Hello, and welcome to the Westside Church's special Monday Morning Company 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 each other and better work the applications into our daily life. Mark will then look forward into this week's final 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, December the 22nd. I am Mark, and I am ready to talk about some daily Bible reading, work on the sermon a little bit from yesterday, and just get everything going in what is a very busy holiday week. I know it's a crazy week. I'm going to try to keep the episode short because I know everyone has an awful lot going on, but we want to stay in our daily Bible reading, and we want to think a little bit about what we were doing yesterday, what we were thinking about with some wise men and what that means, and why I'm preaching a sermon about the birth of Jesus right here in December. What's up with that? All of that and a whole lot more. So grab your Bible, grab your coffee, let's grow together. So yesterday I preached from Matthew the second chapter and talked about the wise men, nearly said the three wise men, how that just comes out, doesn't it? We don't know how many wise men there were. And there's a lot of talk and a lot of people throwing a lot of dust in the air and concern about, oh, Christmas this and Christmas that, and we get this wrong, and it's not really Jesus' birthday, and so forth and so on. So let me just address the elephant in the room. What about a Christmas sermon at Christmas time? What's up with that? Well, I think a couple of things are helpful here. First, we need to know it is always good to talk about Jesus and to talk about all of Jesus' life: death, burial, resurrection, teaching, miracles, and yes, even his birth. Sometimes people will say there's no Christmas celebration in the Bible. And that, of course, is correct. There is no celebration of Jesus' birth in the scriptures, but that is a request for specific authority. I want a specific illustration of the New Testament church talking, celebrating Jesus' birth. We don't have to have a specific verse when we have the general authority to go into all the world and teach the gospel. Jesus' birth is part of the gospel, and so we don't need specifics, hey, do this. When we have a general, we can do this. So we don't have a specific verse where a church in the New Testament is having a youth lectureship or having a gospel meeting focused on, say, the parables of Jesus, or having a class for ladies. And we don't need a specific passage because we have general authority to teach the gospel, to edify, to evangelize in every way possible. We don't have to have, oh, look, the New Testament church did this specific thing when we have general authority. And I think in the same way, we have general authority to teach about all of Jesus' life, including his birth. Now, some folks worry that if we do anything that denominational churches do, somehow that makes us part of false religion. If we mirror any religious practice being done by any religious group, somehow we've messed up. But first and foremost, that rule, that idea, is very arbitrarily applied. For example, we have a church building, denominational churches have a church building. Can we not have a church building? I mean, where are we going with that? It it seems like there's no specifics about when that rule works and when it doesn't. And more importantly, the New Testament certainly doesn't endorse that idea. Early Christians met in the temple, Acts 242, they didn't seem to be worried, oh, people will think that we're part of Jewish religion. Early Christians sang, just like pagans did in the idol temples. They didn't seem to worry that that somehow made them identified with idol worship. They read the Old Testament. No one worried that that somehow made them part of Judaism. So the point is this: talking about Jesus, living for Jesus, pointing people to Jesus, those things, that's never wrong. And yes, there's always going to be misunderstanding, and there's always going to be false religion, and we don't want to ever do anything that makes it appear we endorse or condone that. But we can't let false religion set the tempo for us. We can't let false religion, basically the devil, dictate what we can and cannot do. During this season, people are thinking about Jesus' birth. They are looking for something about Jesus' birth. It's an appropriate time to talk about those ideas and to help people think about following Jesus, seeking, following, obeying Jesus. That's what those wise men did. And that's why I preach that lesson. I think it's scriptural, I think it's timely, I think it's needed, and I feel really good about it. And I hope that you do too. Let's get our Bibles open to Psalm 110. What else is there to say about this Psalm? Maybe this is the time to just be very practical about Psalm 110. It's about the authority of Christ reigning over all. And that means we are called to submit to him in every area of our life, our work, our families, our decisions, our agenda, our priorities. This is active obedience. We serve the King. It means doing what he commands, following his directions, even when it's hard, even when it's inconvenient. To submit to Christ is to let him lead, not just admire him from a distance, or I might add, kneel at the manger where baby Jesus is not making any demands on us. Jesus tells us how we should live, and we need to do what he says. When he calls us to act, we act. Psalm 110 reminds us that Jesus is not just our high priest making intercession for us. We feel really good about that. We're going to talk about that in the book of Hebrews this week. But he is also our King. He is Lord, and we must submit to Him. Obedience is not optional. Psalm 110 tells us it is the required response to His reign. Psalm 110 is our reading for Monday. Welcome to Tuesday. Welcome to Tuesday. Our reading is in Hebrews today, Hebrews chapter 7. We'll be in Hebrews 7 today and tomorrow. Our reading for Tuesday is Hebrews 7, 1 to 10. Please pay attention in chapter 7 about the forever nature of the priesthood of Jesus. We'll see that stressed a lot. Verse 3, verse 16, verse 17, verse 22, 24, 25, 28. Hold on to that. Jesus says, is our high priest, and that will not change. It will not be passed on to someone else. It is continual because he ever lives. Verse 25. We need to think about what it was like to be Jewish and to get word that the high priest had died, how terrible that would be, particularly in the times of the New Testament, when the high priesthood got passed around to the high bidder. We wouldn't much care for that. We don't want a high priest who just bought it and wasn't qualified. Jesus, the Hebrew writer will tell us, is eminently qualified. He's a priest after the order of Melchizedek. That's 620, chapter 6 and verse 20. And of course, any reader in the New Testament world would say, wait a minute, Jesus can't be the high priest. He's not from Levi. That's what Melchizedek is doing in our reading today. The reading for Tuesday, I should have said this, is Hebrews 7, 1 to 10. And he is not a priest after the order of Aaron. He's a priest after the order of Melchizedek. And so we get this description of Melchizedek. This is from Genesis 14 chapter, and of course from Psalm 110. And of course, Melchizedek is a real person. That's important. He is an actual historical character. Melech is Hebrew for king, and Sadek is righteous, so we have the righteous king. Salem came to be Jerusalem. Salem means peace. Shalom is the word that you may be more familiar there. He is the king of righteousness from the city of peace. And when it says he's without father or mother or genealogy, verse 3, that doesn't mean that he was an angel or that he was Jesus in preexistent form. No, he is human. Verse 6, this man who does not have his descent. The point of it is that unlike an Aaronic priest, priest after the order of Aaron, who had to have the right family tree to be a priest, Melchizedek was appointed by God. He is special, he is unique. It's not about his descent. He is greater even than those who depend upon descent, like Abraham, greater than Abraham. And so Jesus is a priest after the order of Melchizedek, a change in the priesthood to a greater priesthood. That's what Jesus is about, 7, 1 to 10. And for those that the Hebrew epistle came to first, who may thought of abandoning Christianity, maybe their Jewish friends were saying, you all don't even have a priest. I mean, come on, what kind of religion is this? Idols have priests, and it's priest in the temple in Jerusalem. Where's your priest? The Christians could say, we have a better priest. We have the best priest, we have the best high priest, we have a priest after the order of Melchizedek. Jesus Christ is that priest. So the reading for Tuesday, Hebrews 7, 1 to 10. Welcome to Wednesday. Our reading today continues in Hebrews the seventh chapter. The reading for Wednesday is Hebrews 7, 11 to 28. And this is about the relationship between God and man. How can you have a relationship between a holy God and sinful people? Well, the priests were the way to do that. They could stand kind of in between and could offer sacrifices and do things that would make it possible for man to have fellowship with God. And the Hebrew writer says there's been a change in how that's going to operate because the old way, under the law of Moses, it wasn't perfect. It wasn't everything that we would want it to be or that we need it to be. We need something better, better sacrifices, a better priest. The priest, verse 17 from Psalm 110, the priest after the order of Melchazedek. I do want to say something out of verse 14. I say this a lot, and I'm just never going to miss a chance to say it. It is evident in verse 14 that our Lord was descended from Judah, and in connection with that tribe, Moses said nothing about priests. The point of Hebrews 7.14 is not that silence in the Bible doesn't authorize, but the point is being made there. So often people say if you ask any question, you question any religious practice, someone's going to say, Well, it doesn't say you can't. You show me in the Bible where it says we can't have a piano. Show me in the Bible where it says we can't have a praise band. And that's looking for negative authority. Since the Bible doesn't specifically, expressly prohibit it, we're going to go ahead. But there is no specific express prohibition. Wow, more coffee is the answer for that. Oh, that's some Papa New Guinea. Finally got the roaster fired back up. We roasted some, got some Papua New Guinea going. Love that coffee. It's so smooth, it's just wonderful. There is no express prohibition of priest from the tribe of Judah. It does not exist in the Old Testament. Nowhere does God say priests are not to be from Reuben, not to be from Manasseh, not to be from Judah. Priests are expressly said to be from Levi, and that seals the deal. That's it. The Bible doesn't have to have all the don'ts and the thou shalt nots when it says this is what we are to do. And verse 14 is establishing that principle. Again, I don't think that's the Hebrew writer's point. I don't think the Hebrew writer was envisioning praise man sometime trying to be introduced into the worship of Almighty God, but it makes the point very, very well. If we're going to stay on track with the point, then the point is Jesus is this mediator of the new covenant. He has the priesthood with an oath, verse 21, as there it is again, Psalm 110 specify. It's specifying that Jesus is going to be this priest. And that makes him, verse 22, the guarantor of a better covenant. Now, this is a special word for covenant. It's not a covenant between equals, it's a unilateral covenant from the greater to the lesser. God lays down the provisions. It's not a contract here between equals, between peers. No. We must accept the terms of this covenant. And Christ's part in this is that he is the guarantor. He's not just a go-between. He's on our side as the high priest, but he's also the executor of the covenant, or executor, probably is how I should say that. And he is deity, he's divine. So he's on our side as our high priest, but he's on God's side as the one fulfilling the will of God and doing what God needs done, once done, to make it possible for man to have fellowship with God. God says, I'll forgive the forgive their sins, I will remember them no more. Jesus says, I'll guarantee it. And he does so by his blood. And the great news, verse 24, is he holds his priesthood permanently. He never dies, he never loses the priesthood, and he does not need to continually offer sacrifices, verse 27. His sacrifice is enough once for all. Once for all is the key expression for the rest of the book of Hebrews, especially in chapter 9. Our reading today for Wednesday is Hebrews chapter 7, verses 11 to 28. It is Thursday. It is Thursday. Our reading today is Romans chapter 2, verses 1 to 11. I hope wherever you are, you're having a great day, that someone remembered to buy batteries and that all the parts and pieces are there when everything gets unwrapped. I hope you're having a wonderful, wonderful day. Today, our reading Romans chapter 2, verses 1 to 11, contains, I think, an allusion or two to some of the parts of Psalm 10 that we don't think a lot about. This is very much about no one being excluded from judgment. And I think very much as you look at Romans, as you read down through Romans chapter 1, there's a lot there that would really target Gentiles and pagans. And I think you can see, as this is read in the audience at the Roman church in the first century, those Jewish Christians nodding their heads and saying, that's preaching, Paul. You oh, get after them. That's what they're doing over there. They're terrible. But but Paul goes on to say then the judgment of God rightly falls, Romans 2, 2, on the people who do these things. But then verse 3, do you think you're somehow exempt? And I think the reality is a lot of people think they're exempt because they grew up Jewish, because they have the law of God, because we're the covenant people of God, or because my parents go to the Church of Christ and I grew up in the church of Christ. Whoops. Did I just say that? Yeah, I just said that. There's lots of people who think because they fill a pew on Sunday that somehow that means they're good to go, and everybody else, oh, all those heathens out there, they're all going to hell in a handbasket, but I'm fine. Paul says that's not the case at all. If we do things that are not right, then if we do not obey the truth, verse 8, if we are involved in unrighteousness, there'll be wrath and fury and tribulation and distress. And if you go back and look at Psalm 110, verses 5 and 6, we don't pay attention to a lot of that. We're very focused on the reign and rule and the high priesthood passages. Part of that passage is the scepter of the Lord, the power of the Lord goes forth to judge and destroy his enemies, those who will not submit to the king. That's where that is, and we'll see more of that in our reading tomorrow. Our reading for Thursday, Romans chapter 2, verses 1 to 11. Merry Christmas, everyone. It's Friday. It's Friday. We've come to the last reading of the year. It's Friday, and we're reading Revelation 19, 11 to 21, the reading for Friday, Revelation 19, 11 to 21. This is this is absolutely the best place to end our reading because this is Jesus as the warrior king. And that is Psalm 110, isn't it? That's Psalm 110 all the way. Now maybe this is a little unexpected here in the book of Revelation. We just saw the Married Supper of the Lamb, verses 6 to 10 in chapter 19. So maybe we're thinking about a marriage supper, and instead what we get is Jesus on a white horse, going forth to conquer his name, verse 11, faithful and true, and he makes war. He makes war. He is clothed, verse 13, in a robe dipped in blood. That's probably his blood, Romans 7, 14. And he is called the Word of God. That is Jesus the Christ. He leads the armies of heaven, verse 14. His eyes, I jump, verse 12, like a flame of fire. On his head are many diadems. This is King Jesus, Lord of Lords, King of Kings. He is leading into battle, and he will triumph. From his mouth, verse 15, comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. He will rule them with a rod of iron. Psalm 2, right there. Psalm 110, verses 5 and 6, as we talked about yesterday. And on his robe and on his thigh he has a name written King of Kings and Lord of Lords. This is the Jesus that many people overlook. People are all about baby Jesus, especially this time of the year. How many are about Jesus, the warrior king, who will smash, crush, and destroy his enemies? Because Jesus is actively warring against sin, and Jesus will be the victor. There's lots of talk about the Battle of Armageddon. You get to verse 19, and the beast and the kings, they're gathered to make war against Jesus. Oh no, what's going to happen? And then this unexpected thing happens. They're utterly vanquished, utterly destroyed. The beast is captured. False prophet who deceived people, just thrown alive into the lake of fire. The rest are slain by the sword of his mouth. There is no battle. There is no fight. There is no battle of Armageddon. Jesus just utterly and completely triumphs, destroys all of his enemies. He is the victor. Thank you so much for listening. That concludes the podcast for the week. And actually, yeah, it concludes the podcast for the year. How about that? This is week 51 of our reading. There will not be another reading for next week, so there will not be a podcast episode. Next week we resume January 4th with a new reading schedule. That reading schedule will be about something that Rusty and I talk about on Sunday, January the 4th in the 1040. We'll reveal the Bible reading schedule for 2026 then. So that gives you a week this week ahead here to read what you would like to read. Go back and go over some things that you'd like to go over again. Spend some time in your favorite parts of the Word of God. Don't let the habit of daily Bible reading get away from you. Read something, read somewhere, and I'll see you again on January the 4th. I hope that the podcast this year has been a blessing to you, and I hope that you're telling others about it. This is the time of year when people really get to thinking about New Year's resolutions. Make use of That. Hey, do you want to read the Bible more? Want to know more of God's Word? Listen to this podcast. Read the Bible with me. You can download reading schedules if you're outside the West Side Church family. That'll be on our website. Download those, print those, hand those out. Let's work in the word together. It is truly, it is truly my privilege to have the opportunity to talk with you about the Word of God every day. I'm Mark Roberts, and I want to go to heaven, and I want you to come too. I will see you on Monday, January the 5th, 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 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.