Monday Morning Coffee With Mark Intro

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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 it further 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.

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Because this podcast is all about starting the week with a look back at yesterday's sermon and then building that spiritual momentum forward into our week. And we do that, of course, by looking at daily Bible reading. And most importantly, okay, not most importantly, but pretty important, pretty important, got to have a great cup of coffee holding me some coffee today. Been doing some coffee roasting and just get great stuff when you do that. And it's been a joy and been a delight. I hope that you have a great cup of coffee. Or in the case of some of you, a glass of sweet tea, or even Coke Zero, or maybe even, maybe even a Diet Mountain Dew. Oh boy, oh boy. Let's think about the sermon yesterday. Let's think about our daily Bible reading. You know what to do. Grab your Bible, grab your coffee. Let's grow together.

Sermon Notes

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Yesterday I preached a sermon about taking time to be holy, and I want to give you an extra note here. From time to time, I have bonus thoughts. Here's you a bonus thought, the bonus thought for this week, and that is that setting apart time for God, dedicating time for God, making holy time, will mean saying no to good things. Think about it. The Sabbath required Israel to do what? Stop working. That's primarily what we remember about the Sabbath laws. But of course, work is not wrong. There's not something sinful about earning a living and providing for your family. In fact, God said you'll work on six days. That's a command of the Lord. So the Sabbath wasn't just about saying no to sin. Holy time isn't just about abstaining from evil. Sometimes to set something aside for God to sanctify it means saying no to perfectly legitimate activities because this is simply more important. And I do think that sometimes we imagine the great enemy of holiness is sin, and sin will keep you from being holy. But sometimes what keeps us from giving our time to God isn't something bad, it's something good. Work is good, family activities are good, recreation is good, hobbies are good. There's not anything inherently sinful or wrong with those things, but there's only 24 hours in a day, and you can't do everything. So if we are to set apart some time for God, something has to give. Holy time has a cost. It means choosing God over something else, even over something else that we might really want to do. Maybe the application here comes out of Mary and Martha's story in Luke chapter 10. Martha's serving, but that's not the thing to do right then. She needs to stop with something that's good to do something Jesus says that is even better. So part of the sacrifice involved in holiness is giving up something, something good. At least that's how that's going to work out practically sometimes. Honoring God means that we choose God instead of something else, something which may even be right in and of itself. That's not always easy, but holiness means setting time apart. Holy time means setting time apart for God. And if we never say no to anything else, when will we ever say yes to God? I hope that helps you as you continue to think about taking time to be holy. Now open your Bible to the Gospel of John.

Monday John 6

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And most important is this a reference to the Lord's Supper. This is, as we turn, let's have a little coffee here. This is the only chapter in John that treats the same phase of the Galilean ministry that we can read in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. In fact, this is the only miracle that is in John that is also in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. All four Gospels contain the feeding of the five thousand. John, in John alone, has the sermon that goes with it. So that really helps us and makes today's reading so important. A large crowd is following him, verse two. They see signs. That's verse two. John has only given us a couple of signs the water to wine in Cana, the healing of the official son, and of course the man in chapter 5 that is healed at the pool of Bethesda. But these are Galilean signs, and there were many of those. This is verse 4, the Passover time, the feast of the Jews was at hand. John tracks with those Passovers, the first Passover, John II, at the beginning of the ministry. Third Passover is at the time of his death. So now here we are in the middle of Jesus' ministry, about one year from his death. And there's no way we can feed all these people. Verse 10, 5,000 people, 5,000 men. I mean, you want to have a potluck for that many people, how much food would you need? And of course, Philip is only thinking at one level. He's only thinking about physical things. He says 200 denarii, that's two-thirds of a year's working wage, wouldn't get it done. And they do have a little bit, a little bit to work with. Verse 9 barley loaves are the poor man's bread, and the fish here would be salted and pickled. This is a very, very small amount of food, not nearly enough. And the miracle is recorded very simply. All four Gospels, very straightforward, don't make much of it at all. But of course, the crowd begins to figure this out, verse 14. And so what they're wondering is if he can do this with a little bit of bread, somebody find a sword. This guy can make us an armory full of weapons. Then we get a little interruption here. 16 to 21, Jesus walks on water. This is the fifth sign in the Gospel of John, and it is very compressed as compared to the other Gospels. In some ways, it's almost like John is telling us this so that we know how Jesus got on the other side of the sea. John's not making a whole lot of this. We don't get Peter climbing out of the boat, any of those kinds of things that are in the synoptic gospels. What John pays the most attention to then is the sermon, the famous bread of life sermon. And this is very much like the living water sermon in chapter 4. The feeding of the 5,000, Jesus says, points to his ability to give the whole world true bread. And I'll just go ahead, spoiler alert, I'll just tell you right now, Jesus is not talking about the Lord's Supper. I'm never sure when people try to make that case why living water is not water water, why we don't make that literal. But then when Jesus says bread of life, that's the literal unleavened bread of the Lord's Supper. We we use the expression for eating for many things. We say, you know, I just devoured that book, or, hey, did you swallow his story? Hey, I'm gonna chew on that for a little bit. And Jesus is using that same kind of idea where he's talking not about the Lord's Supper, but he's talking about believing in him to receive Jesus fully. Eating Jesus here is just a metaphor for belief. Notice verse 40, Jesus says there, this is the will of my Father. Everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life. And then verse 47, truly, truly I understand, whoever believes has eternal life. And then 54, 54, whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life. Do you see the parallelism here? It's about receiving Jesus fully, it's about believing in him. And as Jesus works down through this, notice that faith is a work. This is the work of God, verse 29, that you believe in him whom you sent. And as they continue to push for a sign, verse 30, there's some evidence outside of Scripture that the common thinking of the day was that the Messiah would once again call down manna, would once again would wow. How about some coffee to make that better? That the Messiah would once again call down bread from heaven. In fact, 2 Baruch in chapter 29 says, It shall come to pass that the treasury of manna shall again descend from on high, and they will eat of it in those years. Baruch is not inspired. Don't go looking for that in your Bible. But Jesus clearly thinks way too much attention has been paid to Moses, verse 32, because Moses is not the one who gave the bread. The Father gave the bread. We need to focus on God. And then we get the first I am statement that Jesus makes. There are seven of those in the Gospel of John. I am the bread of life. And when you are filled with Jesus, when you fully follow, when you fully believe in Jesus, then you can be, then you can be truly filled. That core emptiness will go away. And so Jesus says, the Father, all that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. Don't let that lead you down the path of once saved, always saved. The idea here is that no one, and we'll get more of this as Jesus moves through this sermon, no one can take you from Jesus. That does not say that you can't choose to walk away from Jesus. And so then in verse 44, Jesus talks about being drawn. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. How does the Father draw people to Christ? Next verse. Next verse. It's written in the prophets. They will all be taught, taught of God. God's drawing power is the teaching of Christ. As soon as we buy into Calvinistic ideas that there's some miraculous drawing, some sort of direct operation on a person's heart in order for them to follow Jesus, in order for them to be converted to become a Christian, then what we'll end up doing is wondering why God doesn't draw everybody. Why is God a respecter of persons? Whoops! Peter said he's not. So what happened there with some people being drawn and you don't go there. Don't go there. That'll never work at all. And so again, pay attention to verse 51. I'm the living bread that came down, came down. It's a hard day today, isn't it? More coffee. I'm the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he'll live forever. If this is the Lord's Supper, are we really saying that all you have to do is eat the elements of the Lord's Supper and that forces God to give you eternal life? We know better than that. And so there's a reaction to all of this beginning in verse 60, and it's not a great reaction. This, by the way, is the end of the public ministry in Galilee for the Gospel of John. And the next thing you know, a crowd of eight or ten thousand people is cut down to twelve. That says something about how success is not always determined by the crowd, and that some will no longer tolerate the truth. In God's good providence, verse 66, after this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. Somehow 666 becomes a passage speaking of people turning away from the Lord. You draw from that what you want, but the reading for Monday is John chapter 6. It's Tuesday.

Tuesday John 7

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It is Tuesday, and our reading today is John chapter 7. I would remind folks from West Side there's no Zoom call tonight. The elders meet on the first Tuesday of the month, and so we have no Zoom this evening. We get a rare glimpse into Jesus' private family life here, and sadly that doesn't look very good. There are those in Jesus' family who are not believing in him. And this chapter sets up in a couple of cycles. You'll see Jesus teaching, and then there's debate and speculation, and then Jesus' teaching causes the leaders, the Jewish leaders, to want to arrest him. This is all centered in Jerusalem. And that begins with the Feast of Tabernacles or the Feast of Booze, John 7, verse 2, depending upon what translation you have. The tabernacle feast is associated with the harvest time, and it ran seven days in the fall, which would be September, October. The Jews use a lunar calendar. That's a 30-day calendar, and so it moves. Those dates move depending upon the year and this all the things that go with all of that. That's probably a math thing. Please do not ask me about that. So it is fall, and how about that? We're reading this, and it's fall, and this is primarily a Thanksgiving festival. It's Thanksgiving for all the harvest and so forth. We're kind of coming up on that too. I'm not sure John 7 is going to give us uh Thanksgiving football, but keep reading with me. We'll see what's here. So the brothers then, verses 3 and 4, say, you need to go to Judea, and you need to be open about some things. And maybe, maybe some have wondered if they're aware of people turning away from him in John chapter 6, verse 66. And so they're saying, Jesus, you need to go do something big and recapture the crowd. And there's that Johannine reflection, verse 5, where John kind of gives us a little parentheses and says, this is what's going on. And you may wonder then about verse 8, because verse 8, Jesus says, you go up to the feast, and I'm not going to the feast. And then in a minute, Jesus does go to the feast. And the text there is difficult, but probably the better translation is I am not yet going. And I think you have the marginal note if you're holding an ESV down at the bottom where I'm not yet going. So Jesus does come and he is in the temple and he's teaching here in the temple. And so people are marveling at that, saying, hey, this guy doesn't have any schooling, verse 15, that just means he doesn't have formal rabbinical training. And then Jesus says, if you want to know God's will, you're going to know God's will. What does he mean by that? What he means by that is that God will meet you more than halfway, and that people who are interested in the Lord and in spiritual things are going to be studying and thinking and talking with others, and they're going to build faith. It's not some hidden secret. If you want to know God's will, you can know God's will. And then get the connection here to chapter 5. Verse 21, Jesus answered them, I did one work. Bingo. That's the healing at the pool of Bethesda in chapter 5. And so they get all caught up about Sabbath day and all of that. Verse 24, they judge by appearances. They are not considering everything that's going on. For example, what was it like to suffer for 38 years? Or that Jesus maybe is Lord of the Sabbath. So Jesus says you need to have a better standard of judgment. And Jesus continues to push then and say, hey, you need to think about who I am. And there's talk here, verse 27, that he may be the Messiah. And once again, we know that there are some ideas circulating during Jesus' time that the Messiah would suddenly burst upon the scene. So is is this what's happening? He's coming, he's coming. And then, of course, you get some of the stupid question. John loves to show people who just miss it. I think he's pushing his readers, that would be, yeah, that'd be us, to not think down those kinds of paths. And so verse 35, hey, is this guy gonna, is he gonna disappear? Is he gonna run off and live in the dispersion? That would be a Jew living out there in the Greek and the Gentile world. Nobody would want to do that kind of thing. And so Jesus continues to teach. And on the last day of the feast, verse 37, Jesus stands up and cries, if anyone thirst, let him come to me and drink. During the Feast of Tabernacles, it was a joyous feast. This is a very happy feast. Lots of people singing, lots of excitement. It's a harvest festival, and part of it was that on the last day, a golden pitcher, a large golden pitcher, was filled from the pool of Saloon and carried in procession, led by the high priest, back up to the temple. And trumpets were sounded as the procession approached, and the temple choir sang out of Psalm 118. And as they reached the conclusion, every male pilgrim would shake myrtle and willow trigs in his right hand, twigs in his right hand, coffee. I don't know if they shook their coffee, and then would raise a piece of fruit in his left, a sign of the harvest, and then the water was poured out, and everyone said, Give thanks to the Lord. And so Jesus uses that water pouring rite to say, I am the Messiah, I am the one from God. And I think he's building heavily on imagery out of Ezekiel 47 and maybe out of Zechariah the 13th chapter. Those passages speak of a time of the Messiah, the time when God blesses. And so the idea here, just like John chapter 4, living water, just like John chapter 6, eat my flesh, drink my blood, the believer comes to Jesus, and the believer is filled. The believer will be filled. And I'll give you one more point here, verse 42. Has not the scripture said that Christ comes from the offspring of David and comes from Bethlehem? I think that's an ironic note from John. Instead of being an objection to Jesus, it's a proof because we know that he did come from Bethlehem. And I think John is saying to the reader, you've read those other gospels and you know that too. So the reading for Tuesday, John chapter 7, no zoom tonight. I'll see everybody on the podcast tomorrow. It is Wednesday.

Wednesday John 8

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It is Wednesday, and today we're reading the eighth chapter of John. What about this long section beginning here at the top of the chapter through verse 11? That's all in brackets or in italics or sit down in the margin, the woman taken in adultery. Is that part of the text? What's going on here? Well, here's a sneak peek for Sunday's sermon in the 9 a.m. I'm just working that text. Talk about that text. Why is it in italics? What's going on with that? Is it part of Scripture? And what's it not teaching? That text is used terribly. And of course, what it is teaching, what we can really learn from this text. So I'm going to jump all the way to verse 12 here in the podcast, not because I think we ought to remove John 8, 1 to 11 from our Bibles. It's actually John 7 and begins, where does that begin? John 7.53. Not because I think that's not in the Bible, but because I'm going to talk about it a whole lot in the sermon on Sunday. So let's talk about the light in the world. Again, notice this is still during the Feast of Tabernacles. You've got to hold this together. I am the light of the world. And I said yesterday that the Feast of Tabernacles was a very joyous occasion, and there was lots of joy. People went down to the tabernacle, I'm sorry, to the temple, huge plaza there, the court of the Gentiles, golden lamps would be lit, huge golden lamps that held enormous amounts of oil, and they would be lit, and there would be singing and there would be dancing all night long. And I should say something very careful here about the dancing. Here's a quotation Men of piety and known for their good works dance before the crowd with torches in their hands and sang before them with songs and praises. There's nothing here that's immoral about this dancing. This is just dancing for joy. Think about Exodus 15 and Miriam dancing at the Red Sea. Not anything wrong about any of that. It's just a very joyous celebration. And so just as the reference to the water in chapter 7 points us maybe to the time in the wilderness. Remember, this is the Feast of Tabernacles. Feast of Tabernacles is about what? God sustained us during the time we were camped out in the wilderness. So the light might here refer to what in the wilderness? Yeah, the pillar of fire in the wilderness. And of course, light does connect to the glory of God seen in that cloud. And once again, Jesus is saying, I am the Messiah. Follow after me. You followed the light in the wilderness. You followed the cloud in the wilderness. Follow after me. I am the one, verse 18, who bears witness about myself. Jesus says, this is a divine relationship. There's not any human being who can really bear any kind of witness to that. What would you say? You haven't seen Jesus in heaven. Nobody can testify to that. So Jesus bears witness to himself, he says, and the Father is bearing witness to him. And of course, that's a reference to the signs that Jesus is doing. Then there's lots of discussion about all of that. Notice that Jesus is still in the temple, verse 20. And people are uncertain about that. Beginning about verse 21, people start talking about where did Jesus come from? 23, 26, 29, where is Jesus going? 21, 22, who the Father is, 26, 27, and of course who Jesus is, 23 to 26, and even verse 38. There is a textual difficulty here. Maybe you noticed in verse 25, just what I have been telling you from the beginning. That's very hard to translate. Very hard to translate. And it may be the idea here of what have I been saying all along? Or I told you at the beginning what I am telling you now. And there's the famous verse in John 8.28, when you've lifted up the Son of Man, you'll know that I'm He. And so when Jesus is lifted up on the cross, that will reveal him. One of the points of the cross, I have so much in the cross. Jesus, of course, is dying for sins of the world. We will see Jesus as the Messiah there. Who else would do that? That's going to reveal Jesus fully. And the trouble then that we have, verse 31, is we've got some Jews who believe in him, but shortly they're on the attack again and all bent out of shape about him. And that might be fickle faith, or maybe there's two different groups working here, but you get the stupid remark again. Verse 33, they claim to be free. That may be a reference to arrogantly saying nobody dominates us politically. I'm not sure about that. Maybe Jesus is going to say, hey, what about that Roman soldier that's standing on the corner and that you're having to pay taxes to that Roman governor in the capital Caesarea? Maybe what they mean here is that we are free spiritually because we're Abraham's children. We have relationship with God. And so those who practice sin, verse 34, that's a really good translation of that. The person who's constantly involved in sin, they get enslaved to sin. They can't have relationship with God, but the Son can set you free. The Son can set you free. You know the truth, verse 32. The truth sets you free. Verse 36, the Son sets you free, you'll be free indeed. And then things really begin to escalate here. It just starts getting very, very nasty. Verse 44 is really the opposite of 7.17. Jesus says there that you can, if you want to know God's will, you will. And here he starts talking about the will of the devil. You do your the will of the earth, father, and your father's not Abraham, your father is the devil. And so the children of the devil, verse 45, they're so steeped in lies that they can't recognize the truth. They can't even see it when it's right there in front of them. And so things get very heated here. You have a demon, verse 48. You're a Samaritan. It's the only place that Jesus is charged with being a Samaritan. And Jesus says, listen, I'm not here to glorify myself, verse 54. I'm not here to make myself anything, but I am who I am. I'm not faking this or just building myself up before verse 58, before Abraham was I am. And that is the identification with the I am of the Old Testament. The reading then for Wednesday, John, John chapter 8. It's John

Thursday John 9

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9 that we're reading today. It's Thursday. The reading for Thursday is John the 9th chapter. This is one of my favorite chapters in the Gospel of John. Many, many years ago, when I was still in college, Brent Lewis came and held a meeting, preached a wonderful sermon here, Nine Nails in the Coffin of the Unbeliever. And he just traced here how people are refusing to believe in Jesus despite every evidence otherwise. That was a great sermon. I remember that from many, many years ago. Notice this does come out of John 8.12, I am the light of the world. Once again we get statement, and then we get a sign that corresponds to that statement. He is the light of the world. He opens the eyes of the man born blind. John 9 5, I am the light of the world. And it's very important for John's readers to see how these chapters fit together. Chapter 8 anticipates chapter 9, and the end of chapter 9 anticipates chapter 10. In chapter 9, 935, Jesus goes looking for the blind man and finds him, and that does anticipate the good shepherd. In chapter 10, then anticipates chapter 11. The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep, which anticipates Jesus going to raise Lazarus from the dead, even though his life will be in danger. So we're still in Jerusalem. Chapters 8, chapter 10 make it seem that Jesus is still here somewhere between the Feast of Tabernacles and the Feast of Dedication. This is still happening, and it's a great place here to say something about sin causing suffering. Yes, sin causes all suffering generally, because we live in a broken and fallen world, but we can't make tight connections between an individual sin and suffering, or an individual suffering and sin. By the way, the rabbis did hold you could sin in the womb. And they cited Esau fighting with Jacob. Wow, I've known some bad babies, but I'm not sure I'm ready to say, you know, fighting in the womb, you're a bad baby, you're born depraved. In fact, I'm absolutely certain I'm not saying that. That's not what the Bible teaches. In verse 6, then Jesus anoints the man's eyes with mud. This is kind of like the healing in Mark 7, also in Mark chapter 8, and there is tons of speculation about the mud pack. Don't go there. We don't know what's happening there, but we do know that that's a violation of the Sabbath. Say more about that in just a moment. In verse 7, then he's sent to the pool of Saloon, and sending, you may have noticed already in the Gospel of John, is a big emphasis. So he is sent to the sent pool, and the pool of Saloom is on the southwest side of the city. There is a huge road that would lead up to the temple from there. You can see the pool of Siloam today. It is what the Gihon Spring empties into as a result of Hezekiah's tunnel. The Gihon Spring is outside of, it's just outside of the walls of Jerusalem, and it was cut underground. They dug from each end and met in the middle to bring water into the city in case of a Syrian invasion. It's a very cool tunnel. It's super claustrophobic, but water still runs from the spring Gihon all the way into the pool of Siloam today. And you can wade the tunnel and walk through it. It's a very cool experience. So Jesus has once again violated Sabbath traditions. Verse 14, it was the Sabbath day. That's what's important here. Healing was forbidden on the Sabbath. So making a mud pack, verse 6. Oh, can't be doing any of that kind of thing. And so you get some reasoning going on in verse 16. Look at the idea here. All godly people keep the Sabbath. Jesus doesn't keep the Sabbath, so he can't be godly. But others are saying only a man from God could do a miracle. Jesus did a miracle, so he has to be from God. Now, both of those ideas can't be right. The problem, of course, is in that first syllogism, all godly people keep the Sabbath. All godly people don't keep their silly traditions about the Sabbath. That's what we need to think about here, and that's where there's a breakdown. And we just see this man continue to come to faith all through the chapter. Verse 11, the man, then verse 17, he's a prophet. Then look at verse 27. Do you also want to be a disciple? If this man were not from God, verse 33, then verse 38, Lord. And so this man comes to faith in Jesus as the Messiah. Notice Jesus, as I said, verse 35, having found him. The shepherd seeks him. And so John is helping us see that if you follow Jesus, you should expect opposition, but you need to hold on to the truth and you need to do, you need to follow that conviction that Jesus is the Messiah. And in verse 38, Jesus accepts worship, which helps us see that Jesus is absolutely divine. You can't accept worship if you're not. And there's this last little interchange here with the Pharisees, which sets up chapter 10. And Jesus says, if you were, if you were actually physically blind, then you wouldn't be responsible. But you're not physically blind, you're willfully blind. And so you have greater responsibility here. That's what Jesus is pushing for, and that rolls directly into chapter 10. There's no break there. Right into chapter 10, Jesus will talk more about those who are willfully blind and who are keeping people out of the kingdom of God. Reading for Thursday, John chapter 9.

Friday John 10

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Hey oh, it's Friday. It is Friday, and the reading today is the 10th chapter of John. The reading today is John chapter 10. Remember, we have a flow here, connection from chapter to chapter, John chapter 8, light of the world. John chapter 9, Jesus shows he can give light. John 10 connects right into this as the dialogue continues. Look at 1021. Others said, These are not the words of one who is oppressed by a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind? There you go. This is all tightly connected, and this will flow into chapter 11, which we read next week. Let's have coffee here. And let's work on I am the good shepherd. In this particular metaphor, I want to say something about metaphors in verse 6, especially. Jesus is talking about sheepfolds, and that would be a sheep pen. Maybe we'd call that a corral here in Texas. And there were large community enclosures that would hire under-shepherds, verse 3, thinking about that a little bit, the gatekeeper there to watch over it. And so you would mingle, verse 3, several flocks into one corral, into one sheepfold, and the shepherd then could call them out by name. And the flocks, of course, in that day would be small. We're not talking about somebody with 10,000 head of sheep. And so small, impoverished people, shepherds, a man would spend a lifetime building his flock up, and he would know each and every one. And the sheep, verse 4, they would follow him. They would know his voice. One scholar even noted out of verse 5 that travelers in modern Palestine sometimes have documented this. They will dress the stranger, the tourist, in the shepherd's clothing, and he'll attempt to imitate his call. And what happens when he does that is the sheep run away. The sheep know the shepherd's voice, and they will respond only to the shepherd. And so that's the figure of speech, verse 6. The figure of speech is that's a term that never occurs in the synoptic gospels. There, the term for this kind of thing is parable, but parable never appears in John's Gospel. The idea here seems to be almost proverb. It's like a proverb, a wise saying. And so Jesus begins to expand that by changing the imagery here to gates and doors. Verse 7, I'm the door of the sheep. And it is possible that Jesus is referencing how there was no gate-gate. Instead, the shepherd would lay down in the opening of the corral of the sheepfold, that he would be the gate, literally be the gate with his own body. And so Jesus notes that these leaders, these religious leaders, this goes back to John 9, people who are attacking him for healing this man on the Sabbath, they will not enter by him. They want some other kind of way. There is no other way. There is no other way. Jesus is the good shepherd, and he has come, verse 10, to give us abundant life. I love that verse. I love that verse because it says the way of following Jesus is not misery and sadness, trudgery, doing these religious chores and dragging around a pile of rocks, your Bible, and all that stuff you got to do because you're a Christian. It's an abundant life. It's an abundant life. And that's what the Good Shepherd, verse 11, verse 14, that's what he's leading us to. Now, we need to be careful and not substitute in some precious moment's idea here of a sentimental shepherd holding a cuddly lamb. Shepherding is hard work, it's tiring, and it is dangerous. And the emphasis here is that Jesus, he will take that danger on, he will lay down his life, he will sacrifice himself for the sheep. The hired hand, verse 12, he may not be wicked like a thief and a robber, but he's not committed to the sheep. He won't do that. He is the good shepherd I know. I know my own. That's relationship. That's relationship. And so Jesus talks then about how his death is not an accident. It will be a choice on his part because he is the good shepherd. And so the opposition to Jesus continues in verse 22 at the time of the feast of dedication. The last mention of time was the Feast of the Tabernacles in chapter 7 and verse 2. So this is that was in the fall. Feast of dedication is Hanukkah. That's in December. And it commemorates the cleansing of the temple in December 163. Antiochus Epiphanes had taken over Judea, Jerusalem. He defiled the temple. He offered a peg on the altar. Just horrible. And so the feast of dedication, Hanukkah, commemorates the cleansing of the temple when the Maccabees were successful in taking Jerusalem back. And so Jesus is here at the time of the Feast of Dedication, and there's all this discussion here. We get a little more of that sheep business in verse 27. Some people try to use verse 29 to prop up one saved, always saved. Don't do that. It will not work. Nobody can steal from God, but you can certainly choose to walk away from God. Then in verses 34 to 35, 34, 35, and 36, Jesus quotes an obscure Psalm, Psalm 82. I wonder if anybody would pay any attention to Psalm 82 if Jesus hadn't cited it here, where Jesus says, if he called them gods to whom the word of God came, scripture cannot be broken. Why are you freaking out? Verse 36, that's my translation, when I say I'm the Son of God. And there is a ton of conversation about that. The 82nd Psalm, what exactly is being addressed there? Some of this is beyond a podcast episode. Some people think that Jesus is simply saying there is precedent for using the term God to apply to one that is less than God. I'm thinking about Exodus 7.1, Moses and Aaron, that relationship. So, hey, just stop with all the static you're giving me because I use the term God. And some have said that there's mob violence going on, so Jesus maybe doesn't have the opportunity to get into a complex theological argument. And that satisfies me in some ways. I don't know. 518, he's making himself God, 853. Who do you make yourself out to be? 1033, you a man, make yourself make yourself God. And I want to say here that Jesus clearly is saying, I don't make myself anything. And that's important because of the feast of dedication, Antiochus Epiphanes, he made himself out to be a divine being. Jesus is saying, No, I don't make myself anything. But Israel was made to be like God in that they were holy and beyond the power of death by the receiving of the law at Mount Sinai. And the rabbis in Jesus' day understood the 82nd Psalm to be referring to Israel being given the power of life, the power over death, being sent by God into this world by the giving of the law. So if he called them gods to whom the word of God came, verse 35, that's a reference to Israel. The Israelites got the word of God. And so if God consecrated Israel, made them holy, and sent them, then they could be called God in a sense. And so there's the emphasis on the action of God. And Jesus says, I'm not making myself into anything. God is the one who sent me. I am the Son of God. I'm doing the works of the Father. I'm doing what God tells me to do, wants me to do. I'm sent by God. That's why I make this reference. And maybe that helps us better understand why Jesus is referencing that rather unusual psalm, Psalm 82. Maybe that's where that is. Is it not written in your law? I said you are God. So I hope that helps you here on Friday as we finish up the reading for Friday, John chapter 10. The reading for Friday, the 10th chapter of John. That brings the podcast for the week to a close. Thanks so much for listening. I hope if the podcast is a blessing to you that you are telling others about it. It's a blessing to me. It's a joy. Sit down with a cup of coffee, open the Bible, talk about the Word of God, talk about the sermon from Sunday. It's it is my privilege to bring the podcast to you each week. And I certainly do appreciate the folks who do all the things behind the scenes to make that happen, the technical sorts of things, so that is right there in your podcast feed. I appreciate them so very much and appreciate you, the listener, especially those of you who've taken the time to send an email to make a comment to tell me personally that they appreciate the podcast. I'm just excited to have the opportunity to talk with you about the Word of God each week. I'm Mark Roberts, and I want to go to heaven, and I want you to come too. I'll 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, just Christians.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'll look forward to seeing you again with a cup of coffee, of course, on next Monday.