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 19th. I'm Mark . I'm working on some amazing Costa Rican coffee, and yes, I'm eating a chocolate muffin while I'm talking to you because it's like eating chocolate cake for breakfast, and that is incredible. And I was given some amazing chocolate muffins and I'm loving that because that's a great way to start the week . Let's talk a little bit about the Nons Sermonm yesterday, and then let's go see what's happening in the gospel of John. Have you got your coffee? Ready, set, let's go. So yesterday, sermon in the 10 40 was, like I said, a nons sermonm because instead of preaching, I had a conversation with Jonathan Golightly about our Bible class program at West Side , what we're doing with that and how we're going to try to implement the shaping hearts curriculum in a better kind of way. And I'll give you a little behind the scenes look here. Those sermons or nons sermons, I guess that's the word of the day, nons, sermonm , those are absolutely terrifying. They require a ton of work to get ready for. And like I said, they're pretty terrifying because you just don't know what's going to happen. They are not scripted. We have a general outline of what we're doing, but I really don't know what the other guy's gonna say whether I'm talking to Jonathan or one of our elders. And so it's just flowing and that means it could flow really well or it could be a complete mess and you just don't know, which makes it really exciting. And maybe that's one of the reasons why people are watching because kind of like people watching nascar, they're wondering if we're going to wreck . Thankfully we didn't wreck . I thought yesterday went really well, and I think we had some really good ideas. Let me just add an additional layer to that. I , I wanna say again, try to emphasize this yesterday. I think Bible class participation, particularly on Wednesday night, is a huge way for parents to say to their children, this matters most, this matters more than school. This matters more than sports. We talk all the time about how God and the Bible and our church relationship, that's what's number one in our life, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. This is a way to put feet underneath that and really show kids this is where, this is what what really counts in our family. I guess the other thing that I would say about that is that Bible class provides a huge opportunity to talk about God's word in a Deuteronomy six kind of way outside of the church environment. So when you get in the car on Sunday, instead of asking about the sermon, ask about Bible class on Wednesday, there is no sermon. Ask about Bible class and don't just ask the standard question, what did you learn today in Bible class? Maybe try to figure out where we are in Bible class and the shaping hearts curriculum will help us with that, and that'll give you something to talk about as you look at that material. But what, what does this mean in your life? Did anybody say anything that helped you better understand the Bible? Let's really dive in and make use of the Bible class as a platform for which we can have additional conversation with our kids and maybe not just Wednesday night on the way home from church. Kids are tired, we wanna get 'em in bed. Let's talk about that the next day at supper. Let's keep talking about the Bible with our kids so that Bible reading and Bible learning will become Bible living. That's where that 10 40 conversation was designed to go. And I hope that you were built up by that hope that you were encouraged by that. And I hope that you weren't really watching just to see if Jonathan and I were going to smash the car into the wall. Okay, so thinking about Bible reading takes us to the gospel of John. We are, we are at a crazy exciting place in John's gospel. Let's go see what's happening in daily Bible breeding this week. It is Monday and our reading today is John chapter 11, verses 38 to 44. This is a short reading, but what a reading it is. This is the raising of Lazarus in many ways, the pinnacle of John's gospel. This is the sign of signs. A couple of quick notes here. Don't think I really need to say a lot about this text other than it's just incredible. It's just in incredible what Jesus can do. We get the stupid remark in verse 39. We've had a bunch of those in John's gospel and I love in verse 41 that Jesus just so easily uses the term Father, it just comes out of his mouth so naturally and easily. And notice that Jesus has already prayed about this. He has been praying about this and the emphasis probably here for John is that Jesus is the sent one , verse 42, and he always does the will of the Father. That's what he was sent to do at that is what he is doing. And of course some people have noticed verse 43, that if Jesus had not said Lazarus and specified who's to come out, every dead person over the entire world would have risen from the dead. And I think that's probably right. That's the power of Jesus. I think we just read this, we read it in a couple of translations and we're just thankful to God that Jesus came to give life. He is the good shepherd and he gives his life for the sheep. And what he does here in John chapter 11 gives life to Lazarus and will cost Jesus his life. We see that in our reading on Tuesday. It is Tuesday and today's reading is John chapter 11, verses 45 to 57. We're gonna complete John the 11 chapter today, and as I mentioned yesterday, this raising of Lazarus sign is what brings about the death of Jesus and John details that now as we complete the chapter, many of the Jews believed in him. Verse 45, it's a little unusual. This is the section of disbelief, but then verse 46 is one of the most puzzling verses in the Bible. Some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. I don't get that. I don't understand that. You see this incredible sign, it's undeniable. Look at the power that this man has and seeing that caused you to run and telltale that is outrageous. But I said, I don't get it. If you look at verse 47, that's the Sanhedrin council , and then you go to verse 48, I think you do get it, verse 48 says, our concern is our political position. This man could foam in a rebellion and that would result in our position, our position of power and prestige where the liaison between the Roman government and the Jewish people, our houses, our wealth, our riches, we could lose all of that if there is a giant rebellion. And so this is a great place to sit down and say what you want, what your goals in life are. What is in the center of your heart will determine your decision making process toward Jesus. Jesus can be the best thing that you have ever, ever, ever met or know about or Jesus can be a threat. Jesus can be a threat. Have you thought about that? There'll be zoom tonight and we'll talk more about verse 48 and how it reveals so much about what's going on. KS is the high priest that year, verse 49, verse 51, both talk about high priests that year there was just a ton of uncertainty about the high priesthood position. The previous governor had deposed high priests very regularly. There is some talk about how PIL had installed a different high priest, but the people still recognized this high priest. We seem to be in a cohi priesthood period at this time, and Kaus here says more than he imagines. Verses 51 and 52, get a little johanan explanation there as he talks about how Jesus is gonna die for the nation. Jesus then is out. He can't stay in this area. Verse 54, he's probably somewhere in the area of Ephron , which is about 12 miles from Jerusalem. And this is verse 55, the third Passover that's been mentioned by John, John chapter two, verse 13, John chapter six, verse four. And if that first Passover is dated correctly as a 28 that's dated from the discussion of 40 and six years here , has been rebuilding the temple, then that makes this date AD 30, ad 30 would be this date and everyone is watching for Jesus. What will happen next? Sometimes, because we're so familiar with the gospel story, we forget the tension that's in the story. Will Jesus come to the feast verse 56, that's the tension in the story. We'll talk about that more tonight on Zoom as well see you then. For those of you who are not part of the West Side church who are listening to the podcast and reading along with us , we're really glad that you're doing that. I'll see you on the podcast tomorrow. Welcome to Wednesday, and today our reading begins the 12th chapter. John, we're gonna read John chapter 12 verses one to 11, but before we do that, let's hear from our summer series Speaker tonight. In fact, this is the last of the summer series speakers. Let's hear what Gavin Williams has to say about his sermon this evening .

Hi, I'm Gavin Williams from Little Rock, Arkansas and I'll be speaking from Luke 18 verses one through eight about the parable of the persistent widow in the parable of the persistent widow. Jesus talks about prayer and our need for it, and he also talks about what true faithfulness is both ours and God himself. The parable has so many practical lessons for us and it's one of my favorites, but we don't talk about it nearly enough and I think part of that is our uncomfortability with why does Jesus compare God to a wicked judge? That can't be right, and yet I think that comparison shows us a lot about how good our God is by showing us how bad people can be. Sometimes I think that a study through this parable together will be encouraging and hopefully will draw us closer to our great righteous God. I look forward to it. See y'all then.

Thank you Gavin. That is an intriguing introduction and makes me really interested in what's gonna happen out of Luke 18 tonight. Let's turn our attention then over to John chapter 12. As we begin this super important chapter, please notice our reading, today's verses one to 11, but drop down to verse 23, the hour has come for the son of man be glorified. Jesus says, this is it. This is the beginning of the end. Everything that Jesus has been pointing to is all about to come to pass, and that begins with Mary anointing Jesus here in Bethany. A couple of quick notes here first, and this is a great thing to write in the margin of your Bible. This is not the event of Luke 7 36. There a woman does anoint Jesus, but it is not. It is not this event. This is the anointing of Matthew 26 verse six and Mark 14 three there in the synoptic gospels. It is set at the house of Simon, the leper. The woman is not named there, and there are a couple of other details that add to the story that are not given here by John. John helps us know that this is Mary and she's the sister of Lazarus whom Jesus raised from the dead. This is a place where John's gospel finally begins to join the synoptic gospels, Matthew, mark, and Luke, and begins to run in parallel with them. John seems almost to have been saying along the way, you know all that stuff Matthew, mark and Luke wrote, and so I'm gonna show you some other stuff, tell you some other stuff that you don't know about Jesus, but of course, but of course when Jesus comes to Jerusalem for the last week of his life, those events are going to run all parallel together. Even still, John is going to show us some things that the Synoptics do not. So this is six days before the Passover and that probably puts this on Friday night that probably puts it after six o'clock Friday evening, which is the Sabbath for the Jews. Some of the chronology here gets very, very complicated and I I think probably more than I can delve into in a podcast, in fact, more than I want to delve into maybe even in a Bible class to try to sort all of that timeline stuff out. But here's Mary, and Mary is really good at ignoring the taboos of society in Luke chapter 10. She sits at Jesus' feet and listens to his teaching and that was no place for a woman. So here she is, she loosens her hair. Women do not do that, and she anoints Jesus with this expensive oil. This is ard , it is pure Ard . And Ard comes from an area grown in the pasture land of the Himalayas between Tibet and India. I'm guessing if you get on Amazon and wanna buy yourself some genuine pure Ard from Tibetan India, it still would cost you a lot of money. How much more did it cost in Jesus' day? Camel in that stuff all the way from India would just cost a small fortune. This is super expensive and Jesus here notes that not everything that some people think is a waste. Verse five, I'm looking at you Judas Iscariot . Not everything that some people think is a waste, is a waste. That's an important principle. Love sometimes is extravagant. Love sometimes is over the top and that's okay. Jesus doesn't pinch pennies when it comes to love. He commends. Mary says verse seven, that she did this for his burial. Now, that may mean that Mary is doing something that she does not fully understand. There's more to this than meets the eye. Some people think Mary knows, some people think Mary knows what's going on here and she is preparing Jesus for burial because she knows that the enemies are gonna get him. You think about that, consider some of that. But we'll conclude here with verse 10. How hard are the hearts of these enemies of Jesus that now not only are they going to murder Jesus, they've decided, yeah, we better get that Lazarus guy too. This is just just unbelievable unbelief. That's what's going on here in this text and that's who Jesus is facing as he comes into Jerusalem in the triumphal entry that we'll read about tomorrow. See you on Thursday. It is Thursday and today we read the triumphal entry in John chapter 12 verses 12 to 19. Our reading is John 12 verses 12 to 19. The triumphal entry is one of the few events that is recorded in all four gospels. And yes, there are some minor differences in these accounts, but that can all be harmonized. Don't get lost in any of that kind of thing. I think the key here is to see that Jesus stages this event and he stages this event to focus attention upon himself. And so I think it's fair to say that this is something that we wouldn't expect from Jesus. This is not the kind of thing that Jesus has been doing all through his life. In fact, in John chapter six, Jesus deliberately teaches in a very difficult way, really a sharp and harsh metaphor to cause people, not to exalt him but instead to turn away from him. But here, Jesus does something front and center. Hey everybody, look at me. Look at who I am. And Jesus clearly announces by what he's doing, I am the Messiah. I think the other key to this is Jesus does this in such a way to announce what kind of Messiah he is. So this is Sunday of the last week of Jesus' life and as he comes in verse 13, they are waving palm branches and they're saying, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel. The waving of palm branches is a clear proclamation of Jesus', king conqueror Messiah. This is drawn out of Psalm 118 verses 25 and 26. That's a psalm of ascent that the pilgrims would be s uh , would be singing as they had come into Jerusalem for the Passover. So that would be on their minds, it would be on their lips. And this is the kind of thing that was done for conquering heroes. One scholar said this was characteristically the conquerors psalm to take, but one entrance. These are the very verses, sung and shouted by the Jerusalem crowd when they welcomed back Simon Maccabee after he had conquered Acra and arrested it from Syrian dominion more than a hundred years before. There is no doubt that when the people sang this psalm, they were looking on Jesus as God's anointed one, the Messiah, the deliverer, the one who was to come, and there is no doubt that they were looking on him as the conqueror. To them, it must have been only a matter of time until the trumpets rang out and the call to arms sounded, and the Jewish nations swept to its long delayed victory over Rome and the world. I think that's exactly right. However, verse 14 tells us, Jesus is sitting on a donkey. Jesus messes up the image because he's not riding on a white warhorse. Instead he's on a donkey. And this is because of Zechariah's prophecy in Zechariah nine verse nine, and maybe a little bit of Isaiah 40 and verse nine is mixed in here as well. To say that Jesus is the king of peace. He is not the expected king. He does not come to make war. He does not come to lead a revolution against the Roman government. Instead, Jesus is the king of peace, the gentle king who proclaims peace to the nations, the peace that comes between God and man, one by the blood of Jesus the Christ. And when his disciples didn't get that, verse 16, here's the Johanan explanation, the parentheses here, they'll get it when Jesus is verse 16, glorified. What is glorified there? Glorified is Jesus' death. That's Jesus' death. And so the Pharisee say verse 19, we're, we're not getting anywhere with this. But of course, Jesus is getting everywhere with this. He is being recognized finally for who and what he is, even if it is perhaps misplaced enthusiasm. And unfortunately, we will see that the crowd's enthusiasm for Jesus will not last last week of Jesus'. Life begins with a bang, and John will show us some things in this last week that the other gospels don't see you tomorrow. We've come to the end of the week. It's Friday, just a short reading today. This is John chapter 12, verses 20 to 26. This is Jesus' interview with some Greeks, Philip and Andrew brings some Greeks to see Jesus, and Jesus doesn't really talk with what maybe they are interested in. I wonder if they're asking for example about the cleansing of the temple that's happened during the last week of Jesus' life. Jesus's answer to them is to talk about his death. This triggers for Jesus an opportunity. Maybe Jesus is thinking here about how Greeks are going to be part of the kingdom of God because of his death. And so instead of speaking maybe directly to their situation, he's talking about their place in the future. And for Jesus, glorification means the cross. For Jesus glorification here is his death. That's why he says something about a seed dying in the earth. And I think the primary application in verse 25 is to Jesus, but there is of course an application to disciples. We must lose our lives as well. And then he says, you have to hate your life. That's a Jewish way of saying love less, and that is summed up. Then in verse 26. You have to follow Jesus. We don't give up ourselves because self is bad. That's the teaching of Hinduism. We give up ourselves to follow Jesus because that's better, that's better, and that's Jesus's teaching here. That's a great way for us to end the week. That's a great thing for us to think on as we come to a close here. Bible reading has to become Bible living. Am I giving up self to follow after Jesus? And that will conclude the podcast for the week. Certainly do appreciate you listening to the podcast, your encouragement about the podcast. Make sure you leave a rating or review that helps more people get to the podcast, tell somebody about it, share the podcast. It helps position you as a serious Bible reader. Tell folks about the podcast. 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 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.