Welcome To Monday Morning Coffee

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Hello, and welcome to the West Side 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 reading so that we can know what to expect and watch it. And he may have some extra bonus comments from time to time. So grab a cup of coffee as we start the week together on Monday morning coffee with Mark.

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Good morning, good morning. Welcome to the Monday Morning Coffee Podcast for the week of September 20th through the 27th. Today's Monday, September 21, and I'm holding some okay, some okay coffee. That's exactly where that is. I'm always bragging on my coffee. It's amazing, it's incredible, it can cure cancer and keep the neighbors' kids out of your yard. Well, sometimes you don't get it all dialed in exactly right, and it's not quite as amazing, but it's still coffee, it's still good, and it's still gonna help us get this week started right. So grab your Bible, grab your coffee, let's go together. Let's

Sermon Notes

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think about the sermon yesterday as we get started. Yesterday, the preaching theme continued for 2026 as we continue to think about being heaven-bound. And yesterday, I talked about heaven as our inheritance. I really like that idea. That is something I had not developed before, and I hope that it really empowers you. It is found a bunch of places in the New Testament. In Matthew 19, 29, Jesus says, Everyone who's left houses, her brothers, their sisters, her father, her mother, children, or farms, for my name's sake will receive many times as much and will inherit eternal life. And then in Matthew 25, 34, the king will say to those on his right, Come you who are blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundations of the world. But maybe my favorite verse on that is Acts 20, 32, where Paul tells the elders from Ephesus, I commend you now to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. It's the word of God that tells us about our inheritance. It's the word of God that helps us get there, it's the word of God that builds us up, it's the word that helps us inherit what God has promised. And that's why we read it, that's why we study it, that's why we talk about it, that's why we think about it, that's why we do podcasts about it, and why you're listening to this podcast about it, because we need the word if we want to be heirs of eternal life, if we want to inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world, if we want to be heaven-bound. So let's give our attention to the word of God. Let's do some daily Bible reading.

Monday James 1

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James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, is how this book begins. I have to tell you, this is one of my favorite books of the New Testament. I love, love, love James. It is a great book to just sit down and read through with a cup of coffee in your hand because it's so practical. There's lots of short, pointed instruction, and there's a fair amount of material that echoes Jesus' teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. It's very easy to apply because it's just constantly saying this is what we need to do. Now, who is this James in verse 1? There's a lot of James's in the New Testament, but almost certainly this is James, the brother of Jesus. Jesus' brothers, of course, did not believe in him during his time here on this earth, but after the resurrection, James does become a believer, 1 Corinthians 15, 7. And he is a major leader in the Jerusalem church and is cited later on. James the Apostle, who's the brother of John, is killed about A.D. 44. That's in Acts chapter 12. James, the brother of the Lord, is that leader who speaks in Acts chapter 15. And he is addressing here verse 1 the 12 tribes in the dispersion, and that's the Jewish Christians who live outside of Palestine. And James begins by talking about trials. Now, trials, the word here can be ordinary troubles, or it could be persecution, or it could be testing, or it could even be temptation. And James is most certainly not saying that trials are enjoyable, but that we can know what God is doing with them and what God can accomplish through those, that brings us joy. And there's a process here where testing produces steadfastness and endurance produces or steadfastness or endurance produces maturity. And then perfect here means to be mature or complete. It does not mean to be sinlessly flawless. So, as has been widely said, troubles can make us bitter, troubles can make us better. James wants trials to make us better, and the way to do that is to get the wisdom from God. We need verse five, the wisdom that God can give. And when we're asking, we don't want to be double-minded. That's a divided allegiance, trying to have one foot in the world and one foot in the kingdom of God, kind of uh covering our bases, sort of thing. We don't really believe in the Lord, but we're gonna ask God because, hey, why not? It doesn't hurt to pray. That kind of divided allegiance will get you nowhere. That is not going to be true praying, real praying, or what God is interested in. Then verses 9 to 11, there's a little discussion here about rich and poor. That becomes a very important theme in chapter two with the problem of favoritism. And James here, as he often does, reverses normal human thinking because we tend to be impressed by money and status and clothes and influence. Sometimes I get a little frustrated if anybody famous, any athlete or movie star or television star is reported to have any ties to churches of Christ. This happened when Dolly Parton passed away. Everybody kind of goes goo-goo-ga-ga for that kind of thing. And maybe we should be a lot less impressed with all of that. Maybe we should be a whole lot less impressed with all of that. Money promises permanence and security, but it cannot actually provide either. And James will go on to develop how, in the eyes of the Lord, the poor Christian is so much more important than the rich celebrity who doesn't care much about God. Then in verse 12, James circles back to trials and starts talking about trials and especially not blaming God for temptation. That's never where temptation comes from. And once again, there's a progression here. Desire attracts and entices, and then that gives birth to sin, and sin grows up and gives birth to death. And so there's a contrast in verses two and three and four. You have trials, which lead to endurance, which leads to maturity. And now we have evil desire, which leads to sin, which leads to death. And we always need to see that God, look at verse 16, is going to give good things, not temptation. Don't be deceived, verse 17, good things come from the Lord. The chapter concludes then with a strong emphasis on the power of the word, the importance of hearing and doing it. Let's hold on to that as we are involved in that, reading the Bible. We're not just going to read James, we're going to let it change us. And the way that God changes us is through the implanted word, verse 21, not through willpower or some miraculous operation upon our heart, but through his word. And that mirror illustration in verse 23 and 24 is particularly pointed. You don't look at a mirror just to get some information about your face. You look at a mirror to do something, to make it better, to change it. And I'll conclude out of verse 27. Visit orphans and widows. Widows and orphans are among the most vulnerable people in the ancient world. In the Old Testament, God constantly emphasizes his concern for them. Very, very important that we care for others. That's what James is saying, disciples will be doing. The reading for Monday, James chapter one.

Tuesday James 2

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It's Tuesday. It is Tuesday, and today we're reading James chapter two. The reading for Tuesday is James chapter two. In this chapter, James corrects three wrong ideas that it's okay to be partial towards certain people who visit our assembly, verses one to nine. And then we don't have to obey all of the law. It's a buffet. Choose what you want, verses 10 to 13. And then faith doesn't need works, verses 14 to 21. Let's work through some of this. Don't forget West Side. We do have a Zoom call. Tonight we'll be studying this in our Zoom Bible study this evening. Really vivid example in verses 2 and 3 of the rich man and the fine clothes. He's important, and the poor man is shabby and dirty, and everybody is falling all over the rich guy and giving him a great seat and saying, oh, this is important. No, no, no. Verse 4, James says, you're using the world's measuring stick instead of God's. And I do think there's a connection here to 127 because James just said true religion cares for the vulnerable. And now they're dishonoring the very people that God told them to care about. Weak, poor, oppressed people. That does not mean that every poor person is righteous and every rich person is wicked, but he is absolutely attacking our tendency to equate money and status with worth. And in fact, verses 6 and 7, isn't this just the truth? Sometimes we flatter the very people who oftentimes attack Christianity and turn on the Bible. And there's an echo in all of this in Luke chapter 6 and verse 20. Jesus, the Sermon on the Plain, talks about rich and poor. Then James talks a little about the royal law, loving your neighbor as yourself, which of course Jesus calls the second of the greatest commandments. And then there's a difficult statement in verses 10 and 11 about this business of breaking one point and become guilty of all. And that's not really saying that every sin is identical in seriousness or consequence, but that we can't select which commands we will count and which are important. James is attacking selective obedience there. And then he says in verse 13 that mercy triumphs over judgment. And I think that's just the idea that we should speak and act toward other people as a people who know how badly we need God's mercy ourselves. And then this concluding section 14 to 26 on faith and works, probably for us the most famous section of James. This is where we go when we're having to deal with this. Ask Jesus into your heart and just trust, and we're saved by faith alone, by grace alone, all of that business. And James here says, that's a bunch of nonsense. You can't be saved by faith alone. It's it'll never work because faith always obeys. Faith always directs itself into genuine, real action. And he stacks up some illustrations of how that doesn't work. So, for example, telling somebody who in verse 16 is in need. Remember, James is talked in verse 27 of chapter 1 about the vulnerable, telling those people, hey, you're good. Go in peace and be warmed. And that's not helping them. You have to do something for them. And then he goes on to cite the demons. The demons have accurate information about God, but they are not in an obedient relationship with him. Then he cites Abraham. Abraham believes God, but he demonstrates that faith when he obeys God. And then he says specifically in verse 24 that we are not saved by faith alone. Now that's not saying that we can earn salvation by meritorious work, but that, again, genuine faith always issues forth in obedience. And of course, people freak out about this because Paul says some things about faith, like in Romans chapter 4, but they just miss completely the kind of works that Paul is dealing with in Romans 4 when he says that works don't save. Paul never says that we don't have to be obedient. In fact, Paul says in Galatians 5 and verse 6 that faith has to work through love. So he has obedient faith too. James is not opposing Paul. Paul's not opposing James. They're on the same page. And the chapter closes then with this big idea that we have to do something rather than just say something. And so I think about the question on the back of our reading schedule: how does this impact my heart and life? We need to be asking, what does my faith cause me to do? And we'll talk about that more, Westsiders, in the Zoom call tonight. See you then. Everyone else, see you on the podcast tomorrow, reading for Tuesday, James chapter 2.

Wednesday James 3

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It is Wednesday. It is Wednesday. And today we're reading James 3. The third chapter of James is our reading for today. This is about teachers and teaching. Sometimes it's known for being the chapter on the tongue, but that is based in James' admonition that not everybody should be a teacher. And you know, sometimes you hear that. Sometimes you hear that every Christian is supposed to be a teacher. No, every Christian's not supposed to be a teacher. Now, every Christian can have influence and maybe help somebody get connected with someone who can be a teacher, but not every Christian can be a teacher. And James is working here with the idea of words because primarily, obviously, that's how we do our teaching. And I love that he says, we all, verse two, we all stumble. So James is including himself here. And then he gives some pictures of how something small can have a big influence. The bit controls the horse, the rudder directs the ship, and a tiny fire, as Smokey the Bear, can burn down the whole forest. So a small, small tongue, verse five, big consequences. And you know that, and I know that. We know people who have damaged a relationship through one piece of gossip or one lie has destroyed someone's relationship and reputation. So James goes on then to say that we've tamed all kinds of animals, and I'll give you a textual note here. In verse 7, in the Greek, it says, not cats, because they're evil and can't be tamed. Then he goes on to say, nobody can tame the tongue, verse 8. Hope you cat lovers got that tongue-in-cheek note there. And as he continues to talk about how it's wrong for us to bless our Lord and Father, verse 9 and curse people, cursing here is more than profanity. Cursing here is the wrong use of the tongue, slander and gossip and cruel criticism and all of those sorts of things. Nature is very consistent, he says, verses 11 and 12. We need to bridle our tongue and speak from our heart, or our religion is worthless if we can't bridle the tongue, chapter 1, verse 26. Jesus says we speak out of the abundance of our heart. Matthew 12 and verse 34, all of that is factoring into what James is saying. So then he talks about two kinds of wisdom, verses 13 to 18. There's a kind of wisdom that is earthly. And I talk about that sometimes in the pulpit. There's a way to get ahead at work, to spread lies about your coworker. You will get that promotion instead of that person and slander other people. And we see that in a lot of ways. I think about that sometimes in the in the political campaigning sphere. You throw enough mud at your opponent and say all kinds of terrible things, even if that doesn't represent his or her position accurately, you can you can get yourself elected. It'll it will work. But that's not the kind of wisdom that Christians need to show. We need to have heavenly wisdom. And I like the idea in verse in chapter two, show me your faith. Chapter three, show me your wisdom. And the way to see that, let's have a little coffee here. The way to see that is through what your wisdom produces. Does it produce jealousy and ambition and disorder and vile practices? Or does it produce pure and peaceable and gentle and good fruits and all those things that he talks about in verse 17, the wisdom from above? So human anger does not produce God's righteousness, chapter 1, verse 20. But what does produce God's joy, God's righteousness, and that is being a peacemaker? Think about Matthew 5 and verse 9, the beatitude. So that prepares us for chapter 4. James is gonna say, hey, how come there's fighting and quarreling going on among you, brethren? He says, You need heavenly wisdom, not worldly wisdom. The reading for Wednesday, James chapter 3.

Thursday James 4

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It's Thursday. It is Thursday, and today we're reading the fourth chapter of James. The reading for Thursday, James chapter 4. Got your coffee. This is an extremely confrontational chapter. James just gets right up in our face and says, What is going on? What's happening here? And he begins by talking about fussing and fighting. He connects that directly to the end of chapter three, Harvest of Righteousness is sown in peace, 318. But now we've got quarrels and fussing because people aren't showing heavenly wisdom. Outward conflict, James says, comes because of inward problems. And so he uses strong figurative language in verse two, you murder. That's probably not actually killing each other. That's just brethren being bitter and arguing and fussing like they want to kill each other. And that leads to problems in praying. They don't ask God. And verses two and three, when they do ask, they're asking selfishly. James is very clear, prayer's not the way to get God to do what I've already decided God's supposed to be doing because that's what I want God to do. And I think it's important to connect here up some ideas about how James is concerned with desire. In chapter 1, verses 14 and 15, desire leads to sin and death. Chapter 3, 14, 15, 16, jealousy and selfish ambition produce disorder. And now selfish desire produces conflict in chapter 4. So the problem here is not them over there, they're so difficult. The problem, the problem is me. We have met the enemy, and he is us. And I like verse 4, that adulterous language that's right out of the Old Testament prophets like Hosea. And when James says that the issue here is friendship with the world, he's not talking about friendship with people in the world. He's talking about being friends with the world. The world is the evil system that opposes God. And everybody, of course, will ask about verse 5. That's a very difficult verse to translate and understand. Do you suppose it is to no purpose that the scripture says he yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us? There are several interpretations offered of that. That may mean that God opposes their envy and divided loyalty, or that God jealously desires the loyalty of his people. Don't get lost here and just disappear down a rabbit hole trying to get all of it figured out. The main thought is clear in the context: God does not accept divided allegiance. And then there's some rapid-fire commands in verses 7 to 10 about repentance, submitting to God, resisting the devil, draw near to God, cleanse your hands, purify your hearts, mourn over your sin, humble yourselves. And in the middle of that, there's the wonderful promise that when we draw near to God, God draws near to us. And we don't want to be double-minded people, verse 8. That's the same problem that opened the book in chapter 1 and verse 8 instead. We need to be mourning for our sins. That's straight out of the Sermon on the Mount of the Beatitudes, of course. And then James returns to the tongue one more time, verses 11 and 12. And he's certainly not saying that Christians can never identify a sin or make some kind of moral judgment. But the problem here is that critical fault-finding attitude that just find something, nitpicking, always looking for some way to put others down, condemn others, to judge others, because then I feel like I'm better than you. The chapter ends 13 to 17, verses 13 to 17 with this business about how uncertain the future is. And don't use verse 15 as some kind of magic phrase. We should always say about anything in the future if the Lord wills. No, it's an attitude. It describes an attitude here that recognizes God is sovereign over what happens. The reading for Thursday, James chapter 4. Welcome

Friday James 5

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to Friday. Welcome to Friday. And today we're reading James 5, the reading for Friday, James, the fifth chapter. This opens with James sounding like an Old Testament prophet weeping and howling. Really sounds like Isaiah and Amos attacking wealthy people who exploit others. James has certainly talked about wealth before. In chapter 1, verses 9 through 11, the rich man fades like a flower. And of course, in chapter 2, don't honor the rich while dishonoring the poor, showing preference to them in the assembly. Now, chapter 5 gives the strongest warning of all to the rich. And of course, James is not saying that having money is sinful, but it can lead us into sin, like hoarding and defrauding workers and self-indulgence and oppressing people and replacing God with wealth. And verse 5 is a frightening picture. Here, folks are thinking that they are living in luxury, and what they're really doing is just fattening themselves up for slaughter. Again, money can create a temptation to feel secure and self sufficient. Don't let that happen. Then James says in verses 7 to 12 that we need to show patience in suffering. And everyone will be interested in asking about verses eight and nine. Establish your heart, verse eight, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. Verse 9, behold the judge is standing at the door. There's a couple of passages like that in the New Testament, and that's led people sometimes to conclude that Christians expected Jesus to return in the next three minutes. And I don't really think that's the case. That may have been a problem here and there, maybe in Thessalonians. There's some discussion of that kind of thing. But really, the emphasis in this passage and in all of those kinds of passages is that Christians live with a sense of urgency because we don't know when he will come. So the point is not setting the date. The point here is just being ready. The judge is at the door. Remember, we are accountable to him. And there's a wonderful illustration then of Job here and the prophets. We need to work with all of that. Verse 10, verse 11, because sometimes Christians will suffer. And Job persevered through enormous suffering. He didn't understand everything that was happening to him or why. And as best I can tell from the book of Job, God never explained any of that to him. He did not understand everything about everything, and he didn't always do everything perfectly. I kind of grew up with the idea that Job persevered perfectly. And the first time I really worked through the book of Job, and I got about halfway through it, and Job is railing and screaming and crying and arguing and then saying some hard things about the Lord, which causes him at the end of the book of Job to say, I repent and cover my mouth. That was kind of a shocker to me. I had always thought Job was perfect and sinless. That's not, nope, that's not right. That's not why he says, I repent. But the end of Job shows that he did not abandon God and shows that the Lord had compassion and mercy upon him. So once again, James connects some things together. Trials produce steadfastness. Chapter 1, verses 2, 3, and 4. Blessed is the person who remains steadfast. Chapter 1, verse 12. Now chapter 5, 11, blessed are those who remain steadfast. A little bit then of Jesus, your yes be yes and your no be no. Verse 2. Oh, I'm sorry, verse 12. Need a little coffee here. James doesn't mean here that we should never swear an oath. There's a lot of oath swearing in the Bible. God swears an oath, wrote about that last week or two weeks ago in the book of Hebrews. But the point is, Christians don't have to prop up their yes or their no by saying, I swear on a stack of Bibles and all of that kind of business. Finally, the book concludes with some ideas about prayer. And what everybody focuses on here is the oil that is mentioned here. The elders are going to come and anoint him with oil. And that's a difficult passage. I'm not exactly certain where James is going with that. Oil could be used medicinally. Luke chapter 10. The Good Samaritan. Let me grab a little more coffee here. The Good Samaritan anoints the person who's been robbed, beaten, and hurt so badly with oil. Probably that's a reference probably to coffee in the original Greek there. Oil also had to do with the things that you did to get ready for the day. In Daniel chapter 10 and verse 3, it's used that way. You get up, you get going, you get dressed, you anoint yourself with oil to go out. So maybe the idea here is the elders will come and they're going to anoint this person with oil because he's going to get better. He's going to be able to get up and go about daily life. I think the emphasis here should be on the Lord raising him up. The power is not in the oil. In fact, the power isn't even in the prayer. The power is in the Lord. And then he says some things here about confessing our sins one to another. And of course, verse 16 is not talking about coming down sitting on the front row, although you can certainly do that, but the idea of having deep relationships with other brothers and sisters where we can share our struggles and have enough trust with somebody to admit that we are having problems. Can we pray together about that? In Elijah, verse 17 and 18, he's a man with a nature like ours. I have a tendency to put Elijah on a pedestal. He's a big-time prophet, really persevered and did some great things in a really tough time in Israel's history. James says, Mark, get him off that pedestal as a man like ours. And the point, of course, here is not the greatness of Elijah, but the greatness of the God that Elijah prayed to. What Elijah prays about, by the way, is what God said would happen when people were not, when his people were not faithful to him. Elijah says, God, do what you said you would do. I'm praying in your will. That's that's pretty powerful praying, isn't it? And then if anyone wanders from the truth, someone can bring him back. I think the idea there is somebody needs to bring that person back. And of course, a Christian can wander from the truth, and that certainly doesn't fit once saved, always saved theology, does it? They'll save his soul from death and cover a multitude of sins. Cover is biblical language for forgiveness. And it's not that the person who restores him earns extra brownie points for himself. The wandering sinner repents and God forgives him. That closes out James chapter 5, closes the book of James. What a wonderful book to read. So much to do about the book of James. I love James a lot. We begin the reading of the Petrine, Peter's epistles, on Monday, but our reading for Friday, James chapter 5. And that brings this week's podcast to a close. Thanks so much for listening. I really enjoy drinking coffee, talking to you about the Sermon from Sunday, talking to you about the Bible reading for the week. I hope you enjoy it half as much as I do, because if you do, you're getting a lot out of it. I'm Mark Roberts, and I want to go to heaven. I want you to come too. See you on Monday with a cup of coffee.

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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 P's, U-P-P-P-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.