Hello, and welcome to the West Side 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 each other and better work the applications into our daily lives. 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, January the 26th. I'm Mark, and I am ready to talk about yesterday's lesson, talk about daily Bible reading, do all the things that we need to do to just power this week up, and this sounds like it's going to be a week that needs some extra power. How about that? So grab your Bible, grab your coffee. I've got coffee, grab your coffee. Let's grow together. Now we always start the podcast by talking about Sunday and talking about the sermon in the 1040 hour. And as I'm recording this, there's some uncertainty about how exactly Sunday's gonna go. Lots of meteorologists, lots of weather discussion, lots of models and people posting all kinds of stuff, and the snow apocalypse is apparently on its way. So I'm not sure how Sunday's gonna go, but I think I'm gonna get to preach, and I'm gonna preach on the preaching theme, heaven-bound this year, be doing that maybe via live stream if the weather gets nasty, or I'll be doing that live and in person. Either way, we're gonna talk about heaven. And we're gonna talk about being people who are heaven-bound. I just love this preaching theme, and I hope that you enjoyed that yesterday, whether you watched it at home, maybe snug and warm because the roads are icy, or whether we were able to be in person. But since we have a little bit more time together now, let me share with you a verse that didn't make the cut yesterday. Maybe it should have. That's a verse out of Colossians three. A little coffee there. Colossians three, one and two, since you've been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sets in the place of honor at God's right hand. Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. Colossians 3, 1 and 2, out of the New Living Translation. Now the ESV has, and maybe that didn't sound familiar to you, but the ESV has set your mind on things above. We've heard that phrase many, many times. But I like the NLT, think about the things of heaven. That's what this preaching theme this year will do. It'll get us to be thinking about the things of heaven. And that's important because it orients us. We're not talking about some kind of escapism. No, this gives us direction. Remember, if heaven doesn't shape how we're living right now, then we're really we're really not thinking about heaven. We're distracted, or maybe we're just daydreaming. But when heaven is real, sacrificing makes sense. Not fitting in hurts a little bit less. And worship, worship kind of feels like a rehearsal instead of an obligation. It feels like a taste of what is to come. Now, it's easy, particularly when we're distracted, talked about that a little bit yesterday, with all the things of this life, and now we've got weather issues on top of that. Maybe today heaven doesn't feel so close, and that's okay. It's Monday. That's kind of how Mondays work. But don't stop wanting it. Don't stop thinking about it, and don't let the world convince you that this life, this world, this time, this right here is all there is. God is moving you. Not to buffalo, feel pretty good about that, don't we? But God is moving you to something infinitely better. We are we are homeward bound. And it's God's word that helps us stay on course and stay on track. Let's talk about our Bible reading in Luke. The Bible reading for Monday is Luke chapter 16. Our reading today is Luke, the 16th chapter, just 31 verses, which doesn't seem like much, given Luke's proclivity for long chapters. I guess that's really not Luke's fault, is it? That's the people who divided the Bible up into chapters. We're not even entirely sure how all that went down and who all did all of that, but Luke has got the material. Let's get into Luke chapter 16. I'm going to give most of my attention to the two parables here that Jesus tells: the parable of the unjust steward at the beginning of the chapter, and the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. I think the key verse here is verse 14. The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all these things and they ridiculed him. Luke is very concerned about wealth. Wealth is a problem for disciples more often than not, and we've seen that all over this book. The Song of Mary has emphasis about wealth, 146, John the Baptist preaching, 310, the blessings and the woes, 620, parable of the rich foolish farmer, chapter 12. Now, lots about wealth here, and maybe there's something to be said here about somewhat of a change of audience. In chapter 15, Jesus is really singling out the Pharisees as he says some things to the crowd. I think maybe this is more for disciples. 16.1, he said also to the disciples. But the Pharisees, the Pharisees are still being targeted here, aren't they? That's that verse 1614 that I just read. Now read the parable of the unjust steward and see what you make of that. That's a parable that causes a lot of head scratching. To start with, we're not entirely sure what he did. Verse 5, summoning his master's debtors, he said, How much do you owe my master? He said, 100. He said, Take your bill and write down 50. Some people say that he's removing the surcharge or the commission that he would have received. Not sure about that. It awfully seems awfully exorbitant commission amounts here. Others have said that maybe this was usury and he was re-removing usorious interest. Usorious interest is not something that you can say without a swig of coffee. The law did forbid usury, Leviticus 25, 36. And so he had worked around that in kind of typical Pharisaical fashion and now was deciding that he needed to do what's right. I I don't know. Others have thought that there were some debts here that were incurred in leasing land. I I I don't think we want to fall down into the weeds on all of that. I think Jesus is under Jesus' audience understands everything that's going on here. There's some loans out, and the steward does something to dramatically cut those loans so that people will like him. And that is exactly what Jesus is going for here. Sometimes people think Jesus is encouraging dishonesty. That's not it. That's not it. The master commends the dishonest man, verse 8, for his shrewdness. What he did was make friends for himself. And Jesus says the sons of this world sometimes they're just smarter in the things of this world than Christians are. He was active in his sphere of concern, which was this life totally temporal, no thoughts about eternity. He's not interested in standing in front of God and judgment. That's not in view in the parable. It's a how much more parable. If this rascally steward knows how to provide for his future, how much more should the sons of light know how to provide for theirs? I tell you, verse 9, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails, they may receive you into the eternal dwellings. Who's the they? Well, the only one who can receive you into eternal dwellings is God. God will see how you've used your wealth and will be pleased with that and will welcome you into heaven. That, I think, is what Jesus is doing with this parable, to how much more parable. And I don't think it needs to be more complicated than that in any way, any stretch of the imagination. And I think it goes well with what Luke has been saying about wealth because it's not all bad. You can use wealth to be welcomed into eternal dwellings. Then there's some teachings here that work along, and we get to the parable, the rich man and Lazarus. Now, as soon as I say parable, the rich man and Lazarus, that's going to cause people to shout and scream and throw things at their phone or their radio, whatever they're listening to the podcast on. But it is, it's a parable. It is a parable. Notice the formula is exactly the same. 16.1, there was a rich man. 1619, there was a rich man. The chief argument against it being a parable is that it is the only parable where Jesus names someone. Lazarus gets a name. But the language is extremely parabolic. Sharp, clear descriptions of very sharply defined characters who are absolutely black and white. There is no gray here. And there is the formula that Jesus loves to use, two characters answering to an authority figure. It fits contextually, expanding the theme of the parable in verses 1 to 9. And of course, Jesus never tells a story like this, reporting on actual events in the afterlife. That would be a little strange. And of course, there's good reasons for Jesus to use a name. The name here means God helps or has helped, and so that would symbolically fit in this parable. And maybe more importantly than even that, naming Lazarus keeps every poor person from automatically assuming I'll go to heaven because I was poor and miserable. That is not the point of the parable. I should say as well, the point of the parable is not to explain every part of the afterlife. And I've seen and you've seen diagrams and charts drawn from Luke 16 about what happens when you die. Don't do that. Don't do that. The parable is not trying to give you a map of the afterlife anymore, verse 24, than it is saying that there will be fingers in water in the afterlife. The story contains major Lucan themes. Wealth can get in the way of one's relationship with God. And there is a coming reversal of fortune. That is where Luke is going, and that is what this parable is about. It's Monday, and today we read Luke chapter 16. It's Tuesday. It is Tuesday, and today we're reading Luke 17. The reading for Tuesday is the 17th chapter of Luke. Pay attention here to the emphasis on repentance again in Luke 17, 3 and 4. So often we are told that we have to forgive people even if they don't repent, even if they do not ask for forgiveness. That is manifestly completely wrong. When someone repents, then God forgives them. Are we asking people to do more than what God would do? Oh, God hasn't forgiven that person because they're still mad, angry, unrepentant, still living in sin. But oh, I'm supposed to stop, stop. Repentance happens and then forgiveness can occur. That doesn't mean that we're not ready to forgive, we're not acting towards a person so that they will repent. We're doing all the things just like God does to bring a person to repentance, but there is no forgiveness, Luke 17, 3 and 4, without repentance. Then verses 7 and 10 are spotlighted here, some things here about being a servant. Please don't think that this verse 10 means that anything we do for God doesn't really count, doesn't really care, it's just useless, we've only done our duty. Unprofitable here has the sense of no claim on. And what that means is when we do what God tells us to do, that doesn't put God in our debt. But it certainly doesn't mean that God doesn't appreciate it or we don't have the smile of heaven upon us as a result. No, even a cup of cold water in his name given. Remember, God blesses us and appreciates and praises those who are obedient to him. Then Luke has a unique story, verses 11 to 19, the story of the lepers. Love this, preached about some of this. Uh let's see here, the Sunday before Thanksgiving. So you might want to go back and listen to that sermon. Really, really an important sermon. Once again, a Samaritan is the hero in the story, verse 16. Then Jesus begins to talk about the coming of the kingdom in verses 20 to 37. This section really rolls all the way through chapter 18 and verse 8. And the passage here really stresses the certainty of judgment and the importance of being prepared. And sometimes Jesus seems to be almost interacting on two different levels, maybe talking about some things about the judgment of Jerusalem and then also final judgment, the second coming. Really difficult to get a bead on some of this and be dogmatic about it. Verse 21, though, gives us some insight into the kingdom. Look, there, nor will they say, look, speaking of the kingdom, let me try reading all this again. Yeah, what's the answer? More coffee. Verse 21. Nor will they say, look, here it is, or there, for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you, or the kingdom is in you. There's different translations of that, but it's clear that the kingdom references the reign and rule of God in our hearts, is not necessarily an institution that you can point to and say, There it is. Sometimes people think of the church in very institutional sort of denominational ways. We want to be very careful about all of that. And then Jesus goes on to talk about judgment and when the Son of Man will come. Notice verse 31. When the Son of Man comes, you pay complete attention to him. Nothing else is important. Worldly goods don't matter at all. Matthew and Mark actually use some of that language and apply it to the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, trying to decide here if Jesus is talking about that or his second coming. There will be 34-35 a separation between those who are disciples and those who are not. And just because you're close to someone physically does not mean, oh, I'm standing in the middle of a bunch of disciples. God will somehow think that I am a disciple. Then verse 37, this wonderful expression about the vultures, it's very tough. Maybe that just says you won't know where and when sec the second coming happens until until it happens, just like you don't know where death has occurred until you see, you know, if you have livestock, if you're ranching, my granddad had a ranch. When you saw the vultures circling, we knew something was down. That's a difficult passage, a difficult series of verses. I'm looking forward to talking with talking about it with folks from West Side tonight on the Zoom call. See you tonight. Westsiders on the Zoom call at 7. Everyone else, I'll see you tomorrow on the podcast. Our reading for Tuesday, Luke 17. Welcome to Wednesday. Welcome to Wednesday, and today we're reading Luke chapter 18. The reading for Wednesday is Luke chapter 18. Now Jesus is doing some teaching here in parables, and these two parables, Luke 18, 1 to 8 and Luke 18, 9 to 14, are only in Luke. Both of these parables are how much more parables? I talked about these parables, especially the one about the unjust judge in the series last year, about the questions that Jesus asked. They are how much more parables? If this horrible judge will help this woman, how much more will God help his children? That's exactly where this is going. Don't make God into some kind of horrible judge who doesn't want to hear, doesn't want to help. That's not what Jesus is saying. And then verse 9, notice how sharp this is. He told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and treated others with contempt. One scholar said his trouble, speaking of the Pharisee, his trouble was not that he was not far enough along the road, but that he was on the wrong road altogether. I think that's very helpful. Very, very on target here. And you should know that his prayer is not viewed as awful in his day. Nobody would have blinked to hear someone standing on the street corner praying like this. One rabbi wrote the following as his prayer: I give thanks to thee, O Lord my God, that thou hast set my portion with those who sit in the house of Lorning, and thou hast not set my portion with those who sit on street corners. For I rise early and they rise early, but I rise early for the words of Torah. They rise early for frivolous talk. I labor and they labor, but I labor and receive a reward, and they labor and do not receive a reward. I run and they run, I run to the life of the future world, and they run to the pit of destruction. That is a common kind of praying going on here. Nothing unusual about that until Jesus says, this is not the way we want to approach God in prayer. Then we get the rich young ruler. Please pay attention here, verses 18 to 27. The rich young ruler, I think Luke is setting some things up to be in the kingdom. You need to humble yourself, verses 9 to 14. You need to be like a child, verses 15 to 17. And yes, you need to be willing to give up the security of material resources. Be mindful. Not everyone is called to give up their money. Sometimes someone will camp in Luke 18 or the parallel passage and say, Well, you know, you call yourself a Christian, you sold everything. Jesus didn't tell you to sell everything, didn't tell me to sell everything, told this guy to sell everything. We'll meet another person in tomorrow's reading who is wealthy. He's not told to sell everything. That man's name is Zacchaeus. At the end of the chapter, then, verses 35 down to 40, Jesus heals a blind man, 35 to 43, actually. And this is the only account in Luke of a blind man receiving sight. And this is the only person, verse 38 in Luke, to address Jesus with the title Son of David. And we are clearly meant to see that as a messianic designation. Our reading for Wednesday, Luke chapter 18. Welcome to Thursday. Welcome to Thursday. Today we're reading Luke 19. The reading for Thursday, Luke chapter 19. Luke 19 is a tremendous contrast to the rich young ruler when we meet Zacchaeus. Luke 19, 1 to 10. This is this man is a chief tax collector. Jericho would be a great place to be a tax man. That is an important trade route. There'd be a lot of people going up and down that you could stop and charge. The chief tax collector here, verse 2, that is an expression that is not found elsewhere in the New Testament. Seems like maybe he is the holder of a tax contract. What the Romans did is they farmed out their tax collecting. They just sold a province, an area, and they said, this is how much we expect to get from that district. And then they gave the district collector the right to get that much revenue out of that area with a reasonable profit. So the Romans got their money up front, and then if you had won the contract, you went to that district and you started squeezing people to get your money back, like I said, along with a reasonable profit. And tax farmers were notorious for not collecting a reasonable profit, but just bleeding people dry. Now, some people, verse 8, have tried to say that Zacchaeus is describing his regular practice. Not that he's saying he's been a sinner, but I think the whole tone of the story counts against that view. Sometimes I weary of someone who has to come up with a novel interpretation. Oh, no one else has ever seen this before, but I'll tell you what this is. Stop. Stop. Zacchaeus is the contrast to the rich young ruler. He won't, Zacchaeus will. That's what this is about. Then we get the parable of the ten Minas. This is not the same parable as known as the parable of the talents in Matthew chapter 25. Jesus is just doing something with the same kind of idea. It's a little bit of a variation there. There are some significant differences in those two parables. And I like verse 11 here. This is why Jesus is telling the parable, because some think his nearness to Jerusalem means it's about to go down. Something's going to happen. The kingdom would appear immediately and imminently. Mostly today we need to give our attention to the triumphal entry beginning in verse 28. And of course, one of the things that we always want to do is. Want to look for is Jesus doing something on purpose. And since Jesus walks everywhere, Jesus sending disciples to get this cult and all the things that go with that, it seems like it's either prearranged or God is miraculously working so that the man who owns the cult, verse 33, just says, hey, take it. You got it, you need it, the Lord needs it, it's all yours. Not sure the details of that, and Luke loves. Luke loves to show stuff that makes us say, hey, was that a miracle? And sometimes we're not entirely sure if we're looking at a miracle or just a coincidence or some things just happened, but the man gives the cult right away and Jesus rides it. And the focus here is on the disciples and what they do as Jesus rides into Jerusalem. But Jesus is very clearly doing something that looks extremely messianic. There is a link to Zechariah's prophecy, Zechariah 9, verse 9, people would know that prophecy. Matthew and John make that link more clear. They jump right in and say, hey, this is this. But I think the key here is that Jesus is not riding a war horse. He is the king of peace. He is not a general coming to start a revolution. People love Jesus. Sometimes folks will say things like, hey, everybody cheered Jesus on Sunday, and by Friday they were screaming for him, but screaming for him to be crucified. But it's not necessarily the same crowd. Need to be careful about some of that. Then Jesus weeps over Jerusalem, verses 41 to 44. That little section there is unique to Luke's gospel. And then he then Jesus cleanses the temple, 45 to 48. Now, a timeline of Jesus' last week is difficult, but this is probably Monday, the last week of Jesus' life. And Jesus is cleansing the temple here. What a shocker that must have been. People thought he would attack the Romans. He attacks the Jews and uses verse 46.11, one of Jeremiah's most scathing sermons. Jesus says, I'll tell you what I'm seeing right here. I'm seeing the kind of wicked people that had to be carried off into Babylon that Jeremiah preached to. That's what Jesus says in Luke chapter 19, verses 46 and on to verse 47. And so that sets the stage for serious conflict. The chief priests and scribes were seeking, and principal men of the people are seeking to destroy him. Reading for Thursday is Luke chapter 19. See you tomorrow. It's Friday. It is Friday, and what a Friday it is. Tonight is our annual winter singing. Super excited about that. Tomorrow is Super Saturday. Three men coming, bringing nine different sermons. You get to decide what you want to hear. Will be a fabulous day. If you're in the DFW Metroplex area, come to the winter singing. Come to Super Saturday. And of course, Westsiders, I know you've been looking forward to this ever since we announced it. It's an exciting, exciting weekend. Let's get some Bible reading done before we get into the Super Saturday and the Friday singing, fantastic Friday, all the things that are going with all of that. This is Tuesday in all probability, and this is a day of questioning. And Jesus gets asked, hey, this cleansing of the temple thing, who do you think you are? And so Jesus, I don't think Jesus is evading them here, trying to be funny. Jesus wants to know, do you have an honest heart? Why should I give verse 8 a closed mind an answer? So they ask Jesus, who do you think you are? And Jesus asks, well, who do you think you are? And the parable of the Wicked Tenets makes that point very sharp and very clear. Please notice here, killing the son doesn't work. The solution here doesn't end everything. Then there's the question about paying taxes, and of course, this is a real hot potato. Jesus is going to say, hey, let's all pay taxes. That'll make everybody mad at him. Jesus is going to say, no, don't pay taxes. The Romans come get him. So this is tough stuff to deal with. But Jesus says, you just need to render to Caesar, verse 25, the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. Render here means pay what is due. And so one scholar says, those who benefit from the state are under an obligation to pay their dues to the state. Maybe we should all remember that as we head towards April 15th. Everybody complains about paying taxes. Nobody complains about driving on nice interstate highways or our fantastic military that keeps bad people on their side of the line so that we can worship freely. There's a lot of benefits we get from the state. We ought to render to Caesar. Then the Sadducees have a big question. You know, this is their ace in the hole. When them and the Pharisees quibble about the resurrection, the Sadducees whip this out and say, hey, okay, you think there's going to be a resurrection? It'd just be chaos. Just be chaos. Who is going to be married to who? And Jesus has a great answer to this. Verses 35 and 36. Marriage does not apply in the next life. And there'll be no death there, so there's not any need for marriage to make more babies to procreate. And in some sense, we'll be equal or like angels. And all of that, I think, just says things are just different in eternity. But then Jesus makes a necessary inference and he uses careful reasoning. Sometimes when we talk about what the church should do, and maybe I'm thinking about the instrumental music argumentation, people, oh, you know, you're cutting it so fine, and you're just a Pharisee, you're so legalistic. No, no, no, no, no. Being careful with the word of God does not make you a Pharisee, does not make you legalistic. Jesus bases everything here off of the passage that says he is the God of the living, that he calls the Lord, verse 37, that the dead are raised, even Moses showed in the passage about the bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him. Not was, but is. The tense of the verb is what Jesus stands on to say there will be a resurrection. Then Jesus deals with some questions that he has, or actually Jesus asked the question, what about Psalm 110? And we dealt with that an awful lot in December, and then warns people for 45, verses 45, 46, and 47 about all this business where you try to look so impressive to everyone else. The reading then for Friday, Luke chapter 20. See you tonight for Fantastic Friday and the singing that we'll be doing. Looking forward especially to tomorrow and those sermons, those nine lessons we'll hear from three very able teachers on Super Saturday. Well, that concludes the podcast then for the week. So glad that you listened. It's just a blessing for me to have this opportunity to talk with you and to work in the Word of God right with you. Just love doing it. It's all good, especially because I get to do it with a cup of coffee in my hand. Just love all of that. Hope the podcast is a blessing to you. Share it with someone else, leave us a rating and review so that more folks will find the podcast. I'm Mark Roberts. I want to go to heaven, and I want you to come to. See you tonight at the SIG and see you tomorrow at Super Saturday. But podcast listeners, see you Monday on the podcast 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'll look forward to seeing you again with a cup of coffee, of course, on next Monday.