Monday Morning Coffee with Mark
Monday Morning Coffee with Mark. A spiritual boost to start the week.
Monday Morning Coffee with Mark
A Conversation with Rusty and Mark: 2026 Daily Bible Reading and Preaching Theme Introduction
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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.
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 it further 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_00:Good morning, good morning. Welcome to the Monday Morning Coffee Podcast for Monday, January the 5th, 2026. Can you believe it? Wow, brand new year. I'm Mark. I got my Bible open. Have some ideas about daily Bible reading to share with you that are very, very important. And of course, I do have coffee. Can't do anything without a good cup of coffee. Open your Bible to the Gospel of Luke. Let's think about yesterday's sermon, maybe briefly, and let's get right into daily Bible reading. Grab your coffee, grab your Bible, let's grow together. Yesterday in the 1040, Russie and I talked about and rolled out the 2026 daily Bible reading calendar schedule for the Westside congregation and for everybody. I'm hoping lots of people will join in and read along with us. And I do know from emails and when I'm in gospel meetings and Facebook messages and so forth, a lot of people outside the West Side family are reading the Bible along with us. And our plan this year is called Like the Teacher, and it's based out of Luke chapter 6 and verse 40, where Jesus says, Luke 6, 40, a disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone, when he is fully trained, will be like his teacher. Our goal is to improve our walk with Jesus so that we can become more like the Master Teacher. More like Jesus. And if you need more information about that, I don't really have a lot of sermon notes here because there wasn't really a sermon, that was a conversation. Just listen to that conversation between Rusty and I. That'll tell you what you need to know about this year's reading plan and how that's going to break out and what we're looking for and why Rusty chose the order and the sequencing as he did and all the things that go with all of that. If you're not part of the Westside family, you can see that on our Facebook page or you go to JustChristians.com, listen to that sermon, watch that sermon. You'll be ready to go. You'll know what we're doing for this special reading plan. Really excited about this. Yes, it's longer readings. We talked about that yesterday, but don't panic about that. I think there's a real value in some of these shorter readings that we've done the last couple of years, but I think there's great value in taking off a big bite. And Luke's got some great, great stuff for us in those big bites. So our reading plan for 2026, like the teacher, from Luke chapter 6 and verse 40, let's start that reading plan. Grab your Bible. It's time to talk about daily Bible reading. And you know how much I love the Gospel of Luke. And if I say everything about 80 verses, then this podcast will last into Tuesday. So I'll try to cut some of this down. But as the year goes along, I will try to give you, for each book of the Bible, as we start a book of the Bible, some of that basic stuff, author, date, some of that kind of business. And of course, the author of the Gospel of Luke is Luke. There's wonderful, wonderful evidence that the Luke that we read about in Acts, who's journeying with Paul, is the writer of this gospel. And Acts goes all the way through 62 A.D. Paul's in prison there at the end of the book of Acts. And so this book is probably written a little bit earlier than that, 60, 62, somewhere around in there, written to Theophilus, verse 3. We don't know who that is, but the expression in verse 3 most excellent is used of Luke of governing officials. So lots have thought that he is some kind of Roman official. And probably the most important thing for us to understand as we begin the Gospel of Luke is this is not a biography of Jesus. It's not. Luke is a preacher first and foremost. He has excellent style. This is the best written style in the New Testament. Luke and Acts both contain just marvelous style, just easy to read, powerful, hooks you right in. And it's not a breakdown of Jesus' life. Think about how much of Jesus' life is not covered in any of the Gospels. It is specific episodes, stories, teaching, miracles that are being chosen, recounted by Luke, by the pen of inspiration, by the work of the Holy Spirit in his life to make us understand who Jesus is. And you'll see that even in today's reading. For example, a lot of stories that are recorded in Luke are written in such a unique style, a special way to make it sound like the Old Testament, to connect this new stuff with the old stuff, to make sure that we're seeing how the Bible is one story all the way through. And I would urge you to watch for some major themes in the Gospel of Luke. Joy and gladness. Luke is such an optimistic gospel, one of the reasons I love it so much. Repentance, the Holy Spirit, and especially God's love for all men. Those are front and center in the Gospel of Luke just all the time. And so we begin with this wonderful prologue. It's actually one long sentence. It's very, very Greek. This opening prologue sounds like a lot of other material that's written outside of the Bible. Excellent Greek style, one long sentence. Then the book gets very, very Jewish, very abrupt break from that Jewishness there, and we get the birth of John, the Baptist foretold. He will be, he will be the forerunner to Jesus. It's important to get him on the stage. This Herod, verse 5, that's Herod the Great, that's the baby killer. And I should say a word or two here about the priest business. The priest had been divided into 24 divisions, and there are so many priests, one scholar estimates there are about 8,000 priests in Judea. So each course only gets to serve for two weeks. And the business in verse 8, the offering of the incense, that was a very rare privilege. You could only do that once in your lifetime. So for Zechariah, this is the biggest moment ever, ever, ever, more ever for him. And he has got to be super excited about this. Look at the joy and gladness in verse 14, the rejoicing in verse 14, the Holy Spirit in verse 15. See, there it is. There it is. This is that wonderful, wonderful major theme kind of thing that Luke does just all the time. And then we get the birth of Jesus being foretold, beginning in verse 26. Jesus of the house of David. Wow, does that connect to last year? Look at 32 and 33, right out of 2 Samuel 7. There it is once again. And notice it's glad tidings in verse 19. It's very much good news. Here Mary is getting this exciting news. She's going to be a servant of the Lord now. And then she goes and she visits Elizabeth, and Elizabeth's filled with the Holy Spirit, verse 41, joy in verse 44, and then Mary sings this amazing song. It's known as the Magnificot, beginning in verse 46. The Magnificot is the Latin term for its beginning words. And this very much parallels Hannah's song in 1 Samuel chapter 2. Hannah, however, it's really kind of a shout of triumph in the face of her enemies, as one scholar says. This is much more a humble contemplation of God's mercies. And there's the connection to the Old Testament, 54-55. There's the promises to Abraham one more time. As if we have not had a full plate. Luke gives us a little bit more. We get the birth of John the Baptist. There's rejoicing, verse 58. And Zechariah then, verse 67, is filled with the Holy Spirit, and he connects to David, verse 69, connects to Abraham, 72 to 73. So I'm okay with calling it the New Testament. I'm going to call it the New Testament. Everybody calls it the New Testament. But Luke, Luke isn't calling it the New Testament. Luke is saying it's the Old Testament finally coming to complete fulfillment. It's not something brand new, it's what the Old Testament's been talking about all the time, and it's what we read about last year as we read about those promises to David. Our reading for Monday, Luke chapter 1. Welcome to Tuesday. Today we're reading Luke chapter 2, and there's a ton going on in Luke chapter 2. We begin verse 4 with the connection to David again, the city of David, the house and lineage of David. Jesus is born in David's hometown, Bethlehem. And he is, verse 7, wrapped in swaddling cloths. That's just a first-century diaper. That's not unusual. What is unusual is the manger and the fact that Mary is wrapping him. She is alone. This is a lonely birth, no midwives in attendance. Notice that this paragraph begins with the Caesar and ends with Jesus. Luke's saying something there. So the angels then make this announcement in verses 8 to 14 to the shepherds. And that has just become so commonplace today. Everybody thinks about that. Everybody knows about that because of everything that goes on around Christmas time. But shepherds are really big-time nobodies. Can you be a big-time nobody? They are nobodies. They were ceremonially unclean at all times. They were considered unreliable. They could not give testimony in a law court because they were known for stealing. So Luke is really saying something here about how the gospel comes to everyone. Let me have a little coffee here. And there's some argument to be made that they would not be in the fields in December. Others have argued that you can pasture flocks in the winter. And I'm not sure why there's a bunch of us that are just absolutely dead set on attacking everything that anybody has ever thought about Jesus' birth. And we do that during December when people are trying to celebrate Jesus' birth, and we're just very rah-rah about that. I'm not sure why we're so angry that people are glad Jesus was born. And maybe there's a lot that they don't understand about that, and there's obviously a lot with the Christmas celebration that's way outside of Scripture, but sometimes we just come off as just mean, and we just come off as just being hateful. And I think we should be glad Jesus was born, and I think we should be glad that people are glad that Jesus was born, instead of just trying to throw rocks at everybody who maybe have anything out of place, out of position on that. It is possible that there are shepherds in the fields in December. I always wonder if we take a trip to the Holy Lands and we saw flocks in the field in December, would we like be screaming at them, get out of the field, you're ruining everything that we Okay, enough about that. Rant off. Rant off more coffee. I just think that Luke is putting together ordinariness and glory in a wonderful way here. We've got a Messiah, the glory of the Messiah, in a manger. We have shepherds, we have angels. It's very much something that Luke does an awful lot of the time contrast this very earthly manifestation of the glory of God with how earthly things are here on this earth. And so the shepherds come, verses 15 to 20, and they visit. Luke likes to show people responding to what God is doing, wondering, pondering, praising, like the shepherds do. And then we get a couple of stories about Jesus. He's presented in the temple, and there's Simeon there. Watch the overkill on the Spirit's role, verse 25, 26, 27, all about the Holy Spirit working in Simeon's life. And then there's Anna in verses 36 and 38, because everything is confirmed by two witnesses, so we need a second witness, and her role here is to amen Simeon and what he's going to say and what he's going to do and what he's all about. And then Jesus goes back to Nazareth, followed by that very important trip to Jerusalem in verses 41 to 50 of our reading today. And there are a ton of questions about all of this that Luke does not mean for us to ask. Leading off with, how in this world did Mary and Joseph forget Jesus? How does that happen? And where was he staying while he was away from them? What was he eating? None of that matters. None of that matters. Remember, Luke is not presenting a biography of Jesus' life. He is preaching. He is preaching. And the key here is 48. Hey, your father and I have been searching for you. Jesus says, I have been, verse 49, in my father's house. Do you get it? Do you see it? You see it? Jesus right away. Luke right away, letting us know, Jesus, something really special. This is, yeah, this is the Messiah. Our reading for Tuesday, Luke chapter 2. It's Wednesday. It is hump day. Grab some coffee, climb on that camel. Let's read Luke chapter 3. Our reading for Wednesday is Luke chapter 3. We get this extensive workup of the historical background to begin the chapter. We get the ruler, Tiberius, so that would make this somewhere around 2829, because Augustus died in A.D. 14, so we're 2829, depending upon the calendar and how all that works. And then we get some local rulers. Pilate, he ruled from A.D. 26 to 36. Herod Antipas is mentioned. He's the son of Herod the Great. He received Galilee when his dad died. He ruled from 4 BC to A.D. 39. We get Philip. He ruled the lands northeast of Galilee from 4 BC to A.D. 33. And then we get Lysanius, and we're kind of uncertain about him. We don't know everything about him. But Abilene is west of Damascus. That's not Abilene in West Texas. Then we get the high priesthood. There were co-high priests during this time because in A.D. 15 the Roman governor had been had deposed Annas, and so some people thought that that was unlawful. He's really the actual high priest, but Caiaphas was appointed in A.D. 18 to serve, and the Romans recognized his rulership. Lots of politics going on right there. How about that? In place of all of that, then comes the Word of God, verse 2, the Word of God to John. John the Baptist and his preaching takes center stage now as he prepares the way for Jesus. Luke doesn't say anything about John the Baptist personally. We get straight to his preaching, and his preaching is the preaching of repentance because that identifies him with the Old Testament prophets. He is cut straight out of the Old Testament prophet's cloth. That's what he's all about. He preaches repentance, 789. We get some examples of repentance, 10 to 14. That's only in the Gospel of Luke. Verse 15, then really tunes it up. As the people were in expectation, all were questioning in their hearts concerning John whether he might be the Christ. Verse 15 is unique to Luke, and one of the things that Luke wants to do is straighten people out on that. He will go out of his way to make sure we know John the Baptist is not Jesus. There are people in Luke's day who are confused about that. We'll talk more about that in the Gospel as we work through it, and we'll talk about that especially in the book of Acts. In Acts chapter 19, we meet some John the Baptist disciples, and that's way after Luke's Gospel has been written. So we need to work through and think about some of that. But what we really need to do is get Jesus on the stage. And so John talks about the Holy Spirit, but John is pointing to Jesus. Pointing to Jesus, and Jesus is baptized, 21 and 22, and the Holy Spirit descends on him. The Holy Spirit descends upon Jesus. This is the one you need to pay attention to. The chapter concludes then with this genealogy. What's going on with this genealogy? What's happening here? And I know there's a lot of questions about that because it does not match up exactly with Matthew's genealogy. There's some good answers to that. This may be Mary's genealogy, not Joseph's genealogy. That's really beyond the scope of a podcast here. What do you need to be looking at when you read all of these names? The purpose of this is to show that Jesus has a legitimate claim on the throne, verse 31, verse 33, to show that he was not the son of Joseph, verse 23, and to show that he is for all men. Luke's genealogy goes all the way back to Adam, and it does help us see. Jesus is a real man. He is God in the flesh. He is fully human and fully divine. That's what Luke is pushing as he puts Jesus center stage now in Luke chapter 3. And Jesus will dominate, of course, the rest of this gospel. The reading for Wednesday, Luke, the third chapter. It's Thursday. It is Thursday, and today we read Luke chapter 4. The reading for Thursday is Luke chapter 4. There is an immediate connection to the baptism of Jesus with the Holy Spirit, for one full of the Holy Spirit, led by the Spirit into the wilderness that goes right back to 322. And there's a lot of stuff about the temptation of Jesus that's hard to nail down. What exactly is going on here? What's happening? I'm not sure I've ever fully been completely comfortable with everything that I want to say or know about the temptation. One of the things that happens here is that people get very all cranked up about deity being tempted. And people read James chapter 1, verse 13, God can't be tempted of evil, and they try to array that passage against Luke chapter 4. What we need to remember is that the James passage is talking about the ordinary situation as things normally are. There is nothing normal about God being here in the flesh. This is the most abnormal thing that could possibly happen. So someone says all cars have to stop at a red light. I get it, but then here comes an ambulance, lights in siren, and he blows through. Hey, what happened there? Well, it's not a normal situation. Ambulances are exempt. So Jesus as God in the flesh, a little exempt there, is that the right word to use for some of the standard things that we think of when we think about deity. Deity is omnipresent. Jesus was not omnipresent, he was right there in the flesh. So don't let that throw you, don't get lost in any of that. I do think there is an emphasis here on the authority of Jesus. I do think that this is an attack at the beginning of Jesus' ministry by the devil, an attempt to snuff out the ministry of Jesus from the get-go. That's something the devil likes to do, and we'll see more of that when we get over in the book of Acts. But I again I don't think I've ever really plumbed the depths of everything that's happening here. Jesus then goes to Nazareth and preaches. I reference this in the 9 a.m. sermon on December 21st, talking about closed-mindedness, because we have a ton of closed-mindedness here in Nazareth. They can't get past. Oh, we've known Jesus since he was a little boy. They can't think about all that they've heard that he's doing, all the miracles and signs that have been going on around Jesus, and let that break them open to some new thoughts about who this Jesus, who they think is the son of Joseph, really could be. And Jesus pushes the idea of the Spirit, verse 18. Reading out of Isaiah, the Spirit does several things: preaches to the poor, proclaim good news to the poor. That's the first mention of the poor. Remember, poor people in the New Testament world are people who are oppressed. They're denied justice. They have no standing in society. He heals the brokenhearted, proclaims liberty to the captives, release to them, recovering of sight to the blind. I think maybe thinking about spiritual sight there, set at liberty those who are oppressed. That's a term for forgiveness that's being used there. Jesus really is the one that's bringing the kingdom of God right here. It's happening today, verse 21. They're not good with that at all. Then we get some wonderful healing stories. Jesus heals a man with an unclean demon. Verse 31, he went down to Capernaum. He was teaching them on the Sabbath. There is the foundations of an ancient synagogue in Capernaum that have been unearthed. It goes, the foundations go to the first century. I'll tell you this: it's a lot. It is a lot to stand and look at the foundation stones of a building that Jesus taught in. It's a lot. You get a chance to go to the Holy Lands, you want to do that. It's pretty impressive. It's just, it's just pretty impressive. Verse 32, they were impressed with Jesus because his words possess authority. Jesus has a certain way of teaching, a credibility in how he says things and what he said things, and what he said. I think there is a dominant image in many people's minds that's pushed by some of these TV shows and some of these movies about Jesus. He's this very meek and mild person. I don't think you can get there from the Gospels. Especially in Mark, Jesus is a mega celebrity. But even in Luke, Jesus commands the room. Wherever Jesus is, he is the center of attention. Everyone looks to him. Everybody asks him, What do you think? What are you doing? Everybody's paying attention to Jesus. He just dominates everything. Verse 36, they were amazed and said to one another, What is this word with authority and power? He commands the unclean spirits. Get in your mind Jesus as the central figure, a powerful, powerful figure. And then there's a close here, some summary statements. The sun sets, and so then verse 40, people can come out and carry things at the end of the Sabbath. And Jesus is just healing left and right. And then he says, you know what? I'm not about healing. Verse 43, I'm about preaching. Preaching is what Jesus has come to do. The reading for Thursday, Luke chapter 4. It's Friday. It's Friday, made it to the end of the week, didn't we? And today our reading is Luke chapter 5. The reading for Friday is Luke chapter 5. Here's the calling of the first disciples, 5, 1 to 11. Major great story here. Here Simon says, We've toiled all night, verse 5, but at your word I will let down the nets. In the first century, at this time, the Sea of Galilee. Sea of Galilee is really kind of more of a lake. It's about 13 miles long by seven miles wide. And it is. It's about 700 feet below sea level. It's in a bowl. So the wind comes over those hills of Galilee and can just whip up a storm. We're going to see some of that kind of thing. But in the Sea of Galilee, Lake of Galilee, whatever you want to call it, the best time to fish is at night. And if you don't catch at night, you're not going to catch. So Simon says to Jesus, This ain't the time to fish. This is not it. But of course, it is the time to fish when Jesus says it's the time to fish. And so they catch all these fish and they're ready to go. Jesus calls them, they leave everything and follow him. We're going to see that again in verse 28. Verse 11, verse 28. Same idea repeated there for you. Jesus cleanses a leper then. Notice he touches the leper. There was Jewish expectation that leprosy would be removed in the time of the Messiah. So I think that's probably why Luke is giving us that story. He heals the paralyzed man, which again pushes the authority theme. Verse 24, the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins. That's what this is about. And then Luke loves the idea that Jesus is for everybody. And you can't get that any better than in verses 27 to 32, where Jesus calls a tax collector. Tax collectors were utterly despised. The Talmud says all tax collectors are robbers. They are cooperating with the Roman government. They are dishonest. They are just cleaning people out. You could set up a tax booth on a bridge. It wasn't there yesterday. It's there today. I'm trying to go to market with my stuff. Here the tax collector looks up and down my wagon and decides he'll take a quarter of it. What in the world?
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:These guys are hated, hated, hated. Jesus calls Levi, also known as Matthew. Notice he makes a great feast in his house, so there's rejoicing here. Pharisees hacked off about the whole thing. Jesus says, you're missing the point. I've come to call not the righteous, but sinners, and what's he calling them to? Repentance. Repentance. That's only, verse 32, repentance. That's only in Luke. Luke stresses repentance. Then there is this question here about fasting. And I think this is just about it's inappropriate to fast to be mourning right now. This is the time when Jesus is here. So we need to pay attention to Jesus and listen to Jesus. Maybe there's something here to be said about Jesus isn't patching up Judaism. He's replacing it with something entirely new. But as I've said already, Luke doesn't really see it that way. The old is being consummated in the ministry of Jesus. The old always pointed to Jesus, wanted Jesus to come. So sometimes people have made a big deal about the gospels replacing the Old Testament. I'm not sure I would get all of that out of this section here in 33 to 39. The reading for Friday, Luke chapter 5. Thank you for listening to the podcast then this week. Hope that's helped you as we have begun this wonderful journey to be like the teacher, wanting to be more like Christ. Thank you for listening to the podcast. It is a joy for me to open the Bible and to talk with you about daily Bible reading every day with, yeah, with a great cup of coffee. I'm Mark Roberts. I want to go to heaven. I want you to come too. I'll see you on Monday with a cup of coffee.
SPEAKER_01:Thanks for listening to the Westside Church of Christ podcast, Monday Morning Coffee with Mark. For more information about Westside, you can connect with us through our website, justChristians.com, and our Facebook page. Our music is from Upbeat.io. That's Upbeat with two Ps, U P P E A T, where creators can get free music. Please share our podcast with others, and we look forward to seeing you again with a cup of coffee, of course, on next Monday.