How can there be only one religion?

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, July the 15th. I think I got the date wrong last week. It is July the 15th. Today I'm Mark and I'm working some coffee and most of all, I'm just so excited because this is Youth Lectures Week. Everything is pointing towards Friday, Saturday , and Sunday. It's the biggest weekend of the year at West Side . Our theme this year, soldiers of Christ to Rise is going to be incredible. It's just just going to be an amazing and wonderful, wonderful weekend and everyone is invited. It's focused especially for young people, but everyone benefits from the preaching of God's word and wonderful worship and singing together. Make your plans to be with us Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. You'll be glad that you did, but before we get to Fri , I can hardly wait. Can you tell before we get there, we need to do all the things that happen on Mondays and Tuesdays and Wednesdays and Thursdays and Fridays and so it's time for us to start with all of that. Let's dive in Before we get to daily Bible reading, let's think a little bit about the sermon yesterday, the challenges to Christianity and I talked about this business of how can Christianity possibly be the only right way to God? That exclusivity that Christianity offers and promises and claims is very offensive to people. Lots of people think it's just silly, it's absurd and they ridicule and mock us for that. I hope yesterday's sermon helped you to think better along those lines. The reality is it seems to me in some ways we just have to acknowledge that at a surface level there are many roads leading to God. Kind of , kind of makes sense and maybe the reason it kind of makes sense, lemme get a slurp here of coffee. Maybe the reason it kind of makes sense is 'cause we want it to make sense. We don't want people to be lost, but as you think through the ramifications and implications of this , everybody is good and every belief system works and so forth. It just that gets to be absurd and silly . And so we need to ask people some questions to try to help them better work through and understand exactly what that's gonna mean and how bankrupt the philosophy that everybody has their own truth and all roads lead to God and all just how completely without merit that kind of thinking really is. God is clear. There are not dozens of different ways to him. Jesus does not say I'm one way, but you know there's a lot of ways and if what I'm doing isn't really for you, well that's okay. You chart your own path. You do your own thing. You do what seems best to you. No , no , no. Jesus says I'm the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Period. John 14, six. And I did give a lot of thought to the metaphors that we can employ to help people see that there are things in life that work only one way, that there is only one answer, there's only one way to do it. And I think that's very helpful because that road idea , when we use that figure of speech that really does have a tendency to open up the idea. Well, of course there's a lot of different roads. Who who would, who would say there's only one way from Dallas to Seattle? That's that's, that's absurd. There's there's no way that that can be true, so let's employ some different figures of speech to help folks see that. Yeah , sometimes there really is just one way and I hope that that triggered something for you and that you're thinking more about that and if you come up with other metaphors besides a medicine or a vault combination, if you come up with something besides whose side are you on, I think that's a very powerful idea. If you can come up with something else that that works and that's helpful, share that with me and I'll share that with others as we continue to try to raise good questions. Jesus did that. We want to do that to make people think about eternity, about spiritual matters and about their walk with God. Appreciate your encouragement from this lesson series this year, the challenges to Christianity. We're feeling those challenges and it's helpful to talk about 'em, get it out in the open and work through them. Jesus has some challenges in our daily Bible reading. Let's turn our Bibles to John six and dive into that. It is Monday and today's reading is John chapter six, verses 41 to 51. As Jesus continues the bread of life sermon, this is coming out of verse 35, I am the bread of life coming out of those comparisons that they are making between Jesus and Moses and Jesus' clarifying it's not about Moses, it's about God. And of course that puts Jesus in the right place, but that's gonna be hard for some people to accept and that's where our reading picks up today in verse 41. People are grumbling about Jesus. He's just the son of a carpenter. We know where he came from. What is this claim to deity claim to divinity that seems outrageous and Jesus here may be moving things to the synagogue in verse 59, Jesus said these things in the synagogue as he taught at Capernaum, so this may be where that moves indoors. We think of this as being very outdoors. I talked about that last week in our zoom call, in our zoom Bible study on Tuesday and showed some pictures of Galilee in the hillsides there. Maybe here's where we going in , where we're going inside and Jesus is really pushing. Notice He does not back away from this, but he pushes, I am the bread of life and it means what you think it means because verse 44, no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him. Well, how does the father draw people to Christ? Look at the very next verse, verse 45. It is written in the prophets and they will all be taught by God. You're drawn by being taught God's drawing. Power is the teachings of Christ. It's not some miraculous intervention. If we go there, you end up asking God, why doesn't he draw everybody that way? Calvinism loves to jump up and down in John 6 44 and say, there it is, predestination and all that business. But once again, you end up in that business of well apparently God doesn't want everybody to be saved because God didn't draw everybody. God does want everybody to be saved. That's what Jesus is doing in John six. That's why he's here because God desires all men to be saved and come to knowledge of the truth and Jesus is the incarnation of that. But you and I have to listen to Jesus. We'll see lots of that in our reading. You gotta listen to Jesus and make the decision to come to Jesus. One scholar said, any man is free to be among those drawn by the Father. You are drawn by being taught verse 45. In fact, in chapter 10, Jesus will talk about hearing the voice of the shepherd. You need to listen to Jesus. We need to be as close to Christ as possible so that we can hear his voice, so that we can hear his teaching. Don't let the noise of the world drown that out and here we really get a good opportunity to see that eating the bread of life, eating his flesh, drinking his blood is not the Lord's supper. I try to emphasize that whenever I'm hearing John chapter six. I think it's a little awkward sometimes if someone in Bible class is commenting about this would make a great table talk or if someone at the table's actually using John's six to set the table a hop . See what I did there for the Lord's Supper? This is not the Lord's supper. It's not a Lord's Supper passage. Verse 47, whoever believes has eternal life and then look down just a little bit further. If anyone verse 51 eats of this bread, he will live forever. So believing leads to eternal life, eating of the bread causes eternal life. That's found again in verse 54. Whoever feeds all my flesh and drinks, my blood has eternal life. Here the metaphor is about belief in Jesus Christ. It's not about the Lord's supper. Augustine of Hippo said, believe and you have eaten. And yes, mostly I use that quote so that I could say Augustine of hippo, why am I not from hippo? That seems like a great place to be from. Then notice verse 51 as we keep working along here, last verse in our reading today, if anyone eats of this bread , he'll live forever That clinches. It's not the Lord's supper. People eat the Lord's supper and they still die. No, no. Jesus doesn't mean here that we are to partake of the Lord's supper. Instead, he's talking about believing in him. He's talking about faith in him, giving our allegiance to him and notice I will give my life for the world. John has so much on the sacrifice of Jesus. That's a big theme for John and it is hard not to think about Isaiah 53 right there. That's where Jesus is. He's the Messiah who's come to give himself for the world. We'll continue tomorrow in John 6 52. Hard to stop right there, isn't it? See you on Tuesday. It is Tuesday and today our reading is John 6 52 to 59, just seven verses. But what verses these are we get the stupid question. Verse 52, how can this man give us his flesh to E ? How many people in the book of John just go very literal with Jesus's words and try to say that that's ridiculous and try to dismiss him by saying there's no way that that can happen. That's absurd. You can't enter a second time into your mother's womb. As Nicodemus says in John three, how can he give us his flesh? Why ? This is just foolishness, but Jesus doubles down on it. Truly, I stand to you 53, unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. So he adds drinking blood to the fixture, to the to the figure of speech here. And in fact in verse 57, he completes that. He says, you have to eat me whoever feeds on me. So he really is pushing this. Don't forget, in the law of Moses, you are forbidden to drink or eat blood. So this is a very repulsive figure. Maybe that should have caused people to say he can't be literally meaning can't literally mean cannibalism here. That would be a violation of the law, not to mention pretty gross. So he's got to be talking about something else. What else could he be talking about? Verse 55, my flesh is true. Flesh is true food. I can't read today. Stop for coffee. That's always the answer, isn't it? More coffee 55. My flesh is true food and my blood is true. Drink whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me. Look at that now. Jesus talks about relationship, about being a disciple remaining in Jesus, abiding in Jesus who very important in the gospel of John. In John chapter 14, he'll use that chapter 15, he'll use that. So we have believing leads to eternal life, believing leads to relationship. It means we abide in him. We are in relationship with him. One scholar said the believer remains in Jesus and that means he or she continues to be identified with. Jesus continues as a Christian continues in saving faith and transformation of life that Jesus remains in. The believer means that Jesus identifies himself with the believer, but not in reciprocal trust and transformation, but in help and blessing and in life. I like that very, very much. We want to remain in Christ, we want to be in Jesus. We want to be in relationship with Jesus that comes if we eat him, if we believe in him, if we take him in because he is the true food, the true bread from heaven. Remember in chapter five we read that the father and son have life in themselves. We don't have life within ourselves. We need to depend upon Christ for our life. And now we learn Jesus' true food and true drink . So we need him constantly and without end, we'll see the reaction to some of this in our reading tomorrow. Folks at West Side we have Zoom. Tonight we'll get to talk more about this this evening on the Zoom prayer and Bible study. Call everybody else, I'll see you on Wednesday tomorrow, we'll be pushing further in John six and we'll see the reaction that many have to Jesus's teaching. See you on Wednesday. Welcome to Hump Day. It is Wednesday and this evening at Westside. We will continue our series on the parables. Hunter Allen will be with us to talk about the parable of the talents. Tell us more about that, hunter.

Hi, my name is Hunter Allen and I'm looking forward to being with you to consider the parable of the talents from Matthew chapter 25 . This parable helps us answer a critical question. I've become a Christian, but now what? I'm a servant of Jesus Christ, but what does that look like and how do I serve him? Well, this parable gives us some principles that we can use in our own lives with the goal of hearing those beautiful words spoken by the master. Well done, good and faithful servant. That's what we want to hear. So let's talk about what it takes to get there.

Thank you, hunter. And that certainly does prick my interest. I want to hear well done , good and faithful servant. I can't wait to hear Hunter this evening, but before we do that, we need to get our daily Bible reading done. Let's look at John chapter six. Our reading for Wednesday is John chapter six, verses 60 to 71. We're finishing the chapter today and the news is not all good. I think the key verse today is verse 64. There are some of you who do not believe, remember the purpose of John's gospel to believe in Jesus. The Christ belief is the dividing line. These people wanted a political messiah. They wanted food in their belly. They wanted a Messiah who would do to suit them and they won't believe in a messiah who challenges them with the truth of his identity as God's son, as the bread of life Jesus doesn't do to suit them. So they're going to reject him. Pay attention in verse 61, Jesus is the knower of men's hearts and watch the tight tie to the spirit. In verse 63. The spirit gives life. The word gives life. Now, that does not mean the spirit is the word. I think sometimes we've equated those two so much. We've almost flattened the distinctions. People have decided the Holy Spirit is a book. No, the Holy Spirit gave the book the Holy Spirit inspired the book. The Holy Spirit uses the book, but the Holy Spirit is not the book. Having said that, the book's pretty important, isn't it? The words are spirit and life. And so the next thing that you have, verse 66, is that a lot of people walk off. We've got a crowd here of eight to 10,000 people. Jesus fed 5,000 people yesterday, remember? And now that crowd is cut down to 12. A good, really good reminder that numbers don't always determine success. Everything that counts can't always be counted. And everything that can be counted doesn't always count. Some people will not tolerate the truth. But Peter in verse 68 jumps to the front. We give him such a hard time about all the times he puts his foot in his mouth. How about this verse 68, we can't leave. There's nowhere else to go. You have the words of eternal life. We believe that you are the Messiah. This is John in verse 69, giving Peter's confession. It's not the same as the one in Matthew 1616, but it is a great statement and it shows Peter has real faith and so Jesus, then making sure they don't get proud or arrogant reminds them that he chose them. And Jesus already knows. Of course, Jesus knows that Judas Chariot is going to betray him. Tomorrow we start, John chapter seven. It is Thursday and today we are reading John chapter seven verses one to 13, and I need to get my Bible reading done and get ready, meet Narnia Club for the first time this year, we're reading Prince Caspian bunch of kiddos heading to my house to talk about Cs Lewis's great Chronicles of Narnia and all the good things that we can learn from that. I just love doing that. It's a really neat, neat opportunity. Love getting a chance to do that. Let's get our Bible reading done and get on with all the good things that are gonna happen today. So this begins in chapter seven, more of the cycles where Jesus teaches, and then there's some debate and speculation. And then Jesus, the Jewish leaders will respond to Jesus by wanting to arrest him. And all of this is gonna be centered in Jerusalem. We get in verse one, Jesus went about in Galilee and that John, in that one sentence is covering about six months of the Galilean ministry that Matthew, mark and Luke spend a great deal of time talking about, not John. We are going to Jerusalem and before we get to Jerusalem though, it's gonna take a minute for Jesus to get there. Jesus' brothers want him to go. It's the time of the feast of booze. This is a special feast that the people really love, also known as the Feast of Tabernacles. It's associated with the bringing in of the harvest. It ran seven days in the fall. So this is September, October, somewhere around in there. Wonder if with their feast of Thanksgiving here they're having football and Turkey. I'm not too sure about that. Maybe. Maybe that's in the Greek word. I'm not entirely certain about that. But it is primarily a Thanksgiving feast. And the brothers know verses three and four that a lot of people are going to go to Jerusalem. It's a very popular feast. People love this feast. And maybe is there a connection here to 6 66? The brothers know that Jesus' popularity is diminishing. Hey, go to Jerusalem, do something grand, do something amazing. You can build your audience back. You can get more followers if you'll go to Jerusalem and do something incredible. Well, the irony of that, of course, is that in John chapter 11, Jesus actually does do that. He goes to Jerusalem and outside of Jerusalem, he raises Lazarus from the dead. And the result of raising Lazarus from the dead is not that Jesus gets more followers that gets Jesus killed. So the brothers don't know what they're talking about. And Jesus is very clear. You're not gonna dictate to me. No one is gonna tell Jesus what to do. Jesus knows what to do. It's just not the right time. My time has not yet come. The term there for time is proper time, not watch time, chronological time. What time is it on the clock? Is this the appropriate moment? So sometimes we'll talk about in in some situations I I just didn't feel like the timing was right. That doesn't mean I looked at the clock and I saw, oh, it's four 18 and I really was hoping it'd be 4 21. It's not about clocks, it's about the appropriate moment. And this is not the appropriate moment. Now, verse eight is a little bit difficult. You go up to the feast. I'm not going to the feast. There's a marginal note there that says, I'm not yet going up to the feast. And there are two manuscripts, vaticanus and some papyri that say not yet going. And whether the yet is there or not, it's certainly implied in what Jesus does and how this works. In fact, in verse 10, he does go, but it's a very discreet trip. It's not like what the brothers said. It's very down low . Jesus is not trying to attract attention to himself. I think some of this that you seeking to kill him, he's still working out of chapter five and verse 18, when he healed the man on the Sabbath day and the guy's carrying his bed. And then that causes all kinds of problems. And people are worried about Jesus. People are talking about Jesus, but the rulers are worried about Jesus and they're putting pressure on people not to say anything, not to follow him. Verse 13, we're gonna see more of that as we continue in the gospel of John. Peer pressure isn't for teenagers alone. It worked with adults and it's working here. See you tomorrow as we continue in John seven. It is Friday and it's not just any Friday, is it? This is Youth Lectures Friday . We're starting everything for this amazing and wonderful weekend. Let's get our Bible reading done and set our sights on being at West Side tonight. We start singing at seven. Just going to be wonderful, wonderful, all weekend as we consider being soldiers of Christ and how we can help young people rise to that challenge and rise to that call. Verse 14, about the middle of the feast. Jesus went up into the temple and began to teach. And people are concerned verses 15 and 16 about his teaching because Jesus doesn't teach like anyone else teaches. Very common for those who've been to the rabbinical school, that's what's been here by schooling to cite rabbinical precedent. If you go and read some of those documents, if you go and read all the commentaries, the mission and the gamara , all that the Jews have written, you'll be really shocked at how they will cite other rabbis as if they are inspired. And nobody is saying that they're inspired, but they will say, rabbi Hellel says thus and thus about this passage. And they, they just rattle that off like that's it. Um , the way you and I would cite Peter or Paul or Jesus. And of course that's troublesome because those guys are not inspired. They're not infallible. They're very fallible. So Jesus doesn't teach that way. Jesus never says rabbi. So-and-so said, and I agree with him, and then he backs my position and I back his position. No. Instead Jesus says, my teaching is my own. And if you want to do God's will, verse 17, you will know that this is from God. Now, what does that mean? Some people want that to mean that you had this sense inside of you, this, this mystical warm feeling inside. But of course that that's so subjective. That's so subjective. How many people think they're doing the right thing and they feel good about doing the right thing and they're doing the wrong thing? I'm looking at you sa of churches . When you are persecuting the church, what, what are we looking at here, if you will, to do God's will? If anyone's will is to do God's will? He'll know. Well, if you want to do God's will, what would you do? You would study, you'd read the Bible, you would think you would talk with others. You would investigate Jesus. You would investigate the teachings of Christ, the evidences for Jesus. And, and what happens when a person is reading the Bible, studying, thinking, talking with others, listening to the challenges, to faith, and then listening to the answers, to the challenges, to faith, entertaining those doubts, and then doubting those doubts. Why is it that nobody ever doubts their doubts? If I have any doubt, oh , that just trumps everything. And I'm, oh no, the person who wants to be right with God, who wants to find God, who wants to find the way to God is going to investigate Jesus and investigate his teachings, investigate the word of God, investigate Christianity. And when you do that with an open mind and an open heart, what's going to happen? You, you will find the truth and you'll know who Jesus is and what his teaching is and that it is from God. The question comes really look at the follow up in verse 18. Are you seeking God's glory? Are you seeking your own glory? Because when you seek your own glory, then, then you're gonna end up with the wrong conclusions about Jesus. Especially look at the tie in verse 19. In knowing God's law and doing God's law, you won't wanna do God's law . You won't want to keep the law when you don't want to do God's will. And so the crowd says, who's seeking to kill you? I think we're looking back to the healing at the pool of Bethesda in chapter five, when they did want to kill Jesus. He says, I did one work. That's the work that he's talking about there and the charge of healing on the Sabbath. And so Jesus says something here about healing on the Sabbath because you circumcised on the Sabbath and that's not viewed as a violation of Sabbath law. Now, Jesus is certainly not sanctioning law breaking here, or he would be conceding that he is a lawbreaker. He's just trying to open up their minds to the true priorities of doing God's will . Verse 24 , don't judge by appearances judge with righteous judgment. They didn't consider the man's sickness. They didn't think about what it was like to suffer all those years. All they could think about was their own little bitty regulations and rules they had added on top of the word of God. That's all they were concerned about. Appearances, looking holy and the eyes of others. That's what's driving the train here. And Jesus says, that's no good. That won't work. You need to have righteous judgment. Righteous judgment will reach the right conclusion about him. Well, thanks for listening. That's the podcast for the week. I'll see you tonight at the West Side Church as we begin, our youth lectures really going to be sensational. Truth. Clevinger speaking tonight, Don Truk speaking tonight, and I know we're gonna get started in a great way. I do appreciate you listening to the podcast. Tell somebody about it. Leave a rating. Leave a review that helps more people find it. And so until Monday when yep , we'll probably all be exhausted from an amazing and wonderful but very busy weekend with the lectures. I'll see you on Monday. We'll open our Bibles together. Again, I'm Mark Roberts and I want to go to heaven, and I want you to come to see you on Monday with a cup of coffee.

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