Daily Bible Reading, Week 41

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Welcome to the Westside church’s special Monday Morning Coffee podcast with Mark Roberts. Mark is a disciple, a husband, father and grand dad, as well as a certified coffee geek, fan of CS Lewis’ writings and he loves his big red Jeep. He’s also the preacher for Westside church.

Chapters

• 1:50 Monday Matthew 12:1-14
• 7:46 Tuesday Luke 1:26-37
• 13:20 Wednesday Luke 1:57-80
• 17:03 Thursday Matthew 27:32-54
• 21:33 Friday Psalm 22

Transcript

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 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.

SPEAKER_01: 0:53

Welcome to the Monday Morning Coffee Podcast for Monday, October the 13th. I'm Mark, and I've got my Bible open to the New Testament. How about that? We are in the New Testament now here, week 41 of our Bible reading as we seek after God's heart the way David did. I can't give you any sermon notes because I was not at Westside yesterday. That's the last Sunday that I'll be out of town. In fact, it's going to be several months until I miss a Sunday again. It'll be well into the new year, Lord willing. So get ready, be home for quite a while. But I wasn't there on Sunday, was in Conway, Arkansas, celebrating Jane, our granddaughter's birthday. An absolute joy. Grandkids sure do make life special, don't they? Well, I'm holding a great cup of coffee. This is an Americano. Great way to start the day. And I have my Bible open to the book of Matthew. So grab your Bible, grab your coffee. Let's grow together. Our reading for Monday is Matthew chapter 12, verses 1 to 14. As I mentioned a moment ago, get your Bible open to Matthew chapter 12. We are moving into the New Testament and we'll be examining and looking at passages that mention King David and making some connections there to who he was and what it means for us to be people who seek after God's own heart. I have to tell you, my heart fell a little bit when I saw Matthew chapter 12 on today's reading schedule because this is one of my least favorite episodes in the life of Christ. And the reason for that, there are several reasons for that. One of which is the chapter break here is terrible. I think so much of what is happening here comes out of chapter 11, verses 25 to 30, especially and specifically 28, 29, and 30. Come unto me, all who are laboring and are heavy laden, I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. I think as part of our reading today, we see somebody who is yoked, and there is discussion of animals, and I think Jesus is connecting to that saying. And Matthew connects it because he says, at that time, at the beginning of our reading today, Matthew 12 and verse 1. Maybe the reason I don't like this the most, I would guess, is because it's so easy to misunderstand this. And it has been terribly misunderstood by lots and lots of people who have used this to prop up some false idea about situation ethics, that in some circumstances, you can just do anything that you want because of the law of love or the law of need or something, and then they use Jesus citing David to somehow make that all go. And of course, that'll never work. That will never work, not ever, ever, ever. This idea that human need negates divine law. There's no parallel here because when David takes the bread of the presence, Matthew 12 and verse 4, referencing out of Samuel when he's being chased by Saul, he was not starving to death. It's not like he was about to die. That's not what's happening there. And then, of course, the real question would be: how do we define human need? Is it all right to steal if your family is starving? Every man just ends up becoming a law unto himself. God always condemns lawlessness. There are no situations in which God gives you a pass. And if you have questions about that, you just need to ask Uzza. So, what we really need to know about this text is a couple of things. First, in verse 2, your disciples, the Pharisees, say are doing what's not lawful on the Sabbath. That's not right. That's not right. They are violating the traditions and rules that the Pharisees had trumped up. There were 39 different classes of work that were not to be done on the Sabbath. And so they say you're doing what's unlawful. No, what they're doing is a violation of their scruples, what their rules, their legislation. That's not, that is not God's law. And the tieback here, of course, is to heavy laden. Matthew 11, 28, come unto me all who labor and are heavy laden. This is an example of Jesus coming to free man from bogus religious regulations that are just heavy burdens to carry. So Jesus says, verses 3 and 4, it is ridiculous for you to attack my disciples about this. David did something that was actually wrong, and it was wrong. I never understood how people have decided that what David did somehow is okay because of the law of human need or something. When Jesus says, verse 4, it was not lawful for him to eat. If Jesus says David did wrong, hey, I don't know, I'll just side with Jesus. It was wrong. But what Jesus is saying is that this is selective prosecution. You never attack David for his real violation of the law. You are attacking my disciples over nothing. And what that really gets to is that Jesus is questioning their whole approach to the law, their entire attitude. They don't understand what God's law is all about. All they're adding to it is just making a complete mockery of it. And when you take that understanding into the next episode, verses 9 to 14, where Jesus heals the man with a withered hand, you see exactly what's going on in the front half of this with their wrong approach to law, because Jesus asks, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? Verse 10. Jesus says, Is the Sabbath a day that we can do good? Can we do good on the Sabbath? And this is again another how much more argument. Jesus loves to make those kinds of arguments. If you would, verse 11, do something for a sheep or some kind of livestock, some sort of animal, how much more, verse 12, this man is more valuable than a sheep. So is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath? And Jesus then presupposes that man is God's special creation. He has more value than animals. And so Jesus pushes here, think about what the law was about. Consider what the Sabbath is for. Doing good, refraining from evil, evaluating your relationship with God. It was never intended for someone to trump up a whole bunch of extra rules and regulations that make it almost impossible to keep the Sabbath. That's not what God intended. And of course, Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath. That's in Luke and Mark's account. That's not here, but Jesus here says, I'm going, or Jesus shows, I will do good. I will fulfill the purpose of the law, the purpose of the Sabbath. That's what Jesus does. But of course, the Pharisees don't get it. And so they went out and conspired against him, verse 14, to destroy him. Wow. So healing a man on the Sabbath is wrong, but plotting to murder someone, that's okay. You can see this is all about their entire attitude toward God and toward God's law. A reading for Monday, Matthew chapter 12, verses 1 to 14. It's Tuesday. It is Tuesday. And yes, Westsiders, we are zooming tonight. Dean and I are back in town, and we'll be ready to be on Zoom and talk with you more about the birth announcement of the angel Gabriel to Mary, the mother of Jesus. Our reading for Tuesday is Luke 1, 26 to 37. And this is a wonderful reading. This is as good as it's going to get. And this is the kind of thing that Luke does so very well and makes me love Luke's gospel so very, very much. And the sixth month, verse 26, is a reference to Elizabeth's pregnancy. And then Gabriel was sent to a city of Galilee named Nazareth. Nazareth is hardly worthy of the designation city. It's really more of a village. And the emphasis here is that Mary is a nobody. She is a nobody who lives in a nowhere town and is going nowhere. The virgin's name was Mary, verse 27. But of course, the important thing is she's betrothed, which is very, very binding in New Testament times, to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David. There it is, there it is, there it is. We read last week in 1 Chronicles 17, which is the parallel passage of 2 Samuel 7, that God will build David a ruling house that will last forever, a dynasty that will never be destroyed. And in 1 Chronicles 17, we talked about this last week. God's kingdom and David's kingdom are merged. My kingdom, my house, God says. And what's the ultimate fulfillment of that? Well, of course, at the time that you're looking at Luke chapter 1, there's not a Davidic king sitting on the throne. There's a Roman king sitting on the throne in Rome. It's not even in Jerusalem. Where's the king? Where is the coming of this promised Messiah from 2 Samuel 7, 1 Chronicles 17? And we're getting a hint, verse 27, of the house of David. There it is, there it is. She's very modest, verse 29. She's troubled by his saying. And so she gets more explanation, verse 31. You will conceive, behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son. You shall call his name Jesus. The wording here is very close to Isaiah 7.14. Very close to Isaiah's amazing prophecy of the virgin birth. And again, this is all about somebody who's just not anybody. She's not related to the king, she's not next in line for the throne. She's not rich, she's not wealthy. She's just a Jewish girl. Jewish girls married very young, 15 or 16, and nobody's ever heard of her, and nobody ever would have heard of her if it had not been for God's choice of her. Let me say something before I talk a little bit more about Mary and what the virgin birth means about verse 32 and 33. So here, of course, is the connection to David. He will be given the throne of his father David, verse 32. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end. This is a clear connection to 2 Samuel 7, 1 Chronicles 17. It is the first mention of the kingdom in Luke's gospel, and it is extremely significant in Luke's Gospel especially. The kingdom means the rule and reign of the king in your heart, the rule and reign of Jesus in your heart and in your life. This is the first mention of the kingdom, and Jesus is the king in the lineage of David, and he will rule on David's throne. That's the big connection we want to see today. Even as we think more about Mary, and I know people have a lot of questions about the virgin birth. Where are we going with that and what's that all about? Let's think about that for just a minute. Mary is told, verse 35, the Holy Spirit will come upon you. And so, in many ways, verse 34, how will this be since I am a virgin? The virgin birth of Jesus, it's such a unique event. And the purpose of that, of course, is to fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah 7.14. But sometimes we talk about it as a sign for Jesus, and I'm not sure how that's going to work. The only person, there's only, well, there's two people on the planet who know that Jesus was born of a virgin. And one is Jesus and the other is Mary. And nobody else can know that. I'm sure Joseph knew that and understood about that. He gets reassured by God, so maybe I should add him to the list. But when you want to talk about knowing, knowing, knowing, Mary is the only one that knows this. And so it's not a sign. I mean, you can't walk around and say I was born of a virgin. How would you prove that? What kind of sign value does that have? It seems to me that here in Luke's gospel, we have two women who cannot have a child. And the first is Elizabeth, and that's earlier in the chapter with Zechariah, and she's barren, and now she's having a child, the sixth month, verse 26. And now Mary, she can't have a child because she's a virgin, and she is going to have a child. And that's a supernatural event that overcomes that obstacle to bring about this promised Messiah. That's what this is all about. And I will add to our reading. Our reading today is supposed to stop in verse 37. I will not stop in verse 37. I want verse 38. Mary said, Behold, I am a servant of the Lord. Let it be done unto me according to your word. And the angel departed from her. This is a disaster for her. This is a disaster for her. Who will believe her if she tells people that she has not been with a man in the normal course of events? No one's going to believe that. She will be ashamed, she will be embarrassed, people will be clucking their tongues and she is scandalized, but she immediately accepts the will of God. This will be very hard for Mary, but she accepts the will of God. I love verse 38. Let it be done unto me according to your word. We'll talk more about Mary tonight in Zoom. If you're not part of the Westside Church, then I'll see you tomorrow on the podcast. Westsiders, I'll see you tonight on Zoom. Luke chapter 1, verses 26 to 37 is our reading for Tuesday. Welcome to Wednesday. Welcome to Wednesday. And our reading today is Luke chapter 1, verses 57 to 80. This is a longer reading. Chapters in Luke have a tendency to run a little bit on the long side. There's a couple of parts to this, two parts really, the birth of John the Baptist and verses 57 to 66, and then the Song of Zechariah, verses 67 to 80. This birth story really sets up the importance of John the Baptist and helps us see he's not he's not a usual child by any stretch of the imagination. There would be expectation, and the custom certainly in the first century is that you will name this child after a close relative, but this name is completely outside of anything. They can't even believe, no, no, no, no, no, no. We can't possibly name this child John. And I like that what he writes here is his name is John. His name is John. This is what the angel said, and this is what we must do. And so faith opens now Zechariah's mouth, verse 64, and he begins to bless God. And all of that, I think, just really hooks us. Luke is so good at that. If you had never read Luke's gospel before, you'd be on the edge of your seat. What will this amazing child who came to a woman in her old age? What is this child, what will he be like? And what kind of life is he going to live? And he's going to announce the Messiah. It's just, there's just so much that we're thinking this something really big is breaking loose here. And the song of Zechariah, verses 67 to 80, it really pushes that idea. There are two parts. This is often called the Benedictus. Verses 68 to 75, praise God for the sending of Jesus. And please get the surprise right there. We would think that Zechariah would be talking about, I'm so grateful that John the Baptist is coming. No, it's about Jesus. And then 76 to 79 is about the work of John the Baptist to prepare the way for Jesus. So God is blessed at the beginning of this song because he has set in motion the deliverance of his people by the Messiah. In verse 69, he's raised up a horn of salvation. Horn usually is a symbol of strength. He's raised up a strength, a symbol of strength, a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David. Jesus is the promised Messiah. Jesus is the Messiah in the house of David, in the lineage of David. And then verses 72 and 73 are also extremely important to show the mercy promised to our fathers to remember his holy covenant. That includes 2 Samuel 7, 1 Chronicles 17. That would include Genesis chapter 12. God is a promise keeper. He is a covenant keeper. He does what he says he would do, the oath in verse 73 that he swore to our father Abraham to grant to us. So God has set the wheels in motion from centuries past to Abraham, to David, and now this is happening. And it must have just been the craziest time because for 400 years God's people have not had a prophet at all. And now, and now we have a prophet. Verse 76, you child will be called the prophet of the Most High. God is speaking to his people again. A prophet is here. This is something big is happening. Something big is going. Verse 77, to give the knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins. The idea of salvation here is not political. It's not military. The kingdom is not a political kingdom. It's not a military kingdom. It's about our relationship with God. It's about salvation for sin. The Messiah will bring forgiveness and mercy and light and peace. And that is what 77, 78, 79 all talk about. John the Baptist preparing the way for the Messiah of the house of David, who will reign on the throne of David in the kingdom of David that lasts forever. Our reading for Wednesday, Luke 1, 57 to 80. Welcome to Thursday. Welcome to Thursday. And today we read Matthew chapter 27, verses 32 to 54. This, of course, is the account of Jesus' crucifixion. It is a long read, it is a difficult read. I think many in many ways we don't understand how humiliating and awful and disgraceful this kind of execution really was. The Romans had perfected this, and this was a way to say very, very clearly, you don't want to mess with the Roman government, you will lose, and you will lose badly. It was, in Roman law, deserved only for the worst criminals. In fact, a Roman citizen could not be crucified without a direct edict from the Caesar. And then, even worse, for the Jews, it meant the curse of God was upon you. Deuteronomy chapter 21, verse 23 talks about cursed are those who hang upon a tree. So hanging up the corpse of an executed criminal said to everybody, This was a bad man, and he is cursed by God. So, yeah, you can see now why they demanded crucifixion, and they didn't just take Jesus out and stone him, as will happen, for example, in Acts chapter 7 to Stephen. So they take Jesus outside of the city. There is some discussion here about offering him wine to drink mixed with gall. The wine was made bitter, so it seems like this is a cruel joke. Jesus would be very thirsty, and then what he drinks is undrinkable. That would be very, very hard. Of course, the emphasis today is verse 37. This is Jesus the King of the Jews. We've talked about Jesus being the king, and there's more truth here than Pilate knows when he writes this charge against him. He is the king of the Jews. They don't accept him, and they don't understand it, but you and I most certainly do. Then there's this awful sequence where people are ridiculing Jesus and screaming all kinds of insults at him. This must have been terribly difficult for the Son of God. It would have been absolutely nothing for him to demonstrate emphatically and without any question that he is in fact God's Son and has all power. He trusted in God, verse 43. Let God deliver him now, for he said, I am the Son of God. Does Jesus trust in God, or will Jesus come off the cross calling legions of angels? The answer is he does trust in God. In verse 46, the poignant cry, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? I want to talk more about that in our preaching theme this year because it's one of the questions that still remains for us to work through. But I would say this it is obvious that Jesus was under tremendous duress and that there were some terrible things happening here that are beyond our imagination and probably beyond our comprehension. One writer said, Part of the whole point of the cross is that the weight of the world's evil is converging upon Jesus, blotting out the sunlight of God's love as surely as the light of day was blotted out for three hours. That's pretty good. I think I think I'll rest on that at least for now. But Jesus is quoting Psalm 22, which we will talk about tomorrow. And the thing to know here is that Psalm 22 is a terrible sufferer crying out to God because he feels abandoned by God. But as we'll see tomorrow, it is also a psalm of trust. And I think that's huge for our understanding of Jesus upon the cross. He cries out to God, but he uses a psalm that says, God will deliver, God will save, I trust in God. Look at verse 43 again. Jesus does trust in God, and the use of Psalm 22 absolutely shows that. Of course, as we work down through the reading, we will see Matthew has clearly shown us that a new covenant, new things are happening here because the veil of the temple, verse 51, is torn in two from top to bottom. And then, of course, the tombs are opened, and people come rolling out of the tomb, and everyone's going to have a bunch of questions about that. And I'll just save you the asking of those questions. We're really unsure about 52 and 53 and what that means and how that goes. And I have to just serve you up a big hot cup of I don't know right there. But it does all punctuate that Jesus' death is an amazing and incredible event. It's unlike any other death. And even a centurion says, look at that. He's the son of God. He's the son of God. He seems to get more out of the death of Jesus than the religious establishment got. They mocked him. Oh, you say you're God's son, but the Roman centurion, he believes it. Our reading for Thursday, Matthew chapter 27, 32 to 54. Hey oh, it's Friday. It is Friday. Today we read Psalm chapter 22 or the 22nd Psalm. Let's have a little coffee here. Make all of this work as we get the day started. The 22nd Psalm divides neatly and cleanly at verse 21. It's just about essential. Can I make it mandatory without becoming a Pharisee, adding all kinds of rules and regulations to Christianity? It's about mandatory that you underline Psalm 22, 21. That's where the Psalm changes. Everything before that is terrible and awful, and everything after that is just great. So this is, here's your outline: the agony of the rejected man, verses 1 to 21, and then the victory of the answered man, verses 22 to 31. And it begins, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? The psalm plays entirely off the idea that the psalmist is a child of God, so he expects help and deliverance as a child would from his father. And the trouble here really isn't so much sickness or death or even enemies, but the sense of being forsaken by God, of being all alone. But verse 6 and down to about verse 13 piles on top of that all sorts of attacks. If you truly trusted in God, you wouldn't be suffering. If you are a real believer, all would be well with you. Kind of hear some echoes of the book of Job here. I want to talk about some of this in an upcoming question for QA morning, what people say when folks are suffering. And a lot of this is just not very helpful, is it? You're really down, you're really hurting, and someone says, Well, I'll tell you the problem, the problem is you're just not a very good Christian. If you really trust the Lord, verse 8, why are you suffering? You're either a hypocrite or God doesn't love you. Part of this, of course, is the God of convenience. He is there for our use and to make life good for us. And what is stunning about this is this is exactly what was yelled at Jesus. So I think what this Psalm does is serve to help us understand how Jesus felt as he died on the cross. It gives us a window into his mind, into his thinking. What was Jesus going through? Psalm 22 tells us about that and helps us see that. So verse 15, my strength is dried up like a potchard. A potchirt is a piece of broken pottery. And part of the horror of the cross is that you get thirsty and you dehydrate. And there's no answer for that. And it's just terrible. I can count my bones, verse 17. They divide my garments. Verse 16, I jump, verse 16, they pierce my hands and my feet. All of this is a clear description of Jesus on the cross for you and for me. But then verse 21, everything changes. Save me from the mouth of the lion. Now here it is, you have rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen. By the way, the NIV here doesn't translate this very well. The New American Standard and the New King James and the ESV have this. You answer me or you rescue me, or better, you have rescued me. Verse 24, he's not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted. He's not hidden his face from him. He has heard when he cried out to him. That answers verse 1. That answers verse 11. That answers verse 19. I am not abandoned. God hears and God will rescue and God will save. So we plug all of this into our understanding of Jesus on the cross as we read yesterday. And what are we seeing? We're seeing Jesus dying for you, dying for me, but even in the few short words that he can get out as he hangs upon the cross, he's cueing us to his absolute trust. His absolute trust. And I should tell you, there are psalms of lament that do not have a turnaround point, that don't pivot like this. There are psalms that are just, I'm abandoned. God, you seem to have forgotten about me. You're never going to help me. I feel like I'm completely out here by myself and you've completely lost sight of me. And Jesus could have quoted one of those psalms, and he does not. He quotes this consummate psalm of absolutely being broken, absolutely being abused, absolutely feeling abandoned by God, and he says, I am not. And so he makes the declaration, verses 27 to 31, to all the world. I want everyone to know, I want everyone to know how great God is and what God has done for kingship belongs, verse 28, to the Lord. In the short run, the writer of Psalm 22, that would be David, but in the overall picture, yes, Jesus, King Jesus, is the only one that really fits the language of Psalm 22. Our reading for Friday, Psalm 22. That wraps up the podcast for the week. I certainly do appreciate you listening, studying the Bible along with me. I just love having this opportunity to just work a little bit, give you a little bit more, work a little bit more out of our daily Bible readings, make sure that we are on track and we're watching for our big theme of the year, these ideas about David. It's just a joy to do this, and I appreciate your encouragement so very much. Got an email this week from some people who had visited at Westside and they listened to the podcast and they were very encouraging. It just means a lot. I really do appreciate that. So leave us a rating or review, tell other people about the podcast, all this stuff that I always say at the end. I'm I'm just pleased that we got this time together in the Word of God. I'm Mark Roberts, and I want to go to heaven, and I want you to come too. See you on Monday with a cup of coffee.

SPEAKER_00: 27:17

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.