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, August the fifth . I'm Mark. I'm drinking coffee out of a fabulous red mug that I was given for my birthday by some great people. It's keeping my coffee nice and hot. Why is it a good mug? Just makes everything so much better. But it does. But it does. And now I am ready to dive into some additional thoughts from yesterday's sermon. I I didn't like that sermon. We'll talk about why I didn't like that sermon. And we're gonna talk more about the Gospel of John. Yep . Let's dive in. Yesterday's sermon was titled Dangerous Illusions , uncovering the Lies Behind Infidelity. And I didn't like it. And the reason I didn't like it is 'cause I don't like talking about that. I wish that was not such a prevalent part of our society. And I'm just worn out on seeing old friends and we're start catching up and I ask about somebody, Dina asked about somebody and then they're face falls and they say, oh, you didn't hear. And sure enough, there's been adultery and immorality and the marriage has been destroyed. I'm, I'm just fed up with that and I don't like talking about it and I don't like thinking about it. But we have to, to defend ourselves against the evils that are so prevalent in our time. I like the end where we got to talk a little bit about what it takes to build up our relationship. Let me give you, just, let me just give you one more thing to do to build up your marriage so that that's never gonna be a problem between you and your spouse. And my thought here is don't let your marriage get stale. That means making a conscious effort to see to our spouse's needs all of them. Spiritual, emotional and yes physical. Paul gets to that in one Corinthians seven. We talked about that yesterday. But especially I want you to think about this. That means being quick to apologize, quick to apologize. One writer said, be quick to apologize and quick to forgive. Don't let resentment building your marriage but rather seek to resolve things quickly. Don't harbor negative feelings and hold a grudge by being completely open and honest with your spouse. You're creating an emotional connection that will protect both of you from wanting an emotional connection with someone else. Jesus said, remember if you're going to church and something is wrong between you and your brother, then you stop and go get that fixed before you go to church. Matthew 5 23 and 24. And that would apply, yeah, that would apply to your marriage. If something is out of kilter there, then you need to stop everything and get that fixed so that there won't be yearning for someone else. There won't be a festering wound that is creating that dissatisfaction in marriage. Let's not let that happen. Let's make our marriages a priority. Let's not let them get stale. And let's make sure that we keep them strong by being quick to apologize and quick to forgive. That's my additional thought from the sermon yesterday. Now let's go talk about that man born blind in John chapter nine. It is Monday and we're getting started with the week and we are in John chapter nine. We're continuing to trace and track along with this man that Jesus healed at the outset of the chapter, the man who was born blind. Our reading today is John nine 13 to 23 . And here come the Pharisees verse 13. This appears to be some kind of formal examination by some sort of official delegation that's looking into things and that would show how famous Jesus is and that he is really making some waves. Now he is really getting some attention and it's all about verse 14, the Sabbath day. This is so crucial to the story. It's another Sabbath healing and that would be a violation of rabbinical traditions. It is not a violation of the law of God, but it certainly would violate the Pharisees regulations and rules. Kneading was forbidden. Woman couldn't kn dose . So this man, he needed some, made some mud that, oh, can't believe you did that. And healing was absolutely forbidden unless a life was endangered. So Jesus has violated their rules and regulations and that gives us a good chance to talk a little bit here about reasoning and thinking because verse 16 they say, this man is not from God 'cause he doesn't keep the Sabbath. But those people said, Hey, he did a miracle. Somebody who's not from God could not do a miracle. Where , where are we going with that? What do we think about this? Both people in verse 16 can't be right. Notice the premise in verse 16 that the Pharisees have is mistaken for, he does not keep the Sabbath. Actually their premise is he doesn't keep our manmade rules and traditions about the Sabbath. That's where they've gone astray. And so verse 18, they don't believe that's John's gospel in a nutshell. He's driving the reader to make a decision about Jesus. And the result is we end up calling in his parents and asking them a bunch of questions. And that gets us to verse 22 where we see that they are afraid. There's lots of fear of the Jews in go John's Gospel chapter three, verse two, chapter seven, verse 13. And the term here in verse 22 should be put out of the synagogue. That's actually just one word. It's they should be synagogue. And that is a term for excommunication. And scholars say that there's a couple of different layers there or different levels. One would be a temporary exclusion from the synagogue for 30 days and the other would be a permanent ban. But either way, this expulsion from the synagogue would be very much to be cut off from community life, not just religious life but from the life of the village and everyone. And of course these people, they must be poor or their son wouldn't be out begging. There's this man born blind from birth , he's out begging these , these folks are not economically well off. And the thought of being cut off from all economic and social ties, religious ties in the village , uh, in in their part of their world is terrifying to them. They are frightened to death. And so they say, we , we just can't, we , we don't even know what to say about this. We don't even know what to say about this. So tomorrow we get a second round of questions of the man born blind but pay particular attention. Verse 11, he says, Jesus is a man. In verse 17, he says, Jesus is a prophet. His faith is growing more on that tomorrow. See you on Tuesday. Welcome to Tuesday. And today our reading is, and of course in all the paperwork in my Bible and coffee and everything else, I can't find my reading schedule. What is today's reading? It's John 9 24 to 34, John 9 24 to 34. Notice in verse 24 they say, give glory to God. That is, that is an oath formula. That is their way of saying tell the truth. It would be like someone's saying, will you swear to that in court? So tell us the truth 'cause we know this man is a sinner. Look how they've already made up their mind. But he says, I don't know, I just know that I'm seeing. And then verse 26, tell us all about this again. And he says, I've already told you about this. Do you also want to become his disciple? Look at the word also there. Look at the word also. This man is beginning to follow Jesus in spite of how little he knows. They're not interested in that. Oh, you're his disciple. We're the disciples of Moses. Look at all the put downs and the hatred that's going on here. I know a fellow who had taken some wrong ideas about the work of the church and and what the church is supposed to do. And he was very close-minded about that, was trying to study with somebody and , and this fellow was, was reasoning from the scriptures and being very calm. And and he said he finally realized he was just shouting and calling names and he decided, if I can't prove that what I believe is right from the Bible, then I need to change my convictions. That's exactly what's going on here. So often when we attack people personally, it's 'cause we don't have the case. If, if we had the evidence, if we had the passages, we'd be talking about that. But instead we're reviling people. And that just leads to what in some ways is kind of a pretty funny little piece of scripture. Sometimes people say the Bible isn't funny. It's pretty funny when a beggar verse 30, 31 and 32 takes the Pharisees to school, we know that God doesn't listen to sinners. If anyone's a worshiper of God does his will, God listens to him. Plenty of passages in the Old Testament about that. Psalm 66 18, job 27 9 1 John three talks about that. Verse 21 and 22, God is only obligated to hear his children. Now sometimes people have taken those passages to say that God doesn't hear non-Christians at all. And of course that's completely false. God hears everything. God hears everything and he can choose to answer the prayer of non-Christian if he would like to do so. Think about Cornelius in Acts chapter 10. God certainly does that. But the man says, God's not the business of answering the prayers of sinners, of wicked people. And of course in this context, why would God answer the prayer of a wicked person to do a miracle that's just gonna lead people astray. Verse 33, if this man were not from God, see that faith growing? See that faith growing? They said you were born in utter sin and they cast him out. Born in utter sin is a tremendous insult. They are calling him ill legitimate, ill legitimate. That's that's pretty harsh stuff. And it says they cast him out. They may, that may mean they synagogue him what we talked about from verse 22, that may mean he's cut off from community life at least for a period of time. This is rough stuff and we're gonna see more of that as we keep reading in John nine tomorrow. Welcome to Wednesday. And before we think about our daily Bible reading, let's get a word from Terry Slack who'll be preaching for us tonight as we continue our parable series as we start rolling towards the return of school and all the things that mark the end of summer. We are coming to the end of our summer series. There's just three more left counting tonight and Terry's gonna talk with us a little bit about salt and light . Terry .

Hi, this is Terry Slack and I look forward to being with good folks at West Side on August 7th. As you continue your summer series on the parables of Jesus, we'll be looking at a a couple of simple images found within the Sermon on the Mount salt and light images that I believe were the focus of your recent VBS. It's here in Matthew five, that Jesus speaks to the power of influence among those who would be citizens of his kingdom. As important as it is for Christians to worship collectively, much of what Jesus describes in this brief parable actually takes place outside the four walls of a church building as his people allow his presence to be visible in their lives and thereby impact others and bring glory to their God. I'm excited to share the truths of this rich parable with you. And again, look forward to being with you on August 7th.

Thank you Terry . I know that everyone is anxious to hear Terry develop those ideas about salt and light. Our reading today then is in John chapter nine, verses 35 to 41. This is the end of the chapter. And please notice verse 35, Jesus found him. There's so much initiative of Jesus in this text. Jesus is doing the acting. Jesus is doing the finding. Jesus is bringing people to faith. And of course the question of the book of John is verse 35, do you believe in the son of man? And Jesus says, that's me. And he says, verse 38, Lord, I believe so. We have gone from, look at the steps of faith here, the man verse 11, verse 17, the prophet verse 27, do you also wanna be a disciple? The disciple? Verse 33, if this man were not from God, now verse 38, Lord. And he worshiped him. Jesus accepts worship. All the people who wanna say Jesus is not divine. He's a creative being. He's a super angel . He's this, he's that. They all need to deal with what Jesus is doing in John chapter nine. 'cause if you're not deity, you need to do what Peter did when Cornelius worshiped him. And that is you tell him , stop doing that. Don't be doing that. Get up, get up, get up , get up , go . I'm just a man. No, Jesus accepts worship because Jesus is divine. He is deity. And then Jesus says, everybody needs to see, everybody needs to come to see spiritually. And that my presence here, my teaching here is gonna cause some people who think they see spiritually to become blind. And of course he's talking about those Pharisees and they say, Hey, are you talking about us? And Jesus says, yes I am. I am talking about you because if you were not blind, you would see me. And if you were really blind, then you would not have responsibility. Uh , we don't blame a blind person from bumping into things. If you were blind, you'd have no guilt. But now you say, we see your guilt remains the fact that you won't accept me, that you deliberately turn people away from me. That is that your feet. And that shows your hardheartedness. And Jesus wants to talk more about that as we go into chapter 10, because he's going to talk about the allegory of the shepherd and the sheep. And these Pharisees, they are the robber who wants to climb over the wall instead of going through the door. Who's the door? Tomorrow? We see Jesus is the door. We'll see that in John chapter 10. I'll see you on Thursday. It is Thursday. And today we start, John chapter 10. Our reading today is John chapter 10, verses one to six. This is such a good place to have the podcast. I'm so glad you're listening because there's important points to be made here that set up what goes on in John chapter 10. Remember, this is all flowing. It all connects. John chapter eight. Jesus is the light of the world. John chapter nine shows that Jesus can give light. He heals the man born blind. And John chapter 10 connects right to this notice. The dialogue continues from John 9 41. This is a terrible chapter division. I hate this chapter division. Hey , hey , hey . It's just terrible because Jesus is still talking to the same people and he's talking about the same issues. In fact, if you have questions about that, notice 10 21. Others said, these are not the words of one who's oppressed by a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind? You see the connection there. It's still all one piece flowing from eight nine. And what goes on there with light and blindness and the allegory here that we're gonna get is the allegory of sheep and shepherd. And I'm working allegory out of verse six, the expression there, this figure of speech, the ESV has that there. That word means an allegory or a figure. Some, some translations will give that as parable, but it is not the word for parable that's used in Matthew, mark, and Luke. And there are no parables in John. But there is the allegory where one thing stands for another. And that is happening here in John chapter 10, where Jesus uses shepherding and sheep to explain his role and who he is. By the way, the earliest representations of Jesus in Christian art are of him as a shepherd. There are over 114 representations of Jesus as shepherd in the catacombs of Roman . By the way, those early pictures of Jesus, they show him as having short hair. Somehow Jesus always has these long locks, the earliest representations we have of Jesus. He's got short hair. Think on that just a little bit. So Jesus says, notice there's no introduction here. Verse one, truly , truly I say to you. And Jesus never begins anything. Never begins. A sermon with truly, truly, truly, truly comes in the middle of things and drives people to reach some conclusions. It's a connection word. And he says, the person who doesn't enter the sheet fold by the door, that person is a thief and a robber. He's talking about the Pharisees in 9 49 41. You want to draw an arrow up there to make sure that you get across that chapter break and don't get to see by the chapter break. And the imagery here probably comes from the community sheet fold where everyone in a village would come home at the end of the day and put all their sheep together in what we would call in Texas, a corral , probably a rock fence. And then there would be one guy who's gonna watch the sheep for the night and everybody else is gonna go home to their families and and get a good night's rest. Well then in the morning you come to the sheep fold , you come to the corral and you got 50, 60 sheep. These aren't , and it's important to remember, nobody here's running 10,000 head of sheep. Do do you run 10 th Is it head of sheep? Flock of sheep? Herds of sheep? I've heard of sheep. I I don't. Nobody's running monster flocks here. These are individual flocks. One man would work all of his life to carefully build his flock. Maybe 10, 15 sheep. So you show up at the corral and here are 10 or 15 sheep that are yours, but they're all mixed in with everybody else's sheep. How do you get your sheep out? And the answer to that is you call them by name, you call them and they hear your voice and they will follow you because these shepherds have a close relationship with their flock and their sheep know them. Notice what's the job of the sheep to listen for their shepherd. There has even been some tests where somebody dressed up as a shepherd and tried to imitate the call of the shepherd and tried to call out some sheep. And those sheep ran away. They absolutely would not follow a fake or false shepherd. So this imagery would be very familiar to Jesus', to the people in Jesus' time. They would understand what he means by that. He goes before them. And the sheep follow him for they know his voice. Verse four, sheep are not driven. You drive cattle. We know about that in Texas. Sheep follow the shepherd. He calls them, they know his voice and they follow him. And the background to this is Ezekiel 34. Go read Ezekiel 34, 10 to 16. That's what Jesus is building on. And you can be sure the Pharisees knew exactly the passage he's pointing at them. We'll finish some of this up tomorrow as we continue with the good shepherd in Ezekiel chapter in Ezekiel, no, in John, in John chapter 10. See you on Friday. Friday. It is. Friday always feels good to get to the end of the work week , doesn't it? This is John chapter 10, verses seven to 21 that we're reading today. You just wanna read this. You just wanna read this a couple of times in a couple of translations. It's a marvelous, marvelous text. And I don't think it takes a lot to understand what's going on here. Jesus in verse seven, begins to explain, but really it's not new. He's just unpacking what he's already said in verses one to five. And Jesus talks here about, there's one door, one door to get in the sheet fold , and that's just a restatement. I look into verse nine, that's just a restatement of John 14, six. Or maybe it's the first time it will be said. And then John 14, verse six is a restatement of John 10 verse nine. But Jesus comes, I love John 10 10. You know I have used that passage a bazillion times. It was on the masthead of the paper that we used to publish at West Side Abundant Life, John 10 10. Jesus brings us the abundant life and abundant here means more. Um, extraordinary, utterly. It's just a , it's a wonderful, wonderful word. Jesus brings real life. Jesus brings real life. And there's only one way to that life. And that is Jesus. One writer said , Jesus is right. It's not the Christian doctrine of heaven. That is the myth, but the humanist dream of utopia. And that is just exactly right. And I , I would emphasize verse 11, I'm the good shepherd. Sometimes we have these images of shepherds being this kind of gentle, wonderful, soft person cuddling a lamb in his arms. And that's completely bogus. Shepherding was really hard work. It was dangerous work. It was very manly work. Shepherds would be suntan and muscular and tough. But of course, the idea of a shepherd giving his life for the sheep, that would be very rare. That would be very rare. Shepherd's worth more than the sheep. And if it's me or the sheep, then it's ah , it's gonna have to be the sheep this time. But Jesus has relationship with his flock. Verse 14, and John just presses this over and over again. We're gonna get more of this. We get to John 15, for example. It's about relationship. It's about abiding. It's about being in Christ who's the person who's a true disciple. The one who goes to church on Sunday, doesn't really care about Jesus, but fills a pew . Or the person who knows Jesus, the person who's in a relationship with Jesus, where the will of Jesus is controlling his life 'cause he wants to please the shepherd. And Jesus goes from there. Then to talk about how his death is a self-sacrificial act. It is not an accident. It is for the purpose. Verse 16, of bringing Gentiles and Jews together, one flock. That is exactly what Jesus is referencing there. And then he references the love of the Father because of Jesus's obedience, because of Jesus' obedience. And the section then ends with some stupid remarks. But people saying, we gotta think about this. We gotta think about this. Nobody can do what this guy can do. Nobody can do that. And the devil wouldn't do that. This guy is unique. This is , there's something different about all of this. We need to think about this. Could this person, could this man be the Messiah from God? Once again, John makes the reader make a decision about Jesus. And that's the podcast for the week. Hard to stop reading right there, isn't it? I certainly do appreciate you listening to the podcast. It's helping you. Please leave a rating or review so that others can find the show, tell people about the show so they can stay with their daily Bible reading and maybe even make their way to West Side to get some of those sermons that they're hearing about at the front end of the podcast. We'd love to have more visitors at West Side . In fact, Sunday is back to school Sunday. What a great opportunity to invite some folks special prayer service in the nine, and then special message in the 10 40 hour to prepare students, parents, and teachers for the school year that has for some has already begun and for many is about to begin. Well, lots going on. Lots will be happening at West Side on Sunday. I hope to see you then. But 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 I'll 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.