December 15, 2025 • 24 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
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:05):
Hello, and welcome to the Westside Church's special
Monday Morning Company Podcast.
On this podcast, our preacher,Mark Roberts, will help you get
your week started right with alook back at yesterday's sermon
so that we can think througheach other and better work the
applications into our dailylife.
(00:27):
Mark will then look forward intothis week's album reading so
that we can know what to expectand watch it.
And he may have some extra bonusthoughts from time to time.
So grab a cup of coffee as westart the week together on
Monday morning coffee with Mark.
SPEAKER_01 (00:53):
Welcome to the Monday Morning Coffee Podcast
for Monday, December the 15th.
I'm Mark, and I am holding agreat cup of coffee.
I have my Bible open.
This is an early start.
Wow.
Oh dark 30 here.
We're getting things going.
I know lots of people arestarting things early because of
the holidays.
You've got to get around andmaybe get some work done early
so you can get out and shoplater.
Just a bunch of thingshappening, but we want to stop.
(01:16):
I want to put all that aside fora few minutes.
Think about what we were workingon yesterday, what Jesus was
asking, and then get our Biblesopen, do our daily Bible
reading, get the day started inthe best way.
Yep, that's exactly what thispodcast is all about.
So grab your Bible, grab yourcoffee, let's grow together.
(01:36):
Yesterday was the last of the 12questions that Jesus asked that
made the preaching theme forthis year.
It's a great preaching theme.
You got to vote on that.
And I think that made it extrainteresting to see what people
wanted to hear, wanted to knowmore about.
And this question which of you,by worrying, by being anxious,
can add a single hour to theirspan of life is a powerful
(02:00):
question, especially, especiallywith all the anxiety and worry
that people are feeling.
Some of that being fed by themedia, I think, and just lots
going on that makes people wringtheir hands and be pretty sure
the sky is falling.
Well, here's an extra thoughtfor you.
Imagine that you're carrying abackpack full of rocks.
Each rock is a worry.
(02:20):
Your job, your health, yourfinances, the news, the economy,
what's going on with your sportsteam.
You carry it everywhere.
It's heavy, it's exhausting,it's slowing you down.
Now, Jesus comes up and he says,Give me the entire backpack.
Sounds easy, right?
But but it's not.
(02:40):
We end up holding on to thebackpack tighter.
We clutch it and we say, Listen,I I I can handle this.
I'll I I got this.
I'll I'll take care of it.
And I think that's what anxietydoes to our hearts sometimes.
It makes us act like we are incontrol when we are not.
But here's the truth giving thebackpack to God isn't passive,
(03:01):
it is active.
You pray, you trust, and thenyou have to keep walking.
You take that next step.
You can't add a single hour toyour life by stressing, but you
can live your next hour morefully when you trust Jesus.
That's Matthew 6.27 in action.
So, how about this?
This week, open that backpack upand pick one rock, one worry
(03:27):
that has been weighing you down,and hand it to Jesus.
I'm talking about something thatyou can't control, you can't do
anything about it, you have nopower over it, maybe is isn't
even affecting you.
Get that rock out of thatbackpack, pray about it, and let
it go.
And then you go on in faith.
(03:48):
Watch what will happen.
Your heart will feel lighter,your mind will be clearer, your
faith will grow as you see whatGod can do.
Anxiety loses its grip, and westart living the way God
designed us to.
Remember, worry is addingnothing to your life.
Trust adds everything.
Stop carrying rocks.
(04:10):
Let Jesus have them, and thenyou and I can walk free.
I hope the preaching theme thisyear helped you.
I'm excited about next year'spreaching theme, but I think
this year's was really somethingvery special.
Give me some feedback about whatyou thought about the preaching
theme for this year.
And now get your Bible open tothe book of Psalms.
(04:30):
That's right.
Psalm 110 is where we'restarting this week.
(04:54):
And you may be thinking, whatelse is there in Psalm 110?
Mark preached about it.
We talked about it all last weekin the podcast.
What am I supposed to do herereading Psalm 110 again?
Let me encourage you maybe tojump over onto the internet and
read a story.
It's a very powerful storycalled Agaziz and the Fish.
I'm probably not saying theprofessor's name right,
(05:16):
A-G-A-S-S-I-Z, Agaziz and theFish.
And the story is about a studentwho comes to Professor Agaziz
and says he wants to be ascientist.
I believe, I believe,technically speaking, he wants
to be a fishologist.
And Professor Agaziz reachesover into a specimen jar and
pulls out a big old fish andputs it on a tray in front of
(05:36):
him and says, I want you to lookat this fish.
And the student thinks thatmeans he's going to look at it
for like 30 seconds and thenthey're have some kind of test.
No, Professor Agaziz leaves.
And so for several hours, he hasnothing to do but look at the
fish.
And finally the professor comesback and kind of quizzes him a
little bit, and he begins torealize that in the first 30
(05:57):
seconds he thought he saw a lotof the fish, but but after about
an hour, he began to turn thefish over.
He counted scales, he lookeddown its mouth.
The longer he spent with thefish, the more he really saw the
fish.
And the story, it's all over theinternet.
You can read that in a number ofplaces, will describe that whole
encounter in a lot more detail.
(06:18):
But the point of the matter is,sometimes we think we've
mastered something, we prettymuch have mined it dry in 30
seconds, which is about how longit takes to read Psalm 110.
And I just want to encourage youto remember that simple and
short doesn't mean it'sunimportant.
This is an extraordinarilyimpactful Psalm.
It's only seven verses, but it'sall over the New Testament.
(06:41):
Jesus makes use of it, Petermakes use of it, Hebrews is just
building everything on it.
So don't assume that we've maxedout because we read it last week
and then we read some NewTestament applications of that.
Go ahead and read it againtoday.
Read it from a differenttranslation.
Read it slowly.
Read it out loud.
It's Psalm 110.
(07:03):
Keep looking at the fish.
And I think I think it'llcontinue to yield more and more
treasures for you.
Psalm 110 is our reading forMonday.
It is Tuesday.
It's Tuesday, and our readingtoday is in 1 Corinthians.
1 Corinthians 15, verses 12 to28 is the reading for Tuesday.
(07:23):
This is a beautiful, beautifulsection of Scripture.
I use this passage to show theimportance of being able to
think and reason because this isPaul's very carefully argued
sermon on the resurrection ofthe dead.
While we don't know everythingthat was going on in Corinth, it
is apparent that some arearguing that there is no
(07:44):
resurrection from the dead.
And the object that Paul has inmind here is to tie together two
resurrections, that oneestablishes the other.
And the first, of course, wouldbe the resurrection of Jesus the
Christ.
Big key here in 1 Corinthians15, I'll give you this for free,
is that this is most certainlyabout bodily resurrection.
Everyone in the Greco-Romanworld, well, not everyone, but
(08:06):
most everyone in the Greco-Romanworld at Paul's time certainly
believed in some kind ofafterlife, some sort of after
you died, you're still consciousin some fashion.
But no one believed, or very fewpeople believed, in any kind of
bodily resurrection.
You went on in some kind ofethereal ghost state, some kind
of shade, some sort of veryspirity kind of thing, and I
(08:30):
don't think spirity is a word,but it should be.
And Paul wants to say that wewill be raised bodily.
So that's what's at hand here.
And so verse 13 starts that ifthere's no resurrection of the
dead, then not even Christ hasbeen raised.
The universal statement, thereis no resurrection.
No one rises from the deadcannot be true if someone has,
(08:52):
yeah, risen from the dead.
Jesus' resurrection completelydestroys this theory.
Notice verse 17, if Christ isnot raised, then your faith is
futile and you're still in yoursins.
The Bible continually linksresurrection to freedom from
sin.
We have a tendency to linkfreedom from sin to Jesus'
death.
(09:13):
And of course, that absolutelydoes work.
But there's a number ofpassages, Romans 4.25, Hebrews
7.25, 1 John 2.1.
Lots of verses talk about Jesus'resurrection from the dead.
Just pay attention to that andwatch for that as we're working
along in Scripture.
In verse 20, then, Paul says,but in fact, so here is this
(09:33):
introduction to the summation ofthe matter.
Here's what we need to know,here's how this is going to
work.
And that comes down in verse 25.
For he must reign until he hasput all his enemies under his
feet.
The last enemy, verse 26, to bedestroyed is death, for God has
put all things in subjectionunder his feet.
(09:53):
There it is.
That's the 110th Psalm.
That's what we're looking forhere.
And one writer said, Since 1524pictures the risen Lord in
possession of the kingdom togive to God, 1525 comments on
Christ's current rule in thiskingdom.
And of course, under his feet isthat Old Testament term for
(10:14):
total conquest.
And that verse is certainlyteaching that Jesus is reigning
now, right now.
People who want to say thatthere's going to be a bunch of
world events and then Jesus isgoing to return and he will
start reigning, he will set uphis kingdom, he will begin to
reign.
They need to read 1 Corinthians15 and they need to read Psalm
(10:35):
110.
Jesus is reigning now, 1Corinthians 15, verse 25.
Our reading for today is inCorinthians, 1 Corinthians 15,
12 to 28.
It is Wednesday.
It is Wednesday.
Today our reading is in the bookof Hebrews, Hebrews chapter 2,
verses 5 to 18.
(10:56):
This is the continuation of theHebrew writer's discussion of
how Jesus is the one to payattention to.
He is greater than angels.
For to it was to no angel, verse5, that God subjected the world
to come.
This is about Jesus againreigning and ruling.
That's a huge theme, of course,in Scripture.
But one of the big issues withthat in the New Testament world
(11:19):
was Jesus had been executed bythe Roman government.
Jesus' death, it was, yeah, thatwas very scandalous in the first
century, particularly for Jews.
That would mean that you wereaccursed of God.
How could you possibly be theMessiah?
But even for Gentiles, how canyou be this great and powerful
king when you had been put todeath on a cross?
So the Hebrew writer works veryhard to talk about how suffering
(11:42):
was the pathway to glory.
Jesus didn't receive honor andglory until he suffered.
That's what this section ofHebrews is really all about.
He is the author of oursalvation, verse 10.
There's a number of terms therethat are used in different
translations.
Pioneer, forerunner, captain.
It means pathbreaker or leader,source, the founder.
(12:05):
He's the leader who opens up thenew way.
He is made perfect, verse 10.
Someone's going to ask, how isJesus made perfect?
And the next line helps us.
He who sanctifies.
Jesus is made perfect in thesense of being sanctified.
That's priestly language,particularly the Septuagint uses
that to mean consecrating apriest.
He's consecrated.
He is sanctified, and so hebecomes our faithful high
(12:29):
priest, verses 14 to 18.
He identifies with us so muchthat he takes on flesh and blood
and even shares in our death, sothat he could defeat death and
defeat the devil.
Now, in all of that, where isPsalm 110?
Where is Psalm 110 here?
If you go back to verses 7 and8, you made him for a little
(12:50):
while lower than the angels.
You have crowned him with gloryand honor, putting everything in
subjection under his feet.
Now, in putting everything insubjection to him, he left
nothing outside his control.
There's the illusion there.
This is leaning heavily also onthe eighth Psalm as well.
There's the allusion there tothe 110th Psalm, that Jesus is
(13:11):
reigning and ruling, and that heis in charge and has all power.
And the way that he receivedthis power, exaltation, glory,
honor, is through suffering,that he might taste of death,
verse 9, for everyone it wasfitting that he, for whom and by
whom all things exist, see theemphasis on the power of Jesus
(13:34):
in bringing many sons to glory,should make the founder of their
salvation perfect throughsuffering.
Jesus is reigning and ruling nowas our King.
Psalm 110 prophesies that, andthe Hebrew writer says, that has
happened because he suffered foryou and me.
The reading for Wednesday,Hebrews 2, 5 to 18.
(13:57):
It's Thursday, and today we'rereading Hebrews chapter 10,
verses 1 to 18.
I must confess, I've beenwaiting to read this passage
since we started this section onPsalm 110.
This is really where Psalm 110comes to play.
And so we're reading here abouthow the law is insufficient.
It didn't, verse 2, even thoughthere was the Day of Atonement,
(14:18):
it did not really deal with sin.
It didn't deal with theconsciousness of sin, because
verse 3, the Day of Atonementactually reminded people that
they were sinners.
They fasted and they confessedand they mourned on that day.
They were reminded of where theywere in their relationship with
God, and that is that they werestill sinners.
And so then verse 5 begins along series of quotations from
(14:41):
Psalm 40.
And the point here is that burntofferings, animal offerings were
never the will of God.
The will of God would be aperfect sacrifice.
And so the will of Christ was tobe that perfect sacrifice.
The will of God and the will ofChrist merged together.
And I do think we are gettingsome insights here that people
in the Old Testament times didnot really have.
They did not know that the bloodof bulls and goats couldn't take
(15:04):
away sin, and their sins were,practically speaking, for them,
forgiven.
They went away from thosesacrifices, those things saying,
I am a forgiven sinner.
But from God's standpoint, thereneeded to be something better
than this.
And I would expect that athinking individual would know
that these animal sacrificescould not possibly be the
(15:26):
ultimate expression of what Godwants.
God wanted people to changetheir lives.
God wanted people to be inobedience.
There had to be more than aninnocent animal that has no
power of choice, no realconsciousness of sin and right
and wrong.
That can't be the expressionthat's necessary to make me
right with God.
(15:46):
There needs to be somethingmore.
And so the Hebrew writer thenpoints out, Jesus is the more.
When Christ, verse 12, hadoffered for all time a single
sacrifice for sins, he sat downat the right hand of God.
Verse 13, waiting until hisenemy should be made a footstool
for his feet.
There it is.
There's Psalm 110, and Jesus isthe fulfillment of Psalm 110.
(16:11):
He has been exalted as king, buthe's also been exalted because
he is the sacrifice for oursins.
He is what we need so that wecan be right with God.
And then our reading todayconcludes with the Spirit
speaking through Jeremiah.
This is the covenant I'll makewith them after those days.
I'll put my law on their heartsand write them on their minds.
(16:31):
The beautiful and just powerfulsection of Jeremiah that speaks
of the new covenant.
And that really ends the sectionhere of Hebrews that's gonna
argue for where we are with theLord and what the Lord wants
from us and what Jesus came todo and his supremacy.
Now things from that pointforward really begin to move in
(16:52):
an enormously practical kind ofway.
This is how we live becauseJesus has been the one-time
sacrifice for our sins and hassat down at the right hand of
God.
The reading for Thursday isHebrews chapter 10, verses 1 to
18.
It is Friday.
It is Friday.
Once again, we have come throughthe week, and our Bible reading
(17:13):
has sustained us and helped us.
Our reading for Friday is 1Peter chapter 3, verses 8 to 22,
and I'm not even sure what tosay about this on a podcast.
This is quite a section ofscripture.
It is fairly straightforwarduntil we get to about verse 18.
There's a lot of practicaladmonition here.
This uh the epistle of Peter isvery much about living in a time
(17:34):
when Christians are beingpersecuted.
And I have uh in my Bible, Ihave underlined in orange.
I don't use orange for anythingelse, so it really stands out
for me when I have orange on thepage.
And I have orange where thereare texts that are talking about
being persecuted or suffering.
So for example, 1 Peter 1, verse19, one endures sorrows while
suffering unjustly.
(17:54):
And so in our text today, verse9, do not repay evil for evil or
reviling for reviling.
Or verse 13, now who is there toharm you if you're zealous for
what's good, but even if youshould suffer for righteousness'
sake.
So this is a lot of materialabout how Christians suffer,
even suffering unjustly, beingpersecuted for our faith.
(18:15):
And Peter then makes the pointthat Christ suffered, verse 18.
Christ suffered once for sins,verse 18.
So we're going to be likeChrist, we're going to suffer.
He suffered, we will suffer.
And then Peter, in a verypuzzling section, turns to some
things that Jesus did when hewent, verse 19, and proclaimed
(18:37):
to the spirits in prison becausethey formally didn't obey God.
Verse 20, when God's patiencewaited in the days of Noah while
the ark was being prepared.
Wait, wait, wait, wait.
Peter, he did what?
When?
How?
Where?
This is easily one of the mostdifficult exegetical problems in
the entire New Testament.
If you lined up a hundred Biblescholars and asked them, what
(18:59):
passage in the New Testament isthe very most difficult passage
to work out and to figure out,you would get a lot of votes for
1 Peter 3, 18, 19, and 20.
There's lots of questions here.
Who are the spirits that Jesuspreached to?
When exactly did this preachinghappen?
What did he preach to them?
(19:19):
And there are options all alongthe way.
So on a podcast, we're doing ourdaily Bible reading, where
you're listening to this beforeyou go to work, maybe you're
listening to this on the way towork, maybe you're listening on
your lunch hour.
It's impossible for me to workthrough everything about
everything.
And in fact, I don't knoweverything about everything in
this text.
I have dealt with this text inQA and some other opportunities.
(19:41):
I preached through 1 Peter, soit's a long section in sermon
from 1 Peter, the third chapterabout this.
I think the key here for ustoday is to understand the main
point of the passage.
The main point of the passage isthat Jesus suffered, but he
didn't quit.
He didn't give up.
And in fact, he proclaimed.
A gospel of victory, verse 19.
(20:02):
The emphasis in verse 19 is theproclamation of victory there.
So the main point of the passageis that if Christ could win
victory over these disobedientspirits of Noah's time, whoever
that is, wherever that is, thenwe can and will be able to be
victorious over the humantroublemakers who are opposing
(20:23):
the Christian gospel.
That's a quotation from one ofmy favorite scholars.
I didn't say that, he said that.
But notice here the bracket thatis forming this section, this
idea of suffering and then beingglorified.
And that's verse 22.
He has gone into heaven and isat the right hand of God.
Powers have been subjected tohim.
(20:45):
So there's the allusion to Psalm110.
Jesus has been exalted.
And if you'll look at 4, 1,since therefore Christ suffered
in the flesh, remember, ofcourse, Peter didn't write with
chapter divisions, the thoughtof suffering continues right on
(21:06):
in to chapter 4.
Jesus suffered and he proclaimedvictory.
He overcame.
You can will suffer and you needto be victorious like Jesus was.
So there are a lot of questionsabout exactly when, where, and
how verses 18, 19, and 20happened.
Maybe this is a good place to bereminded of what we do when
we're uncertain of a text and wedon't know everything about a
(21:28):
text.
We just hold on to the mainthought.
And the main thought here isthat Jesus triumphed through
suffering.
And the Christians in 1 Peterthat are being addressed here,
they need to triumph insuffering as well.
Don't give up.
Don't quit.
As Christ suffered, verse 1,chapter 4, arm yourselves on the
same way of thinking.
Whoever has suffered in theflesh has ceased from sin.
(21:51):
We're not going to get involvedin sin anymore.
We're not going to live that wayanymore.
Chapter 2, verse 2, chapter 4.
Now I'm out of our Bible readingeven as I'm making all this
work.
And I hope that that will helpyou and to get the main thought
here, even if we're never goingto get 18, 19, and 20 completely
smoothed out with perfectunderstanding about everything
(22:11):
in those passages, every nookand cranny.
So the text that we're lookingat is verse 22.
There's Psalm 110, the righthand of God, everything is being
subjected to Jesus.
Once again, that is the pointthat we want to get out of Psalm
110.
A reading for Friday, 1 Peterchapter 3, verses 8 to 22.
(22:35):
That concludes the podcast forthe week.
I certainly do appreciate youlistening.
Hope you're telling others aboutit.
We are coming up on that timewhere people start thinking
about New Year's resolutions,one of which will be for people
who are spiritually minded.
One of those resolutions willcertainly be, I want to read the
Bible more.
Recent polling data surveys, theVarna organization shows Bible
reading is up.
(22:57):
More people are reading theBible now than have been on a
regular, consistent basis, thanhave been doing so in a long
time.
There's just a lot of interestin spiritual things right now.
And you want to take advantageof that, talk with people about
your daily Bible reading, handout daily Bible reading
schedules, ask someone to readthe Bible with you.
Hey, this is what I'm doing.
(23:17):
Will you do this with me in thenew year?
Encourage people to listen tothe podcast.
It keeps them going, it keepsthem interested.
It keeps them with a good levelof understanding in their daily
Bible reading.
Let's talk about daily Biblereading.
A lot of people want to do dailyBible reading.
It is my joy to open thescriptures with you and get to
talk about, yeah, evencomplicated and difficult texts
(23:37):
like 1 Peter chapter 3.
I'm glad I get a chance to dothat.
I'm Mark Roberts.
I want to go to heaven and Iwant you to come too.
I'll see you Monday with a cupof coffee.
SPEAKER_00 (23:54):
Thanks for listening to the Westside Church of Christ
podcast, Monday Morning Coffeewith Mark.
For more information aboutWestside, 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-B-E-A-T, where creators
(24:18):
can get free music.
Please share our podcast withothers, and we look forward to
seeing you again with a cup ofcoffee, of course, on next
Monday.
Hello, and welcome to the Westside Church's special
Monday Morning Company Podcast.
On this podcast, our preacher,Mark Roberts, will help you get
your week started right with alook back at yesterday's sermon
so that we can think througheach other and better work the
applications into our dailylife.
(00:27):
Mark will then look forward intothis week's album reading so
that we can know what to expectand watch it.
And he may have some extra bonusthoughts from time to time.
So grab a cup of coffee as westart the week together on
Monday morning coffee with Mark.
SPEAKER_01 (00:53):
Welcome to the Monday Morning Coffee Podcast
for Monday, December the 15th.
I'm Mark, and I am holding agreat cup of coffee.
I have my Bible open.
This is an early start.
Wow.
Oh dark 30 here.
We're getting things going.
I know lots of people arestarting things early because of
the holidays.
You've got to get around andmaybe get some work done early
so you can get out and shoplater.
Just a bunch of thingshappening, but we want to stop.
(01:16):
I want to put all that aside fora few minutes.
Think about what we were workingon yesterday, what Jesus was
asking, and then get our Biblesopen, do our daily Bible
reading, get the day started inthe best way.
Yep, that's exactly what thispodcast is all about.
So grab your Bible, grab yourcoffee, let's grow together.
(01:36):
Yesterday was the last of the 12questions that Jesus asked that
made the preaching theme forthis year.
It's a great preaching theme.
You got to vote on that.
And I think that made it extrainteresting to see what people
wanted to hear, wanted to knowmore about.
And this question which of you,by worrying, by being anxious,
can add a single hour to theirspan of life is a powerful
(02:00):
question, especially, especiallywith all the anxiety and worry
that people are feeling.
Some of that being fed by themedia, I think, and just lots
going on that makes people wringtheir hands and be pretty sure
the sky is falling.
Well, here's an extra thoughtfor you.
Imagine that you're carrying abackpack full of rocks.
Each rock is a worry.
(02:20):
Your job, your health, yourfinances, the news, the economy,
what's going on with your sportsteam.
You carry it everywhere.
It's heavy, it's exhausting,it's slowing you down.
Now, Jesus comes up and he says,Give me the entire backpack.
Sounds easy, right?
But but it's not.
(02:40):
We end up holding on to thebackpack tighter.
We clutch it and we say, Listen,I I I can handle this.
I'll I I got this.
I'll I'll take care of it.
And I think that's what anxietydoes to our hearts sometimes.
It makes us act like we are incontrol when we are not.
But here's the truth giving thebackpack to God isn't passive,
(03:01):
it is active.
You pray, you trust, and thenyou have to keep walking.
You take that next step.
You can't add a single hour toyour life by stressing, but you
can live your next hour morefully when you trust Jesus.
That's Matthew 6.27 in action.
So, how about this?
This week, open that backpack upand pick one rock, one worry
(03:27):
that has been weighing you down,and hand it to Jesus.
I'm talking about something thatyou can't control, you can't do
anything about it, you have nopower over it, maybe is isn't
even affecting you.
Get that rock out of thatbackpack, pray about it, and let
it go.
And then you go on in faith.
(03:48):
Watch what will happen.
Your heart will feel lighter,your mind will be clearer, your
faith will grow as you see whatGod can do.
Anxiety loses its grip, and westart living the way God
designed us to.
Remember, worry is addingnothing to your life.
Trust adds everything.
Stop carrying rocks.
(04:10):
Let Jesus have them, and thenyou and I can walk free.
I hope the preaching theme thisyear helped you.
I'm excited about next year'spreaching theme, but I think
this year's was really somethingvery special.
Give me some feedback about whatyou thought about the preaching
theme for this year.
And now get your Bible open tothe book of Psalms.
(04:30):
That's right.
Psalm 110 is where we'restarting this week.
(04:54):
And you may be thinking, whatelse is there in Psalm 110?
Mark preached about it.
We talked about it all last weekin the podcast.
What am I supposed to do herereading Psalm 110 again?
Let me encourage you maybe tojump over onto the internet and
read a story.
It's a very powerful storycalled Agaziz and the Fish.
I'm probably not saying theprofessor's name right,
(05:16):
A-G-A-S-S-I-Z, Agaziz and theFish.
And the story is about a studentwho comes to Professor Agaziz
and says he wants to be ascientist.
I believe, I believe,technically speaking, he wants
to be a fishologist.
And Professor Agaziz reachesover into a specimen jar and
pulls out a big old fish andputs it on a tray in front of
(05:36):
him and says, I want you to lookat this fish.
And the student thinks thatmeans he's going to look at it
for like 30 seconds and thenthey're have some kind of test.
No, Professor Agaziz leaves.
And so for several hours, he hasnothing to do but look at the
fish.
And finally the professor comesback and kind of quizzes him a
little bit, and he begins torealize that in the first 30
(05:57):
seconds he thought he saw a lotof the fish, but but after about
an hour, he began to turn thefish over.
He counted scales, he lookeddown its mouth.
The longer he spent with thefish, the more he really saw the
fish.
And the story, it's all over theinternet.
You can read that in a number ofplaces, will describe that whole
encounter in a lot more detail.
(06:18):
But the point of the matter is,sometimes we think we've
mastered something, we prettymuch have mined it dry in 30
seconds, which is about how longit takes to read Psalm 110.
And I just want to encourage youto remember that simple and
short doesn't mean it'sunimportant.
This is an extraordinarilyimpactful Psalm.
It's only seven verses, but it'sall over the New Testament.
(06:41):
Jesus makes use of it, Petermakes use of it, Hebrews is just
building everything on it.
So don't assume that we've maxedout because we read it last week
and then we read some NewTestament applications of that.
Go ahead and read it againtoday.
Read it from a differenttranslation.
Read it slowly.
Read it out loud.
It's Psalm 110.
(07:03):
Keep looking at the fish.
And I think I think it'llcontinue to yield more and more
treasures for you.
Psalm 110 is our reading forMonday.
It is Tuesday.
It's Tuesday, and our readingtoday is in 1 Corinthians.
1 Corinthians 15, verses 12 to28 is the reading for Tuesday.
(07:23):
This is a beautiful, beautifulsection of Scripture.
I use this passage to show theimportance of being able to
think and reason because this isPaul's very carefully argued
sermon on the resurrection ofthe dead.
While we don't know everythingthat was going on in Corinth, it
is apparent that some arearguing that there is no
(07:44):
resurrection from the dead.
And the object that Paul has inmind here is to tie together two
resurrections, that oneestablishes the other.
And the first, of course, wouldbe the resurrection of Jesus the
Christ.
Big key here in 1 Corinthians15, I'll give you this for free,
is that this is most certainlyabout bodily resurrection.
Everyone in the Greco-Romanworld, well, not everyone, but
(08:06):
most everyone in the Greco-Romanworld at Paul's time certainly
believed in some kind ofafterlife, some sort of after
you died, you're still consciousin some fashion.
But no one believed, or very fewpeople believed, in any kind of
bodily resurrection.
You went on in some kind ofethereal ghost state, some kind
of shade, some sort of veryspirity kind of thing, and I
(08:30):
don't think spirity is a word,but it should be.
And Paul wants to say that wewill be raised bodily.
So that's what's at hand here.
And so verse 13 starts that ifthere's no resurrection of the
dead, then not even Christ hasbeen raised.
The universal statement, thereis no resurrection.
No one rises from the deadcannot be true if someone has,
(08:52):
yeah, risen from the dead.
Jesus' resurrection completelydestroys this theory.
Notice verse 17, if Christ isnot raised, then your faith is
futile and you're still in yoursins.
The Bible continually linksresurrection to freedom from
sin.
We have a tendency to linkfreedom from sin to Jesus'
death.
(09:13):
And of course, that absolutelydoes work.
But there's a number ofpassages, Romans 4.25, Hebrews
7.25, 1 John 2.1.
Lots of verses talk about Jesus'resurrection from the dead.
Just pay attention to that andwatch for that as we're working
along in Scripture.
In verse 20, then, Paul says,but in fact, so here is this
(09:33):
introduction to the summation ofthe matter.
Here's what we need to know,here's how this is going to
work.
And that comes down in verse 25.
For he must reign until he hasput all his enemies under his
feet.
The last enemy, verse 26, to bedestroyed is death, for God has
put all things in subjectionunder his feet.
(09:53):
There it is.
That's the 110th Psalm.
That's what we're looking forhere.
And one writer said, Since 1524pictures the risen Lord in
possession of the kingdom togive to God, 1525 comments on
Christ's current rule in thiskingdom.
And of course, under his feet isthat Old Testament term for
(10:14):
total conquest.
And that verse is certainlyteaching that Jesus is reigning
now, right now.
People who want to say thatthere's going to be a bunch of
world events and then Jesus isgoing to return and he will
start reigning, he will set uphis kingdom, he will begin to
reign.
They need to read 1 Corinthians15 and they need to read Psalm
(10:35):
110.
Jesus is reigning now, 1Corinthians 15, verse 25.
Our reading for today is inCorinthians, 1 Corinthians 15,
12 to 28.
It is Wednesday.
It is Wednesday.
Today our reading is in the bookof Hebrews, Hebrews chapter 2,
verses 5 to 18.
(10:56):
This is the continuation of theHebrew writer's discussion of
how Jesus is the one to payattention to.
He is greater than angels.
For to it was to no angel, verse5, that God subjected the world
to come.
This is about Jesus againreigning and ruling.
That's a huge theme, of course,in Scripture.
But one of the big issues withthat in the New Testament world
(11:19):
was Jesus had been executed bythe Roman government.
Jesus' death, it was, yeah, thatwas very scandalous in the first
century, particularly for Jews.
That would mean that you wereaccursed of God.
How could you possibly be theMessiah?
But even for Gentiles, how canyou be this great and powerful
king when you had been put todeath on a cross?
So the Hebrew writer works veryhard to talk about how suffering
(11:42):
was the pathway to glory.
Jesus didn't receive honor andglory until he suffered.
That's what this section ofHebrews is really all about.
He is the author of oursalvation, verse 10.
There's a number of terms therethat are used in different
translations.
Pioneer, forerunner, captain.
It means pathbreaker or leader,source, the founder.
(12:05):
He's the leader who opens up thenew way.
He is made perfect, verse 10.
Someone's going to ask, how isJesus made perfect?
And the next line helps us.
He who sanctifies.
Jesus is made perfect in thesense of being sanctified.
That's priestly language,particularly the Septuagint uses
that to mean consecrating apriest.
He's consecrated.
He is sanctified, and so hebecomes our faithful high
(12:29):
priest, verses 14 to 18.
He identifies with us so muchthat he takes on flesh and blood
and even shares in our death, sothat he could defeat death and
defeat the devil.
Now, in all of that, where isPsalm 110?
Where is Psalm 110 here?
If you go back to verses 7 and8, you made him for a little
(12:50):
while lower than the angels.
You have crowned him with gloryand honor, putting everything in
subjection under his feet.
Now, in putting everything insubjection to him, he left
nothing outside his control.
There's the illusion there.
This is leaning heavily also onthe eighth Psalm as well.
There's the allusion there tothe 110th Psalm, that Jesus is
(13:11):
reigning and ruling, and that heis in charge and has all power.
And the way that he receivedthis power, exaltation, glory,
honor, is through suffering,that he might taste of death,
verse 9, for everyone it wasfitting that he, for whom and by
whom all things exist, see theemphasis on the power of Jesus
(13:34):
in bringing many sons to glory,should make the founder of their
salvation perfect throughsuffering.
Jesus is reigning and ruling nowas our King.
Psalm 110 prophesies that, andthe Hebrew writer says, that has
happened because he suffered foryou and me.
The reading for Wednesday,Hebrews 2, 5 to 18.
(13:57):
It's Thursday, and today we'rereading Hebrews chapter 10,
verses 1 to 18.
I must confess, I've beenwaiting to read this passage
since we started this section onPsalm 110.
This is really where Psalm 110comes to play.
And so we're reading here abouthow the law is insufficient.
It didn't, verse 2, even thoughthere was the Day of Atonement,
(14:18):
it did not really deal with sin.
It didn't deal with theconsciousness of sin, because
verse 3, the Day of Atonementactually reminded people that
they were sinners.
They fasted and they confessedand they mourned on that day.
They were reminded of where theywere in their relationship with
God, and that is that they werestill sinners.
And so then verse 5 begins along series of quotations from
(14:41):
Psalm 40.
And the point here is that burntofferings, animal offerings were
never the will of God.
The will of God would be aperfect sacrifice.
And so the will of Christ was tobe that perfect sacrifice.
The will of God and the will ofChrist merged together.
And I do think we are gettingsome insights here that people
in the Old Testament times didnot really have.
They did not know that the bloodof bulls and goats couldn't take
(15:04):
away sin, and their sins were,practically speaking, for them,
forgiven.
They went away from thosesacrifices, those things saying,
I am a forgiven sinner.
But from God's standpoint, thereneeded to be something better
than this.
And I would expect that athinking individual would know
that these animal sacrificescould not possibly be the
(15:26):
ultimate expression of what Godwants.
God wanted people to changetheir lives.
God wanted people to be inobedience.
There had to be more than aninnocent animal that has no
power of choice, no realconsciousness of sin and right
and wrong.
That can't be the expressionthat's necessary to make me
right with God.
(15:46):
There needs to be somethingmore.
And so the Hebrew writer thenpoints out, Jesus is the more.
When Christ, verse 12, hadoffered for all time a single
sacrifice for sins, he sat downat the right hand of God.
Verse 13, waiting until hisenemy should be made a footstool
for his feet.
There it is.
There's Psalm 110, and Jesus isthe fulfillment of Psalm 110.
(16:11):
He has been exalted as king, buthe's also been exalted because
he is the sacrifice for oursins.
He is what we need so that wecan be right with God.
And then our reading todayconcludes with the Spirit
speaking through Jeremiah.
This is the covenant I'll makewith them after those days.
I'll put my law on their heartsand write them on their minds.
(16:31):
The beautiful and just powerfulsection of Jeremiah that speaks
of the new covenant.
And that really ends the sectionhere of Hebrews that's gonna
argue for where we are with theLord and what the Lord wants
from us and what Jesus came todo and his supremacy.
Now things from that pointforward really begin to move in
(16:52):
an enormously practical kind ofway.
This is how we live becauseJesus has been the one-time
sacrifice for our sins and hassat down at the right hand of
God.
The reading for Thursday isHebrews chapter 10, verses 1 to
18.
It is Friday.
It is Friday.
Once again, we have come throughthe week, and our Bible reading
(17:13):
has sustained us and helped us.
Our reading for Friday is 1Peter chapter 3, verses 8 to 22,
and I'm not even sure what tosay about this on a podcast.
This is quite a section ofscripture.
It is fairly straightforwarduntil we get to about verse 18.
There's a lot of practicaladmonition here.
This uh the epistle of Peter isvery much about living in a time
(17:34):
when Christians are beingpersecuted.
And I have uh in my Bible, Ihave underlined in orange.
I don't use orange for anythingelse, so it really stands out
for me when I have orange on thepage.
And I have orange where thereare texts that are talking about
being persecuted or suffering.
So for example, 1 Peter 1, verse19, one endures sorrows while
suffering unjustly.
(17:54):
And so in our text today, verse9, do not repay evil for evil or
reviling for reviling.
Or verse 13, now who is there toharm you if you're zealous for
what's good, but even if youshould suffer for righteousness'
sake.
So this is a lot of materialabout how Christians suffer,
even suffering unjustly, beingpersecuted for our faith.
(18:15):
And Peter then makes the pointthat Christ suffered, verse 18.
Christ suffered once for sins,verse 18.
So we're going to be likeChrist, we're going to suffer.
He suffered, we will suffer.
And then Peter, in a verypuzzling section, turns to some
things that Jesus did when hewent, verse 19, and proclaimed
(18:37):
to the spirits in prison becausethey formally didn't obey God.
Verse 20, when God's patiencewaited in the days of Noah while
the ark was being prepared.
Wait, wait, wait, wait.
Peter, he did what?
When?
How?
Where?
This is easily one of the mostdifficult exegetical problems in
the entire New Testament.
If you lined up a hundred Biblescholars and asked them, what
(18:59):
passage in the New Testament isthe very most difficult passage
to work out and to figure out,you would get a lot of votes for
1 Peter 3, 18, 19, and 20.
There's lots of questions here.
Who are the spirits that Jesuspreached to?
When exactly did this preachinghappen?
What did he preach to them?
(19:19):
And there are options all alongthe way.
So on a podcast, we're doing ourdaily Bible reading, where
you're listening to this beforeyou go to work, maybe you're
listening to this on the way towork, maybe you're listening on
your lunch hour.
It's impossible for me to workthrough everything about
everything.
And in fact, I don't knoweverything about everything in
this text.
I have dealt with this text inQA and some other opportunities.
(19:41):
I preached through 1 Peter, soit's a long section in sermon
from 1 Peter, the third chapterabout this.
I think the key here for ustoday is to understand the main
point of the passage.
The main point of the passage isthat Jesus suffered, but he
didn't quit.
He didn't give up.
And in fact, he proclaimed.
A gospel of victory, verse 19.
(20:02):
The emphasis in verse 19 is theproclamation of victory there.
So the main point of the passageis that if Christ could win
victory over these disobedientspirits of Noah's time, whoever
that is, wherever that is, thenwe can and will be able to be
victorious over the humantroublemakers who are opposing
(20:23):
the Christian gospel.
That's a quotation from one ofmy favorite scholars.
I didn't say that, he said that.
But notice here the bracket thatis forming this section, this
idea of suffering and then beingglorified.
And that's verse 22.
He has gone into heaven and isat the right hand of God.
Powers have been subjected tohim.
(20:45):
So there's the allusion to Psalm110.
Jesus has been exalted.
And if you'll look at 4, 1,since therefore Christ suffered
in the flesh, remember, ofcourse, Peter didn't write with
chapter divisions, the thoughtof suffering continues right on
(21:06):
in to chapter 4.
Jesus suffered and he proclaimedvictory.
He overcame.
You can will suffer and you needto be victorious like Jesus was.
So there are a lot of questionsabout exactly when, where, and
how verses 18, 19, and 20happened.
Maybe this is a good place to bereminded of what we do when
we're uncertain of a text and wedon't know everything about a
(21:28):
text.
We just hold on to the mainthought.
And the main thought here isthat Jesus triumphed through
suffering.
And the Christians in 1 Peterthat are being addressed here,
they need to triumph insuffering as well.
Don't give up.
Don't quit.
As Christ suffered, verse 1,chapter 4, arm yourselves on the
same way of thinking.
Whoever has suffered in theflesh has ceased from sin.
(21:51):
We're not going to get involvedin sin anymore.
We're not going to live that wayanymore.
Chapter 2, verse 2, chapter 4.
Now I'm out of our Bible readingeven as I'm making all this
work.
And I hope that that will helpyou and to get the main thought
here, even if we're never goingto get 18, 19, and 20 completely
smoothed out with perfectunderstanding about everything
(22:11):
in those passages, every nookand cranny.
So the text that we're lookingat is verse 22.
There's Psalm 110, the righthand of God, everything is being
subjected to Jesus.
Once again, that is the pointthat we want to get out of Psalm
110.
A reading for Friday, 1 Peterchapter 3, verses 8 to 22.
(22:35):
That concludes the podcast forthe week.
I certainly do appreciate youlistening.
Hope you're telling others aboutit.
We are coming up on that timewhere people start thinking
about New Year's resolutions,one of which will be for people
who are spiritually minded.
One of those resolutions willcertainly be, I want to read the
Bible more.
Recent polling data surveys, theVarna organization shows Bible
reading is up.
(22:57):
More people are reading theBible now than have been on a
regular, consistent basis, thanhave been doing so in a long
time.
There's just a lot of interestin spiritual things right now.
And you want to take advantageof that, talk with people about
your daily Bible reading, handout daily Bible reading
schedules, ask someone to readthe Bible with you.
Hey, this is what I'm doing.
(23:17):
Will you do this with me in thenew year?
Encourage people to listen tothe podcast.
It keeps them going, it keepsthem interested.
It keeps them with a good levelof understanding in their daily
Bible reading.
Let's talk about daily Biblereading.
A lot of people want to do dailyBible reading.
It is my joy to open thescriptures with you and get to
talk about, yeah, evencomplicated and difficult texts
(23:37):
like 1 Peter chapter 3.
I'm glad I get a chance to dothat.
I'm Mark Roberts.
I want to go to heaven and Iwant you to come too.
I'll see you Monday with a cupof coffee.
SPEAKER_00 (23:54):
Thanks for listening to the Westside Church of Christ
podcast, Monday Morning Coffeewith Mark.
For more information aboutWestside, 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-B-E-A-T, where creators
(24:18):
can get free music.
Please share our podcast withothers, and we look forward to
seeing you again with a cup ofcoffee, of course, on next
Monday.
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