter because we need to finish second Peter before we go start the gospel of John. I'll see you in second Peter the third chapter. It is Monday in today's reading in second Peter the third chapter verses 11 to 18. We are completing second Peter today, and this really is the practical application of what Peter has taught in the first 10 verses that we read on Friday since all these things are thus to be dissolved. Verse 11, how do we live then? In light of this, we need to be living lives of holiness and godliness. We need to be looking for the new heavens and the new earth. Verse 13 that comes out of Isaiah 65. And no, I don't think there's a lot of point in speculating about what that's gonna look like or how that's gonna work. We just don't know. But Peter says, we are the people who are leaning into the future because we know the future for us is going to be incredibly wonderful. And then he concludes with some personal notes. I love what he says here about Paul and Paul is being treated here as an apostle and Paul is being, Paul's writings here are being treated as scripture. Notice verse 16, as they do other scripture, people twist some of these things. That's a word that's used in other places in literature outside the Bible for the word torture. And I think I have seen the Bible tortured. I think I can give you some good illustrations of that from time to time. But grow verse 18, in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, don't lose your stability. Verse 17, Peter didn't always, he didn't always have stability did he? But he is urging that now and he is urging, he is urging that we continue to grow and of course one of the ways that we do that is by reading our valuables. Let's turn over to the gospel of John because we've completed what Peter has written and it's time for us to start thinking about that other eyewitness to Jesus, that other eyewitness that we are following this year, the Apostle John. I'll see you tomorrow. We're starting John's gospel. Welcome to Tuesday and today we begin John's amazing and incredible gospel. Our reading today is John one, one to eight and I'm going to spend more time today on an introduction to John's gospel so we can get our bearings and get figured out where we are and what we're reading. Maybe a little less commenting on some of the verses. Just try to use a lot of my time today to help you get your your feet wet as we begin this incredible gospel. One of my favorite quotes about the gospel of John comes from a well-known scholar, John Morris. He compared the gospel of John to a pool in which a child can wait in , an elephant can swim because the gospel is both simple and profound. It is for the earliest believer in the faith and for the mature Christian its appeal is immediate and never failing . That is absolutely so John paints for us here a wonderful and totally unique portrait of Jesus Christ. There is stuff in John's gospel that isn't anywhere else and sometimes there's material that is not in John's gospel that we would really expect to be there, but if you want a full and complete picture of Jesus, you need to know the Christ of John's gospel. Let's just start by talking about how unique this gospel is. The synoptic gospels, Matthew, mark, and Luke follow a very similar pattern, particularly if you look at Mark's gospel, you get John the Baptist baptism of Jesus, tempting of Jesus, the beginning of the Galilean ministry. That's where things begin. Of course, John's gospel is entirely different. It begins with a prologue verses one to 18 that goes back before the beginning of everything and then there's the testimony of John the Baptist and then this is super important. There is the early Judean ministry chapter one verse 35 through chapter three has Jesus in Judea, the Synoptics don't even talk about that part of Jesus's life. So if you start putting together a list of things that are found in Matthew, mark, and Luke that are not found in John, you get things like the genealogy of Jesus, the birth of Jesus, the baptism of Jesus, temptations of Jesus, transfiguration of Jesus. That's a little odd since John talks so much about glory. I would be almost certain if somebody said, where do I go to read about the transfiguration? I would say, you go to John's gospel. No, don't go to John's gospel. No transfiguration there, no sermon on the mount and no repentance. The word repent or repentance is never found in John's gospel. Please remember that when someone attacks you and says, baptism is never found in John's gospel, so baptism isn't important. Yeah, repentance isn't found either as well. There are no parables in John. The word parable is never found. Making up for that is John's unique slant on Jesus's life. He has things that Matthew, mark and Luke don't even begin to have. Like this business that we'll read today. In the beginning was the word only John explicitly calls Jesus God. There are three verses that do so. There is the incarnation of the logos, the logos, the word only John has that the testimony of John the Baptist to the lamb of God. Only John has that interview with Nicodemus, interview with the Samaritan woman, six miracles that are not covered in Matthew, mark, and Luke. The feast in the temple feature very prominently in John, no less than three Passovers are mentioned. The washing of the disciples feet, the farewell discourse to the disciples. John 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, A major block of material not found in the synoptics, in the main John limits his view of Jesus to what Jesus did in Judea. And that explains a lot of these differences because the synoptics are about what Jesus was doing in Galilee and without any question, the main topic of John's gospel is that Jesus is the Messiah. If you're looking for a purpose statement, and I think that's an important thing to do, we should always ask why did this biblical author write this material? Nobody just sat down and said, I don't have a hobby. I have nothing better to do today. I believe I'll jot out an epistle. I think I'll just write me down a gospel. That is not how that works. People wrote because there was a need for what they were writing. What is the need? What's this about? You should make a note that John gives us very specifically his purpose statement. That's in John chapter 20. In verses 30 and 31, Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples which are not written in this book, but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God and that by believing you may have life in his name. The purpose of John's gospel is to cause people to believe in Jesus as the Messiah, the Christ. And as we're doing kind of introduction to John's sorts of things, maybe an a fair , maybe a fair question to ask is who wrote the gospel of John? Notice it does not begin with, hi, I'm John the Apostle and I'm writing some stuff That's not where the gospel goes and it never does specifically name its author. However, the beloved disciple appears again and again and again in the text and the best fit for who that unnamed semi-anonymous disciple is would be John. The early church believed that there's a a lot of writing about that and it just fits the evidence perfectly. There's all sorts of detail in John's gospel that indicates whoever was writing this is an absolute eye witness in chapter two, for example, and in verse six at the wedding feast in Canaan, there were six stone water jars, not there was some water jars, not there were some water jars of an unknown comp , no six and they were stone, whoever wrote that saw it and remembered that there's lots more that could be said in that particular direction. And there are people who always want to argue for someone else writing the gospel of John. There are folks who are of course enamored of unusual interpretations and kind of do some of that. I know something that you don't know. Oh , you think, you think John the apostle wrote the gospel of John. Oh my and I, I, I , I get it. I've read some all the arguments for those kinds of things and so forth and in the end none of that adds up. Like John writing John. Sometimes the reason there's strong tradition and everybody believes something is because it's just the best possible explanation and maybe the clenching argument here is if John isn't the beloved disciple, where is the Apostle John in this book? John is without question part of Jesus' inner circle, Peter, Andrew, James, and John. Why is he missing in this gospel if he's not the beloved disciple? If he's not the author, he is nowhere to be found here. Then of course we'd want to think a little bit about when the gospel was written and most people propose a later date somewhere around 80 to 85. There's some arguments from John chapter nine, John chapter 12, John chapter 16, Christians being put outta the synagogue, and that was a later development in the first century. However, recently some scholars are beginning to move to a pre 80 70 date and of course ad 70 is a milestone date. That's when Jerusalem was burned, the temple was destroyed by Roman armies and there are some that argue maybe John chapter five, some other places say that Jerusalem is still standing. I'm not sure that this is a book where you have to nail down the dates specifically to know how the book works or what the book is all about. So I'll leave that open as we read through it. Just think a little bit about is this early in Christianity? Is this later in New Testament Christianity? Just think some about that. Maybe you can come to your own decision about that. Most people think John wrote John in Ephesus. There's a lot of writing outside of the New Testament that places John in Ephesus. There's a cathedral of John there now that was built in the three hundreds. Lots of emphasis on John in the city of Ephesus. So that gets us started for the gospel of John. Read today, John one, one to eight powerful prologue. The idea of Jesus being the word, being in the closest possible fellowship with the Father, being absolute deity. This is a Trinity passage, no question about it. And Jesus is the word of God. He expresses God's thoughts, he reveals God to us. He reveals God. Only God can reveal God and Jesus is God and he is the word. John one 14 makes that clear. Today we're only reading eight verses. Read those eight verses and we'll talk more about them in Zoom tonight. Tuesday is zoom night for us at West Side . I'll see you on the zoom call tonight. We'll read through John one, one to eight and consider it further. The rest of you folks, see you tomorrow on Wednesday. We'll keep reading in John chapter one. It is Wednesday, it is hump day and of course that means we're resuming our summer series. We are doing the parables on Wednesday night this year. And speaking for us tonight is Devin Har and here's Devin , introduce himself and to tell you exactly what he'll be preaching on tonight.

Hello, my name is Devin Harbor . I preach for the Northwest Church of Christ in Beaumont, Texas. I am originally from southeastern Oklahoma and come from a long line of ranchers. So my background is in the horse and cattle industry. I've been preaching for a little over six years and have spent all of that time in Texas. My family and I will be with you Wednesday, June 12th, we will spend our evening studying the parable of the two builders. This is a marvelous passage that will help us all better serve King Jesus. We look forward to our time together.

Thank you Devin . I'm looking forward to hearing what you have to say this evening. Today our Bible reading is in John chapter one verses nine to 18. Let's look at what John is doing here in the text as he talks about the true light in John's gospel. True will mean real or genuine. So the light has come into the world. This is an incarnation statement and it is the genuine light. It is God in the flesh. In verse 10, then watch how John uses the word world in three different ways. He was in the world, the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He was in the world, that's the earth and the world was made through him. That's the universe, that's everything. And the world didn't know him. That's people. That's the people in the world. And he came to his own verse 11 and his own people did not receive him. This is what's called a johanan variation. That's kind of a big word. Johanan like Pauline and Pauline. Epistles are the epistles that Paul wrote or a luan expression is something that Luke would say. Johanan is a way of saying. John wrote that in verse 11 is very much a johanan passage. He says it one time and then he says it slightly differently to explain it and give it a fuller meaning. And then verse 12 comes Notice if you believe in Jesus's name, you get the right to become a child of God. It doesn't make you a child of God. It gives you the right to become a child of God. Faith empowers the process by which one can in fact become a Christian and that leads us all to verse 14, the verse that we are awaiting for God comes in the flesh. The word became flesh andto among us. We have seen his glory. Glory is a salvation word. It brings up all the glory of Jehovah in the Old Testament and then he is the only sign . Some translations have only begotten son , but begotten is not the best translation here. The term here means unique and you may have a marginal note. He is the only one or the unique one. And what John is saying is he is a unique son of God. We can become a child of God verse 12, but we will never be a child of God, like Jesus is the only unique son of God and in fact he has come. He is tabernacle, flesh and dwelt among us. The word dwelt here is the word tabernacle evoking all that the tabernacle brings. I'm teaching that on Sundays and we're talking about God dwelling among us. Jesus comes, puts on a tent of flesh and dwells among us and he came to explain God. Verse 18, he has come to make him known. No one has ever seen God. I'm thinking about Moses here. He got to see something of God, but nobody has ever seen God full on Jesus came. He's the only one who could do this to make the Father, to make God known John one verse 18. Tomorrow we continue in this grand passage. Tomorrow it takes much more of a story turn and begins to read like we expect a gospel to read after this incredible prologue. I'll see you on Thursday. It is Thursday and today we read John chapter one verses 19 to 28 . This is the testimony of John the Baptist. John has said that the Baptist will testify. That's verse seven, John one, verse seven. He came as a witness to bear witness about the light that all might believe through him. He was not. The light came to bear witness about the light. That's very important in John's gospel. It's a very important point in all of the gospels that there not be confusion about John the Baptist being the Messiah. And you'll notice that a deputation comes. It's important. There are some priests here. Remember John the Baptist was a son of a priest. That may factor into why some priests come to talk to him here and they want to know what are you doing and are you the Messiah? During the time of the first century, messianic expectations just ran wild. There were lots of people making the false claim that they were the Messiah. It was a time when people were looking for salvation and deliverance largely from the oppression of the Roman Empire. But many people wanted a Messiah and so they come and say, Hey, are you it? Are you the guy? And even the way Jesus says, I'm not the Messiah is used to say Jesus is the Messiah. He confessed and did not deny. I am not the Christ. He also says, I'm not Elijah. And since Jesus actually says John is Elijah, maybe some people would be a little confused about that. Don't be confused about that. They are asking him if he is literally Elijah. The interpretation in the first century of Malachi four verse five led the Jews to believe they were going to get a literal reincarnation, if you will, a literal return of Elijah, the real prophet in John says, I'm not that guy. Now, Jesus will say in Luke chapter one and in Matthew chapter 17, Jesus will say that he is Elijah because he's the forerunner. He is like Elijah. He is a type of Elijah, but he of course he is not literally Elijah, he's John, John the Baptist. And in fact, John the Baptist says in verse 23, wow , I've got John's gospel, John the Apostle and John the Baptist. I'm working all of that here at the same time here. He says in verse 23, I'm the guy of Isaiah 40, I am the Isaiah 40 guy and Isaiah 40, God says, get ready. I'm straightening out roads and I'm leveling hills. I'm bringing the people back. I'm bringing the people back to me. And John says he's part of this fix up program to get ready for new things. And that's why, that's why he's baptizing. And there's a lot of question about that. Why are you baptizing? Where's your authority for doing this? The religious leaders are always concerned about your credentials. Who told you you could do this? By what authority do you do this? And of course there are questions even today about John's baptism. I think sometimes there's confusion about some of that. People will ask, if you're baptized by John, did you have to be baptized again? And of course the answer to that is absolutely yes. If you're baptized by John, you need to be baptized with Jesus's baptism. Acts chapter 19 makes that very, very clear. Then people will ask, well then why was John baptizing if I need to be baptized again? And that's not really dealt with in the gospel of John. It's handled in the synoptic gospels in Matthew chapter three verse 11, and in Mark chapter one and verse four, he was baptizing for repentance of sins. And some people think, well I I thought that's what Christ baptism is for. Well, that is certainly part of the baptism of Christ. Acts chapter two verse 38, but that's not all Jesus' baptism does. But John's baptism was to say that people needed to get ready for the Messiah. And a big part of getting ready for the Messiah was repenting and being forgiven. And one of the things that you did to show your repentance was you were baptized by John the Baptist. And in fact, the gospel say that very, very clearly. There's not really much argument about that even though people kind of like to argue about some of that. That's what the Bible says about John's baptism. So he was doing this baptizing verse 28 across the Jordan. So this is on the east side of the Jordan. We don't really know where this Bethany is. It's this is happening in John one and in verse 28. But John is doing this baptizing and this is causing people to think about the Messiah and to be interested in the Messiah. He's preparing the way for Jesus. And we'll see more of that on Friday. It is Friday, and today we read John chapter one verses 29 to 42 . Here is more of the testimony of John, and for the first time we get a look at Jesus in verse 29. Jesus is coming towards John. Remember I I I mentioned yesterday. You've got the Gospel of John, John the Apostle and John the Baptist. But in the gospel of John, anybody named John is John the Baptist Because the Apostle John is never named in this gospel. So if it says John, it's John the Baptist, and he sees Jesus coming and he says, behold, that's a Jewish expression, probably would be translated in a more colloquial way into our vernacular by saying, look, look there. Behold the lamb of God. And that is John's testimony. It is an unusual term here for Lamb, a little bit different. It is a term that is used in the Book of Revelation, which of course John wrote as well. What is he referencing here then? He's the Lamb of God. What does that mean? There is, there is some apocalyptic writing from the time between Malachi and Matthew that talks about a warrior lamb that cleans up everything. And of course, you know how interested I am in apocalyptic literature, particularly the stuff that's written during the intertestamental period. And so I, I kind of like some of that. People would be thinking about that. There are other options. It could be the daily sacrifice lamb, it could be the scapegoat, could be the Passover lamb, probably probably the best guess here is Isaiah 53. This is the same word here for lamb that's being used in the Greek translation of Isaiah 53. And John will appeal to Isaiah 53 elsewhere. More than likely he's referencing Isaiah 53 7. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth like a lamb that has led to the slaughter and like a sheet before it shears his silent so you opened not his mouth. I think that's a good thing to write in the margin right there. If you're doing your daily Bible reading, probably not gonna wanna hunt around and try to read some intestinal apocalyptic literature, first Enoch or something like that. Probably the best solution to this is that he is referencing John the Baptist is referencing Isaiah 53, Isaiah 53, 7. Always get a little nervous when I tell people to write stuff in the margin of their Bible. If I change my mind on who John is referencing there and I'm working along with that, somebody's gonna come up to me and say, but you said, well, hey, write it in pencil. Maybe this is what I think at this moment. I reserve the right to change my mind. Good Bible study results oftentimes in us rethinking things, coming to some new conclusions. Don't panic if that happens. That's actually a good thing. John then says in verse 31, notice that John is making some movement here. I didn't always know Jesus was the Messiah, but I came and I saw something happen. Verse 32, notice that there , the writer of the gospel of John believes, everybody knows the baptism story and knows the spirit descending. I don't have to tell you that story. A story is widely known. And so the sign here confirms Jesus as the Messiah with the result then that the next day, look at this timeframe, look at this timeframe. Verse 29, the next day, then verse 35, the next day, John's gospel is giving us some time markers. That's very common for John to do that. He wants to tie some events together and we get these time markers to make sure that all of this fits. This is again, the Baptist pushing people verse 35, 36 towards Jesus. And that just goes absolutely hand in glove, which on the Baptist clear understanding of who he is and who he is, not what great popular leader has ever said, stop following me. Go follow that other guy. That never happens unless you're John the Baptist and you know clearly what your role is. Go follow that guy. And Jesus turns and says, what are you seeking? Verse 38. They say, where are you staying? Jesus says, you come and you're gonna see, and this is about the 10th hour verse 39. Now I could go on and on and on and on about whether this is Jewish time, which would be about four o'clock in the afternoon or whether this is Roman time. Roman time would be different sometimes I I , I think John's gospel seems to use Roman time more than Jewish time, not entirely certain about how all of that is going to work. I think probably the point here is not to be able to set the hands on the clock when this happened, but to realize John never forgot the moment he met Jesus. The apostles life changed right here, and then he went verse 40, and he gets his brother. And while we don't know, this is Andrew, of course, who goes and gets his brother, and so we don't know that much about Andrew, but we know that he brought Peter to Jesus. What a what a decisive moment. This is in so many ways. John's gospel is such a huge part of our understanding of Jesus, the Book of Revelation, the epistles that he wrote, Peter's in the picture here. This is a huge, huge moment in New Testament. Christianity brought him to Jesus. Verse 42. He said, you'll be called CEUs Aramaic, and we really land on this name change and sometimes a whole lot is made out of that. I think the point of this is that Jesus knows everything, and we're gonna get more of that as we move further in this reading on Monday, but until then, that'll close the podcast for the week. Thank you so much for listening this week. If the podcast is helping you, please tell other folks about it. It's a great evangelistic tool to say to somebody, Hey, I read the Bible on a regular basis. You should do it too. In this podcast, we'll help you do exactly that. Leave us a rating and a review as well. Make sure that you're following. Subscribe to the podcast so it just downloads automatically for you every Monday morning. So until Monday morning 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, can't wait. 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.