Q&A Morning, March 2025

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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.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Hello, and welcome to the Westside Church's special Monday Morning Coffee Podcast. On this podcast, our preacher, Mark Roberts, will help you get your week started right with a look back at yesterday's sermon so that we can think to each other and better work the applications into our daily life. Mark will then look forward into this week's top reading so that we can know what to expect and watch for. And he may have some extra bonus to us from time to time. So grab a cup of coffee as we start the week together on Monday morning coffee with Mark.

Sermon Notes

Monday Romans 9

Tuesday Romans 10

Wednesday Romans 11

Thursday Romans 12

Friday Romans 13

SPEAKER_01 0:52

Good morning, good morning. Welcome to the Monday Morning Coffee Podcast. I'm Mark. This is the podcast for March the 30th, and I'm holding a great cup of coffee. I'm kind of jumping the gun to talk about this coffee because it's from Ethiopia and it's a very rare coffee, and now I'm out of it, and I wish I had more. But it's called Ethiopian Taro. Taro is a farm in Ethiopia, produces very high-quality coffee. Loving this, loving this. And I loved yesterday getting a chance to talk a little bit about QA morning and all the things that go with all of that. And I certainly love getting to work through the book of Romans, particularly a part of Romans that sometimes gets a little hairy for people. And so let's see if we can go to work on that, smooth some of that out, get what Paul's saying, not get lost in all kinds of false doctrine. All of that is in front of us. So grab your Bible, grab your coffee, let's grow together. Let's spend a moment thinking about that sermon yesterday. I hope that that was beneficial to you. I really enjoy doing question and answer. So here's your bonus thought. Here's some bonus ideas. I want to go back to that question about Jesus saying, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And that some people were thinking he was calling for Elijah. Now, whether he's just being misunderstood or people are mocking Jesus, it seems very clear that some people at least were mocking Jesus. That's Matthew's account. And maybe we don't, maybe we don't consider that nearly enough. We talk about Jesus' physical suffering and the spiritual anguish of paying the price for the sins of the world. And on top of that, though, people are ridiculing Jesus, making fun of him. And maybe you're thinking, okay, yeah, but compared to nails in your hands and feet, that really does not rate for me. But think about this. It's one thing to be helpless and to be ridiculed. When I talk smack to Astro fans about how they cheated, what can they say? They can't say anything. They cheated. The organization admitted they cheated. Major League Baseball did the investigation and proved that they cheated. End of story. They can't say anything or do anything about that. But that is not where Jesus is. Jesus is not helpless to do anything about it. Furthermore, all these charges are just false charges. He is absolutely the Messiah. He is absolutely able to show them his power. He is absolutely able to come off the cross. And in some ways, a bunch of this is what he came here to do, to be the Messiah, to show that he is the Messiah. So I'm asking this: was there ever a time when Jesus was more tempted than right there and then? There was tremendous physical pain on the cross. There was spiritual agony on the cross, but there must also have been the temptation, that temptation we all feel when somebody is mocking us unfairly and unjustly, and we think, okay, pal, let me just I'm going to show you exactly how this is. And Jesus must have experienced that temptation. I will come off this cross. You think I'm not the Son of God? Let me just show you. But Jesus doesn't. He does not give in to that temptation. He just endures. Like a lamb before his shears, he opens not his mouth. How incredibly self-controlled Jesus is. And we need to remember that and think about that when we see these scenes where he is just being ridiculed so unfairly while he dies on the cross for our sins and even the sins of those who are mocking him. Jesus personifies self-control, and we need to imitate that example in our own lives. Hope that helps you as we continue to think about the powerful example of Jesus on the cross. Now let's go get some Bible reading. Get your Bible open to the book of Romans. This is a new section in the book of Romans. Let's see if we can get set up for that. And a big part of understanding where Paul is with this will be remembering that one of Paul's strengths is he always anticipates what his audience is thinking. And we all love the end of Romans chapter 8. That's an amazing ending, and that's a great ending. And everybody reads that. We just feel great about it. But Paul knows somebody is saying, well, okay, God's promises never fail. What about God's promises to Israel, Paul? God will surely save his people. Hey, have you noticed the condition of the Jews recently? Welcome to Romans chapters 9, 10, and 11. Paul here deals with a substantial objection to the way God does things because of where Jews are. By the time Paul writes the book of Romans, somewhere around AD 57, Christianity is largely a Gentile religion. It is being dominated by Gentiles, and the Jews in general have rejected it. Paul needs to cover that. What's going on with that? Why is it that way? What's happening with that? And so in chapter 9, he begins to deal with that problem. Because, don't forget this, it's all about church unity. And the rejection by Jews is creating some disunity. We'll talk more about that as we journey along, because you'll see clearly, for example, in Romans chapter 11, that there is some Gentile disdain for Jews going on. So in chapter 9, here's your outline: the problem, verses 1 to 5, the solution to Israel's 6 to 13, then answering the question, is God unjust? And then a summary, that's 14 to 29, and then a summary of where the problem lies. So I just wish Paul says that the Israelites, that the Jews, would come to faith. And they're not doing that. Paul understands that first five verses, but then he says, the problem is not God. Verse 6, it is not as though the word of God has failed. It's not God's fault. What's happened here is for not all our descended from Israel belong to Israel. Just because you have the name Israel doesn't make you a true Israelite. That does not make you a true person who's part of the covenant people of God. And so Paul begins to use the term Israel in two ways: fleshly Israel and spiritual Israel. You can be born an Israelite, but that doesn't make you a spiritual Israelite. And if you're not born an Israelite, fleshly, if you don't have the genealogy, you can still be in spiritual Israel. Don't forget, he talked about that in chapter two. And this remains a big key to solving the puzzle when we get to chapter 11, because by the time we get to the end of all of this, Paul will say, chapter 11, verse 26, that all Israel will be saved. And that drives some people crazy, trying to figure out how to get all the physical Jews into heaven when they refuse to acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah. And trying to get somebody to go to heaven who doesn't accept Jesus as the Son of God and the Savior of the world, well, that'll drive you crazy. That's that's rough. That's a tough task right there. You better bring a sack of lunch and probably a whole thermos full of coffee. And so Paul says there's two Israelites, two Israels. And so not all, verse seven, all children of Abraham, not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring. So you need to be a spiritual Israelite. And he begins to develop then the idea of the sovereignty of God and that God makes choices and is allowed to make choices because he is God and we are not. But that doesn't, verses 14 to 29, make God unfair. Somebody says, hey, how come God didn't choose us? We're the righteous ones. No, God's sovereignty is not capricious, verse 14. It's not outside of his moral nature, but mercy is his gift. That's God's way of doing things, and he does choose to extend it to who he wants to choose to extend it to, and he gets to work with people where they are. And that's verses 15 and 16, particularly 17 as we think about Pharaoh. God gets to choose. Now, there's a lot to be said about the Moses, Pharaoh, Exodus plagues episodes and Pharaoh hardening his heart and all of that. And I do think some of that makes us uncomfortable. What if God chooses me for destruction? I don't want to be destroyed. Slow down, slow down. Paul isn't dealing with everything about everything here. Paul talks about Pharaoh, who was an evil man who didn't want to do what was right. And so God used his stubborn disobedience to bring him glory. Biblically, God never hardens the heart of the righteous or forces the righteous to do evil. That will never happen. God wants people to be saved. If you want to do what's right, you don't need to worry about God having to harden your heart. God won't harden your heart. Your heart is soft. All Paul says here is that God chooses and God does, and God does what is right. In fact, the quotations that he's citing here out of Isaiah 29, Isaiah 45, maybe a little bit of Isaiah 64, a little bit of Jeremiah maybe working in there, is that that's a time when Israel is stubborn and disobedient. And God is the potter and Israel is the clay, and God's working on the clay, and the clay says, You ain't doing that to me. I'm doing what I want to do. So make sure you keep this in the context of what God does with people who are disobedient and determined not to do what he says. I talked to my granddaughter the other day on FaceTime, and even she got the idea. She'd just been in Bible class about Moses and the plagues. And I said, What did you learn about that? And she said, Pharaoh said no. And that is exactly right. And so God worked with him. And the Jews are, Romans 9, saying no to God. So verses 30 to 33. What are we going to say about this? The problem is that the Jews sought righteousness in the wrong way. Verse 32, they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. So they sought righteousness the works way instead of trusting in God's grace and mercy. And then they stumbled over Jesus. Behold, verse 33, I'm laying in Zion, the stone of stumbling, a rock of offense. They didn't get Jesus because they didn't want to get Jesus. The reading for Monday, Romans chapter 9. It's Tuesday. It's Tuesday. It's Zoom night for Westsiders. Looking forward to talking with you about Romans chapter 10 tonight on Zoom, because the reading for Tuesday is Romans 10. The reading is Romans chapter 10. And this is the second chapter in Paul's great discussion of what's going on with the Jews and why they aren't becoming Christians just in droves, and how should Gentiles feel about that, and how should believing Jews feel about that, and what's going on with all of that. The problem isn't God, and by the way, it's not Paul either. The first four verses, brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. I bear them witness they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. Paul wants his brethren to be saved, and Paul knows that they have a zeal for God because he used to be one of them. He can speak to that. But verse 4, Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. The reason they stumbled, 933, yesterday's reading, over Jesus is they didn't like Jesus because he ends the law way of being justified. Jesus is the definitive end to all who attempts to use the law as a way of being accepted by God, says one writer. For those who come to Christ, the pursuit of justification by earning comes to an end. That's so important. We are not earning our salvation by listening to this podcast or going to church or being baptized. We are responding to the grace of God. Grace is the gift of God that comes with obligations and builds relationships. But it's still a gift, a gift. And so Paul then begins to develop, beginning at about verse six, that there's still the opportunity to be saved. They can still be saved. And so he deals with the problem of Israel wanting to do something to secure this. But the what they need to do is respond to grace. They need to confess Jesus as God's Son. They need to trust in Jesus. And so that would mean, that would mean abandoning the way of DIY religion. Look at me, God, I'm so righteous. And that would mean depending upon Jesus. And that would mean admitting I need Jesus. So the real stress here in these very, very famous verses: if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart, verse 9, you will be saved with the heart. One believes and is justified with the mouth, one confesses and is saved. These very famous verses really are not about the steps of salvation, although they certainly help us in that direction, but it's really here a contrast between faith and trying to earn salvation, trying to merit your salvation. So naturally, these verses do not do away with the necessity of baptism or, for example, living a faithful life. None of that is done away with by a couple of verses here where Paul says, you need to depend, you need to trust in Jesus. When somebody's baptized into Christ, what are they doing? Trusting in Jesus. Baptism makes no sense without trusting in Jesus. Why would somebody submit to just getting all wet? That's crazy. Let me grab a little coffee here. Makes no sense from a human standpoint. But of course, when we trust in Jesus, we're ready to do whatever he says we need to do. And as we learned last week in Romans 6, Paul makes a lot out of the beautiful word picture that baptism really is. So someone comes along and says, No, okay, Paul, but maybe the problem is Israel hasn't heard. Verse 14 to 17, God wants them to be saved. So Paul sets up this chain, this, this, then this, to show Israel's had chances all along the way. Someone says, Oh, well, surely they'd call on the name of the Lord if only they'd heard. No, they've heard, they've heard because the Lord has sent preachers. Verse 15, how are they to preach unless they are sent? How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news? The gospel here is such good news that even dusty, dirty feet of the gospel messenger would appear to be beautiful. Well, maybe the problem here is there was some preaching, but but we didn't hear the preaching. No, you heard the preaching, verse 17. Faith comes from hearing, hearing through the word of Christ. Did we hear? But I asked. Now, verse 18, have they not heard? Yes, they have heard. Verse 18, their voice has gone out into all the earth and their words to the ends of the world. That's a quote from Psalm 19, 4, and it is about natural revelation, and he adapts that to refer to the gospel going into the whole world. Well, maybe, maybe the gospel's so complicated that even though God sent preachers, and even though the Jews heard those preachers, it's like calculus. You just it's like physics. You can't understand it. It's just so difficult. Verse 19, I asked, did not, did Israel not understand? Paul's answer to that is it's not too complicated to figure it out. Gentiles who weren't even looking for God figured it out. I will make you jealous of those who are not a nation. With a foolish nation, I will make you angry. So by the end of Romans 10, Jews are utterly without excuse. They missed it, they miss the Messiah, they miss the gospel, and it is their own fault, not Paul's fault, and certainly not God's fault. But in tomorrow's reading, we'll see, we'll see that God still has some plans, some incredible things that he would love to do if the Jews would just turn to him in faith. Our reading today, Romans chapter 10. We'll talk about it more on Zoom tonight, Westsiders. Everyone else, see you on the podcast tomorrow. It's Wednesday. It is Wednesday, and today we read Romans chapter 11. The reading for Wednesday is Romans chapter 11, and it's so important that we sit down right at the beginning in verse 1. I ask then, has God rejected his people? Everything that Paul's been saying in chapter 9, chapter 10 comes down to that question. And what Paul is doing is he's trying to help a fracturing church stay unified. As you read through Romans 11 today, watch for those hints of Gentile pride and arrogance that must have been creating real friction in the Roman church. I can see very clearly some Gentiles saying, Hey, Mr. Old Testament, you heard Paul 932, didn't pursue it by faith. 1021, you're disobedient and contrary. That is you. God is done with you bunch. And of course, you can imagine a Jewish brother saying, Ho, ho, ho, hey, listen, pal, it's our Bible you're reading, it's our promises to Abraham you're taking advantage of. And by the way, just in case you forgot, the Messiah, Jesus, was Jewish. So there would be some real troubles going on in a congregation where this tension between Jew and Gentile is really starting to bubble to the surface. And I should say a word here about Romans chapter 11 and verse 26. I'll just jump ahead. In this way, all Israel will be saved. Now, when Paul wrote this, it was about church unity, but somehow today it's all become about end-time scenarios. And that 1126 somehow means there's going to be this grand and amazing giant event that will convert all physical Jews, cause them to renounce their Judaism and become Christians, turn to Jesus Christ. But as we read chapter 11 today, you will find that it does not say anything, for example, about the rapture or tribulation. There's nothing here about Israel having a special place in God's eyes, and they get special treatment, some special super miracle to force them to convert. And there is nothing here at all about any gigantic event in the future that will cause the Jews to decide to believe in Christ. Now, if you arrive at chapter 11 believing that God still owes Jews something because of the promises to Abraham, well, what you really ought to do is go back and read the book of Joshua, but if you believe that and you think that somehow physical Israel will become the people of God again, then you end up reading stuff into this chapter that isn't in this chapter and does not belong in this chapter at all. All this chapter is about is that God is going to save the people he's always saved, true Israelites. That's all this chapter is designed to say. So as we work along, we get the idea of the remnant in the first 10 verses. This is such a big idea for God. One writer said the idea of a remnant, the few people who remain after a great disaster, comes from the very heart of the Old Testament. And I know I've got some podcast listeners who just love this remnant idea. It is very, very important in Scripture. Verses 7 to 10, though, say as a whole, Israel has failed. They're kind of like the older brother in the prodigal son parable. They're just so proud of their own righteousness, they're seeking to be right on their own, and they won't come in the house. So now they're away from God and they are hardened. And again, that bothers us. That bothers us a lot. Let their eyes be darkened, verse 10, bend their backs forever. But remember, as one scholar said, God hardens only those hearts who, in rejecting his gracious offer of righteousness, harden themselves to his grace. And don't forget that Paul is about to say that even the hardened can still be saved. Even the hardened can still be saved. But right now, they are hardened and they're away from God. Now, what's going on with that? Well, part of it, verses 11 to 16, is that God used that to bring Gentiles in. So I ask verse. 11. Did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means. Rather, through their trespass, salvation has come to the Gentiles so as to make Israel jealous. As we read in the book of Acts, what's the pattern? Paul goes to the synagogue, preaches in the synagogue. People are thinking about that. Jews are like, yeah, okay, maybe, maybe. But the Gentiles, the God fearers, they're all over it. And they become Christians, and that provokes the Jews to jealousy. They get angry about that. And so Paul does what? He says, I'm going to the Gentiles. Israel's hardening and rejection results in more preaching for the Gentiles. That is what happens in the book of Acts over and over. But now Paul uses an agricultural metaphor, the metaphor of grafting, the metaphor of grafting in. And he uses that to say, hey, Gentiles, don't get uppity. Verses 16 to 24, Paul's working with an olive tree, and that's a great illustration because God compares his people to an olive tree, Jeremiah chapter 11, verse 16, Hosea chapter 14, and in verse 6. And of course, you have to understand here about grafting. I won't go into all of that. If you don't know about grafting, putting a wild branch into a tree, then you can do what everybody does about everything nowadays. We just Google it. But there's two points that Paul is making here. Gentiles don't have any cause to boast or to be high-minded, and Jews can still get in if they'll turn to God in faith. In this whole section, one writer says, Paul holds out salvation by faith to the Jews who were cast off. He does not close the door on them. And I might make a note, verses 23 and 24, even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. For if you are cut off, for if you if you were cut, oh wow, what's the answer to that? More coffee? For verse 24, if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural grant branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree? This passage is the death blow to Calvinism. Calvinism teaches irresistible grace. God sovereignly chooses who will be saved, and they will be saved whether they want to be saved or not. So how can you possibly continue in unbelief, verse 23, if God has decided you're in, you would be sovereignly chosen with irresistible, that's the eye in tulip, irresistible grace. So verse 23 and verse 24 absolutely shatters Calvinism entirely and points to the power of free will that undermines everything about the Calvinistic system as well. So then Paul begins to talk about a summary for this whole section, all of this Israel, Gentiles, where does everybody stand? And the answer in verse 26 is has God rejected Israel? No. No, all true Israelites will be saved. Don't forget what Paul said in 9.6, way back at the beginning of this section, chapter 9, verse 6. It is not as though the word of God has failed, for not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel. All true Israelites will be saved. And I hope after reading through this section, if somebody asked you, are you a child of Abraham? Are you an Israelite? I hope that you would say, Yes. I've been grafted in by faith and by the mercy and grace of God. The reading for Wednesday, Romans chapter 11. Welcome to Thursday. Welcome to Thursday. And our reading today is Romans chapter 12. Once again, you'll notice a significant change of tone here in the way Paul is working the material of the book of Romans. And sometimes that results in us kind of losing our place. There's been so much doctrine, and we've had to dig down and unpack and really work with some things to try to get it all put in place and make sure we understand the sense of the argument that Paul is making. This is much more straightforward instruction. We're a lot more comfortable with that, but sometimes that means we forget what the book's about. The book is about church unity. And Paul has provided the theological reasons for them to get along as one church all through chapters 1 to 11. He dealt with some significant issues in 9, 10, and 11 that are causing problems. But now he's still saying, here's how we will practically live this out. And if you look at what's ahead of us, verse 3, don't think too highly of yourself. Verse 4, everyone has a place in the body. Verse 9, love one another. Verse 16, be at peace. This is all about church unity. And that begins when we are transformed, verses 1 and 2. This is about being a living sacrifice. And maybe Paul is working this because pagans had a lot of questions of Christians about how they could have a religion without sacrificing. Where's the animals? Where's the altar? Paul says, you are the sacrifice. You're a living sacrifice. And the tough part of verse 1 is the endings section there, that ending phrase, which is your spiritual worship. And then down in the bottom of the page, my ESV says, or your rational service. It's a very, it's a very tough phrase to translate. It seems to have the idea here that spiritual worship or reasonable service, that all of life is lived to God. It's all God directed. And I would hasten to add here that the term worship is certainly used in the sense of the formal coming together of brethren to do the prescribed acts of communion. Wow, what's the answer to that? Mm-hmm. More coffee. As we come together to do the prescribed acts in the assembly as a body of believers, as a community of believers. But we can and we should use our lives to glorify God in every place. And Paul then really sets that in motion in verses three to eight, where he wants to talk about the things that we do in the local church, our relationship with one another. Don't get lost in verse three when he talks about the measure of faith. He certainly is not saying that God gives, you know, two cups of faith to you, but oh, I'm sorry, you only got a tablespoon. That would actually lead to disunity. Someone would look over at someone else and say, Ha, you know, I got a lot more faith than you got, didn't I? No, this is the faith, the basic Christian faith. We share all of that, the ideas of salvation together. And so verse 4, just as in one body we have many members, we all share that same face, but we are not an army of clones. We have different talents and we have different abilities. And that needs to lead us to show all sorts of sincere love. Verses 9 to 21 do not appear to have any specific structure. Various writers and scholars have tried to put together some sort of outline here, grouping these things. It's just Paul firing off a list of admonitions that all relate to unity. And the theme, maybe the summation of this is verse 9, genuine love. Note here, love is not an emotion or a feeling, it is an action, and it leads to all of these actions. Particularly if you look at verses 19 to 21, we will not be involved in revenge, getting back at someone, vigilante justice, that sort of thing. The best way to stay out of the revenge game is to remember that a perfectly just God will take care of everything one day. We will leave that with the Lord. So in verse 21, don't overcome, be overcome by evil, overcome evil with good. That summarizes Christian ethics in a great way. In dealing with evil, we can meet evil with evil, using it to get our way. And what that means is even if we get our way, even if we succeed, we failed. Or we can overcome evil with righteousness. Christians won't ever be part of evil. We won't promote evil. We won't use evil. We stand with God. Our reading then for Thursday, Romans chapter 12. Welcome to Friday. Welcome to Friday. And the reading today is Romans 13. I would remind you that Sunday is Easter Sunday. And although I know that the New Testament church did not have an annual celebration of the resurrection of Jesus, this is certainly a time when a lot of people are thinking about the resurrection of Jesus and are looking for a place to go to church. And so I would urge you to invite someone to come to church. Westsiders, invite your friends to come to church. I will lean into that interest in the resurrection of Jesus by preaching from 1 Corinthians 15 on Sunday. So you don't need to worry that you're going to hear a sermon out of Leviticus and your friend is going to say, hey, I thought we were going to talk about the empty tomb. Come to church Sunday. 1 Corinthians 15, Lord willing, will be the center of our attention there, just as people are paying attention to that. Let's get with Romans 13 here. I think Paul has a couple of things that he's trying to do, one of which is make sure the world doesn't mash us into its mold, don't be conformed to the world, Romans 12, 1. But the other problem is sometimes Christians decide, okay, the world is bad. I got to get out of the world. I'm going to renounce the world. I'm going to get away from the world. I'm going to go build a compound and go hide from the world and all that's going on there. Paul says, don't do that. Don't do that. Government is a God-given institution. It has a God-given work and a God-given role. God has put governing authority in place, and Christians need to submit to that and let government sort out a lot of these problems. That's what God wants government to do. Submitting to government is, however, difficult sometimes. Our government passes laws that make me want to pull my hair out, sanctioning homosexual marriage, sanctioning and paying for funding abortion. All of that is outrageous and a complete, complete violation of everything that God wants government to do and to be. But we need to remember it wasn't easy to submit to government in Paul's day either. The Roman government was terribly corrupt and idolatrous to the core and absolutely immoral in every way possible. And the Roman government even persecuted the church. Paul still says we need to submit to government. And that ought to weigh heavy on our minds as we look at the political fray and all that goes on with all about that. We are not citizens of the kingdoms of this world. We're not part of that. We may have opportunity to participate in some ways in our political processes. That's an individual decision. You may choose to be part of that, you may choose not to be part of that. But we can't ever get so caught up in those things that we forget that our citizenship is in heaven. And as we act as citizens of heaven, then what we want to do is submit to government. Here's a great summary from an excellent scholar. No goodwill will come to the cause of the gospel by followers of Jesus being regarded as crazy dissidents who won't cooperate with the most basic social mechanisms. Paul is anxious primarily and precisely because he believes that Jesus is the true Lord of the world. And so he wants the followers of Jesus to not pick unnecessary quarrels with lesser lords. Oh, that is so well said. Instead, we need to live the transformed life, verses 8 to 14. And that begins by saying, owe no one anything. And Paul does not mean there that you can never incur a debt. One translation says, let no debt remain outstanding. And that I think captures the intent very well. Christians are not going to leave debts outstanding. We pay what we owe. But particularly the emphasis here is that we will be in the love business. We will be in the business of doing what is best for people around us that fulfills the law. And I think by that Paul means that true obedience to the commands of the law fulfills the law's ultimate meaning. Treat people right, do what is right. Love is the essence of Christianity. It is the great commandment to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind, and the second commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves. So it fills up every command to the fullest with the best actions and conduct. So Paul works out some of those kinds of ideas. Love is what we owe each other, for the one that loves another has fulfilled the law, verse 8. Love does no wrong to the neighbor, verse 10. Love is the fulfilling of the law. And then Paul talks a little bit about what time it is. And this is a time passage. Paul says, Christians, you know what time it is. And of course, by that he does not mean look at your sundial on your wrist. No, he's making a contrast here: the old age, darkness, past time, the new age, the new day, this time, all that's coming on in Christ Jesus. Right now there's some overlap, Paul says, but that's not going to last. Jesus has won the victory, dawn is breaking, and the darkness is defeated. So we need to live like that, like we understand that, that we know that. And so he says, you know the time. Besides this, verse 11, you know the time, the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. This isn't a reference to Christ's return, but understanding the conditions of the age. The message here has an urgency due to the opportunities of this hour. Now, salvation is nearer, Paul says to us now than when we first believed. How is that possible? Well, it gets nearer every day. It is the next big event on God's timeline. We're in the Christian age. The next marker on that line is the day of the Lord. And then Paul mentions some specific sins, and he pairs three pairs there of these sins, orgies and drunkenness, either by itself is a sin. Together, they denote a horrible drunken spree. And then their sexual immorality and sensuality, these two terms taken together, refer to unrestrained sexuality and promiscuity. We see plenty of that today. And then not in quarreling and jealousy. Dissension and strife is not part of Christianity. Are you seeing that emphasis on church unity there? So instead, because we are living in the daylight, we live a certain kind of way. We don't make any plans for living in the flesh. Instead, we plan to honor God in all that we do. Verse 14. The reading for Friday, Romans the 13th chapter. That will bring the podcast to a close for the week. One more sip of coffee here. That is some really good coffee. If the podcast is a blessing to you, I hope that you'll tell others about it and it will help them to stay in God's Word and to benefit from the things that we do together on Sunday. It is. It is my privilege and my honor to open the Word of God with you. I appreciate you so very much for listening, and I hope that this podcast is helping you in your walk with the Lord. I'm Mark Roberts, and I want to go to heaven, and I want you to come too. I'll see you on Monday with a cup of coffee.

SPEAKER_00 37:41

Thanks for listening to the Westside Church of Christ podcast, Monday Morning Coffee with Mark. For more information about Westside, you can connect with us through our website, just Christians.com, and our Facebook page. Our music is from upbeat.io. That's Upbeat with two P's, U-P-P-P-E-A-T, where creators can get free music. Please share our podcast with others, and we'll look forward to seeing you again with a cup of coffee, of course, on next Monday.