Hello, and welcome to the Westside Church's special Monday Morning Coffee podcast. On this podcast, our preacher, Mark Roberts, will help you get your week started right with a 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, May the 12th. I'm Mark. You know what I'm holding. I've got coffee. I'm looking at my sermon outline from yesterday, and I have some notes on our Bible reading. We're going to read a chapter this week. That's kind of a hidden gem. I'm excited about that. I'm excited to start the week with you. Pour that cup of coffee. Let's get ready. Let's get set. Let's go. Let's go. So yesterday was Mother's Day, and you may have thought, probably did think you were going to hear a sermon for moms or about being a mother, all the things that go with some of that. Let me give you a little insight. Sometimes in the podcast, I'm able to kind of pull back the curtain a little bit and let you take a look at what's going on in the preacher's head and what I'm thinking. Here's why I didn't preach something for moms yesterday. First, I'm very aware that there are some present who are not moms and who, like Hannah in the Bible, really want to be a mom. Then you come to church, and it's Mother's Day this, and moms are great, and that's rough. And I want to be sensitive to that, and that certainly has not always kept me from doing something for mothers on Mother's Day, but I am very aware of that, and I do think about it. What I think about even more, though, is the many moms who have adult children who are out of duty. They're not serving the Lord like they should, and when they say, hey, mom, what do you want us to do for Mother's Day? They have the same request every year. I want you to come to church with me. So on Mother's Day, we always have some folks in church who just aren't there very regularly. And they're there because Mama asked them to come and they're abiding by her wishes. And so I'm trying to do something to catch those people's attention. And I really love the preaching theme this year because you got to vote on on what we're doing, and I think that is very sticky. That's the kind of thing that people don't forget about. It sticks with them. And so I decided to bring the preaching theme forward and say, let's do that on Mother's Day with the idea that there be some people there who aren't what they ought to be, and maybe that sermon would get their attention. Hey, looky here. These people are really keyed in on the Bible. They're focusing on Jesus. Jesus asks questions. That's interesting. You know what? I ought to go back. I need to go back. I need to be there more. So that's why I was preaching out of the preaching theme yesterday. And my prayer, since we talked about prayer so much yesterday, my prayer is that that sermon will be some good seed in some people's hearts and that it will bear fruit, which, of course, would make not just Mama happy, but even more importantly, would make the Lord happy. Let's turn to Bible reading then. Got your coffee? Let's think about, oh, are you ready for this? 1 Chronicles chapter 28. Welcome to Monday. Our reading for Monday, May the 12th, is 1 Chronicles chapter 28. Like I said, this is kind of a hidden gem. You may be familiar with Solomon's charge, or rather David's charge to Solomon as 1 Kings gets underway. And we'll read all of that and think through some of that. But this is a longer account of that. it's very, very helpful for us to see some key ideas. Notably, once again, David is citing the promises of 2 Samuel 7. If you're keeping track, just in Chronicles, it is the third time these promises are mentioned just in 1 Chronicles. David is always talking about what happened in 2 Samuel 7, verse 4. The Lord chose me from all my father's house to be king over Israel forever. And of all my sons, verse 5, he's chosen Solomon my son. And so this is all about... building the temple. And this is David saying that God has blessed me because of the desire of my heart to build him a house. Note again, verse 3, I talked about this some when I preached through 2 Samuel 7. I don't think David is being held in some way that he's being besmirched because he was a man of war. I really think this idea here is much more, it just wasn't the time to build the temple. It was time to subjugate the enemies that would have interfered with the building of the temple. David, it was not for you to do that. Your son is going to do that. And so then in verse 9, David turns his attention to Solomon, and he charges him to build God's house. And then David is giving him, wow, how about some coffee to make that work? Verse 11, David... gives Solomon his son the plans of the temple. And this overlaps some with what I talked about on Sunday out of 1 Kings 7. Part of the reason that Solomon is able to construct the temple in seven years, and it takes him so much longer to build his own house, is because he was given the plans, and then he was given the materials. All this gold is given, and the weight of the gold, verse 14, and the weight of the golden lampstand, verse 15. Some people think this is tons and tons of gold. It's always hard It's hard to know weights in the Bible, but this is a huge amount of gold. So the materials are prepared for Solomon. He's got the blueprint. He just needs to do this. Go and do this. Verse 19, all this he made clear to me in writing for the hand of the Lord, all the work that is to be done according to the plan. I have some material that I want to present about instrumental music, and I am going to come out of 1 Chronicles 28, 19 and talk about that because the word plan here is the same word that's used in Exodus for the passion. Exodus 25 9, Exodus 25 40. It's just very important that we understand temple worship was not done willy-nilly or haphazardly or even the way Solomon would like for it to have been done. It was done the way God said for it to be done. There was a plan and there was a pattern for it. So then verse 20, David said to Solomon his son, be strong and courageous and do it. There are numbers of times where we see some parallel in the life of David and the life of Moses and the life of Joshua and the life of Solomon as the successor to God's leaders. And so, once again, that be strong and courageous reminds us of how Moses charges Joshua in the same way. 1 Chronicles 28 gives us this fuller account of the material that we will look at as David is securing the throne and the things that are happening with David securing the throne. A bunch of that is going to take place in 1 Kings. Let's see here. Is that 1 Kings 2 where Solomon Yes, it's 1 Kings 2 where that charge is, but this is the bigger account, and I really love some of the things that are being said here. Just notice how David talks about the kingdom in verse 5, for example, the kingdom of the Lord. I think a big part of David's successful reign and Yeah, I know he had some bumps and bruises along the way, but he was a successful king in so many ways. A big part of that is David never forgot that the kingdom he was ruling was God's kingdom. That makes David a man after God's own heart. Reading for Monday then, 1 Chronicles 28. It is Tuesday, and our reading for Tuesday is 2 Samuel 23, verses 1-17. This is a wonderful chapter. I like everything about this chapter, except... Yes, there's a ton of textual issues here with the Hebrew. We'll talk about that as we work along. But this chapter really balances the chapter preceding it. God is my rock, said David. And the focus there was really on David acknowledging Jehovah God as his ultimate sovereign. Now there's some discussion of the responsibilities that David has and what it's going to take to be the kind of ruler that God's people need. Please notice here, these are the last words, verse 1 of David. That does not mean that He barely managed to croak out the first seven verses, and then he passed away. This is kind of like a last will and testament. A last will and testament will say, this is our last will and testament. It doesn't mean you died as soon as you signed the bottom of the page there. I think in many ways, this business here in 2 Samuel 22-23, Really help us because when we get to 1 Kings, David is a very weak king. He is a shadow of what he used to be. And so reading here in 2 Samuel chapter 23 helps us see how strong and powerful David really is. The outline is pretty simple. David's last song is the first seven verses. And then the three are discussed in verses 8 to 17. And then the 30 are discussed in the rest of the chapter. We're only reading through verses 1 to 17 today. So let me give you a couple of notes here from David's last song. In verse 1, his humility is just all over the place. David always marveled that a nobody like him could become king. And if you want to be a person who seeks after God's heart, you need to find the humility that David has. He does claim inspiration. Verse 2, Jesus affirms that in Matthew 22 and verse 43. And then in verse 3, you get the qualities of an ideal king. This is what someone who is leading God's people really should be all about. This is what that really looks like. And once again, verse 5, there is the connection to the promises of 2 Samuel 7. We talked about that yesterday. We're talking about it again today. That is the high watermark in David's life. It shapes everything about who he is and what he's doing. Then we're going to talk about David's mighty men. And these guys are just incredible. But what you need to be asking, what I need to be asking is, why is this in the Bible? What is this doing here? And the answer is, that David is not the kind of ruler who demands all the praise, all the honor. Everybody has to give him the credit for every victory. He is more than willing to share honor and recognition with people around him. I think about the owner of the Dallas Cowboys who got weary of a coach who won a whole lot because the coach was getting all the credit and Jerry was not getting the credit. And so they ended up parting ways and the team has been no good ever since. Thanks a whole lot. That's a fail. That's a failure of humility. That's a failure to be the kind of person that And so the section here really divides into a couple of parts. We get the discussion of the three, verses 8 to 17, and then an illustration of the power of the three, verses 18 to 23, the water of Bethlehem episode. And so the three are these mighty men who stood their ground in single combat. Everybody's breaking and running, and these guys stand, and that turns a terrible loss into a great victory. Remember how you fight in Bible time. Sometimes everybody just lines up in two parallel lines and the lines smash together. And as soon as you can break through the line and start routing part of the line, then people face the possibility that the enemy is going to encircle them and come around behind. And I can't fight the guy in front of me and have an enemy behind me. So people panic and run. And these guys don't panic and run. They stand and hold their ground. Then there is, beginning verse 13, the discussion of the water of Bethlehem episode. And the biggest question here is, is this the three or is this another three who are not named? And I'm going with it's the three, but it's hard to be certain about all of that. What is this episode doing here? Well, of course, the great thing about this is these guys go and they get David some water. Verse 15, oh, that someone would give me water drink from the well of Bethlehem. And maybe you in your life Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. David pours it out. He would not drink it, verse 16. He pours it out, verse 17, and says this belongs to the Lord. What's going on there, David? Why are you doing that? Because something this valuable has to be given to God. That's David's attitude. And you have to think about the impression that made upon David's men. David's men saw him as genuine and real. He genuinely serves God. He really cares about God. He honors God. He celebrates God. He praises God. It's not just a big put-up show. He does this in front of them to say, I honor you. This is so valuable that I have to give it to God, and I honor God. What a tremendous chapter our reading today to help us think about what it is to be like David, a man after God's own heart. Our reading for two 2 Samuel 23 verses 1 to 17. And good news, Westsiders, yes, we will have the Zoom call tonight and be able to study and talk more about this this evening. We've missed two weeks, had an elders meeting last week, and then the week before I was in Beaumont. So really excited to get a chance to reconvene Zoom and see what you think about David's mighty men and the water episode at Bethlehem and this great song of David in the first seven verses. See you tonight, Westsiders. Everybody else, I'll see you tomorrow on the podcast. Reading for Tuesday. 2 Samuel 23, 1-17 Welcome to Hump Day. It's Wednesday, and we're finishing 2 Samuel, the 23rd chapter. We will read 2 Samuel 23, verses 18 to 39. This is a pretty simple reading. There are, however, a number of textual issues here where it's very difficult to translate the Hebrew, and that begins in verse 20. Benaniah, he's a doer of great deeds, and he struck down two ariels of Moab, verse 20 says in the ESV. What is an ariel? And no, it's not the The Hebrew word here is difficult. Some translations have it as distinguished warriors. That's easy for you to say. Other Bibles translate that two lions, and some even kind of combine distinguished warriors and two lions with two lion-like heroes of Moab. There's just a lot of textual variance there. Some are trying to follow the Septuagint. Others are going with the idea of distinguished warriors. It's just not clear. It's just not clear. But it is obvious that it is a great and powerful victory of some sort. What I always remember about verse 20 is it is the only place in the Bible where there is literal snow. Snow is used often as a figure of speech. Your sins will be as white as snow, for example. However, there is no snow snow, real snow, in the Bible except right here. And it just amazes me. How good must the three have been that we read about yesterday if a man who killed a lion in a pit in the snow... isn't up to their standards. That's, I just, I don't even know what to say about that. That's just incredible. I cannot even imagine here Benaniah is sliding around in the pit and killing this lion. Wow, that is a major accomplishment in my book. Then the chapter just gives us the rest of the men noting, please, that Uriah the Hittite is part of them, which makes the events of 2 Samuel chapter 11 even worse. And all of that just says more and more about David. It's so tempting to get caught up in all the doings of these great men. The important thing here, of course, is that these guys were loyal to David, which says so much about his physical strength, his ability as a warrior, his ability as a leader of men. These are impressive. warriors in their own right, and they give their absolute loyalty and allegiance to David. So there you go. That's our reading for Wednesday. Hope it doesn't snow today or that you don't fall into a pit with a lion. If you do, don't spill your coffee. Reading for Wednesday, 2 Samuel chapter 23, verses 18 to 39. It is Thursday. It is Thursday and our reading today is 2 Samuel chapter 24. We will read the entire chapter verses 1 to 25. When I preached through 2 Samuel and I got to 2 Samuel 24, that wasn't that long ago, it was last August, I made some remarks at the outset about how it's easy to get distracted and miss the main thing. And that's especially true in 2 Samuel chapter 24 because there's a lot of stuff here that we don't know and we can end up talking about that and speculating about that endlessly and failed to keep the main thing the main thing. There are some difficulties here. I understand that, and you should understand that. You will after you read the chapter, but... it doesn't mean that we're going to obsess about those things endlessly. So let me just deal with a couple of elephants that are in the room. First of all, why is it wrong, verse 1, for David to count the people if God is the one who incited, who's inciting all these things that are going on? And the answer to that is, we just don't know. We don't know. God's people were in the wrong, and the punishment here will fall upon the people of God, not just David. And we don't know why God was angry, but we know that in verse 10, David recognizes what he was doing was sinful. We don't know everything else about that. And one writer pointed out, I think this is very important, if we are upset over a text that tells us Jehovah is angry but does not tell us why, are we not saying that we really don't trust him to be just? And we need to think about that. Just because we don't know everything about this text, is there a sneaking suspicion that somehow God is messed up here and he's not doing the right thing? Come on. We know better than that. Something happened here and the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel. So then the next difficulty is, who moved David to sin? Because he moved David, verse 1, to go number Israel and Judah. But in Chronicles, 1 Chronicles 21, 1, Satan moved David to number Israel. And the answer to that is that particularly in Israelite thinking and Jewish thinking, there is not a whole lot about working through secondary causes and properly attributing everything to the exact cause. God ultimately is responsible for everything in the Hebrew mindset. And so this is a case of the permissive will of God in play. God permitted Satan to do this. And he allowed him to do that. So in some sense, God is responsible because God said, you can do it. God green-lighted it, kind of like in the book of Job. But of course, Satan is also responsible as well. Maybe the question that you're really wondering is, why is it wrong to number the people? Especially since on Sundays, I'm teaching in the book of Numbers, and they are counting people all the time. And the answer to that is, We don't know. Maybe David is trying to raise a standing army here. Maybe this is just the issue of pride. How many people am I ruling over? Look how great my kingdom is. But interestingly, Joab knows this is wrong. Verse 3, this is one of the very few times that Joab appears to care about God at all. And a great question to ask here is, Why doesn't David ask a prophet, hey, what does God want me to do here? Why is God angry with us? How do we handle this? What's going on? Instead, they count. And that's a terrible mistake. And something brings David to the realization, verse 10, that he has done wrong. We don't know how David came to that conclusion, but he realizes that. And now the prophet is on the scene, verse 11. Don't forget, the punishment here is not just for David. The punishment is for Israel's sin, verse 1, even though we don't Notice here in verse 13 that, like in 2 Samuel 21, what the king does affects the land and affects the people. And then I just really love verse 17. This is David being the shepherd king and he acts like... Yeah, he acts like Jesus in John chapter 10. He acts like Jesus in John chapter 10. And then probably the main thing, what this is all about, is in verses 18 to 25, where David purchases the threshing floor of Arona. A threshing floor would be on a high place so the wind could blow the chaff away. And this is the top of a hill to the north of the city of David. And David says, I'm buying it. Arona says, I just give it to you. And David says... I will not offer to God what costs me nothing. What a great pairing with the water episode that we read in 2 Samuel 23. And this piece of property, of course, becomes the piece of property that Solomon builds the temple on. So Samuel closes with the kingdom at peace and a site for the temple secured, and now we are ready to see power transferred to the next king. You're thinking about all these distractions. What should I really hold on to? I think you hold on to verse 10. David recognizes his sin. I think you hold on to David's repentance, verse 17. He doesn't make excuses or try to justify it. That's also in verse 10. And then you hold on to David's willingness to offer to God what will cost him something instead of saying, oh, you're going to make me a deal? That's great, because Because I'm a little short today, and I don't really want to buy your land. That's not who David is, and that's not what it means to be a person after God's own heart. Tomorrow, we'll be in the Psalms. See you on Friday. The reading for Thursday, 2 Samuel 24, verses 1 to 25. Welcome to Friday. Welcome to Friday, and we're reading today in the Psalms, of course, always the Psalms on Friday, and today is Psalm 20. This is a royal psalm. Remember, the first question we always ask when studying the Psalms is what kind of psalm it is. This is a royal psalm. There's not very many of those, but it is a psalm about the king. It's for the king, and it says something about the kingdom and what kind of king the king should be. These psalms often speak about power and might, and this psalm, by the way, is very beautiful. It shows very careful planning and very careful construction. There's a repetition of key terms. Notice the first and last verse both use the word answer. There's a lot of parallelism where you say a line and then the line behind it builds that. Verse 2, you send help from the sanctuary. May you give support from Zion. The sanctuary is in Zion. And this psalm seems to be about a battle that's coming up and that the king is on the eve of battle and leading the God's people into battle because the royal honor here is at stake. God's honor is at stake. So there seems to be some extra praying, some special prayer that goes on here to get ready for this battle. And one of the important facts about this psalm is that the words are addressed to the king. Not to God. It is a prayer for him. We are telling the king what we are praying for. And the you in verse 1 and all throughout the psalm is singular. It is one man, one person. We're praying for the king. And I like verse 4, We talked about how If we understand prayer properly, that changes the heart's desire. Talked about that on Sunday, and you see it here. What does the king want? The king wants to triumph for God's people, for God's honor. And then, so those first five verses really are the prayer, and then verses 6, 7, 8, and 9 are statements of trust. Now I know, verse 6, that the Lord will save his anointed. From the perspective of the psalmist, it's a done deal. I have come to the conclusion this is what will happen. And then verse 7, it's not about our technology. Chariots and horses are the most powerful military weapons in the Old Testament times. Interestingly, Israelite kings were... forbidden to multiply horses, Deuteronomy 17, because the strength of the king was in God, not in chariots. So we don't trust in having advanced weaponry. We trust in the name of the Lord our God. They collapse and fall. We rise and stand upright. And so verse 9, O Lord, save the king. That statement is still being used today. God save the king. Save the king means give victory. Like I said, people are still saying that in various monarchical governments around the world today. Psalm 20 is our reading for Friday. What a beautiful reading that is. That closes the podcast in for the week. Hope the podcast is of help to you. Please tell somebody about the podcast. Leave a rating and review. So until next week when we'll open our Bibles together again, I am Mark Roberts, and I want to go to heaven, and I want you to come too. 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 Westside, you can connect with us through our website, justchristians.com, and our Facebook page. Our music is from upbeat.io. That's upbeat with two Ps, 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.