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, September the second. Happy Labor Day everyone. Hope you're having a great day. I know some of you'll be listening to this on Tuesday because Monday was the day off and you're just doing all kinds of things maybe with family and with friends. Maybe you're out dove hunting. I know some guys who are gonna be doing that. All kinds of good things happen as soon as Labor Day rolls around like football season and the beginning of fall and at least, hey , at least we're thinking about fall, aren't we? All kinds of great things begin in the fall time and we're thankful to the Lord for that. I hope that you have your Bible. I hope you're ready to think a little bit about that sermon yesterday. Were you ready for that? Were you ready for that? I don't think people were ready for that. Got your coffee. Get ready, get set. Let's go. So yesterday's sermon in the 10 40, maybe you were out for the weekend and now you're listening to it on live stream or you're wondering, should I listen to that sermon? Yesterday I talked about happiness and instead of saying a lot of the things that normally get said about happiness, happiness is bad. We shouldn't wanna be happy, we should go for joy. I actually said it's okay to be happy. And in fact, when I told someone I was gonna preach on happiness and say it's okay to be happy, someone said, are you sure you want to do that? But Peter says in one Peter three, verse 10, whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil in his lips, from speaking deceit, loving life, seeing good days. Or Timothy says one Timothy six 17, as for the rich in this present age, charged him not to be haughty or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy, provides us everything to enjoy, God knows that you and I seek more than just joy. That that deep spiritual contentment, I talked a little bit about that yesterday, but that in the day-to-day events of life, we are seeking happiness. We are seeking to love life and see good days we are seeking to enjoy. And that is a gift from God and it's not wrong to want it. Now you can pursue that in the wrong way. Talked about that yesterday too. Just like you can pursue love the wrong way or peace the wrong way. Happiness is not bad. God's the inventor of happiness and as we see him and as we live his way the wise way, sometimes we talk about happiness being so, so focused on circumstances. I talked about that yesterday too. But the Bible helps us to maximize our circumstances as best we can. We can't control everything and it's important that we don't make an idle out of happiness. Being happy every single moment is not the purpose of our existence. That's certainly true, but it is not wrong to be happy. It is not wrong to love life and seek good days. It's not wrong to enjoy the blessings that God has given to us as long as we're connecting those things to the Lord and we're living God's way. So I hope today you are doing things that are, that are making you happy, happy in the Lord. That is where that sermon went yesterday. Hope that helped you. In fact, I'll just say it. I hope that sermon made you happy. And now what about reading in the gospel of John? Let's turn our rivals to John 13. So it is Monday and today we're reading John chapter 13, verses 31 to 38 . This really is the place where Jesus begins what we would call his final discourse, the final teaching that he's going to offer. The apostles, Judas has gone out and now Jesus is focused on giving them assurance and comfort and preparing them for his death. That will include talking about the coming of the Holy Spirit. I'm not sure this section outlines real cleanly. I'm not sure Jesus is ticking off Roman numerals as he's doing this. But the first part from here, 1331 through about chapter 14 and about verse 31, so through 14 would focus on Jesus' departure and would focus on the conflict that the disciples will have with the world. And then in chapters 15 and 16 there will be a major focus then on Jesus' relationship to his disciples, the idea of the vine and the branches and to the promises of joy in the future, even though they will be separated, the spirit will come and that will be a huge and important part in their life now that Jesus is gone. And then in the third part, Roman numeral three if you will, Jesus prays. That's chapter 17, the amazing high priestly prayer. There is a change of tone here. Jesus urges Judas to go and Judas is gone. And that means the process has begun, the start button has been pushed and there's no going back. Now it's going to happen. And Jesus knows that he has started this process that will inexorably lead to the cross. It will lead to his glory. Verse 32, his glory just all glory there God is glorified in Jesus' obedience, in his sacrifice, in his death, in his resurrection. And Jesus is glorified in that as well. As he submits to the Father's plan and gives himself up, it is terribly shameful in the eyes of the world. But if you read the gospel of John, John is telling us it is a moment of splendid glory. Verse 33 contains the only use of the expression little children that occurs in the epistles of John seven times only here. And I think the connection to this new commandment is Jesus says, I'm not going to be here. You will need each other. You will have to help each other. You'll have to stand with each other. And so we get Peter then wanting to be brave and Jesus says, you're not nearly as brave as you think, probably because Peter and the other apostles really have no clue what's about to happen. I think they're well aware that there's opposition and that people are out to get Jesus. But that it's all gonna go down now, right now in the middle of the night going to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray that they're just not prepared for that in any shape, form or fashion. And this idea of the rooster crowing, the rooster's crow marked the watches marked time. I guess you don't look at your smartphone in Jesus' day or ask Siri or Alexa to tell you what time it is. The rooster crows marked the time. And there are various watches going along here and Jesus is saying that somewhere between 12 and three, that's probably the watch that he has in mind here. You will have already given up on me, you will have given up on me by the things that are about to happen. And of course Peter is gonna say, that's certainly never going to happen. But it never goes well when you contradict. Jesus does it tomorrow more of Jesus's assurance and comfort for his disciples. As we move into chapter 14, it is Tuesday and today we begin John chapter 14. I think this chapter is famous because there is a ton of just those nugget verses that sometimes we pull out and we say, Hey, look at this. I'm the way, the truth in the life, John 14, six, or maybe if you love me, you'll keep my commandments John 1415 or the helper, the Holy Spirit will come John 1426. We're gonna try as we read it here, to hold it together and not just cherry pick these famous texts that are often cited. I often cite those from John chapter 14. Lemme get a little coffee here, drinking some delightful Costa Rican today. And it's made extra delightful. I'm using a fellow's mug that was given to me. It's a wonderful red color and it keeps the coffee nice and warm. One of the problems you always get when you're doing podcasts is by the time you get done with an episode, Hey, my coffee got cold on me. And that's no good at all. And don't say microwave it. That does not really help. And if you keep asking me about that, I'm gonna go off on a long tangent about coffee instead of talking about John 14 versus one to 14. So let's talk John 14, welcome to Tuesday tough day. We have to go back to work after Labor Day and all the fun that we've been having and maybe some happy making things, maybe having to go back to work is not so happy. That's okay. We talked about that on Sunday. Can't be happy all the time. And as we turn to John chapter 14, we see that the disciples are, they're troubled, they're not happy right here. And Jesus does what he can to reassure them even with their lack of understanding. You'll notice here that there's less and less interruption. Jesus got interrupted six times in the 38 verses of chapter 13, well from chapters 14, 15 and 16, which is 91 verses he's only interrupted four times. Jesus just takes command here and is teaching very authoritatively. I think the apostles are listening carefully. They're trying to take it in. I think some of this is way over their head. We'll see some of that in some remarks that are made along the way. But Jesus is crying to give them some assurance and some comfort. Please notice he says, if you believe in God, verse one, you believe in me, that's a straight up claim to deity. You cannot understand that any other way. And then he says, I'm going to prepare a place for you because in my father's house, verse two are many rooms. It is rooms here, not mansions. That's the King James. And that's a terrible translation from which a lot of really bad ideas about what heaven will be like have been spun off when we get to heaven. You don't want to live in a mansion down the street from God. That's that . That's not what they're concerned about. Their concern here is that Jesus is being taken away from them. They want to be with Jesus. So heaven isn't about the lavishness of the place. I'm gonna have this incredible mansion. Heaven is about being with Jesus and God the Father and the Holy Spirit. And again, I don't wanna live down the street from them. I don't care how nice the mansion is. I want to live with God. That's what we were made for and that's what Jesus says, we're gonna live in God's house. That's what I'm doing. I'm going to prepare a place for you. Jesus is very honest here about this. I'm going, but he says, I'm going to come back. Some have tried to argue that Jesus is talking about the church here. He most certainly is not talking about the church here. The metaphor of the church being God's house is not found in John. And even there, it's not the house of God, it's the father's house. It would not be understood that way by these disciples at this time. The church is not in existence. I I think that's really a stretch. Jesus is talking about heaven and he's saying some great things of comfort and insurance to them about heaven. That breeds then Thomas saying, we don't know where you're going. We don't understand. And so we, we get the stupid remark. Jesus could, you could , could you show me where you're going on my maps? Ab I I I need to know where you're going to be. And Jesus then says, I am the way. I am the way. Verse six. This is the next to the last of the great I am statements in the gospel of John. There are seven. And here Jesus is not the trailblazer, he is the trail. I am the way, the truth and the life. John 14 verse six, no one comes through the Father except through me. Thomas Keas wrote, without the way, there is no going without the truth. There is no knowing. And without the life, there is no living. And I want to emphasize again, we have life now and life in the life that is to come. We'll have a better life in the life that is to come, but we have joy and happiness even in this life now. And this request then of Philip show us the Father, verse eight really reminds us of where we are in Sunday Bible classes. We've been talking about Exodus 34 and Moses saying, God, I want to see your glory. Very much the same kind of idea. Jesus says, I came to show the Father. That's what I have come to do. Remember how John's gospel started? This is a great place to make that known . To make that note that Jesus came to make God known John one 18. He has made him known the idea of explaining Exing the Father. And then Jesus says some things here about prayer and there'll be a lot more about prayer here, but don't get lost. 13, 14 is not a magic formula that you can just ask for anything. Jesus will say more about this clearly by the way you can pray to Christ. No question about that at all because he is God. And he'll say more about this praying, particularly in John 15 and He'll that will help us understand that true praying to Christ is to pray in the will of Christ. That's what Jesus is going for here. And he'll unpack more of that as he journeys further in this discourse tomorrow. We'll continue in John 14 picking up the reading in verse 15. And we'll get to think a little bit here about the Holy Spirit. I should add this note. There is no zoom call tonight West side , the elders are meeting this evening and we don't meet Zoom call when the elders are meeting because that means a bunch of the elders are not in the zoom call and that's no good. And sometimes I meet with the elders and I'm not in the zoom call and that's no good. So no zoom. We're taking the night off. No zoom tonight and we'll see you next week on the Zoom and I'll see you tomorrow here on the podcast as we continue in John chapter 14. See y'all on Wednesday. Welcome to Wednesday. Wednesday's reading is John 14, 15 to 31 . We're completing the 14th chapter of John. And if I sound super excited, it's because I am super excited. Tonight is the first night of our Bible drill, putting Bible drill back in place . Super pleased about that. We're starting Bible drill tonight for little kids and big kids. I got the big kid Bible drill , that's second grade to sixth grade and that starts at seven 10. And don't be afraid to be be late parents. Get your kid there when you can get your kid there. Come on, kids learn so much in Bible drill . They bond together. And yes, it's a ton of fun. It is. It's a ton of fun. So get your kid to Bible drill , little kid, big kid. Get your kid to Bible drill . Seven 10. Tonight we are doing Bible drill. Did I say anything Bible , Bible drill. Should I tell you more about that? How about we talk about Bible reading? John 14, beginning in verse 15 starts this section on the Holy Spirit. If you love me, you'll keep my commandments for John in John's writing, there's always a connection between loving Jesus and obeying Jesus. We're gonna see that repeatedly here. Verse 21, verse 23, chapter 15, verse 14, one John five, lots and lots of that in John's writing. So important for us. And then Jesus says, outlast the Father. Verse 16, he'll give you another helper to be with you forever. And this is the mention of the Holy Spirit. There are five of these distinct Holy Spirit text in this last teaching of Jesus in John 13 through John 17. So here's the first of these. It is so important that we remember these teachings are directed to the apostles. That doesn't mean that we can't learn from them and benefit from them, but it's fairly regular that I see somebody using John 1426 to say, I read my Bible and the Holy Spirit teaches me, no, no, no. The Holy Spirit does not directly teach you anything. That passage is a promise to the apostles, not to you. And to me it is helpful to us. We're gonna talk about how it's helpful to us, but we don't want to misuse that passage. Maybe the thing that's the most helpful here in verse 16 is to try to decide what to call the Holy Spirit. He will give you another helper is the ESV . Some translations have counselor, some have advocate, some have comforter, and none of those are really great. None of those really work. The term here means one called alongside . And in secondary Greek of New Testament times, it does reference a legal assistant, a legal advocate. So counselor is not bad. Somebody who comes alongside to help you, but but it would be a legal counselor, not a camp counselor, not a marriage counselor, not someone you go to counseling for mental health issues or depression, that kind of thing. Advocate may help in some ways, but an advocate doesn't. It doesn't seem to me to be exactly the same as a counselor and comforter. A comforter's, the thing on the bed, it keeps you nice and warm on cold days, I , I'm not sure about comforter, however, I'll give you this note. Comforter was, once one scholar says a perfectly good translation, it goes back to Wickliffe , who was the first person to use it in his day. It means much more than it means. Now. The word comes from a Latin word, Fortis, which means brave. And a comforter was someone who enabled dispirited creatures to be brave. Nowadays, comfort has almost solely to do with sorrow. And a comforter is someone who sympathizes with us when we are sad. So comforter's not great here. Helper's not great either. Thank you. ESV because sometimes we think of a helper as being inferior when our kids are trying to help us on a project around the house. And I'm up under the sink and I've got grease and water's flooding and everything's going everywhere. And the girls would want to help their daddy and and Dean would come around the corner and say, what's going on here? And I'd say, well, I've got a little helper. See that? That, yeah, a little helper that's that doesn't say you're equal or that you're really great help to me in in any kind of way. Sometimes kids get get in the way when we're trying to do fix it . Sorts of things like that. The spirit of course is not a little helper, he's not a blanket, he's not your lawyer. He's come here to help the apostles in the things that they need to do their work. He is powerful assistance and it is clear that he is a person, he's not the force. Don't get lost in that. Jesus will return verse 18 after the resurrection I think is what he means when he says there, I will come unto you. And that coming is gonna result in some people understanding. Finally, lemme get some coffee here. Finally, who he is and that he has returned and that he is exactly who he said he was all along the way. And so once again, we get the idea of commandments and that loving Jesus means that we keep his commandments. Then Judas verse 22, that's probably thaddius . It's obviously not Judas is Scarritt . John says that. And we know that Judas is scar's not in the room. Luke is the only one, by the way, who mentions Thaddius, but this is probably Faus . And he's asking, Hey, why don't you make a splash? Why don't you do that massive physical kingdom thing? Let's go Jesus. Be out front. Jesus. That's not how that's gonna be. That's not how that's gonna work. If you want to see Jesus, you have to love him and keep his word. You have to be in a relationship with him. And then Jesus again wants to talk about, I am with you. Now notice verse 25, these things I have spoken to you, not to us, to you, but the help of the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name. He will teach you all things to bring to your remem. It's all that I have said unto you. That passage means so much to us because it gives us such confidence in the inspiration of the scriptures. How could the apostles possibly remember everything that happened in three years of being with Jesus? Answer. The Holy Spirit reminded them. The Holy Spirit taught them on the day of Pentecost. Peter preaches this brilliant sermon. How come Peter Fisherman is so brilliant? Because the Holy Spirit is teaching him all things. And then notice verse 27, Jesus gives peace. And that's not the peace that you need a tank and an AR to maintain. This is the peace between man and God. And then he says, verse 28, I'm going to the Father for the father's greater than I. And that's not a denial of Jesus's deity by any stretch of the imagination. He just says that at this time Jesus is in a lesser role and all he's saying is be glad because the Father has everything under control. And if you're reading the room here in John 14, you can just feel the tension. There's all the nervousness about enemies of Jesus and Judas bolted and got up out of there and what's he doing? And where's he going? And now Jesus is talking about leaving and a helper, an advocate, a counselor is coming. You could just feel, oh , I don't know what, what exactly is going on and what's about to go down. Jesus will try to calm them by talking about abiding in him. Having that relationship in chapter 15, we'll start that on Thursday. It is Thursday. It is Thursday. And the good news today is that the NFL season begins tonight. That is good news for us Ranger fans 'cause it's been a long and difficult season. We're still polishing our World Series trophy a little bit, I guess, and feeling real good about last year. But I'm ready to be distracted from that and probably be distracted by the Cowboys disappointing us once again. Let's think about something better than all of that. Let's look at John chapter 15. This is verses one to 11 that we're reading today. It's important that this section be held together across several days worth of reading because the key idea is abide. The key idea is abide. The word abide is used 10 times so much in John has been about Jesus saying he abides in the Father and the Father abides in him. And now Jesus issues the invitation to the apostles for them to abide in him. And more than just the apostles by principle, all disciples can abide in Christ. And I think there's some changes going on here. First, Israel's not the vine anymore. Isaiah chapter five and other places use vine imagery of the nation of Israel. Nope . Jesus is the vine now. And I particularly like we'll read this tomorrow, that Jesus is changing. They are no longer servants. They are now friends. That's verse 15. Like I said, read that tomorrow, I think verses nine to 16 really serve as a commentary on this entire passage. And without understanding all of this, what we'll end up with is a very mechanical relationship with Jesus, where it's just due obedience. Just just do what Jesus says and And that's not what Jesus is going for. Jesus is looking for fruitfulness and dependence and relationship abiding in him. Let me give you a a note here about vineyards because that's something that not a lot of us are super familiar with. I don't have a vineyard in my backyard and I'm gonna guess that you do not either. One writer said, many Christians today have little understanding of a working vineyard. Wine comes from the juice of the grapes produced by a grapevine. If left un trimmed , a grapevine will use its available energy to grow long woody branches and extend its territory while producing a few meager bunches of grapes. Wine makers learned early on that great vines could be tamed by vigilant and pruning of branches so that comparatively few buds would be allowed to grow. When this trimming was done, the vine was forced to direct its life giving sap into the production of grapes rather than territorial expansion under good conditions of sufficient rain and sunshine. This would result in heavy grape clusters and abundant grape juice for wine production. Major pruning is done in the mid-winter when the vine would lose the least amount of its precious sap. The process of cleaning and pruning the vineyard left a bare field with small stumps at the beginning of the spring growing season. But a tiny farmer, not only a tidy farmer, not a tiny farmer, somehow I got this little guy in the middle of the vineyard, no tidy, TIDY, tidy farmer not only sniffed off these old branches, but hauled them away and burned them so the vines could grow unhindered. Effective vine dressing required the farmer to prune throughout the growing season to keep the vines energy focused on a limited number of grape clusters. Even today, the best grapes are produced by developed vines that are 12 to 40 years old with deep healthy root systems. Now I think there's a lot of implications of that in our own lives. Sometimes we're just busy sprouting branches all in directions everywhere. And we need to be pruned back so that we can be productive. We can be fruitful in a couple of areas. That's not really where Jesus is with this. I think that's certainly true. I wouldn't necessarily wanna develop that out of John 15 though, because what Jesus develops here is the importance of abiding in him. I am verse one, the true vine that is the last of the I am statements here. And then he just talks about this relationship abiding in him and I in you and that that is gonna necessitate some pruning. That's God's work. He'll prune branches to make you more fruitful. That is such a challenge to us. If God providentially takes something away, it's possible that we don't recognize God's pruning hand and God's gonna cut off the deadwood that clearly says that there's a possibility of apostasy. The faithless are cut off, no if ands or buts about that. So what is the fruit that's being envisioned here? Sometimes this is used to be new converts and to make this into an evangelism passage. And I think that's a terrible mistake. 'cause if branches are to duplicate, it would be make more branches. Fruit here is the consequence of praying in Jesus' name and to God's glory. Fruit here is the life of the Christian producing spirituality, the fruit of the spirit in our lives. That's what's going on here. I think this is like the language of chapter six where we, where Jesus talks about eating him, drink him living water, eat him bread of life, abide in him the vine, very much the same. And make sure you circle in your Bible verse seven, because verse seven helps us understand that the right kind of praying comes from relationship with Jesus and that will shape our praying. If I'm in Jesus, what will I ask for? What will I want? What will I be all about? Will by praying be selfishness? Will it be for me or will I be praying for God's glory and for his kingdom? Notice verse 11, this joy comes when we are in obedience to him. What a diametrically opposed statement to this world. The world thinks obeying Jesus will ruin your life. Jesus talks here about joy, and there is that wonderful sense of purpose and meaning that comes and that fills us when we are doing what Jesus tells us to do. Because Jesus goes on to say, when we abide in him, we are His friends. We'll see that tomorrow. Hey , oh , it's Friday, made it through the week, didn't you ? Lots of good things gonna happen this weekend, including the first day of the week as we start the week together at West side , being together, worshiping together, just the best thing that can possibly be. So let's think about our Bible reading. It's a very short reading today. John chapter 15, verses 12 to 17. Here again, Jesus talks about loving one another, verse 12. And he shows that he has that kind of love. Verse 13. And then there's that amazing statement. You are my friends, not a lot of friends with God in the Bible. Abraham and Moses are called the friend of God. Second Chronicles, chapter 20 verse seven, Exodus 33 and 11. Lazarus is specifically said to be Jesus's friend in John 11 in verse 11. Pretty rare, pretty rare air here to be called a friend of God or to be Jesus's friend. Now, in the Old Testament, being friends with God is connected with revelation, knowing God's plans. And I think that's what's happening here. The apostles are being made privy to what Jesus is doing and what Jesus is about. You are my friends, if you do what I command you. And someone may ask, Hey, I thought this was just for the apostles. Do we have a right to say that we can be his friends if we do what Jesus commands us? And I think that's a fair question, particularly since we land so heavily on the Holy Spirit passages and say, Hey, that's about the apostles, that's not about you. And then we come over here and we say, oh , this is about me. I I would say this, there's just a difference between the promise given to the apostles about the Holy Spirit and appropriating that specific promise and looking at a passage that says, this is what pleases me. This is what causes me to be in relationship with you. If you do this, then I'm in relationship with you. I, I don't think it's, it's a leap at all to say, well, you know what? I , I , I I'm gonna do that too. I I I'm gonna try to imitate the apostles. Paul says, imitate me as I imitate Christ. I I'm gonna try to imitate the apostles and be in relationship with Jesus as well. I wanna be Jesus's friend. I don't think it's misusing the passage, but I always wanna keep these passages in their context. First and foremost, Jesus is talking to these apostles. And that becomes very clear in verse 17 and 18 because of the giant transition right there. It's so warm and abiding in love, and is ab bity a word? So just so good through verse 17. And then verse 18, there's hate. The world's gonna hate you. And so the disciples need to stand together. Jesus says, but they, they need to stand together against the world that hates them. And, and the mood and tone here changes. And Jesus begins to address not the inside of the community of faith, but the outside world and its reaction to that community. And that's where Jesus is going in the reading. And that's what we'll pick up on Monday. Thank you so much for listening to the podcast. Just appreciate that more than I can say. Certainly would appreciate it if you would tell other folks about the podcast so that we'll help them in their daily Bible reading, and particularly help them as they think through the sermon on Sunday. So until Monday, when we will open our Bibles together. Again, I'm Mark Roberts and I wanna go to heaven, and I want you to come to 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.