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, February the third. The day after America allows a furry rodent to forecast the weather for us, and that is amazing. I am all in on punks the honey fill . I've got my Bible open and I have a cup of coffee and I do have some sermon notes from yesterday. Sermon. It was a great day at West Side coming off a wonderful singing Friday night. So many great things going on at West Side . God has blessed us tremendously and we just get to enjoy the blessings of all of that. I've got it all. Ready to go for a tremendous podcast this week. Pour that cup of coffee. Let's get ready, let's get set. Let's go. Yesterday in the 10 40 hour, I preached a a sermon about the pattern of salvation, what Luke's stories and acts teach us, and I really wanted to work hard on that first point to think about baptism. We always have folks who are visiting. We always have people who probably know enough to take that step. They just need a little push. And I hope that sermon gave us an opportunity to all think about baptism and its vital role in our salvation together. But I did want to build out some other points in acts and that is that anybody can be converted to Christ and we ought to want to do that immediately. We ought to want to be baptized immediately, especially then the idea that no one is good enough to be exempt from conversion. That whew . You get to people who are going to church on Sunday and they're standing around a whole lot of Christians and it becomes very easy for them to say, you know, I'm , I'm like these people and I'm not a bad person. And so I think I'm, I think I'm good. And that of course is not the case at all. I did make mention of how not every conversion story in the Book of Acts culminates in baptism and I wanna follow up and expand on that because I have seen charts where bunch of conversion stories may be 10 or 11 of Luke's conversion. Stories are charted out and there's five columns there. Faith, repentance, confession, baptism, oh, I'm sorry. The first column of course would be here, here, faith, repentance, confession, baptism, and there's just a row of check marks down the baptism column. Bubu hum . Maybe not every time it's said they heard, maybe not every time repentance is mentioned specifically, but baptism is there every single time. And I do want to stand by what I preached yesterday in the 11 or so detailed conversion stories that Luke uses in acts to make his major points. All of them culminate in the water, all of them end up in the baptistry. But there are some places sometimes when Luke is on the way to making another point, that Luke will simply summarize a conversion story by saying, for example, acts 11 and 20, A great number believed and turned to the Lord, turned to the Lord. That is his expression there, which would include repentance, confession, and baptism. And I I want to emphasize to be clear, that doesn't mean they weren't baptized or that you don't have to be. It just means that Luke is summarizing their stories with expressions like believed or turned to the Lord in Acts 1734. Some men joined him and believed among them was DIYs , the Areopagite and a woman named Demarius and others with them. And I would say again, if not mentioning baptism specifically means that people can be saved without it, then logically that would mean you could be saved without faith because there are plenty of people in the Book of Acts who are said to become Christians and the text never specifies that they had faith. For example, Lydia, she hears us , uh, one who heard us was a woman named Lydia from the city of thy Tyra , a seller of purple goods who was a worship of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul and after she was baptized, no statement there, explicit statement there that she came to faith. So it's important not to overstate our case. Don't be telling people every conversion in the book of Acts ends in baptism. That's just simply not. So we want to take all that Luke says indeed, all that the scriptures say. And when we do that, particularly when you look at the major stories where Luke is making his emphasis, it is clear baptism is essential and necessary to salvation. That's part of the pattern of salvation. What Luke's stories in acts teach us today, I hope that sermon helps you to think more about the conversions in the Book of Acts. And if you have not been baptized, I hope that you will be baptized for the mission of your sins so that you be a Christian like those in the Book of Acts. Get your Bible now and let's head over to Samuel and let's see what's going on in daily Bible reading. It is Monday and our reading for Monday is one Samuel 17 verses 24 to 50 . Today we conclude the David and Saul story. Were you thinking I was going to say David and Goliath? It's not David and Goliath. This is about David and Saul. And the center verse of all of this I think is in verse 32. David said to Saul, let no man's heart fail because of him. Where has Saul been during the 40 days that the Philistine, that's how he's referenced here more than with his name Goliath. What Saul been doing, the 40 days that the Philistine has been taunting the armies of Israel, he's been hiding in his tent. And the contrast here between David's faith and courage and Saul's utter cowardice could not be sharper. Saul is full of fear and he's failing. David is full of faith and he is succeeding. He doesn't need armor, he doesn't need any of that. He has faith in God. And maybe what you're asking is how can I get that kind of faith? And I love that. And notice verse seven, that's a verse 37. That's a great question we asking. I wanna be like David and first 37 helps us see, we get faith in God when we look at our past and give God the credit for our victories. In the past, if you're taking things on and then you decide after this difficult situation, your brilliance, your skills, your people abilities, that's what won the day. That's how come you got the promotion. That's how come you were able to deal with this temptation. You will never build the kind of faith that David has. You have to look at your past and see God's hand , see the providence of God, see what God is doing to bring you to this point and that builds faith. David marches out onto the battlefield. Goliath is taunting him. Verse 44, the worst possible taunt, you will not get a decent burial to Israelite people, to Jewish people. This is just horrible, the thought that my body would be mistreated. Ah , just can't even handle that. David's heart is full of faith. He speaks that faith and just constantly talks about what God will do underlining in your Bible, all that the God of the armies of Israel will do this day, the Lord will deliver you. Verse 46, so that all the earth may know there's a God in Israel. God's reputation is at stake. David says, and I know God won't let me down. God's not saving with sword because the battle is the Lord's verse 47. And of course David pulls out a stone, fires it at Goliath. Notice the skill that David has here with a slingshot. God uses people with skill. God uses what you bring to the table. This is considerable amounts of skill, even if God is providentially or even miraculously guiding the rock. Goliath is down. The men of Israel, verse 52, rose with a shadow pursued the Philistines. No mention of Saul, no mention of Saul. Saul is not in that battle. He's not running with him . He's not saying, come on boys, that guy's our leader. He just seems to be back at the camp verse 55. And of course there's lots of discussion about this. What's the deal in verse 55? I thought he knew David. David has been in the court before. Maybe. Maybe he didn't recognize David who had been there before. Maybe he has overcome with a bad spirit when David is there and thus he doesn't have a good memory for faces. Not entirely sure talked about that a little bit earlier when we were in one Samuel 16, beginning in about verse 14 where that earlier meeting between Saul and David is discussed. Maybe that's out of order chronologically, but the point of all of this is David is the king that Israel needs. He is a man after God's own heart. And if we are tracking what it means to be a man after God's God's own heart, it means we have faith in God, which gives us courage to do God's work. What an incredible and wonderful story. Our reading for Monday. First Samuel 17 verses 24 to 50. Welcome to Tuesday. Today our reading is First Samuel 18, one to 16 . The reading for Tuesday is first Samuel 18, one to 16 . I would say a couple things as we get underway and first Samuel 18. First and foremost, let me remind you, there's no zoom call tonight because the elders meet on the first Tuesday of the month and sometimes I meet with them and we lose a couple of elders out of our zoom call when they're meeting. So no zoom tonight. But notice the repetition, the reputation, the repetition of David's reputation. Try saying that without a big slug of coffee. Notice this in the text that the word successful is repeated. Verse five, David wa went out and was successful. 14, he had success. Verse 15, Saul saw that he had great success. Verse 30, the princes of the Philistines came out and as often as they came out, David had more success. Success is a big idea here and it is stipulated why he is a success. Verse 12, because the Lord was with him in verse 14, for the Lord was with him. Verse 28, the Lord was with David. This is about David and about God blessing David and using David. And that begins as we see with this friendship with Jonathan Saul's son . Jonathan just delights in David and it does. It does seem like there is just an immediate friendship. They just click. They have similar goals, similar faith, similar desires, and they just immediately are drawn to each other. Jonathan makes a covenant with David because he loved him as his own soul. But what attracts Jonathan to David, of course, is his great faith. All the things that he said on the battlefield in front of Goliath, all the things that he said there that led to this great victory. It seems to me that if you want to have a great friend like Jonathan , what you need to do is demonstrate great faith like David did. And when you see somebody who is demonstrating great faith, if you are like Jonathan , then you will want to be friends with them . Please notice then verse five, as David went out and was successful, this term successful is also rendered prospered in the Nu American standard, but but the new King James, and that's certainly not my favorite translation by any stretch of the imagination, but the new king James May have it best here because the new king James says he behaved wisely. And the term for successful here is a term with a broad range of meanings, and part of that meaning can be wise. It is the term in Genesis three, six, Adam and Eve saw that eating the fruit of the forbidden tree was desirable to make one, wise, wise, successful, able, able to navigate life with all of its difficulties. I've said this many, many times as we've talked about biblical wisdom, particularly in the wisdom literature. Biblically wisdom in in scripture is not this weird academic or esoteric idea where you're out of touch with reality and useless. You kind of spout off bizarre amorphism and and , and you say things and nobody really understands what you mean. But everybody goes away and says, wow, that's just so profound. Even though they don't have a clue what you're talking about. No, no, no, no, no. Biblically wisdom is about common sense. It is connected to real life. And when people have that kind of divine common sense, biblical common sense, they are able to do well and to be successful. Saul of course is not happy about this. We start to see jealousy growing in his life. The green-eyed monster is a big part of this. Verse 10. He has this harmful spirit. We talked about that back in chapter 16. This is something that God allows because Saul doesn't want to do what's right and Saul here attacks David for the first time, but the Lord is with him and he's not able to kill David. I should say this, Saul's fears here are completely unjustified. There is never any indication during the entirety of Saul's reign that there was ever a rebellion, a mutiny or any attempt on David's part to replace the king, to be the king by some kind of nefarious means a palace coup. David never does that and never would do that. This is nothing but raging paranoia, Judah and Israel. Verse 16, love David. Notice the seeds of that separation are already there when the kingdom fractures after Solomon. Nobody should be surprised. Already we're talking about Israel and Judah, we're already seeing that. And then verse 16 says, David went out and came in before them. That go out and come in is a common cliche that means in the Bible to fight battles going out and coming in means you're the leader in the fighting. And we can only imagine Saul's disappointment when he sends David out, hopefully to be killed in battle, and instead, David just has more success than even before a reading for Tuesday. First Samuel 18 verses one to 16. Welcome to Wednesday. Wednesday's. Reading is first Samuel 18, 17 to 30 . It's the rest of chapter 18 that we did not read yesterday. One Samuel 18, 17 to 30 is the reading for Wednesday. And I should note here with all this business of giving daughters to David, that David was supposed to get a daughter for defeating Goliath, chapter 17 verse 25. So once again, we see Saul's duplicity and Solomon doing what he's supposed to be doing and not keeping his word. Saul just, he's just not good. It's just not good at all. But everybody besides Saul loves David Saul's daughter, verse 20, love David. It's actually very unusual for the Bible to say that a woman loves a man. So that really stands out to us. And now Saul starts involving other people in his tricks in all these games, which means more and more people will know that he is a terrible ruler and that he is a deceitful jerk. And in all of that, we just get more and more humility by David verse 23. It's, it's just a little thing. I I I'm just nobody. Um, you , you think it's, it's a little thing to become the son-in-law to the king. I can't be that. It reminds us of Saul when he began. Saul says, I'm just little in my own eyes actually, Samuel says that to him. You were little in your own eyes. David is little in his own eyes. He's beaten Goliath, he's destroyed a ton of Philistines in battle. He has great success and yet he still is not full of himself. So I'm keeping my eye on that because I remember Saul said that about himself and , and lost his way. What about you, David? Can you hold on to that kind of humility? So Saul then says, Hey, it's not about money. I know that you think you're too poor to be my son-in-law, be able to pay the bride price to pay a dowry. What I need you to do is kill a hundred Philistines. And what David promptly does is he goes out and he kills more Philistines sooner than the deadline. And the result of that, of course verse 29 is Saul is even more afraid of David. How intimidated would you be by somebody who can take care of Philistines like this? David is not to be trifled with, and this is a great place for me to insert a note that everybody needs to just firmly install in their software. And that is, David is not this wispy little effeminate shepherd boy that so many paintings show him to be. That's not a guy who can kill Philistines like this. David is a mighty warrior. He is a powerful, powerful warrior. If you need to update your image, start thinking about something, something out of the movie. Braveheart, a man who has broad shoulders and huge arms and is incredibly valiant, unafraid, totally courageous, and who knows how to use a sword. That is David. That's David in one Samuel 18, one Samuel 18 verses 17 to 30 . That's our reading for Wednesday. It is Thursday. It is Thursday, and today we're reading for Samuel the 19th chapter. This chapter consists of four distinct incidents verses one to seven, verses nine to 10, verses 11 to 17, and then verses 18 to 24. Keep your eye here on how many people save David. All kinds of folks get involved in saving David as God uses them to keep David alive. And that begins with Jonathan. Jonathan speaks to his dad and says, you are doing wrong, verse five, because the Lord has worked a great salvation for all Israel through David. I think this sets up one of the key themes of the rest of Samuel, and that is that Saul knows better, but is determined to have his way and so he ends up fighting against God. In fact, in yesterday's reading in one Samuel 18 verse 28, when Saul, Saul and knew that the Lord was with David, he knows better. He knows that God is with David and that God has left him instead of repenting, instead of repenting of his error and of his sin, he just tries all the harder to destroy David. That says, everything you need to know about Saul's heart, Saul is hardening his heart against the work of God . And so verses eight to 10, there's another attempt to kill David, and this just emphasizes Saul's wickedness because David is a huge asset to the nation of Israel. Verse eight, he fights against the Philistines and just wamp him . I , I'm not sure that's in the Hebrew, but I'm sure it's in the Mark Roberts international East Texas version. And still Saul tries to destroy, tries to kill David. Then we get this incident in the house. Michael, his wife, covers for him and helps him get out. Please notice verse 11, this is David's house and the huge question, the huge question everybody has about this is why is there an idol in David's house? And that just seems really outta place. The image here is a terra thumb , which is the term for a household. God, if you remember back in the book of Genesis, Rachel stole those from her father Laben , Genesis 31 verse 19. And this just does not seem like something that ought to be in the house. The writer here of Samuel just mentions that in passing because if he's used the old dummy mannequin in the bed trick and it totally works. But I am uncomfortable with an idol being there. Probably more to the point, more to the point. And yes, there are excuses made for that. It's a battle trophy, blah, blah , blah , blah . I can make excuses for David having an idol in his house. I'm still uncomfortable with it. That said, the point is Michael is more devoted to David than she is to Saul. Then Saul pursues David to Al verses 18 to 24. Welcome to one of the weirdest passages in the book of Samuel, because Saul sends messengers to take David and the men there, the spirit of God comes upon them and they prophesied. It seems like this may have been one of those schools of the prophets where they were being trained by Samuel later on, Elijah and Elisha do this kind of thing. It's a place where young men prepare themselves to be tools in God's service. They study the law, they pray so that if God needs a prophet, they are available to serve the Lord and proclaim his word. And that's the key here. When we read the word prophet or prophesying, we think of forth telling the future, saying something about what is about to happen. We know I'm a prophet, so I know who will win the Super Bowl . That's probably not a big prophecy. We all know who's gonna win the Super Bowl , but I know about this earthquake that's going to come or I know about this invasion of a foreign army that's going to come because I'm a prophet and God has given me divine insight into the future, the kind of insight only God could give, and that's a part of prophesying I I I understand about that. You should understand about that. And there are messianic prophecies for example in the Bible, but most of the time prophesying is not about the future, it's about the right. Now prophesying in the Bible most of the time is speaking for God, saying what God once said in this moment, speaking for God oftentimes to people who are not doing what is right, that is the prophesying that's going on here, and there's nothing about this that would indicate they're in some kind of ecstatic frenzy, that they're babbling, they're doing all the things that people associate with the Holy Spirit and prophesying today. You have to read that into the text. It's not in the text. But then Saul comes and he strips off his clothes and lays naked verse 24 all day and all night, and people say, is Saul among the prophets? So there it is. That's probably the weirdest verse in Samuel, and we have a lot of questions about what's going on with Saul right there. Clearly, this is designed to designed, this is designed to connect to what happened to Saul in one Samuel 10, and I think God is tapping Saul on the shoulder in saying, Hey, do you remember how we started? Do you remember what this was about? You used to be walking with me and I could use you and empower you and you have completely lost your way. Go back to the beginning, Saul. That's what this is about. The spirit of God has left Saul, but now the spirit of God gives Saul a second chance. Talk about grace. That's just incredible. And what about being naked? That of course, that's very strange, but the emphasis here is that he stripped off his royal robes. Naked in the Bible doesn't always mean if I might use that wonderful East Texas expression, naked as jaybird when we read the word naked in the Bible, when there's somebody and he's in his birthday suit, but that is not the case here. Naked can mean taking off all the garments of royalty and just being in your under tunic. It does not mean naked as a jaybird , and I think the emphasis there is that he's been, he's been removed of his kingly attire. You're , you're not the king and you need to humble yourself and and get rid of all this fanciful, I'm the man and these are my people and look at me and I've got my royal robes on and my crown and all of that. Think , think of how dramatic it would be. For example, if King Charles were to show up at at at , at a funeral, say of , of a soldier who had given his life and the king arrives with all the pomp and circumstance and in his royal robe and crown and so forth. What if he, what if he just took all of that off and set his crown aside and he marched up and knelt at the grave of this soldier dressed in ordinary attire and said, it's not about the king, it's about this soldier that would make the point. And I think that's what's going on here with Saul. God is getting his attention. You are fighting against me. You can't, you, you can't win. Saul, go back to the start when you were humble, humble yourself and repent. It is an incredible story of grace and some of the details of that obscure it for us and make it hard for us to understand, but I think that's what's happening in one Samuel chapter 19. I hope that helps you, our reading on Thursday, one Samuel 19. Let's find, let's find the Psalms. I'll see you in the Psalms on Friday. Welcome. Welcome to Friday when we are reading in the Psalms, Psalm 59 is our reading for today, and this fits very well with where we are in David's life. This is a psalm of lament, a cry for help from God, and you can certainly see that David is in trouble and he has enemies and he is asking God to take care of those enemies. I want to note something special about that as we go along. I should say this. When David talks about his enemies lots of times he talks about secret plots. He talks about being cursed. He talks about people saying ugly things about him. That to David is a huge concern, and I think as we read in Samuel and we see that David is being slandered in the court, you know that there are people who are telling King Saul what he wants to hear about David King. Saul is the kind of person who would gather yes men , and they are saying, oh yeah, David, he's plotting against you, David. He's terrible. He wants to seize the throne. David can't stand that. People saying harsh things, bad things lies about him slandering him. That drives David crazy. And what he does about that is he takes it to the Lord. He takes it to God, deliver me from my enemies, oh my God, to protect me from those who rise up against me, deliver me from those who work evil and save me from blood thirsty men. They lie and wait for my life. Fierce men stir up strife against me. There it is. Verse three, they're stirring up strife against me. Notice verse four, David asked God to awake and, and I want to say this in the Psalms, we will find the psalmist oftentimes to be very, very frank with God. I feel like you've lost me. I feel like you're not listening to me. I feel like you are asleep, and I want to say that we want to be honest and candid with God, but we always want to make certain that we are reverent in our conversation with God. One would have to be very, very careful to pray. God, I need you to wake up. David can pray like that, but we just need to be very careful about how we approach God in prayer and what we are saying to God in our own praying. So verse nine, David uses the wonderful expression, my strength. Oh, my strength. I will watch for you. They're watching for David. They're watching his house. He's watching for God to see what God will do. Then verse 11 really stands out in verse 11. He says, kill them not lest my people forget. Make them totter by your power and bring them down. One scholar said the prayer of verse 11 is unique. David asked the Lord not to slay the enemy. Suddenly lest the people of Israel entertain light thoughts of the seriousness of sin, if the punishment of is gradual, the severity of God will be more indelibly impressed upon them. I think that's important here. David is concerned about God's reputation, God's work God's way, and that people understand that sin does not pay. And so he wants these evil doers to be taken care of. He wants them to be punished, but he ask God to do that in a specific kind of fashion that will cause more people to turn to God. As we read in the Psalms, we will read many of these Psalms where David or the psalmist is asking God to deal with his enemies. Those are often called imprecatory Psalms. When a psalmist calls down a curse upon the curse of God upon his enemies, and sometimes people get very bent outta shape about that, I thought we're supposed to love our enemies. We'll talk more about that as the year goes along. But I think here's a great place to notice what David is concerned about is God's righteousness being vindicated. Not that he necessarily is particularly saved. If it's all about David, he just say , zap 'em God and get it over with instead. Verse 17, oh my strength. I will sing praises unto you for you, oh God, are my fortress, the God who shows me steadfast love. There it is steadfast. Love that unique and special term for God's covenant. Love God loving us when we are unworthy, God loving us because he promised he would do so, that's our reading for Friday, Psalm 59. Thank you for listening to the podcast this week. If it's helping you, I hope that you are telling others so that it can help more people gain from their Bible reading and continue the spiritual momentum that we start on Sunday in the preaching of God's Word all through their week. Tell more people about the podcast and of course, leave a rating and review if you would please. So until next week, then, when we open our Bibles together, I'm Mark Roberts and I wanna go to heaven, and I want you to come to I'll see you on Monday with with a cup of coffee.

Thanks for listening to the Westside Church of Christ Podcast. Monday morning Coffee with Mark. For more information about Westside, you can connect with us through our website, just christians.com and our Facebook page, our music is from upbeat.io. That's upbeat with two P'S U-P-P-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 cup of coffee. Of course, on next Monday.