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February 10, 2025 26 mins

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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.

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hello, and welcome to the Westside churches
special Monday Morning Coffeepodcast on this podcast, our
preacher Mark Roberts will helpyou get your week started
right. With look back atyesterday's sermon so that we
can think through it furtherand better work the
applications into our dailylives . Mark will then look

(00:28):
forward into this week's Biblereading so that we can know
what to expect and watch for.
And, he may have some extrabonus thoughts from time to
time. So grab a cup of coffeeas we start the week together
on Monday Morning Coffee withMark.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Good morning. Good morning. Welcome to the Monday
Morning Coffee podcast forMonday, February the 10th. I'm
Mark. I've got some greatcoffee right here. This is
Ethiopian Jgi chef and it is awonderful light roasted coffee.
I have notes from yesterday'ssermon about why Christianity
is so wonderful. I am reallyliken that series a lot. And
then we're gonna talk aboutSamuel and what a jerk Saul is.

(01:17):
Wow , that was a downer, butit's gonna be a great week and
there's lots of great stuff inthe word of God for us this
week and lots of things tothink about from yesterday's
sermon about grace. So pourthat cup of coffee, get ready,
get set, let's go. So yesterdayin the 10 40 hour, I continued
my series that I'm just doingoccasionally from time to time

(01:38):
about why Christianity is sowonderful. And that gave me a
good opportunity to talk aboutgrace because grace is what
empowers Christianity and makesit so wonderful. But sometimes,
sometimes we don't maybe thinkit's so great, it's not so
amazing. And I tried to workwith that some yesterday. I'm a
little worried sometimes asermon can get very technical

(01:59):
and that may be hard to followand sometimes the preacher
brings way too much materialand he's trying to deliver
three hours worth of materialin about 17 minutes and it just
kind of overwhelms everyone. Ihope that was not the case
yesterday and I hope that maybesome clarity about a better
definition of grace is helpfulto you. But I do want to say
this, I really believe whatmost people are looking for

(02:22):
when we talk about grace, teachabout grace, preach about
grace, is to have moreconfidence in their salvation.
And we look over at ourCalvinistic friends, I'm sorry,
reform theology is now the termthey want to use. We look at
those folks and and they havethis grace is a no strings
attached gift and it saves youno matter what the perseverance
of the saints once saved,always saved. And that looks

(02:44):
very, very comforting and weare kind of envious of that.
But I would remind you thatpart of the package of
Calvinism, of reform theologyis also the belief in
predestination that God decideswho is saved and who is lost no
matter what you ever do. So howmuch assurance you got. Now
you're always wondering whetherI'm in the saved or I'm in the

(03:06):
lost, and if I'm over here inthe lost , there isn't anything
I can do about it because Godarbitrarily makes all those
decisions before anything everhappens and you can't move from
one group to the other. That'swhere the perseverance of the
saints come from. If God hasdecided that you are saved,
then you are saved no matterwhat you do. So Calvinists
don't have near as muchassurance as sometimes we think

(03:27):
they do standing over there ifthey're once saved, always
saved business. There's somethings that come along with
that that undermine trueassurance. Instead, when you
understand what grace means inthe New Testament world, that
it is a gift given to bond,then what you and I have is a
relationship with God. And Iwant to emphasize bonding. What

(03:50):
that means is God wants you tobe saved. He gave his son so
you'd be saved. He gave us hisword so we'd be saved. He gave
us his church so that we couldkeep being saved. He gives us
in his providence, deliverancefrom temptation and a gazillion
other things so that we will besaved because God wants you to
be saved. And if you needassurance in your salvation,

(04:12):
I'm gonna suggest that ratherthan looking at yourself and
talking about what you havedone to respond to God's great
gift, which of course isimportant and essential and we
want to do that, what kind ofperson would not respond to
God's amazing gift? We mustrespond to God's amazing gift.
But my response is always goingto be far short of God's

(04:34):
amazing gift. I guess maybe tokeep working that gift
metaphor. If, if someone givesa student a four year
scholarship to school and therewas no way that they were gonna
go to school and now they aregoing to school, they will
write a thank you note and theyshould write a thank you note.
But the thank you note fallsfar short of the value of a

(04:55):
four year scholarship. And ourresponse to God's grace will
always fall short of hisamazing grace. But what we
focus on is that he wants us tobe saved. Therein is assurance.
If God wants me to be saved andI want to be saved and I'm
trying to respond to his grace,you know, and I know that's

(05:19):
gonna work out, that's gonnawork out because God wants us
to be saved and I'm respondingin that relationship to him.
And that is wonderful. Go readTitus three verses 4, 5, 6, and
seven and you'll know we can'tbut grace can and that's

(05:40):
amazing and it makesChristianity wonderful. Let's
go see what David's up to as hecontinues to struggle with the
king who would like to murderhim. Let's turn our Bibles over
to First Samuel. It is Mondayand the reading for Monday is

(06:12):
First Samuel chapter 20, versesone to 23, the reading for
Monday. First Samuel chapter20, verses one to 23 . And I
think it's important for us tostep back for a moment from the
material here in Samuel andjust ask why is this in the
Bible? What's going on here?
And a big piece of that is thismaterial shows how innocent
David is. That would be veryimportant to establish him as

(06:34):
the rightful king. He is not awicked assassin who cut down
the true king and usurp thethrone. And there's actually a
number of places as we continueto work through the life of
David, that people willactually say some things.
Usually they're mites, usuallythey're from Gia of Saul and
there are people who are sayingthings about you usurp the

(06:55):
throne, you don't get to be theking. And this material lays
those kinds of ideas to rest.
But as we turn to one Samuelchapter 20 today, and you
notice verse five, David's justhad it. He needs this matter
settled once and for all I I, Ican't keep coming to the court
and Saul's throwing things atme. I gotta get this fixed. So

(07:15):
the new moon would be a time ofjoyous celebration. Amos
chapter eight and verse fiveactually says that business
stopped on that day. This is afestival that will last a
couple of days. Very excitedtime, everybody's gonna
celebrate. And so David is infact verse six, he's telling a
lie here and that's not a goodthing. That doesn't make it
right just 'cause David did it.

(07:36):
And so Jonathan tries toreassure David and they work
through that enough that theydecide, Jonathan decides to
make a covenant. Verse 14, ifI'm still alive, show me the
steadfast love of the Lord.
Steadfast love of the Lord isthat special term there for has
said covenant kindness. Andthat expresses the incredibly

(07:58):
close bond between Jonathan andDavid based upon faith in God.
And it is an admission byJonathan that he will not be
the king. He understands thathe understands the will of God.
He is submitting to andacquiescing to the will of God.
I will not be the king and whatI need to know, verse 15, don't
cut off your steadfast love formy house forever. Don't

(08:21):
eradicate my family. That isextremely common in David and
Jonathan's world. When a newking comes to the throne,
particularly from a differentfamily, then what he does is he
wipes out the old family. Thatway nobody can say your
pretender to the throne and itreally should be this fellow
right here. In fact, thatdoesn't even have to be an
entirely new family. Sometimeswhen a king comes to the

(08:43):
throne, he kills all of hisbrothers so that none of them
can say, I have the right tosit on the throne. Very, very
common. Jonathan says, pleasedon't do that. And they make a
covenant together. Then theyset up a signal, a sign, and
there's some discussion in theHebrew uh , about how to
translate that Hebrew and wherethe air is gonna be shot. Uh ,

(09:03):
don't get down in the weeds onthat. What matters is Jonathan
will sound out his father andwill find out where Saul is on
this. And then he will signalto David so that David can know
whether he can return to thecourt or not. Our reading for
Monday. One Samuel chapter 21to 23. See you tomorrow.
Welcome to Tuesday. Today'sreading in Samuel is one Samuel

(09:26):
chapter 20 verses 24 to 42.
This is a rough reading. Thisis a rough reading. We'll talk
more about it in Zoom tonight.
But there's nothing here thatmakes Saul look any better.
He's looking worse by themoment. I said last Wednesday
night in Bible talks thatsomeone had mentioned to me
they just want sa to get offthe stage and nothing in

(09:48):
chapter 20 in our reading todaywill change that view,
particularly what he says inverse 30. Let me give some
attention to the text. Verse25, the king sat on the seat by
the wall. Saul's looking moreparanoid by the moment. I think
it's wild . Bill Hickok whoalways sat with his back to the
wall so he could watch theentrance to the saloon, see if

(10:08):
somebody's coming in to shoothim. Saul's doing the wild Bill
hickok thing here. ThenJonathan tries to cover for
David and even tries to explainaway David's absence and it
becomes clear that Jonathan ishelping David. And that results
in verse 30 where Saul says,you son of a perverse
rebellious woman. And youshould know that that is
rendered rather gently in themajor translations. There's

(10:29):
some euphemisms being usedthere. It's very vulgar and
very co coarse language. TheNLT renders that you stupid son
of a. And that is an insult toJonathan . It's an insult to
Jonathan's mom. It's justterrible. It's just terrible.
And the fact that he talks likethat and uses that kind of
language just tells useverything about where Saul is

(10:49):
spiritually because verse 31,he knows that if David is king,
Jonathan cannot be king. Andthat's what it's all about for
Saul . Verse 31. That's hisagenda. I want my family to be
established. I want a dynasty,I want a legacy. I want my son
on the throne. I don't carewhat God wants. So Jonathan
then meets with David, they gothrough the signal and then

(11:11):
verse 40, Jonathan uh , says tothe boy, Hey, gather up the
weapons and you go on into thecity. And then he and David
have a cheerful party. Andsometimes that confuses people.
I thought we had a signalbecause we weren't going to
have any kind of parting. Andthe way to understand that is
to understand that Jonathanwasn't sure that it would be
safe for him to actuallyphysically talk to David. And

(11:34):
so that's what the signal'sabout. But it becomes clear to
him after they've gone throughall the machinations with all
of that, Hey I , I've got aminute here and if the boy will
go into the city, we can talk.
And so David and Jonathan talkand they do weep. Um , they ,
there will be one other timethat David and Jonathan are
together. Uh , but it's just ,it's just bitterly difficult
for both of them. They valueeach other's friendship so

(11:57):
much. And King Saul is utterlywrecking that friendship of all
the things that we can holdagainst King Saul. And that's a
long list. One of them, andit's pretty close to the top of
my list, is that he destroysthe Saul, I'm sorry, he
destroys the Jonathan Davidrelationship. And Jonathan
would've been such a tremendoushelp to David once he became

(12:20):
King Saul. That's on youbecause all you think about is
what you want rather than thewill of God. The reading for
Tuesday, a difficult and betterreading for Samuel 20 verses 24
to 42. Welcome to Wednesday.
Our reading today is for Samuelchapter 21, the reading for
Wednesday for Samuel chapter21. Lemme get some coffee here,

(12:42):
see if we can get going withour reading. This is, this is
kind of a crazy reading, noquestion about it. There's two
parts to this. David runs toknob in chapter 21 verses one
to nine. And then David fleesto GA chapter 21 verses 10 to
15. And I think what we'reseeing here is just the
beginning of the rest of oneSamuel David is in flight from
Saul from here on Saul pursuesDavid and David is always

(13:06):
running for his life. That's sohard on David. And we'll see
some breaking points as wejourney along in Samuel and
particularly as we read in thePsalms on Friday, that will
help us tremendously to get asense of where David is
emotionally and mentally. It'sjust hard to be pursued by an
army and by the king. This is,this is not what David signed

(13:29):
up for when Samuel showed upand anointed him as king is it.
So he heads to knob and therehe consults with a Alek . A
alek is the brother of a hijawho is part of Saul's red in
you . He is the one thatadvises Saul after Samuel will
not First Samuel 14 versethree. And so it is clear that

(13:50):
David does not trust a Alek .
He would not trust him. A Aleksbrother is on the other side of
this divide. And so David justlies. There's so much lying
going on in this text and noneof that is good. None of that
is good. Don't tell lies. Just'cause David told lies doesn't
mean you can tell lies I cantell lies lying, it's bad.

(14:10):
Don't do that. And eating theshowbread bad, don't do that.
Talked a lot about showbread inmy class on Sunday mornings, on
in in the book of Leviticus.
The the showbread is only forthe priest and Alek here gives
the bread to David and heshould not have done that.
Maybe, maybe he's just afraidof David. I'm gonna guess when

(14:32):
David shows up with his bandand it does seem sometimes it
seems like David is alone andsometimes it seems like David's
got his guys with him. I'mthinking this is a pretty thugy
looking bunch. And by this timeDavid is a mighty warrior and
has killed an awful lot ofpeople and he knows how to kill
people. And I think Alek isjust bullied and afraid of him.

(14:52):
And so he gives him what heshould not have given him. Now
people have used this tojustify everything under the
sun because Jesus makes a pointout of this in the gospels. But
as Jesus is talking about it,he explicitly says it was
unlawful for David to eat theshow bread . I agree with
Jesus, it was unlawful. Notablyverse seven, a little bit of

(15:15):
foreshadowing here, there's anmite standing there and he sees
everything that's going downthat will come back to haunt
David later on. And so Davidgrabs Goliath's sword. I'm
wondering if he's just gonnalike use that as a gift. Maybe
he's gonna give that to theking of the Philistines. It's
hard to imagine that David iscomfortable wielding Goliath's

(15:38):
sword maybe. Maybe he's biggernow and he is comfortable, but
Goliath's sword would just behuge. The sword for a nine foot
tall man is not the sword thatDavid a five foot tall man
would want to be carryingaround. So maybe he's heading
to the local pawn shop and geta hocket . I don't know. But he
takes it and goes to gaff andthat's an absolute disaster.

(15:59):
Gaff is about 30 milessouthwest. It's on the coast.
The Philistines live in thatpart of the world that's now
known as the Gaza Strip. That'swhere they are. You're seeing
that map on the news all thetime. So that's where the
Philistines are. And this goesterribly wrong. Did David
really imagine that peoplewouldn't recognize him there?
Everybody is panicking and sohe has to act like a madman.

(16:22):
There's a great contrast here.
Saul is mad. David can fake it.
David can control the madness.
Saul is out of control. And youmight make a note here, Psalm
34 was written during this timeand we will read Psalm 34 on
Monday next week. So that'swhere that's coming from. It's

(16:43):
Wednesday though today andtoday we read all of one Samuel
21, the reading for Wednesday,one Samuel 21. Welcome to
Thursday. Our reading today isone Samuel 22. The reading for
Thursday is the entirety of oneSamuel chapter 22. Sometimes
people will say it just can'tget any worse and usually,
usually they're wrong. And oneSamuel 22 maybe underscores

(17:06):
that because I'm pretty fed upwith Saul. I didn't think it
could get any worse. And thensomething horrible happens in
one Samuel chapter 22, Sauldoes something that is so
incredibly unthinkable. It'shard, it's hard to even read
any of this. But David is inthe cave of a doula. This is a
time when he wrote Psalm 57 inPsalm 1 42. We'll read those

(17:28):
psalms next week. And everyonewho's in distress is pouring
out to David. All the peoplethat Psal has been oppressing
and kicking around and peoplewho have problems and maybe
people who are outlaws and notreally known for coloring
within the lines. All of thosepeople show up, which helps us
see that David has quite theband about him. His group of

(17:49):
people would be a gang of Tuftsthat you would not want to mess
with. Even still, Davidconsults with God. Notice he
leaves his parents in Moab,verse three, which just shows
you how bad it is. And then Gadtells him, this is not where
you need to be. You need to goback to Judah. And so David

(18:11):
obeys God. Verse five. That's alittle verse, but it's a great
hint at David's character. He'sconsulting God, he's responsive
to God, he obeys God. You wannabe like David. There you go.
Consult God. Respond to God,obey God. Obviously we don't
consult through a prophet todayand God is not gonna speak
directly to you or to me, butwe can consult God through his

(18:33):
word. We can consult Godthrough his church as we
consult with wise brethren,wise sisters who may be a
little bit more life experiencethan we have. We can listen to
them and care for them and andcare for the advice and counsel
that they give us. So then weget this just terrible,
terrible situation. Verseseven, Saul won't even use
David's name anymore and he'sbig time paranoid, big time

(18:55):
paranoid. Verse eight.
Everybody's conspiring againstme and he just wants everybody
to have pity upon him. There isno conspiracy. Verse 14, Alek
says, nobody's conspiringagainst you. David is very,
very faithful. What is thedeal? You completely missed
this. And the king says verse17, we're wiping these guys

(19:16):
out. They help David kill allthese priests. And you'll
notice right thinking peoplesay, I'm not doing that. I will
not do that. This is wrong. AndI don't, I'm not gonna
participate in that. I don'tcare if you are the king, I
won't do that. But of course,dag the mite, verse 18, he
doesn't care about God. Hedoesn't care about what's

(19:36):
right. He doesn't care aboutwhat's wrong. He just murders
85 persons who wore the linenephod . Verse 18, the linen
ephod . That's the mark of thepriest of Jehovah. And those
are white robes. Think aboutthe scene here, the blood of
these priests on these whiterobes. And I have to ask great

(19:56):
verse 17, that they wouldn't dowhat the king said, but how
come nobody told dag you won'teither. Somebody needed to
stand up for those priests.
Don't let this man just murderthem, massacre them. What is
going on? One of the sons of ahemal, verse 20 escapes and he
comes in towels. David, whatSaul had done, and David knows

(20:22):
it's on me, it's on me. I gotthem in trouble. I made it look
like they were involved. I madeit seem that they were on my
side. This is my fault. AndDavid w writes Psalm 52 from
this terrible tragedy .
Tomorrow we read Psalm 52.
Today's reading Thursday'sreading is for Samuel 22 . It

(20:47):
is Friday. It is Friday. Ourreading today is the 52nd
Psalm, just nine verses. Psalm52 is our reading today. I
really think our schedule, ourreading schedule this year is
going to pay huge dividendswith these readings on Friday
in the Psalms because Davidwrites some of these psalms at
the worst times in his life andthey help us then to understand

(21:09):
where he is. And particularlyas they constantly speak of
trust in God, they help us growour trust in God. If David can
trust in the middle of such atremendous crisis and all the
things that are happening tohim, we can trust as well. And
what this Psalm is about is aterribly wicked and evil
person. This is the one whomocks God and who does what he
wants to do even if it hurtsothers. This is Atella the Hun

(21:32):
. This is Adolf Hitler. This isJoseph Stalin. This is the
child molester. This is thedrug dealer who sees his
customers overdose and die.
This is the person who comesinto a school and shoots
children. This is an evil andwicked and horrible person. And
what David does here is bothcry out to God about that,

(21:54):
which would make it a lament.
But I think more than justthat, it's a psalm of trust.
It's a psalm of trust. And I'llcome back to that at the end
because what really bothersDavid here is evil people and
the shamelessness of how theyact. And we gotta watch what
David says about that. Hebegins by talking about the
vicious attack of the evilperson. Uh , the evil person

(22:17):
versus one to four. And I'mthinking about dag the mite
here. And we saw that yesterdayin our reading, even if DAG
wasn't strutting up and downand boasting about it out loud.
David's real point is he'spleased with himself. He has no
remorse. He's not repenting andand I love that. Oh, why do you
boast of evil , alm mighty man?
I think that's sarcasm. Oh, youare a tough guy. Dag . You

(22:40):
killed a bunch of priests and abunch of women and children,
aren't you the mighty warrior?
And then David moves from fourverses talking about the attack
of the evil to talking aboutexecuting the evil in verses
five, six and seven, that Godwill execute this evil person.
This is the response of therighteous. At first, the
righteous are just astounded atwhat evil people can do. But

(23:02):
then they delight and theylaugh and they praise God. And
the laughing here is notgloating. That's not what this
is about. It's just thatsurprise that God can turn the
tables. This person looked likethey were totally in charge and
they're running the world andthey always get their way. And
God just upsets the apple cartand brings justice and judgment
upon them. Which explainsverses eight and nine, the

(23:24):
confidence of the righteous. Iam like an olive tree. David
says, olive trees are soimportant in the Bible and they
are still so important in theBible lands today. They are an
evergreen that can bear fruitand they can grow for centuries
bearing that fruit. In fact,Dean and I, when we were in the
holy lands, we saw a uh , anolive tree in the garden of

(23:47):
Gethsemane. They still knowthat site. And there's an olive
tree there that is 2000 yearsold. They don't know exactly
where Jesus prayed inGethsemane, but that olive tree
does because that olive tree inall likelihood was there when
Jesus was praying. So olivetrees are so significant in the
Bible lands. And David says, Iam a lasting tree planted.

(24:08):
Think about Psalm one here,because I trust in God and his
hassad , his steadfast love,his covenant love. And so while
the wicked verse nine boast intheir evil, the righteous
person boast about what God hasdone and what God will do. And
that's why this is a Psalm oftrust. Because this Psalm says
God will deal with the wicked.

(24:30):
God will deal with the wicked.
They aren't getting away withit . They are not. And I know
we get frustrated atmiscarriages of justice. We get
frustrated with evil peopledoing evil things and they
don't seem to have to pay thetab. They will pay the tab. God

(24:51):
will deal with the wicked.
Psalm 52 encourages us to trustin God even more. Psalm 52 is
our reading for Friday. Thankyou so much for listening to
the podcast this week. If it'shelping you, I hope that you
will recommend it to others sothey can be involved in daily
Bible reading and benefit fromour time together on Sunday. So

(25:12):
until next week when we willopen our Bibles together again,
I'm Mark Roberts and I wanna goto heaven and I want you to
come to I will see you onMonday with a cup of coffee.

Speaker 1 (25:30):
Thanks for listening to the Westside Church of
Christ Podcast. Monday morningCoffee with Mark. For more
information about Westside, youcan connect with us through our
website, just christians.comand our Facebook page, our
music is from upbeat.io. That'supbeat with two P'S

(25:51):
U-P-P-B-E-A-T, where creatorscan get free music. Please
share our podcast with othersand we look forward to seeing
you again with a cup of coffee.
Of course, on next Monday.
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