Monday Morning Coffee With Mark Intro

SPEAKER_00 0:05

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 each other and better work the applications into our daily lives. Mark will then look forward into this week's Bible reading so that we can know what to expect and watch for. And he may have some extra bonus thoughts from time to time. So grab a cup of coffee as we start the week together on Monday morning coffee with Mark.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

Good morning, good morning. Welcome to the Monday Morning Coffee Podcast for the week of October 25th through the 31st through the end of October. Today's Monday of October the 26th. I'm Mark. I have a great cup of coffee, and yes, I am munching on a few candy corns. Candy corn is amazing. Don't come at me. Cats, horrible. Worst part of Halloween is all the cat stuff that we see. Candy corn, absolutely amazing. Best part of Halloween. All kinds of things going on as we roll through the end of October. And I'm kind of even thinking a little bit about Turkey Day and holidays in November. But right now, you know what we need to do? We need to get our Bible. We need to get some coffee, and we're ready. Yep, let's grow together. Are you ready

Sermon Notes

SPEAKER_01 1:42

to think about yesterday's sermon? Yesterday I continued the preaching theme for the year, heaven bound. And here's my extra thought for today. Who else? Who else does the Bible tell us is in heaven? Yesterday we heard from Lazarus, the thief on the cross, and Stephen. But those aren't the only people scripture tells us have reached, reached successfully, the other side. What about Elijah? He was taken to heaven in a whirlwind. Moses appears with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration. The martyrs under the altar in Revelation 6 crying out to God for justice. What would those folks tell us? What lessons would they have for those of us who are still trying to get where they are? Hmm, thinking about it, you thinking about it? Maybe there's another voices from heaven sermon waiting to be preached. So here's my question. If you could hear from one person that the Bible tells us is in heaven, who would you choose? And what would you want to ask them? Let me know. I would love to hear your suggestions. Maybe, maybe I'll put together Voices from Heaven, part two. How about that? Now, grab your Bible, open it to the Gospel of John. It's time for daily Bible reading.

Monday John 1

SPEAKER_01 3:15

It is Monday. And today we're reading John chapter one. The reading for Monday is John chapter one. I need a much bigger cup of coffee for today's episode because usually, if I'm teaching the Gospel of John, I will spend an entire class doing nothing but talking about what John is doing and how it's different from the other gospels and all things that go with that, because John is really, really different. So I expect that this episode today will probably last, I don't know, four or five hours. Maybe you should get a big cup of coffee as well. It is a unique gospel. In the Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, you get John the Baptist, then you get Baptism of Jesus, tempting of Jesus, then you get Galilean ministry, that kind of thing. John is totally different. You get this prologue, which there's not anything like that in the other gospels. Then there's early Judean ministry, then early Samaritan ministry, that's chapter four, and then most of it is about Judea. Most of it is about what Jesus is doing in Judea. And there is a ton of stuff in John's Gospel that is not anywhere else in the New Testament. In the beginning was the Word, the idea of the incarnation of the Logos, the Word, the testimony of John the Baptist to Jesus being the Lamb of God, Nicodemus, the Samaritan woman. There are six miracles here that are not in the synoptics. There is the discussion of the bread of life and light of the world. There's a bunch of feasts in Jerusalem. On and on we could go. This is a very different piece of gospel, not like Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And that's okay. In fact, that's actually great because it tells us a lot of things that we would like to know about Jesus and helps us flesh out our full image of Jesus. And I want to just say again, most of the work in John is, most of the work of Jesus in John is done in Judea. And of course, maybe the way to frame all of this is to just point you to the purpose statement for the Gospel of John. And that's found in John chapter 20. Everything rotates on this passage, John chapter 20, verses 30 and 31. John tells us straight up exactly what he's doing. Now, Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book, but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. The purpose of this is to cause people to believe in Jesus. We need to hold on to that with both hands. It's easy to wander away from that because there are so many points of curiosity, so many things about John's gospel that are different. Maybe we get lost in trying to compare it to the synoptics and figure out where this event goes on the timeline. We need to be careful about that. This is about building faith in Jesus. And that begins with John 1.1. In the beginning was the word, and the word is with God, and the word was God. The key to the gospel of John is that Jesus is the word. This is the only place that idea is applied to Jesus. You might want to read Proverbs chapter 8, especially verses 27 to 30 for some Jewish background there. I think really this is best understood to mean the Word of God. Jesus is the embodiment of God's message. He's more than a letter from God. He came to live out the word of God. Words are what gives expression to inner thoughts. We can't know what someone's thinking until they tell us. So Jesus is the culmination, the fullest expression of God's thoughts. He reveals God to us. And in fact, only God can reveal God. So John works that down through this prologue. Note verse 4: in him was life. Life is a huge emphasis in the Gospel of John. And so we get down to verse 12. You need to receive him. And if you believe in him, verse 12, then you give the right to become a child of God. Believing activates the things that you need to do, then in obedience to become a Christian. Please notice, believing doesn't make you a follower of Jesus, it's the starting point. Then Jesus, there, then Jesus is said, verse 14, to become flesh. The word became flesh and dwelt among us. We have seen his glory, glories of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. So if you have tension and uncertainty, let's have a little coffee here. Who is this powerful being? Who is the word? Now we know Jesus is the word. And then the rest of this chapter just builds on the testimony of people who are saying, hey, look, it's Jesus. Jesus is the Messiah. Jesus is the one from God. And you get four successive days here. John likes time notations, and you get a lot of time notations. John testifies to Jesus, says some things about the Lamb of God. And that's, I need to ask John about that. Remember, John is never named in this gospel. John the Apostle is not. So when you're reading of John, you're reading of John the Baptist. And I would like to know, John the Baptist, which lamb did you mean? Is that the Passover lamb, the scapegoat lamb, the lamb of Genesis 22 that Abraham was going to sacrifice instead, that he does sacrifice instead of Isaac? Is this a sin offering? Hard to know. I'm going to go with Isaiah 53, 7's lamb. It's the same word for lamb as in the Septuagint version of Isaiah 53. John appeals to Isaiah 53 elsewhere. I'll go Isaiah 53 here. This is the suffering servant, and this is the identification of Jesus as the Messiah of Isaiah. Then the next day, notice uh verse 29 the next day, verse 35 the next day, and then verse 43, the next day. So the rest of this book here begins to develop people following Jesus, called to follow Jesus. And the tense and 43 of follow me is keep on following me. It's a call to discipleship. Now that's a brief look at one of the most amazing chapters in the entire Bible, but that gets us started. The reading for Monday is John 1.

Tuesday John 2

SPEAKER_01 9:42

Welcome to Tuesday. It is Tuesday, and today is Teddy Roosevelt's birthday. On October 27, 1858, my favorite president was born. Teddy Roosevelt, happy birthday to TR. More importantly than that, we are reading in John chapter 2 today. John chapter 2 is the reading for Tuesday. And I should say a couple things here that are helpful to us as we're working along. I do want you to pay attention. Look at John 2.21. But he was, yes, yes, I'm jumping you ahead in the Bible reading. Don't panic. John 2, I'll come back to the rest of it. John 2.21, but he was speaking about the temple of his body. John includes a large number of these parenthetical statements or little footnotes where John explains something that's happening or why it happened or what is going on. Pay attention to those. They'll help you in the text. So this begins with the wedding at Cana, John 2, verse 1. Told you I'd get back to it. On the third day, see, we're connecting. Remember John 1.43 the next day. Now John 2.1 on the third day. Now Jesus is at Cana in Galilee. I need to say something here. This passage gets run out a lot in the conversation about social drinking, recreational use of alcohol in the Christian, and that needs to stop. Jesus most certainly did not make alcoholic wine here. So a number of indicators in the text about that, if you want to study that further. But bottom line here, Jesus is not making gallons and gallons and gallons of an alcoholic beverage because if somebody becomes drunk off that alcoholic beverage and everybody admits drunkenness is a sin, then Jesus is an accessory to that. Jesus led someone into sin. That's just unthinkable. So don't get lost here. I preached on this text last summer. I was in a summer series and I was asked to preach on something that is very surprising about Jesus, something very unexpected about Jesus. And I think this is a very unexpected miracle. It's a miracle that Jesus did not plan to do. It is a miracle that Jesus is kind of, well, he's kind of forced to do it by his mom. And if if you can force Jesus to do anything, his mom says, Hey, you got to help us out here. And Jesus does. And then maybe the most unexpected thing about this is it's an unknown miracle because only Jesus' disciples, Jesus' mother, and the servants who carried the water, they're the only ones who know what happened. Jesus does not stand up and say, I did it, I did it. Okay, everybody, there's enough wine now. And it was a huge embarrassment to run out of wine at a banquet like this. So Jesus really does kind of save the day. But that said, I'm not sure I'd put this down as the most important miracle that Jesus ever did. This doesn't rank up there with the raising of Lazarus from the dead. Okay, he saved a party. And yeah, it this isn't exactly earth-changing, but it does certainly show Jesus' concern for people and Jesus' care for people and for his mother. By the way, Mary is never named in this gospel. And there is no evidence to support this commonly said thing that Jesus and his disciples were unexpected guests, and so they showed up, and that's why they ran out of wine. And I should close the loop on that wine-alcoholic thing. Remember, in the Bible and in New Testament times, the word for wine can be used of unfermented grape juice and for an alcoholic beverage. It does not. Now, in our world, wine means an alcoholic beverage. It's not so in the Bible times. Probably the most important thing to see here is verse 11. This is the first of his signs. It's not a magic trick, it's not just something kind of interesting and strange. Jesus' favorite word for miracles is signs, or John's favorite word for miracles, I should say, is signs. They are signs that point to something that say something that help us better understand Jesus. Then Jesus cleanses the temple. This material in John 2, beginning in verse 13, Jesus goes up to Jerusalem. John takes a lot of pains to track Jewish feasts. There are three Passovers mentioned in John's gospel, and perhaps even a fourth. This feast would be in March or in April. And when you go to the temple, you can't give to the temple treasury in foreign currency. You have to exchange it. So there would be plenty of room for people to profit off of that, the exchange ratio. Dean and I just went overseas, and there's lots of discussion in the various travel blogs and YouTubers about where to get foreign currency, because if you change in the wrong place, one of those little kiosks in the airport, for example, they can kill you on the conversion rate. You end up losing a lot of money. Well, that's going on here, isn't it? That's what's happening here in John chapter 2. Well, okay, they're not changing in the kiosk in the airport there, but you understand what I'm saying. And then there would be plenty of profit to be made from selling official sacrificial animals. And the Sadducees are the ones that are in charge of this. And Jesus here says, this is a problem. And the problem would be where it's located. In the temple, there's this huge plaza that's the court of the Gentiles. The temple complex takes up about 30 acres. And that's the only place Gentiles could be. And so all these animals and banking and all the carrying on, that's going to get in the way of a Gentile who's come to the temple to pray. Jesus says, that's a problem. That's a problem. These things may even be helpful to people who traveled a long ways and they need to convert their currency. And maybe having said some things about leveraging the exchange rate, Jesus doesn't say here, hey, you're overcharging. Jesus just says, this isn't the place for it. This isn't the place for it. Makes you think about churches today that are just whole hog into the food fun and games business. That's not bad. There's a place for that, but the church building's not the place for that. That's not what we come there for. And it makes me think about Jesus coming today. Some of these churches have elaborate coffee bars and all that going on. You know how much I love coffee? Jesus overturning the coffee bars? Yeah, I kind of think that's right. I kind of think that's right. Jesus is removing all barriers to worship. And then there's a crucial moment in verse 20. The Jews said it's taken 46 years to build this temple. Will you raise it up in three days? Watch for that kind of foolishness in the Gospel of John. People who go over literal with what Jesus says, and as a result, they completely miss the point. They miss the point. When Jesus says, I'm going to rebuild this temple in three days, he can't possibly be speaking of a physical building. So you need to think a little deeper. Think a little deeper. That's what needs to happen here. And so maybe we when we get this verse 23, 24, 25 is kind of a little summary of Jesus in Jerusalem. And people, some people are believing. And so maybe we're tempted to say, hey, Jesus, set up shop and say, I'm the Messiah. Here I am. But I think Jesus knows that they don't know what being the Messiah is all about. And there needs to be more teaching behind that. We could talk a little bit more about John 2, 23, 24, 25. In our Zoom call tonight, West Siders will work with John chapter 2. For the rest of you, I'll see you on the podcast tomorrow, the reading for Tuesday. Reading for Tuesday, John chapter 2. It's hump

Wednesday John 3

SPEAKER_01 17:00

day. It is hump day. Get on that camel. It is Wednesday. It is Wednesday, and we're reading John chapter 3. John 3 is famous for the interview with Nicodemus. And there is lots to ask about here, speculate about here. We need to be careful about that. For example, verse 2, what's Nicodemus coming to Jesus at night for? Is he ashamed to be seen speaking with Jesus? Maybe there's too many crowds during the day. Some have said rabbis commonly visited at night. We don't know any of that. It is clear, however, from what Nicodemus says that he's getting some of what's happening. These signs, verse two, these signs. No one could do that unless God is with him. So the signs are pointing to something, but Nicodemus doesn't have all of that put together. And so remember, for Nicodemus to see the kingdom would be the would be to participate in the kingdom. And that would be a given for all Jews. No Jew is asking, How can I be part of the covenant people of God? That's that's a no-brainer. I'm a Jew. I am in the covenant people of God. So this is a very startling conversation. Jesus likes to begin conversations just right off the bat with something that really gets your attention. And Jesus immediately says, unless you're born again, you're not in. You're not part of the people of God. Nicodem says, wait, wait, wait, wait, born again. And John loves verse four to report stupid questions. And that gives Jesus the opportunity to say some more things, like verse five, truly, truly I say unto you, unless one's born of water in the spirit, he can't enter the kingdom of God. It is not two births here. It is a water spirit birth. And those who know the language, it's a very technical construction, but it is one birth. It's a water spirit birth. Some have tried to make that into two, that you're born of water, meaning your physical birth when a woman's water breaks, and then the spiritual birth. No, it's one birth, and it is the idea of being born again, which of course is all over the New Testament, just over and over again. Peter uses it, Titus 3, verse 5. Paul uses it, James uses it, Paul talks about it all the time. And what he's talking about here, of course, ultimately, what Jesus is pointing to is baptism. Baptism is that water spirit birth, born of water and the spirit. We are born anew and we become a new creature in Christ. And I just need to say again, I think this is offensive. I think this is offensive to Nicodemus. What do you mean? I need to be born again. Proselites were baptized. They need to be born anew. In fact, there's a rabbinical writing that says he is like a newborn child. Nicodemus is not a proselyte. He's not Gentile. He's not the San Eden Council. This guy's a Jew. What do you mean? What do you mean? And so Nicodemus just says, this is crazy. I I verse nine, what are you talking about? And Jesus uses some things here about the wind and about the spirit, and that we don't know all the things of the work of God. But then in verse 10, as one scholar writes, Jesus said to Nicodemus, I have tried to make things simple. I've used simple human pictures taken from everyday life, and you have not understood. How can you ever expect to understand deeper things if the simple things are beyond you? So Jesus is pushing Nicodemus. Jesus is pushing him and pushing him very hard. Then beginning in verse 16, we have that probably most famous verse in the entire Bible from God so loved the world. And I would want you to make a note here in your Bible that these are not the words of Jesus. Jesus did not say this. John says this about Jesus. And I can I'm pretty confident of that. Let me get a little more coffee here of my confidence. Coffee, confidence in a mug. This is most certainly the words of John, because Jesus would say, My father, not God has sent. And it's all in the past tense, gave, light has come, in love, darkness, all that business. And Jesus never refers to himself as the only son. John is the one that does that. So what you get in 16 to 21 is really John's reflections on what it means to believe on Jesus and have eternal life, to have eternal life in Christ. And the chapter concludes then with John the Baptist exalting Jesus, 22 to 36. And notice verse 24, there's another John parenthetical expression, another insertion by John. And John clearly expects his readers have read the other gospels. He knows the readers have they know the story of John the Baptist, they know what happened there. I'm not telling you that story because you know that story, I'm telling you some other things that go on. And I do think, verse 29, probably the toughest joy to have is joy when someone else does well. And I am so impressed with John the Baptist. He can play the toughest instrument in the orchestra, second violin. That's hard, isn't it? You know what I mean by that? It's hard. It's hard. And John has every temptation to step forward and say, it's me, it's me, it's me, I'm the Messiah, follow after me, everybody chase after me. That's a great temptation. And John never succumbs to that. He says, I'm pointing to him, and I'm not him, and you need to follow Jesus. That to me is extremely important. Verse 36, then, whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. Whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life. In the New Testament, the word believe often is synonymous with our word allegiance or loyalty, and you flat out see it there. Whoever has loyalty and allegiance to the Son has eternal life. Whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life. Whoever does not give their allegiance to the Son. Do you see it? Do you see it? Do you see it? So John 336 helps us better understand what faith means in the New Testament. The reading for Wednesday, John chapter 3.

Thursday John 4

SPEAKER_01 22:54

It is Thursday. It is Thursday, and our reading today is John chapter 4. This is one of my favorite chapters in all of the Bible. I love this conversation with Jesus and the woman at the well in Samaria. And a little background information helps us a lot as we're dealing with this because there is so much hostility between Jews and Samaritans. John gives us one of these wonderful explanatory notes in verse 9, Jews have no dealings with Samaritans, and that's a giant understatement. The reason for the hostility here is that problems with Samaritans go all the way back to the time of when the Assyrians, the time of the captivity, when the Assyrians took all the ten tribes into captivity and resettled people there. And of course, they didn't take 100% of the Israelite people, they took some of those people, most of those people. And so the folks that got resettled there, they all intermarry. And so now you've got people who are not of pure lineage. And that's the issue. And it has led to all kinds of hostility down through the years. For example, the Samaritans offered to help rebuild the temple, but in Ezra chapter 4, they said no, thank you. And it just keeps going because during the time between the testaments, the Samaritans refused to worship at Jerusalem and they build their own temple on Mount Gerizim about 400 BC. And in 128 BC, the Jews marched up there and burned that thing down. So that made everybody feel really, really good about each other. I'm certain. In fact, when Dean and I were in Israel, we had always heard that the reason Jews, uh what Jews did as they traveled was they went down to the Jordan River and they went north up the Jordan Valley and then over to Galilee instead of going straight through the easier path through Samaria, be shorter, but they hated the Samaritans so much they'd go out of their way so they didn't have to deal with Samaritans. And that is true. Um, and that is it they did all that. They certainly did that kind of thing. But one of the things that we realized when we were in Samaria is that it's extremely hilly, very, very hilly, kind of like the rolling hills, maybe to the Smoky Mountains. And so it's not just that they didn't want to talk to the Samaritans, but it's harder to walk through that country. So Jesus makes a very conscious effort here to go through a part of the country that the apostles would not want to go through, both from a geography standpoint and from we don't want to talk to these people. And the next thing you know, the disciples are in town buying some food, and Jesus is talking to this woman at the well. This is probably six o'clock in the evening or noon, verse six, depending upon how Paul's telling, how John is telling time. That's not always certain in John's gospel. But watch Jesus just transition quickly to spiritual things. And notice verse 10 that knowing the gift of God is connected to knowing who gave it. The gift of God here is eternal life, and only Jesus can bestow that. Living water, verse 10, living water was very important in this time. Standing water, you could grow bacteria and weird stuff in it and get sick. So you need living water that's running water. But living water here in verse 10 is the idea of eternal life. And living water is so prominent in the Old Testament. Jeremiah uses that, Zechariah 14 uses that. And so living water here is eternal life, and especially the relationship with God that leads to eternal life. And so we get the stupid question, verse 15. John loves to show us that kind of thing. And then, of course, as soon as people find out you're a preacher, they start asking you very important questions like Did Adam and Eve have a belly button? So verse 19, she says, Oh, let's talk about some things that are deep theological matters and everybody's arguing about. We'll just work on some of that. And Jesus comes right back to doing what's right and serving God. I think she's trying, verse 20, to distract Jesus from her marital problems, but Jesus is wanting to talk here about serving the Lord. God is spirit, verse 24. Those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth. You have to have the right object, God. You have to have the right heart, the spirit, the spirit of man is meant there, and the truth, the right mechanism, the right means of worshiping God. All of that has to be in place if worship is to be pleasing to the Lord. And verse 26 gives us a very unusual note in the life of Jesus, because this really is Jesus saying, I am the Messiah, and Jesus doesn't often say that kind of thing. So the giant contrast here is between the Samaritans who believe, verse 39, many Samaritans from the town believed in him, verse 41, many more believed. Samaritans believe they get it when Nicodemus the rabbi did not. How about that? How about that? And I do think there's a reference to John the Baptist in verse 38. The disciples come, they are a little slow, once again, verse 33. Did somebody bring him some groceries? Come on, guys. Come on, guys. Think, pay attention to what's happening. Finally, this chapter then closes, 43 to the end of the chapter with some ministry in Galilee, which is unusual in John's gospel. It's so Judean-centered. Jesus does heal the nobleman's son in verse 46. And that does resemble the healing of the centurion servant in Matthew chapter 8, but these are not the same episode at all. And the point of the miracle, verse 50, is that Jesus is the giver of life. Look at verse 50. Jesus said to him, Go, your son will live. Could have said, Your son is healed, your son got better, your son will live, your son will live. The idea of Jesus the life giver gets picked up in chapter 5. So pay attention to 450. Oftentimes there's a miracle in John's gospel, and then that miracle plugs into the teaching that follows. Reading for Thursday, John 4. It's

Friday John 5

SPEAKER_01 28:36

Friday. It is Friday. Tomorrow is Halloween. I think I'll dress up as a cup of decaf coffee. That's pretty scary. Or maybe I'll go as Jerry Jones. That's probably the scariest thing cowboy fans can ever see. More importantly than that, we need to think about John 5. The reading for Friday is John chapter 5. If chapters 1 to 4 are the chapters of belief, then this begins the rejection section. Over and over again, John will say they did not believe. And the dispute between Jesus and the Pharisees, they just get hotter and hotter as John moves through this material. And that begins with this healing on the Sabbath. What is Jesus thinking? Healing on the Sabbath. There is, of course, a note here that everybody's going to ask me about. It's down at the bottom of the page. Some manuscripts say something about waiting for the moving of the water, for an angel of the Lord went down at a certain season into the pool and stirred the water. And whoever stepped in first after the stirring of the water was healed of whatever disease he had. Is that part of the text? Is that really true? What's happening here? The first thing to notice here is that the reason it's footnoted is because there is really good evidence that this is not in the original work by John. The best manuscripts don't have it. P66, P75, the Cyanaticus, the Vaticanus, and others do not include it. The language and style here, furthermore, does not sound like John. And really, there's a doctrinal problem here. An angel stirring the water so that first comes, first serves. That sounds kind of like superstition. That doesn't seem like something God would be doing. Now, the evidence for it is there are some later Greek manuscripts that do have it, and it is cited in some other Christian writings outside of the Bible. Tertullian cites it. So maybe, maybe my guess is it reflects and reports the conventional thinking of the day, but I am not convinced that an angel did that. I think people thought an angel would do that, but I'm I don't see God working in that particular way. What we get out of this, though, is that Jesus does this sign, and instead of everybody saying, you're the Messiah, you're amazing, we're believing in you, what's the problem here? The problem, verse 18, is they seek to kill Jesus. And I think part of the problem here, verse 15, may be that the guy that Jesus healed ratted Jesus out. I'm not too impressed with that. I think this guy is the one that gets Jesus into trouble. Well, Jesus then gets asked about his identity, who he is, what's he doing, what's going on, and we get the first long discourse by Jesus. And it highlights the idea of Son of Man and his ability to give life to the dead. Notice how that is connected to what just happened in John chapter 4, 49 and 50, where Jesus gave life to the dead. That's a common pattern in John's gospel: miracle teaching or teaching and then miracle, and the two are linked together so that we better understand them. And Jesus certainly does not claim to be independent of God, verse 19, but he is in submission to God. That doesn't make him less than God, but it makes him know his role and where he is. A woman is in submission to her husband. That doesn't make her less than human because she's in submission. She just needs to know her role. And Jesus cites the divine prerogatives, verse 21. Only the Father can give life and raise the dead. Verse 22, judgment only God can judge. So Jesus says, verse 24, he can give life. And that again links to that healing, that raising in chapter four that we just read about. And as things begin to heat up more and more, Jesus cites witnesses, John the Baptist and God the Father, verses 30, 31, and 32. And then he begins to talk about why they don't believe. Because you're not the spiritual people that you think you are. You've never heard the voice of Moses. The word doesn't abide in you. Verse 39, you're missing the point of reading the Bible. What a terrifying idea that is. And in fact, you think that the word can give you life, but the word doesn't give you life. God gives you life. You don't read the word of God to master the word, to know more things about the Bible. You read the Bible to know God. And so he says, verse 42, you don't love God. You don't love God. And of course, the love of God is part of the prayer known as the Shema that the Jews prayed every day. So Jesus says, you're missing it. You're not the people that you think you are. You need to go back to square one and work on your relationship with God. What a thing to say to people who are reading their Bible every day. How about that? We need to take these words to heart and make sure that we are, that we are seeking relationship with God, not just mastery of an old book so that we can show off to our religious friends. The Bible, of course, is much more than an old book, but we can turn it into that if we're not seeking relationship with the Lord. Reading for Friday, John chapter 5. Well, there you go. That concludes the podcast for the week. I appreciate you listening to the podcast. I get such good feedback from people who enjoy the podcast. Heard from a visitor just last week who said how much she appreciates the podcast. That means a lot. That just means a lot. I appreciate your encouragement as we read the Bible together, as we think about the sermon from Sunday together. I'm Mark Roberts. I want to go to heaven, and I want you to come too. I'll see you on Monday with a cup of coffee.

SPEAKER_00 34:33

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.