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 first. Can you believe it is already July? I hope you are ready to think about yesterday's sermon and actually put it into practice. And I hope that you're ready to think a little bit further about Jesus's conversation with the woman at the well in John chapter four, because that's where Daily Bible reading starts this week. Lots going on , lots happened yesterday. Lots that will happen in this week to come. Are you ready? Got your coffee or Dr. Pepper or tea or whatever? Uh , are you ready? Let's dive in. So yesterday I did a special edition of Q and a morning, and I just dealt with one question and that was a question about artificial intelligence. And I hope that that question and how we work through that and saw some things that the Bible has to say about the use of technology particularly will help us not to be a Luddite about these kinds of things. And so my challenge today is for you to go use artificial intelligence, go to chat gt.com, that's C-H-A-T-G as in gorilla, P as in Paul, T as in tiger, chat gt.com, and just just monkey with it. Just play with it a little bit. If you don't know what a lud is, ask chat gt, what is a Luddite? Maybe if you're gonna do a Google search, instead of doing a Google search, ask chat GPT to recommend some websites. You should know that Google now sells the top spots in those searches. So when you are searching, you are not necessarily getting the best information you're getting who paid to be on top? So let's try something different. Let's use an AI model. Let's use an AI site to give us better information. Ask chat GPT. How can I pray more effectively? Look at our parable for Wednesday night. That will be the parable of the hidden treasure and the parable of the pearl of great pricing . Matthew chapter 13 verses 44, 45 and 46. And ask ai, what do these parables mean? Or what should I be watching for listening for when I hear a sermon about these parables? Ask chat . GPT. How can I pray better for our missionaries? We have a list of those missionaries now so that you can pray for them by name, where they are. How can I pray more effectively for the missionaries that we support? Ask, try, experiment, mess with these AI models and see, see what they're doing and how they can help you in your disciples. Yet we don't wanna hold that kind of technology at arms length. We want to use it and we want to use it effectively in the kingdom of God. Let give you one more quick note here. perplexity.ai may be the artificial intelligence site or model or bot that you want to be working with because perplexity is very, very serious about getting information correct. They really work hard there to have citations behind everything that they are saying. You'll see lots of footnotes, lots of endnotes. So particularly if you're asking for fact-based questions and you're not interested in AI hallucinating and leading you down the primrose path, do you know what an AI hallucination is? Go ask, go ask if you don't want bad info, try perplexity.ai in a world where it's going to become easier and easier and easier to believe lies and fake news and be deceived by artificial intelligence and those who are trying to manipulate us using artificial intelligence, it will be more and more important for disciples to know how to use these tools and to know which tools to use. So yesterday we talked about artificial intelligence. Go try it. Go see what you can use artificial intelligence for that will help you be a better disciple. When you're done with that, turn your Bible over to John chapter four. Monday's reading is in John chapter four, verses 31 to 45. Lemme grab a swig of coffee here. Mm , that is not great coffee. That is some older coffee that yeah, coffee will age and stale on you. And I was in between coffees and had roasted some, but that wasn't quite ready to go in the grinder. So I had to use some old coffee, not great coffee, but better than no coffee. And I've got my Bible open to John chapter four, verses 31 to 45. Here is Jesus and the woman on the well. And all of that is happening and in the middle of that the disciples return. That's verse 27. And so the disciples not certain what's happening here, say, Hey Jesus, you need to eat. And then we get the stupid remark. Jesus says, I have food to eat. Verse 32, you don't know about. And the disciples go wooden, very literal and they make a foolish statement. Has anyone brought him something to eat? They're not thinking deeply. They're not thinking past the very shallow surface level meaning of what Jesus is saying here. So Jesus tries to help them. He makes reference about the fields being widened to harvest Verse 35, which probably means this is in December or January here. And Jesus is saying the waiting time is over. It's time for harvest, it's time to go. It's time to teach the gospel. Let's move forward. It's time for all the things that I'm here to do to start taking place. And I do think he's referencing in verse 38, the work of John the Baptist. You're entering into somebody else's labor and it is important since we're talking about different laborers here to remember verse 39, many Samaritans from that town believed in him. Philip will come here to this area in Acts chapter eight and do great work. And I think this conversation in John four probably paves the way for that notice. Verse 39 believed in him. Verse 41 more believed in him. Believing here is something that Samaritans do when Nicodemus did not. That's the contrast that John is going for here. Ordinary people, regular people not carrying a bunch of preconceived ideas, they get it . They believe in Jesus when others ah , they're struggling to do so. Right? Then at the end we get verse 44 and 45, Jesus is going to Galilee and that's a little puzzling exactly what's going on there. That may mean that Jesus hadn't gone to Galilee until he had, he'd done some things in Jerusalem so that he would receive honor when he got back home. Others have thought that this means Jesus goes to Galilee because he knew he would not be honored as the Messiah, which creates all kinds of conflict with the Pharisees. He's trying to be a little less conspicuous to Jewish leadership. Not entirely sure about how all that works, but what we have next is Jesus is in Galilee. See you tomorrow. We'll resume the ministry of Christ in Galilee. Welcome to Tuesday. And today we get something unusual for John and that is a healing, a sign that's done in Judea. This is part of the Galilee in ministry, verse 46, Cana in Galilee. And this is the ministry that is covered extensively in Matthew, mark , and Luke. But John does not spend very much time in Galilee. However, this does happen in Galilee and John wants to talk about it and John wants to talk about it because of what it sets up. Now, some people have thought that this is the healing of the centurion servant covered in Matthew chapter eight, but it's not. This is not a servant, this is a son . It's here in Cana. As I said, the town of James and John verse 46 helps us see that. And the man comes and Jesus says, verse 48, and the you there is pearl. Unless y'all see signs and wonders, he's talking to the crowd that their faith has to be fed by miracles in order to sustain it. And then Jesus says, go , your son will live. Go . Your son will live. This sets up Jesus's teaching on life that he's the giver of life. Just jump ahead and look over in chapter five. Look at verse 21, chapter five, verse 21. As the father raises the dead and gives him life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will. John loves to do this miracle followed by teaching the miracle. I shouldn't say miracle, I should say sign, shouldn't I? The sign points to the teaching, the sign points to what Jesus does. Jesus gives bread, multiplies bread feeds the 5,000. Then he teaches the famous bread of life sermon. So here your son will live, didn't say your son will be healed, said your son will live, which sets up the discourse, the teaching in chapter five where Jesus talks about life and he's the giver of life. I wanna say more about that tonight in Zoom West siders . It is zoom night tonight, Tuesday we get zoom. And I just want you to keep thinking about the levels of believing. You get believing based on signs and wonders and Jesus, Jesus doesn't really like that. He doesn't compliment that. Then there's trust where you do what Jesus says, verse 50, the man believed and went. And then there is discipleship when a person follows Jesus. I think you're seeing different levels of that. And I'll give you this as a last note today. These chapters, chapters one to four, just continually ask, do you believe chapter one, verse 50, chapter two, verse 11, chapter two, verse 22, chapter three, verse 15, chapter three, verse 36, chapter four, verse 42, chapter four, verse 53. All of those verses are about believing. Do you believe? Do you have faith? Are you believing in Jesus Christ? Because John's gospel is about do you? Will you believe in Jesus the Christ? See you on zoom tonight and the rest of you folks, I'll see you tomorrow as we keep pressing on in the gospel of belief, the Gospel of John. Welcome to Wednesday. Today, our reading is in the fifth chapter of John, John five, one to nine. But before we read our bibles, let's get set for tonight. Tonight Janssen Lin will be with us talking about two parables. Here's Janssen to tell you more about that.

Hi, my name is Janssen ly . I am a preacher at the Campbell Road Church of Christ in Garland, Texas. I'll be preaching on the parable of the hidden treasure and the pearl of great value during the 2024 summer series at West Side Church of Christ in Irving, Texas. Jesus was the best storyteller who ever lived. Not because he could convince you his bass weighed 10 pounds, but because his stories connected, they cut to the heart and they teach us about our almighty God. These two small parables are just one sentence, a piece , but they have a big message that we need to hear, especially in our modern world. Are you all in for God? I hope you'll be there on July 3rd to be challenged and encouraged to be completely given to our God 'cause He's worth it.

Thank you, Janssen. I'm excited about hearing those parables tonight. Those are parables that don't get enough attention, and we'll see if Janssen can help us. Remedy that this evening. Open your Bible now to John five. As I said a moment ago, we are in John chapter five today. Our reading is John five, one to nine, and this is an important place for me to give you a section marker. I love being able to do this kind of thing. In the podcast, John chapter five begins a section through about chapter 12 of rejection. If the first four chapters were about people believing in Jesus, these chapters are people not believing in Jesus over and over again, the text will say they did not believe. And in fact, Jesus' discussions and disagreements with the Pharisees get much sharper and sharper. Here we'll see outright rejection in persecution being charged with demon possession. For example, chapter seven, verse 26 66 is very famous. Many people walk away and leave Jesus. Chapter nine, the healing of the blind man doesn't seem to do any good at all for most of these people. And of course, at the end of chapter 11, there is the outright plot to kill Jesus. So this begins a darker section of the gospel of John after this John five verse one. There is that time sequence that John loves. There was a feast of the Jews, and I would love to tell you what feast that is, and we can't, not entirely sure. John will say it's a Passover. When it's a Passover. Just wish we knew. We don't know. Jesus comes to Jerusalem in verse two. There is a pool by the sheep gate . The sheep gate is in the northeast corner of Jesus's Jerusalem, Jerusalem in the time of Christ. There's a pool there called the Pool of Bethesda. And archeological note here, you can go see that pool. Dina and I got to see that pool when we were in Israel in June of 2023 and took a look there. And I must tell you, that's probably not my favorite site. It's kind of confusing. It's a big mess . And you really, you really can't get a sense biblically of what that looked like in Bible times. It's just a bunch of columns and ruins. That was not one of my favorite places to go. You feel like you have to go 'cause of John chapter five. And then you stand there and you look at it and you cannot really picture that in your head. Maybe go online and Google up some pictures and you'll see what I'm talking about. Or hey, go ask Chad GPT and maybe Chad GPT will tell you something about this pool. But Jesus here sees a man who has been there for a long time. He's an invalid for 38 years. Jesus says, do you wanna be healed? He says, if you can get in the water first, when the angel stirs the water, you get healed. I can't ever get there first. I'm never first. I can't get healed. Jesus says, you're healed. Get up, take your bed and walk. Verse eight. And the man is healed. Verse nine. And he does that. This is important because it's the Sabbath, which is the first verse of tomorrow's reading, and that's gonna create a problem. The man's carrying his mattress on the Sabbath day. That's not a violation of rabbinical, I'm sorry, that's not a violation of Mosaical law, but it is a violation of rabbinical tradition. And this sets up a big controversy with the Pharisees and John's gonna cover that very, very extensively. This is the kind of thing that John pays attention to. It's not even discussed in Matthew, mark and Luke, but it is a huge problem between Jesus and the Pharisees. Maybe I shouldn't say it's a big problem for the Pharisees. Not a problem for Jesus. Their rabbinical traditions never bother him. The of course, the question that people are going to ask here is about the stuff that's in the italics. The stuff here about waiting for the moving of the water or for an angel of the Lord to go down at certain seasons in the pool and stir the water and whoever stepped in first would be healed. All of that's in italics or it's in a footnote. Uh , somewhere about verse three, somewhere around there you're gonna see some of that. It's footnoted in the American standard, new American standard, new international new King James and ESV in some form or fashion because that stuff about the angel is just not in the good manuscripts. Uh, all the good manuscripts sign , Atticus Vaticanus , uh, P 66, P 75, do not contain that material. There are some late manuscripts that have it. It is cited in some other Christian writings, Ian , who lived about one 50 ad. He writes about that. So there is some evidence for that, but it does not seem to be part of the biblical account. And my guess is that that information reflects local legend and local lore. This is what people thought. It does not reflect what God was doing. I don't think an angel was coming there and really stirring the water. It's just what people hoped for. Oh , what people wanted to have happen. We'll talk maybe a little bit more about that tonight after Janssen Lynn's sermon on the parables and tomorrow we'll see that Jesus. Yep , Jesus is in trouble for healing somebody. How can you get in trouble for doing a good deed? Tomorrow's reading, we'll see exactly that. It is Thursday, July the fourth, happy Birthday America. And let me quickly say that, while America certainly has some things that need some work and certainly not perfect by any means at all, it is a wonderful country. God has blessed this country in a powerful way, and the blessings of religious liberty and freedom of speech are not to be taken for granted. We should be very thankful for them. Our reading today is in John chapter five, beginning in verses 10 to 18. Here we get the first open hostility to Jesus that is recorded in this gospel. The problem here is that there is rabbinical tradition going on and Jesus isn't interested in that. But the rabbis wanted to figure out everything about everything, cross every t and dot every I. And so they had all sorts of debates and teaching and commentary in which finally they had categorized work into 39 different categories. And carrying on the Sabbath was forbidden if it was part of your work. However, this man's not a professional mattress carrier, so he's not working. He's just carrying his mattress. And I think he get a great illustration here of the wrong emphasis. We're looking at the wrong thing. Who told you to take up your bed and walk is their question. Their question needs to be who healed you? Verse 11, the man healed me, told me to do this. Verse 12, who's the man who said, take up your bed? They're asking the wrong question. Someone did a miracle. And all they care about is their legalistic little rituals and their legalistic little requirements. They're not interested in the right thing. As a result, of course, they're going to completely miss Jesus. By the way, look at verse 13. There's one of those johannan explanations, one of those parentheses there. And so Jesus encounters, the man says, sin is more important being lost in sin. It'd be worse than being an invalid for 38 years. And his reaction, unfortunately, verse 15, is to go telltale on Jesus. It seems to me that he's ratting Jesus out and this creates all kinds of problems for Jesus. In fact, for several chapters here, we'll see this goes on. They persecute Jesus. And Jesus says, verse 17, my father's working until now and I am working. The idea here is well given in the NIV, my father is always at his work to this very day. And so I am working too. And what Jesus is saying is, Hey, God works on the Sabbath. God holds all things together. The universe is held together by God who is working on the Sabbath. I'm working on the Sabbath. Is God a law breaker? Jesus is claiming to be deity and they get it. Verse 18, they understand that they get the point, and so they persecute Jesus even all the more. So John is making us decide is Jesus God or are the Pharisees right? Do you believe in Jesus? Now we're starting to see some people who don't or in the section of disbelief, see you tomorrow. We'll talk more about this. It is Friday, made it to the end of the week, maybe with a 4th of July holiday yesterday. You're getting an extra couple of days of vacation or time off maybe working a little bit of that long weekend business. But of course, we wanna stay with our Bible reading. We wanna maintain our disciplines in the word of God. So this is John chapter five, verses 19 to 29 that we're reading today. This is the first long section of teaching in John's gospel. And there's a couple of themes here. Jesus really talks about son of man and especially the ability to give life to the dead , and that comes out of the miracle. Sorry about that, John. The sign that Jesus did in John chapter four in verse 50, go, your son will live. And so Jesus talks a lot here about his relationship to the Father, talks about how close he is with his father and that he's doing the will of his father. Watch how Jesus works, those ideas together. Truly, truly. Verse 19, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the son also does. Likewise, one scholar said, do you Jews accuse me of transgressing the father's Sabbath laws and blaspheming his name by claiming equality with him? He said , that relates to yesterday's reading. The scholar goes on to say that charge is absurd for in that case, the will of the son would be separate from the will of a father and would even oppose the Father. But as a matter of fact, the son can do nothing, whatever of himself, but only what he sees the Father doing for here indeed is the perfect pattern of that which is so often seen on Earth. Name that whatever the Father does, the son does. Likewise, I like that very, very much. Jesus ties himself and his work to what God is doing, and he does not claim independence from God, but submission to God the father initiates and sins and commands and commissions. The son obeys and responds and performs his father's will and receives authority. Please note that does not make Jesus less than God. It means Jesus knows his role as part of the God had . And so verse 20, if the Father, because of love shows the Son all that he does and the son out of love always obeys perfectly, then what you have is the Son is revealing the Father. And Jesus develops that with two ideas. First verse 21, only the father can give life, but we know the son can give life. We saw the Son just do that. And then verse 22, another divine prerogative is judgment. And Jesus has authority. Jesus can judge, and if you don't honor him, that's gonna bring judgment upon you. Something that Jesus will continue to talk about in John's gospel. So then verse 24, just as Jesus healed by word, so his words bring life and notice you have eternal life. Present tense Christians, don't wait for something in the future, we are enjoying eternal life. Now, the abundant life, John 10, verse 10, obviously it's not fully consummated and the eternal life that we are participating in now is not everything that it will be when judgment comes, but we are starting that now. We are alive in Christ and there are dead people, spiritually dead. Verse 25, who will hear the voice of the son and they will live. They will live spiritually. The Son gives life physically. John chapter four, spiritually, John chapter five. There's going to come a time when everybody will hear his voice. Verse 28, the physically dead and they will arise to judgment. The question in verse 28 and 29 is when you arise, there's only two possible de destinations will be arising to life or arising to condemnation. That's what Jesus is putting on the authorities who are questioning him and those who refuse to believe. And that's the question John wants you and I to be asking. When Jesus calls me out of the grave, will I arise to glory? Will I arise to condemnation? My destiny will be determined by the decision I made about Jesus. Well, thank you for listening. That's the podcast for this week. If the podcast is helping you tell people about it, leave a rating in a review, make sure that you are following the podcast. Our podcast listenership is up. Our download numbers are up. We're so thankful for that. Glad that you're listening. Hope that it's helping you follow Jesus even more closely. So until Monday, 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 see you Monday with a cup of coffee.

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