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 other and better work the applications into our daily life. 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, December the 29th. I'm Mark. I'm holding really good coffee. And I know, I know, I know, you're probably surprised to hear any of that. You didn't think you're gonna get a podcast maybe this week, because last week I said that was the last episode for the year, and yet here I am this morning. Well, let me just say a word or two here about our daily Bible reading and talk about that. I want to say more about that when we get to Monday's reading and so forth, but I just know there's a lot of listeners out there who make this podcast a part of their regular routine. Heard from some listeners this last week, and that just really reminded me that there's a lot of people both at Westside and outside of the Westside family who this the podcast is a big part of your week. And it's always tough when our discipleship routines get thrown off. And I didn't want that to happen. Not for me, not for you. So here I am. I've got coffee, and I know this is a crazy week. But it doesn't matter. We still want to maintain our spiritual discipline. So grab your Bible, grab your coffee. Yep, we're gonna grow together with this bonus episode of the podcast. Let's start with some notes from the preaching yesterday. Yesterday, I talked a little bit about faithfulness being better than New Year's resolutions. And I think, again, and I said this yesterday, there's a place for resolutions, and there certainly are some dramatic changes, kind of wham bang overnight changes in the Bible. I'm thinking about Saul of Tarsus. But most of the time, most of the time, it's about walking with God. It's about day-to-day, ordinary life, serving Jesus Christ right where you are. It's about being faithful. And I should add here, and here's your sermon note for today, one of the hardest things about faithfulness is that most of that happens where nobody sees it. We can talk about public faith, coming to church, serving in some kind of way, taking part in the assembly, being involved in good works, helping people in the community. That's visible. But scripture really spends just as much time talking about our private faith. What happens when there's no audience, when there's no recognition, and get this no immediate result? Jesus talks about that a lot in the Sermon on the Mount when he mentions praying in secret, giving in secret, fasting in secret. And the assumption is that a lot of discipleship will happen quietly away from the spotlight. And maybe the uncomfortable truth with that is it's often easier to be faithful when someone is watching. It is easier to pray out loud sometimes than it is to pray alone. It is easier to read scripture when you're teaching a Bible class than when you're just doing that as part of your daily routines and you're tired. It's easier to do the right thing when somebody might notice. But it's faithfulness that lasts is the faithfulness, that kind of faithfulness is the kind of faithfulness that's built in private. I think about Joseph in Genesis. Nobody knows where he is, nobody knows what he's doing, he's still serving the Lord. I'm thinking about Daniel, not just the lion's den, but the decades of daily prayer that didn't make the headlines. I thought that was a spot-on illustration yesterday. And sometimes we get a little bit discouraged because we wonder if the ordinary things of life matter, those unnoticed prayers, quiet obedience, the steady refusal to give up. And the answer is yes, it does. It matters that we continue to walk with the Lord. So your encouragement today is to be faithful. Be faithful. God is at work in your life, even if we don't see that in large, earth-shaking, mind-blowing kinds of ways. Be faithful. God is forming you, He's shaping you. He may even be preparing you for something down the road that is earth-shaking in a really big deal. Just keep walking with God. Keep trusting, keep showing up, even when nobody's watching, because the faith that is built in places that no one ever sees is the kind of faith that is really what Christianity is all about. And that's what we talked about on Sunday. Show up, stay in the Word, refuse to give up. Be faithful. How about that for a resolution in 2026? And how about some daily Bible reading for the week? What are we going to read this week? Let's think about our daily Bible reading. Let me give you an explanatory word. We are in between reading schedules. We completed our 2025 reading plan, having a heart for God like David, and that's done with. And we haven't started our 2026 reading plan that begins next week. So this is a free week in which you can read whatever you'd like, wherever you'd like. But if you'd like to read along with me for the podcast this week, I would like to read the Sermon on the Mount, listening to Jesus' most famous teaching in five simple sections. These are words that I have spent a lot of time with over the years, including writing a book on the Sermon on the Mount. And I can tell you this: every time I look at the Sermon on the Mount, every time I come back to it, Jesus still has a way of challenging me, shaping me, and steadying my heart. So if you're looking for something solid to sit with this week, open your Bible with me to Matthew chapter 5. We're going to read Matthew 5, 6, and 7 this week. It's really easy reading. It's extremely practical. It will help you immediately be a better follower of Jesus. So let's walk through it together. Our reading for Monday is Matthew chapter 5, verses 1 to 16, focusing on the kind of people who belong in the kingdom. Now, I don't know if you listen to the podcast and then do the reading, or you do the reading and then listen to the podcast. If you need to stop here, it's Matthew 5, 1 to 16 that we're reading for Monday. And this is the opening of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus is describing the kind of people who belong in the kingdom and who will flourish in the kingdom, a different kind of kingdom, and what their lives look like in the world. And that begins with the Beatitudes, really surprising ideas of the character of kingdom citizens. And this really sets the tone because this sermon is about not just so much what we do, it's about becoming, who we are becoming. And you know, if you've been around me at all, if you paid attention to anything I've done on the Sermon on the Mount, you know I have to say something here about the word blessed, because so often there's writing, blogs, podcasts, people talking about blessed meaning happy. And of course, what that means in the American mindset is just very far removed from what Jesus is talking about here in Matthew chapter 5. There's no American happiness in the Sermon on the Mount. The idea here is that blessed means the life that God approves of. God blesses people who live his way. The word blessed is a description and a commendation of the people who enjoy the favor of God. It's not a fleeting thing, it's not even a feeling, it's not about emotion. It's about God's verdict on someone's life. You want to have God's commendation and blessing. You want to live God's way. Here are the characteristics that you need to install in your life. And for today's podcast episode, I'll just focus on verse six. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. In the holiday season, there is so much grazing going on. Is that happening at your house? That is happening at our house. We've got some cookies and checks mix and just all kinds of stuff. It's sitting out on the island, and you just walk by and just get a little of this and get a little bit of that, just grazing all the time. Verse 6 is not grazing. It is not. One fellow said this is an intense spiritual appetite. And a great thing for us to think about here is just how hungry are we for God and his ways? How hungry are you for God and His ways? So that's a great thought right here. And each day we'll do some reading in the Sermon on the Mount, and then I'll I'll give you a closing question. I guess that how hungry are you for God to his ways? That's a pretty good closing question. Here's another, all right? What part of this description here of the kingdom person is challenging you or encouraging you the most right now? Think about that, pray about that. I'll see you tomorrow on the podcast. We'll read in Matthew 5, verses 17 to 48, if you want to be ready for that. But our reading for Monday, Matthew 5, 1 to 16. It is Tuesday. It is Tuesday, and our reading today is Matthew 5, 17 to 48. Jesus is really pushing the idea of true righteousness that goes way beyond outward obedience and goes all the way into the heart. And the most important part of our reading today, in fact, I think this is the most important part of a chunk of this because this idea extends into chapter 6, is what he says in verse 20. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Now that sets the tone and structure for the sermon, as I said, even into chapter 6. But you must imagine here that when Jesus said that, his audience must have shook their heads a little bit or got a little weak in the knees because that would be really tough. Really tough. The scribes and the Pharisees in Jesus' day, they're not bad guys wearing the black hats. No, they were considered to be the religious elite. This is this is SEAL team six of religion. These people have Olympic gold medals for knowing the Bible hanging around their neck. That would be a really cool Olympic event, wouldn't it? Get a gold medal and knowing the Bible. But unfortunately, their approach to doing business with God has become very external. It's really about what people see, paying attention to how they're received by the folks around them, what everybody's looking at, doing things so that people will look and see. That's a very externally driven approach. And Jesus says, that doesn't work. That doesn't work, that's not what God wants, and that's not how citizens in his kingdom will act. So he goes through anger, through lust, verses 27 to 30, truthfulness, being true to our marriage, being true in our word, and then the idea of retaliation, revenge, and even loving our enemies. All of this is heart-level stuff. Heart-level stuff. Read it carefully, and then here's the closing question for the day. Where might Jesus be calling you to deal with the heart of an issue instead of surface level behavior? Our reading for Tuesday, the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapter 5, verses 17 to 48. It's Wednesday. It's Wednesday. What a great day this is. Not just because it's New Year's Eve, not just because my Buckeyes are playing in the college football playoff tonight in the cotton ball. It's a great day for me because it's my anniversary. Happy anniversary, sweetie. You make me everything that I am. And our reading today is in Matthew chapter 6, verses 1 to 18. And as I said yesterday, the controlling idea in this part of the Sermon on the Mount is to exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees from Matthew 5 and verse 20. And Jesus continues that. So he's talking about giving, talking about praying, talking about fasting, and at the center of this is the idea of hypocrisy versus sincerity. Now, my focus today in the reading is the Lord's Prayer. Beginning in verse 9, pray then like this: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts. As we also have forgiven our debtors, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Some translations have an additional doxology on the end of verse 13. It is not in the best translations, and that's why the ESV, other translations don't carry it. It's beautiful, but it's not part of the original Lord's Prayer. Don't panic about that. Remember, it's terrible to cut things out of the Bible, but it's just as terrible to add things to the Bible. So the translators have to make decisions based on the manuscripts and all that. Wow, this is not really a podcast about textual criticism, but that's not part of the original Lord's Prayer. Now, I I should say this. I've been doing a lot with the Lord's Prayer, especially in some gospel meeting efforts. I've been in a couple of different places where I've done something about the Lord's Prayer, and I'm really wanting to continue to do that because Jesus says, verse 9, pray then like this. And the reality is nobody does. This is the prayer that Jesus said we ought to all pray this, and we're not. And I think I understand why, because we've seen it mindlessly chanted, and we know that that is not right. In fact, Jesus says, don't pray like that in Matthew 6 and verse 7. So we've kind of just pushed away from it. But the fact that people have mindlessly chanted it does not mean it's not a great prayer. It is a fabulous prayer. And I want to urge you to pray this prayer. Pray it. You can pray this prayer. I grew up hearing that we can't pray the your the kingdom come part, because the kingdom has already come. The kingdom has come. Wow, that's tremendous, isn't it? Let me, more coffee is the answer to bad grammar. Which may be why I drink so much coffee. The kingdom has come. I understand that. You understand that. Acts chapter 2, the kingdom came. But the kingdom here is not just the idea of the beginning and founding of the church in Acts chapter 2. The kingdom here is the reign and rule of Jesus in men and women's hearts. And when people submit themselves to Jesus the Christ, then the kingdom has come into their lives. When you see somebody baptized, what you're seeing is the coming of the kingdom into that person's life. So we can continue to pray that the kingdom will spread, the kingdom will come into more and more people's lives. So you can pray this prayer. You can pray this prayer without asterisk, without caveats, pray it. It's short. You probably have it memorized. And it just, it just says so much that we need to say. It has a spiritual focus, not much about material needs, one line about that. It centers us on God's will. Pray this prayer. You will be glad that you did. You can just, in a number of situations, you can quickly bring this prayer before your Father, and you'll find it centering you and helping you be a better disciple, a better kingdom follower. So here's our closing question today. Maybe something for us to think about in an age of social media. Who is your real audience when you practice your faith? Is it people around you or is it your father in heaven? Think about that. Our reading for Wednesday, Matthew 6, 1 to 18. It's Thursday. Happy New Year. Happy New Year, everyone. Today we're reading Matthew chapter 6, verses 19 to 34. A wonderful, wonderful section on anxiety, treasures, and not worrying. Jesus really pushes some ideas about how kingdom citizens live in the moment and they don't borrow trouble from the future. Now I preached on a bunch of this text earlier this month as part of the preaching theme, the question Jesus asked. So you can go back and resume, re-listen to, or maybe listen to for the first time that sermon. If you have a lot of anxiety and worries, just go get that sermon. But let me focus on the part that didn't make that sermon, which is the section in verses 19 to 24. That's the section about treasures. And I think this is the place where Jesus is turning the sermon away from exceeding the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, that outward appearance, that outward practice religion, and really homing in on the heart. True religion, authentic discipleship, is about what's at the center of us and what we live for, what we dream about, that matters to God. And of course, none of this means that money is bad. It just means it can't be the center of who we are, and that we can't be enslaved to money. So work on that. Think about what do you really treasure? What do you really treasure? And if you're concerned that you're too materialistic, you're too possessive, especially of wealth and money, just ask yourself, here's your closing question. Who have I shared my wealth, my treasure, my money with? Because one of the best ways to keep from being a slave to your possessions and stuff is to open your hands and give it away. Don't lay up for yourselves treasures on earth. Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven. That's what Jesus is challenging us to do in our reading today. When we do that, that'll deal, mm, that'll deal a lot with the worries and anxiety that we see in our world. Our reading for today, Matthew chapter 6, verses 19 to 34. See you tomorrow. We'll be in Matthew chapter 7. It's Friday. It is Friday. Lots of great things happening, especially this Sunday at Westside, when we will roll out the 2026 daily Bible reading schedule. It'll be on the website, just Christians.com. Rusty and I are going to talk about what we're doing in daily Bible reading for 2026 and what the goals are, what we're trying to get accomplished. Rusty, put that schedule together and be really neat to get a chance to pick his brain, see what he's doing, what he's hoping is going to happen as a result. Rusty's one of our shepherds here. Very, very excited about that. So until we get with that new daily Bible reading schedule, Matthew chapter 7 is the reading for Friday. Matthew 7, 1 to 29 is the reading for Friday. And this is, in many ways, the conclusion of the sermon. Jesus pushes for a decision to move past what a lot of people are thinking. That is, I need to make myself better than others, 1 to 6. Maybe some ideas about praying, 7 to 11. And then that wonderful golden rule in verse 12, a final admonition about false teachers and where that will end up, verses 15 to 20, and where it ends up 21 to 23. But I really love the close here. Preachers love a good close, and the wise man built his house upon the rock is about as good as it gets. What are you building your life on? This last summer we saw those tragic floods in the hill country. So many lives lost, really hard, really tough. And all of that serves to remind us of the power of flooding. And that makes Jesus' words so relevant for us today. This is a good place for me to point out the dangers of daily Bible reading and a podcast about daily Bible reading. Now, certainly not the dangers of coffee. Coffee is always good. There's no danger with coffee. But what's the danger here? The danger here is that we decide that reading, thinking about, talking about, analyzing the Word of God is sufficient when Jesus says, verse 24, everyone who hears these words of mine and does them, does them. That's what we need to make sure we are involved in and we are about. Am I installing the Word of God in my life? Am I living differently from hearing the Sermon on the Mount? So here's your closing question. Instead of just listening to, thinking about, reading, that's dangerous. That's dangerous business. That's foolish business. That's a building on sand. Here's your question. What is one specific way you can do these words of Jesus? What's one specific way you can put Jesus' teaching into practice today? Our reading for Friday, Matthew chapter 7, verses 1 to 29. That concludes the podcast for the week. Really do appreciate you listening. Hope you're telling other people about it. It's time for people to ramp up those ideas about, hey, I want to read my Bible more in a new year. And the podcast is an excellent way to encourage people to be in the Word. So share the podcast. Big rollout on Sunday. New ideas, new things going on. The 2026 Bible reading schedule is going to be amazing. Be sure you tune in for that, get that, download your reading schedule off the website. It'll be up Sunday. Get the reading schedule. Let's get in the Word. Podcast will be with you. I'll be with you on Monday. We're starting that new year. It's going to be great. But until then, let me just remind you: I'm Mark Roberts, and I want to go to heaven. I want you to come too. Looking forward to seeing you on Monday. New Bible reading schedule and 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.