It's all About Your Heart

Hello, and welcome to the Westside churches special Monday morning coffee podcast on this podcast, our preacher Mark Robert we'll help you get your week started. Right? We look back at yesterday's sermon so that we can think through it further and better work the applications into our daily lives. Mark we'll 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 thought 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, October the 25th. I'm mark, and I'm drinking an amazing Costa Rican coffee today. I'm thinking about the sermon on the Mount that I preached from yesterday, and I'm looking forward to more Bible reading in the gospel of Matthew. This is the Monday morning coffee podcast in which we grabbed some of that spiritual momentum we created yesterday and roll it into this week by starting the week in the best possible way. Thinking a little bit more about yesterday's lesson and getting ready to read the Bible all week long. Let's get to it Yesterday. I did preach from the sermon on the Mount Matthew seven one to 12 was the text. As I continue to develop the sermon on the Mount is the preaching theme for 2021. And the major points here as we work through that text was to talk about beams and specs and being generous and kind to one another from the text about judging verses one to five. And then in verse six, that really stands alone. Being wise with unbelievers, the discussion of dogs and pigs, and then verses seven to 11, introduce the idea of believing in prayer and trusting in God, asking, seeking, and knocking. Finally, verse 12, the famous golden rule talks about the heart that does good. And the connecting link there, which I think is a little bit difficult in the sermon on the Mount. And this part of the sermon on the Mount is our heart. Where is our heart? And do we have the kind of heart that is characteristic of a disciple in the kingdom of heaven? I'm going to say just a few more words about the text of Matthew seven, verses one through five judge. Not that you be not judged for, with the judgment you pronounce, you will be judged. And with the measure you use, it'll be measured under you. Why do you see the speck in your brother's eye, but you don't notice the log that's in your own eye. How can you say to your brother, let me take the speck out of your eye. When there is a log in your own eye, you hypocrite first, take out the log out of your own eye, and then you will clearly see to take the speck out of your brother's eye. My fear with this text, I touched on this a little bit yesterday is that we are so consumed with how the text has been misused, that we don't make any actual application of it. We're defending the Bible and showing that Jesus does not mean that we are never to pass a moral judgment on anybody or anything. In fact, of course, the very next verse in verse six, Jesus commands moral judgments to be made. When he says don't give dogs, what is holy? That's a judging function right there. And there's a ton of other passages that would say the same kind of thing. So we work really hard to say, Hey, some judgment needs to be done because this passage gets pulled on us. Whenever we say something controversial, something about any kind of practice that's going on in our society today that our culture sanctions and says is okay in the Bible, does not people look at us and say, oh judge, not that you be not judged. And so we're ready to go. We're ready to defend this tax. And that's all important and needs to be done. But what also needs to be done is we need to make an application of that to our own lives. How do I judge others? And I think there's a twofold application here first to hypocritical judging when I could deem others for what I am guilty of doing. But also there is the idea of harsh judgment here, the judgment that you pronounce with the judgment you pronounce, you will be judged with the measure you use. It will be measured unto you. Am I harsh and unkind to others? I was listening to a podcast about contempt in our society. And there's a book that's been written about loving your enemies. And I was interested in that in it turns out that book has been written by an economist. Who's really concerned about the political division and divisiveness in our society today, that book ought to have been written by a Christian, but instead this political pundit, this economics fella, he has noticed how hateful people have become and how contemptuous we are of one another. It seems to me that Matthew seven and two would really help us with that. I can't be harsh towards others who have a different political view than I have have a different view of the COVID pandemic and what to do about it. A different view of sports, a different view of whether to put pineapple on pizza. I can't be looking down at others and being ugly to them because they don't think like I think, and if Matthew seven and two, doesn't get that the golden rule in Matthew seven and 12 most certainly does. I want very much to, to put pineapple on my pizza and I would like to be able to do so without people acting like I'm the worst person in the world, I'm an adult. And at least most of the time, I try to at least sort of, kind of act like one. And I know what I like on my pizza. And yet regularly in social media, I see all kinds of posts about let's settle this once. And for all, does pineapple belong on pizza or are candy corns good? Why, why do we post stuff like that? Why do we post stuff that just causes division and turmoil and hate and ugliness and contempt? If you like candy corn, good for you. I do too. But if you don't like candy corn, well good for you. That's just more for me. And the other candy, corn eaters like Carson, my Scottie dog who adores candy corn. Well, let's, let's try to be kind to one another. Let's treat people the way that we want to be treated and a great start for that would be what we're posting on social media. What we're clicking on social media, what we're liking on social media and just a general attitude that says, instead of hate non people who aren't like me showing contempt for them, I'm going to try to love people the way Jesus tells us in the sermon on the Mount and not judge people who are different than me. So harshly. And I will say this, that even includes moral, spiritual and biblical issues. If I must make a moral, spiritual, biblical judgment about what someone is doing, their activity, their behavior. If I have to say that that is sinful and wrong, that God doesn't approve that. Then I still need to say that in the kindest possible way, that is free of contempt and anger and abuse that just puts people down. Jesus calls us for something better than that. And I think that's a powerful reminder about our society and where we are today. It's a powerful reminder of how we need to live better and do better and be better because we are disciples. We are following Jesus, the Christ. He practiced the golden rule. He didn't have contempt for us and I need, I need to do the same hope that helps you as we continue to think about the sermon on the Mount, the greatest sermon ever preached, Let's turn our attention into daily Bible reading. We're completing Matthew 13 today, Monday, we'll reverse this 44 to 58. And I want to share this quote with you. A really well-known Bible scholar says parables have a way of concealing their truth from outsiders, but yielding it to those who will press for an explanation that is precisely, right. So Jesus tells the parable of the hidden treasure and the hidden Pearl. Both of these are parables about the Supreme worth of the kingdom and that they should be, or that we should be willing to do anything to obtain them. Unfortunately, sometimes these parables get obscured because there can be controversy about the man with the hidden treasure and is it right for him to find this treasure and by the field without disclosing it and on and on and on and on. And that is just not the point at all. In Luke 16, Jesus uses a scoundrel to make a point. Don't get lost in the weeds here or the tears. I see what I did there, but what we need to do is stay with Jesus. This is about the Supreme worth of the kingdom. He follows that then with the parable of the net verse 47, which seems to be saying something about how all nations are going to be welcomed into the kingdom. What a thing for Jesus to say, and what a thing for Matthew to record in this very Jewish gospel, then Jesus mentions the scribe verse 52, bringing out new and old treasures. And I think Jesus is saying something here about the role of scribes in Jesus's day. They didn't just write, they didn't just write scribe things down, but they gave rulings on conduct and a scribe who became a disciple would be equipped to explain the wall and, and to interpret and give rulings in a whole new and better way. Then of course, verse 53, Jesus finishes these parables and here comes more hostility and rejection, which has kind of been the theme that Matthew has been working up to this point on Tuesday. Then we'll read Matthew 14 verses one to 12. And this is about the death of John, the Baptist really important material here, and a great opportunity on the podcast for me to push out some extra content that begins in verse one. At that time, Herod, the tetrarch heard about the fame of Jesus. We always want to know which Herod this is Herod and to pass. He is the son of Herod the great he ruled over Galilee and Perea he received his part of the kingdom when Herod the great passed away. Now, Herod the great is the baby killer. So this is the son of the Herod that killed the babies when Jesus was born. And what's significant about this is that what he did in abandoning divorcing his first wife in wooing Herodians to run off with him was widely known in the new Testament world and John, the Baptist condemnation of that was widely known so much. So that Josephus writes about it. Really love having a podcast because I can give you some extra content like this. I don't know where I would put this. If I did not have this podcast, Josephus is a first century historian. He was not a Christian. He was a Jewish general. The Romans defeated him in Galilee in the 80 67 to 70 war. He convinced the Romans to let him Chronicle their victories. He effectively switched sides. That's a, that's a pretty smooth talker right there. And he became a historian of first century events. And he writes about the death of John the Baptist. This is what he says. He talks about how Herod Antipas had gone to war and got beat. And the result of that I'm quoting now is some of the Jews thought that the destruction of Herod's army came from God and that very justly as a punishment of what he did against John, that was called the Baptist for heritage slew, him who was a good man and commanded the Jews to exercise virtue both as to righteousness towards one another and piety towards God. And so to come to baptism. So while Josephus does not particularly mention the scandalous divorce that John condemned, Matthew 14, verse six, he does mention John the Baptist, helping to see that he most certainly is a historical figure. And he mentioned John, the Baptist death. I don't think our faith in the Bible rest on the testimony of Josephus, but without any question, I think this helps establish particularly for Bible critics, that the events of the Bible didn't happen in a corner and that the events of the Bible aren't just fanciful inmate op. What happened here is that[inaudible] the woman that Herod ended up marrying was married to his half-brother Philip. This is not the Philip of Luke three verse one, it's a different Philip. And they lived in Rome, inherit, antipasto, visited Rome, and he fell in love with her. And he talked her into running off with him. And that was of course politically explosive because he had to divorce the daughter of an Arabian king. And that caused all kinds of problems and difficulties in John, the Baptist stood up and said, this isn't right, verse four. And as a result, Herodians felt that her position was possibly threatened by this prophet of God. And she engineered to have him put to death. Matthew 14, one to 12 tells that sad story and brings closure to Matthew's accounts of John the Baptist on Wednesday. Then we'll read the story of the feeding of the 5,000 Matthew chapter 14 verses 13 to 21, incredible miracle. And again, a great opportunity for me to give you some additional content. This is a long quotation from a scholar who's done some work about messianic expectation. What did people think the Messiah was supposed to do? Well, here's the quote. The Jews believed that in the messianic age, they would see the return of bread from heaven. God's gift of manna food in the desert was considered to be part of almost biblical revelation. Moses had fed the Israelites with manna in the desert. Alijah had been nourished by Ravens in the desert, a lie Shaw at a hundred men on 20 loaves in the desert bread in the desert was very significant to Israel. You could just hardly surprise. And therefore to find that in second Baruch 29 verse eight, I should add, of course, second Baruch is not in your Bible. It's not a canonical book of scripture, but it gives us insight into the mindset of people at this time. Second brew 29 8, which dates from the same, around the same time as Matthew's gospel shows, the expectation that food in the desert would characterize the days of the Messiah that quotation says it shall come to pass at that time that the treasury of manna shall again descend from on high and they will eat of it in those years because these are they who have come to the consummation of the ages. This was the expectation in many Jewish circles in the first century Ady and Jesus fulfilled it by feeding the multitude in this desert place. Jesus is making a statement and the claim he's making a statement about who he is and what he's come to do, and that he is indeed the Messiah. No wonder that in John six 15, we read that the multitude wanted to take him by force and make him king. I love that quotation and that's so insightful and it helps us see why this is such an important miracle. It is the only miracle recorded in all four of the gospels in all four gospels, no matter what Matthew mark, Luke or John is trying to say about Jesus and portray Jesus, the portrait that they are individually painting of Jesus, this miracle fats. And they need to tell that story. And they do tell that story. Jesus feeds the 5,000 and there is unfortunately a fair amount of fanciful interpretations involved in the feeding of the 5,000, particularly in verse 21, I'm sorry, verse 20, where they take up 12 baskets full of the broken pieces. Lots of people want to identify this as the 12 apostles or the 12 tribes. Oh, my, the point of that is just that Jesus made more, there was more at the end than there was at the beginning because, because it was a miracle and it was the kind of miracle that people thought the Messiah would do on Thursday. Then we will read about Jesus walking on the water, Matthew 14, 22 down to verse 36. What an incredible miracle. This is, we've already seen Jesus stilling the storm. Now Jesus comes walking on the storm and it was stormy verse 24. By this time, the boat was a long way from the land beaten by the ways for the wind was against them. The point of this of course, is that Jesus has power over nature. And significantly here, there is no room at all to somehow make this into some kind of natural event. I'm just astonished at scholars and biblical commentators who try somehow to say that Jesus was walking on a hidden reef or on rocks or on a sandbank, or he was actually walking down the beach. These are experienced sailors. They have fished the sea of Galilee. They would know where the rocks are, where the sand banks are. They're not going to be fooled by something like that. Although Jesus tried to trick us into thinking he can walk on the water really. And of course, the point of this is that Peter says, Hey, can I come to you? And Jesus says, yes, that material is only in Matthew's gospel. Peter walks out to Jesus. He's part of this incredible miracle. And as long as he keeps his eyes on Jesus, he does fine. There's a powerful lesson for us in that, that brings us to Friday's Bible reading on Friday, we'll read Matthew chapter 15 verses one to 20. And this is about tradition. All of us love tradition. The story is told of a preacher visiting a local church. And he met a man who had been going there for 50 years. And the preacher said, wow, you must've seen a lot of changes during that time. And the fellow said yes, and I oppose them all. Isn't that the truth? I just, how people are. We don't like change in very quickly. We can decide the way we're doing it is the only way to do it. We can make our practices into some kind of tradition and then bind people on buying that tradition on to people. You got to do it my way. You got to do it this way. This is how it has to be. Jesus is dealing with the Pharisees and all of their traditions. Remember the Pharisees are the most devoted Jews in Jesus whose time their movement seems to have begun about 200 years before Christ. And they lived during a time when a lot of Jews were feeling the pressure to conform to the world and to be more Greek in their identity, more Roman in their way of doing. And the Pharisees decided that's a mistake. We need to study the law of Moses. We need to exalt the law of Moses. We need to see how the law of Moses applies to every circumstance and situation. And along the way, somebody, some early Pharisee decided all those restrictions for the priests so that they would be ceremonially clean and could offer sacrifices and lead in worship. Hey, if it's good enough for the priest, well, it ought to be good enough for all of us. We ought all do that. And so their quest was very much to become the perfect Jew to keep and obey the law perfectly. And that led someone to saying, well, what is this part of the law mean? And there was endless debate and discussion for example, about what exactly constitutes work. And so we've got to get all that debated out and hashed out, down to the nth degree so that we can be absolutely perfect in our law. Keeping a good example of that is the rabbi said that if you bit your fingernails off with your teeth on the Sabbath, chewing your fingernails on the Sabbath, that's work, can't be doing that. And that kind of nonsense and that crazy approach to the law of God, which is absolutely bankrupt, is what Jesus spotlights in our reading today from Matthew chapter 15, he says doing that kind of thing makes human tradition greater than the law of God. And it makes everything that you're doing. Even your worship, absolutely vain. Jesus distinguishes between the commands of God and the traditions of man. And you'll see here that Jesus says something about Corbyn verse five, depending upon the translation that you have there. Jesus says, if anyone tells his father or mother, what you have gained from me is given to God, he need not honor his father. And this was this business of saying, I really like to help you, mom and dad, you're elderly. I need to take care of you, but you know what? I've pledged that money to the temple and the loophole here was you didn't have to give it to the temple, right. Then you just had to say, someday, I'm going to give that. And so, as a result, I don't have the funds to take care of you, mom and dad. So sorry. I dedicated that money to God. Jesus makes two observations here. First God's word on human tradition is the basis for our worship. And secondly, inner purity comes before external ceremony that comes at second. Observation comes from verses 10 to 14, which are only contained in Matthew's gospel. And the things that Jesus says here would absolutely undermine all a Pharisee ism and especially its obsession with how to be ceremonially clean, washing your hands and washing pots and all of that business. When he says that doesn't matter, what's going in is not. What's going to defile you. It's your heart it's what's inside of you. That decides whether or not you're a person of God. That is the key thing. And Jesus makes that point abundantly clear, finishing it verse 14, by saying they are blind guides. And then he reinforces that by saying what comes out of the mouth. Proceeds from the heart verse 18 for out of the heart comes evil. Thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, and slander verse 19. That's what defiles the person verse 20. Once again, Jesus is talking about the heart that concludes our look at daily vibrating for this week. Thank you so much for listening to the Monday morning coffee podcast. If you love it, we'd love for you to follow, subscribe, rate and give a review on iTunes or whatever app you're downloading the podcast on best of all. If you'd simply tell a friend about this podcast, that would very much help us out as we try to get the word out about this opportunity to engage with God's word, both in the sermon preached yesterday and in the reading that we're going to do this week in the gospel of Matthew. So until next time, oh, how about one more sip? Oh yes. That Costa Rican coffee is wonderful. So until next time, may your coffee be wonderful. Your Monday be short and may the Lord be with you today all day. See you next week.

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